Havana 4

“[Jimmy Hoffa’s] mention of legal problems in New Orleans translated into his insistence that Carlos Marcello arrange another meeting with Partin, despite my warning that dealing with Partin was fruitless and dangerous.”

“He wanted me to get cracking on the interview with Partin. In June, Carlos sent word that a meeting with Partin was imminent and I should come to New Orleans. As [my wife] watched me pack in the bedroom of our Coral Gables home, she began crying, imploring me not to see Partin. She feared that it was a trap and that I would be murdered or arrested.”¹

Frank Ragano, J.D., attorney for Jimmy Hoffa, Carlos Marcello, and Santos Trafacante Jr., in “Lawyer for the Mob,” 1994

I felt so strongly that Wendy would commit suicide that the dominating thought in my mind was jumping on a flight to New Orleans, renting a car, and driving to Saint Francisville as soon as possible. Every time I tried to focus, I looked up and began to wave down a car to take me back to the airport.

I ignored the urge. I closed my eyes and stood still, and told myself that she’d be fine. She was probably just drunk, or one of her dogs died. She was always upset when one of her rescue dogs either passed away or was adopted, and that led to opening the first bottle of wine earlier in the day. She sometimes got drunk and called to brainstorm about updating her will to include the West Feliciana Parish humane society. I was sure she’d sober up by tomorrow and be fine. I opened my eyes, and didn’t believe myself. My heartbeat was elevated and my breath was shallow. I told myself I had to relax before making a decision.

I breathed, and focused on setting the time on my watch to Havana and Saint Francisville’s time. I unscrewed the dial and pulled it out, then rotated it back and forth just a bit to see if I would adjust the date or the minute hand. The date wobbled and the minute hand didn’t, so I pulled a bit more and spun the hand back three hours. I had never used the date function, because I could never remember how many days were in each month. Every time I ignored the date on my Seiko, feelings from old memories surfaced.

For whatever reason, ever since I was a kid I confused if March had 30 or 31 days, or if February had 28 or 29, or whether or not it was a leap year. The only two months I was confident had 31 days were December and October. I probably remember December 31st because of New Years, when my great-uncle Bob and Wendy’s uncle who mentioned in my custody report, habitually set his Oyster Perpetual Rolex to the New York red apple falling. And October 31st is, of course, Halloween and the anniversary of Harry Houdini’s death in 1926; he died from a ruptured appendix after being repeatedly punched in the stomach by Jocelyn Gordon Whitehead as Houdini was standing up and before he could brace for the punches, which he sometimes did to demonstrate physical prowess. Even at 52, the magician and escape artist and first president of the Society of American Magicians was in peak physical condition. He and Uncle Bob were two of my childhood heroes when I joined the SAM’s Society of Young Magicians in 1986. He was disciplined, saying his mind was the key to his freedom, and he trained his body to be strong and his lungs to hold air for the many minutes it took him to escape under water. As a kid, I monitored how long I could hold my breath using one of Uncle Bob’s older wind-up watches.

A couple of years later, when I competed in wrestling, my nemesis three-time undefeated state champion from Capital High School humorously named Hillary Clinton. Almost time we wrestled, Hillary would slam me in a head throw and cut off my breathing. The first time, in 1987, I felt I was suffocating and panicked, and I forced both my shoulders to the mat so the referee would end the match. By 1990, I could hold my breath and exert myself to keep one shoulder raised for a two-minute round, knowing that at the most the feeling would last only two minutes and I’d have two more chances to begin on my feet. But I never mastered Houdini’s level of breath control, or the control of escape artists after him, like The Amazing Randi or David Blaine, even after The Amazing Randi gave me a few pointers in 1988. Even at my peak of fitness on Fort Bragg’s team in 1993, I was unable to hold my breath on underwater missions longer than about two and a half minutes, especially if struggling. Every time I failed to remain calm when out of air, I thought of Houdini and Uncle Bob’s old watch on New Years, and tried again. A key was to focus your mind on the body’s desire to breathe in or out, that moment between inhaling and exhaling. The same moment was also when an expert marksman takes a shot, or a skilled magician pulls a hard sleight. The mixed martial artist master of and son of Gracie JuJitsu founder Horace Gracie, Rickson Grace, would say similar things in his memoir, “Breathe: A Life in Flow,” as would practically every renowned sniper, escape artists, or fighter. I’ve never heard sleight of hand artists say it, so I may be the first crossover to discuss breath control with a deck of cards.

