Fifty Grand

My mother’s place is on Suárez next to the station. Filthy little building in a street of filthy little buildings. Black neighborhood. Negros de pasas. Negros de pelo. Most of the men are voodoo priests or initiates and all the women are Iyawó, brides of the orishas, the deities of the Lucumí religion.

A scary place after dark. Scary place anytime.

Barefoot children roaming the streets. “Give us some money, nice lady,” they chant at the corner. Once I did give them money and they followed me all the way back to O’Reilly.

Mom’s building. Broken front door, garbage and filth over the tiled stairs. Dog shit everywhere.

Usual soundtrack. Fights, the TV, American music, kids yelling, babies crying, Haitian music. Four flights. On four a woman my age says hello. I’ve seen her before, an Iyawó fortune-teller, negro azul, wearing bright West African clothes. Long black hair and even longer nails, cruel smile, creepy as hell.

“No husband yet,” she says.

“No.”

“I’ll help you catch one.”

“That’s ok.”

“Don’t think you’ll get one where you’re going,” she says.

“Oh. And where am I going?”

“You know,” she says with an ugly laugh and with I-don’t-give-a-shit slowness she closes her door.

Walk the landing. Mom’s. Knock, knock.

Ricky opens it. Looks good. Blue cotton shirt and American chino pants and slip-on shoes.

“Hi, darling,” he says, kisses me.

“Handsomer than ever,” I tell him.

“I could say the same,” he replies.

“But you won’t.”

“Of course I will, you look great.”

“How is she?” I ask, my voice descending into a whisper.

“No worse than usual. I brought her some flowers. Cheered her up,” he says.

“Again, you’re such a good son,” I tell him.

“Well, I want to be remembered in the will,” he says with a grin.

I take his hand and step in. Mom has all the blinds drawn and the lights are off. No light anywhere except for the candles in front of the Santería shrine. Layers of dust, dust on the dust. Mom sitting at the table we bought her, looking at tarot cards. She doesn’t even notice when I sidle next to her. She’s wearing a tattered dress that exposes one of her breasts. Her face is haggard. She’s lost weight since last week and the expression in her eyes is watery, remote, distant. “Hi, Mom,” I say and kiss her.

“Hello, my baby girl,” she replies, looking up for a moment and then going back to the cards.

I watch her for a while. I have no idea what she’s doing and I don’t want to know.

“She’s lost weight,” I tell Ricky.

“She trades her supply-book tokens for candles and spells from the priestesses.”

The room’s full of stuff like that. Lucumí gods and goddesses straight from West Africa. I recognize some, but most are utterly unfamiliar. And not just Lucumí-an eclectic mix from many pantheons: a brass Ganesh and his mother, Saraswati; a porcelain Virgin Mary; prayer flags from Tibet; a huge carved wooden Apollo.

Mom starts mumbling to herself over the tarot.

“She’s gotten worse.”

Ricky shakes his head. “No worse. She’s doing ok.”

“Doesn’t look like it.”

“You don’t see her as much as I do,” Ricky says with a smile to show that he’s not criticizing.

“Those bitches really got their hooks into her with this shit. I’ll tell them to leave her fucking ration book alone,” I say angrily.

“I bring her food, she’s ok,” Ricky says.

“Quite the little saint,” I say with a grin but also an edge.

Silence. Seconds turning into minutes. Claustrophobia. Get up. Walk around. I note again that Dad’s ashes are gone from the mantel. I don’t even want to think what she did with them.

More time. More suffocating seconds. God, I hate this place.

“I’m sorry, I can’t stay here,” I say.

Ricky nods. “At least tell Mom you’re leaving the country.”

She’s dozing now. I kneel in front of her and take her hands and kiss them. She looks up, a little sparkle in those yellow eyes.

“My darling,” she says.

“Mom, I’m going now. I’m going away for a while.”

She nods and then, as if the veil has lifted for a moment, she says: “Be careful.”

“I will.”

Ricky walks me to the landing. “Don’t forget your letter,” he says, and hands me the forms from the Interior Ministry. Of course it requires a fee, but once paid, I’ll have that rarest of rare things-permission to leave Cuba. An exit visa. A key to the prison door.

I hold it to the light and then I kiss it.

“How did I get this? You pulled some strings, didn’t you?”

He shakes his head. “Even if I was fucking the minister’s private secretary I wouldn’t ask him for something like this. We’d all be headed for the plantations.”

“Then how?” I ask.

He shrugs. “It’s a mystery.”

“Yeah, it is.”

The Last Act.

The wee hours.

After all the tails have gone to bed.

Bang at my apartment door.

Who the fuck?

Open it.

“So you went above my head?” Hector says bitterly.

Rum breath. Bleary eyes.

“I swear I didn’t.”

“Ricky then?”

“I didn’t ask him to.”

“Own initiative, eh?”

“He says he didn’t do anything.”

He pushes past me, sits on my bed. “Can’t stay, told Anna I was getting some air. Have a drink,” he says and passes me the flask.

“No, thank you.”