HAVANA, May 20 (www.cubanet.org) - The Cuban authorities have implemented stringent security measures at points of embarkation point for ferries crossing small bay.Now Havana before boarding, all passengers must pass through a metal detector. Just posted signs warning passengers not to bring mobile or birthday cakes ...
You know how in a stormy night when you take the Havana Bay ferry and you smell the fear of passengers like the waves I invite you to death and the ferry captain drunk falls into the sea about three times before the rope to the harbor wall leaked.
The captain is drunk again, I said to my brother Ramon.
Not for his salary, Ramon said, he is stunned with the danger.
Yes that is so, I said. But this danger that makes him dizzy does not affect us.
Not that kind of danger, Ramon said.
And so we stood on deck in the rain, all 65 of us, as the ferry made its way across the bay.
A few minutes later, Ramon spoke again: is the kind of danger, as when a young Chiquita down from the hills and see the city for the first time. She carries the smell of ripe bananas and sweet oranges so that when walking down the street, the old look of their board and sigh Aiy bananas, while young straighten his trousers and groaning: Aiy Chiquita. It 's so it is.
So we stood on deck lashed rain and prayed God to keep a firm grip on the captain cojones all the time it took. Five minutes passed and Ramon leaned toward me and whispered: La fiesta no es para los Feos. It 'was the signal to do what we do and I moved through the people to get closer to the position of captain, near the front. Yes it's true I thought, this party is not for the ugly ones, but can still be a bad start his own party. Fidelissimo not show us how?
When I got close to the captain, I saw in his eyes that was still mad at him. I tapped on the shoulder and when he turned around, I pulled out the chair where I had hidden in his shirt pocket and pointed to his chest. La Fiesta es perdido I said. And mas Perdido. I could see by the look that came into his eyes that had once been a good man. One of the good ones, perhaps one of the best, but tonight he stared at the chair pointing at him and knew that death had joined passengers without paying a single weight. Verdad.
The captain, although he had once been one of the good ones have a burp as strong as an elephant rising from a pool of mud and clouds of tobacco, tequila and three bean stew caused passengers to stumble back to the stern of ferry.
Que Pasa? said the captain as a man waking in a gutter that he feels a hand in his pants pocket, which is not his own hand. I held the chair against his temple, and if there were one can never know the thrill of fear that his broken body oscillation. I made my voice sound of the grave. Ramon, give me something, I called and he was beside me like the wind. In his hands he held the thing that had kept alive for the last five years. The thing that we exchanged our mule, two machetes and a hundred bananas. What we needed in the way an old and rich look at a young chica in her Sunday dress and become a crazy old man for the rest of his life. Such was the nature of this thing we appreciated.
With infinite care, Ramon peeled back the corners of the tarpaulin that enveloped him, and when the moonlight caught the brilliance of it, the captain drew a quick breath.
Although I held the chair steady captain, Ramon bent and place the thing that had brought on the shelf in front of the wheel.
I stepped back and took the chair beside me: My Captain, I said firmly, while other passengers crowded around, .. You will bring to this thing you see before you. She will not stop until he reaches. And when we, we will sit around a table, you and I, and drinking the best rum with Coke and talk about the real past and future, as men who looked at their feet for a long time but now choose to look at stars.
The captain looked at me for a long time.
I knew you were the one, he said, have a light that shines above his head, and also ... gave a small smile as a man who will not give away your cards ... have a great chair ... Then he turned the wheel and took it between both hands darkened sun and pushed the throttle to maximum power, while the rest of us had looked carefully and view it on the shelf HIM Would that guides all of us to a day different. It was small but shining like an angel My Mother to guide our path. One passenger said it was called El Statudo Liberdade de ...
© 2005 Dollar Bill
No comments:
Post a Comment