I watched my breath slow down, and I screwed the dial back in my Seiko, hermetically sealing the guts of my dive watch like locking Houdini inside a Chinese water torture cell. Probably because I was in Cuba and had been thinking about it on the flight over, my mind slid into America’s Guantanamo prison, and it saw waterboard torturing and empathized with them. I had heard pundits debating if it was actually torture, and I smirked, thinking they should try it at least three times. It gets worse each time, because you anticipate the suffering, and in your cell you sit and wonder when it’ll happen next, or why it wouldn’t stop; it’s no wonder people being tortured try to starve themselves to death rather than live like that. I had experienced a similar feeling after only a few weeks of food and sleep deprivation, and under supervision by so-called experts in training us in survival, resistance, evasion, and escape; a surprisingly easy experience for someone raised by Edward Partin and trained by Coach Ketelsen and The Amazing Randi, but only because deep down, no matter how delirious I felt, I knew the torture was a simulation. As an adult training others, I’d quote the Buddha as saying that all suffering is transient, and the more you believed that the longer you could wait. A few weeks of torture was no worse than wrestling Hillary Clinton for two minutes.

With all of that on my mind, I bought my focus back to the Seiko and watched the second hand rotate. The hand had subtle jumps in motion from the quartz crystal vibrating, and I felt my heartbeat slowing down to match the jumps, then slowing a bit more. Two minutes passed. My breath was back down to 12 beats a minute. My pulse was at 54. I lowered my watch hand.

Instantly, my mind jumped back to Wendy; the feeling was that strong, and no amount of history could override what was deeper inside of me than anything I could superficially say about mental discipline.

“Fuck!” I automatically exclaimed almost as loudly as on the Havana tarmac an hour or so before. I took another breath and said, “Fuck,” again, though intentionally and softer.

I took a few breaths. An analysis can be just as wrong as a gut feeling, so I put in my earbuds and called Wendy while I still had WiFi minutes.

Her mobile phone went to voice mail, probably because she was at home and the cell reception there was spotty. I called her land-line, but after four rings her vintage answering machine picked up. I called her mobile again, just to see if she’d answer. It went to voice mail.

I forced a smile to help my voice sound cheerful, and said: “Hey Wendy, it’s Jason. I got your voice mail. I’m in Cuba. I’ll be offline for a month and diving and climbing in a remote areas, but I’m in Havana for a week and will check messages every day or two.”

I chuckled clearly enough for her to hear, and said, “The cell phone reception here is worse than in Saint Francisville, so I have to find spots where I can check messages.”

On a whim, I told her that I was calling from a plaza named St. Francis, after the patron saint of kindness to animals, and said that I hoped that coincidence made her smile. She had been fostering dogs for about fifteen years, volunteering at the West Feliciana Parish humane society next door to Angola Prison in Saint Francisville. If anything made her smile, it was kindness to animals and her work with the human society. I mentioned that I had emailed her a John Oliver Youtube special on Angola, but hadn’t heard back even though it had been a couple of weeks. I added a perfunctory “I love you,” then hung up and sent Cristi a WhatsAp telling her I had arrived safely, that I had a cryptic message from Wendy, and to message me if she hears anything.

While leaving a message for Cristi, my mind settled and cheered. I almost told her about the coincidence of the plaza, but decided to wait until I was home so I could see her reaction. She believed in synconicity, the theory by Carl Jung that coincidences in the physical world are evidence of our mind’s link with it. She had expounded on the coincidence of an LSU cap bobbing in the ocean as me calling it into my life, and that the recent news of Big Daddy being portrayed in The Irishman as a sign from the physical world to my inner world that I should work on a memoir. I had been postponing for decades, and Cristi said it was about time. She’d likely explode if she knew I was calling Wendy from the Plaza San Francisco de Asi. I wanted to be there when that happened.

I didn’t feel like checking other messages, but I was already wearing my reading glasses and glanced at the names. Nothing jumped out and I didn’t have many minutes left, so I called a few of the casa particulares I had circled in the Lonely Planet. In my best but most simple Spanish possible, I asked each one that had availability a few questions about the spaces because I didn’t want a cramped room. One that said their room had two exits: a private door with a lock and a glass door looking onto a small courtyard. It had another door to a private bathroom with a shower and hot water. Breakfast was included. It was a reasonable price and within walking distance from the plaza. I said that if it were okay, I’d be there after I had dinner, mas o menus a la nueve. They said that was fine, and told me what to look for outside of their building. Havana’s a densely packed city, and many of the neighborhoods look the same. They said to knock when I arrived, that they went to bed a las diez, mas o menus, so me showing up at around nine was no problema.

I packed away my earbuds, phone, and glasses. I stretched my hands above my head and twisted this way and that.

I glanced around the square. It was happy hour. Small groups of mostly young professional-looking Cubans walked around, peering in bars and occasionally glancing at their phones. No obvious tourists were in sight. I scanned the perimeter and listened to competing beats of music, and generalized the clientele of each. I stopped at what looked most promising, a bar with wide open double doors next to a large open window, and with a diverse crowd that would make me less noticable. The evening sunlight was fading, so I could see inside the bar clearly enough. Just inside the doors, a six-person band was playing a guitar, three brass horns, a stand-up wooden bass, and a congo drum set. Past them was a stand-up bar with high bar stools, and a hand-written sign that I couldn’t make out but looked like a daily food menu; being hand-written implied it was fresh. There were about a dozen low-sitting tables with six chairs each generously spaced around the room, and a few booths opposite of the bar that would hold the same number of people. There were approximately twenty people inside, scattered in small groups among the tables and booths. The barstools I could see were empty. I glanced at my wrist. I could still catch happy hour and begin my sabbatical with a Hemmingway Daiquiri, if only to raise a toast to Papa Hemmingway and say that I did it in Havana.

I didn’t see a sign with the bar’s name, but it stood out well enough and I could describe its location. I reached in my backpack and pulled out a flip phone mailed to me by an old army buddy on assignment in Guantanamo, opened it, and waited for it to connect. I began typing a text message using the archaic buttons. The tactile feedback flowed from old muscle memory, and I automatically pushed buttons once, twice, or three times to spell the words in my mind. I wrote that I had arrived, and described the bar’s location. He responded immediately. I replied “yay!” and packed away the phone.

I shouldered my backpack but didn’t bother to adjust the straps. The bar was only a phone’s throw away. I stretched my neck again, took a deep breath, and began walking towards the bar slowly, focusing on camouflaging my limp with a nonchalant stroll. I arrived and peered inside and smiled. It was just as I imagined. I took a deep breath and widened my smile, and stepped inside.

I walked into a bar and stood beside a stool to avoid becoming a statistic.² The bartender was busy. He didn’t see me yet, so I peered under the bar, which was new enough to have modern conveniences, and mid to upscale bar catering to urban professionals getting off work near the plaza. I suspected I’d see purse hooks that I could use to hang my carryon backpack and personal items bag.

I saw a dual purse hook: two upwardly curved rods emanating from an oblong brass disc held in place by two phillips screws that looked like two crossed-out eyes. The rods ended in oversized spheres to prevent tearing jackets. Combined, it looked like a drunk fighting octopus holding up two boxing gloves, blindly challenging anyone who dared approach. At least it did to me, probably because I was hungry and had noticed the daily special scribbled in chalk above the bar said pulpo a la parilla: grilled octopus. I handed the octopus my backpacks and removed my bolero and rested it on the bar to mark my spot, then walked to the bathroom and splashed copious amounts of water on my face before looking at myself in the mirror.

I looked like shit. Under my eyes was puffy and darker than usual, and a web of tiny red rivers radiated from my dark brown pupils and flowed across the whites of my eyes. I stood there for a few breaths, staring into the mirror and wondering who the old man was staring back at me; not really wondering, but reflecting at how different I looked compared to the kid who once thought all there was to life was card tricks and wrestling Hillary Clinton, and how quickly that seemed to happen.

I twisted my head as far as I could, as if trying to see the back of my head. I knew I couldn’t, but I had been rotating my head to see the big backwards letter C peeking through my hair since I was 4 years old. The scar had been my most obvious marker since then, and my first nickname in the army had been Scarhead, a play on Al Pacino as the Cuban exile and Miami drug king in 1983’s Scar Face. (In Airborne school, it became J.P. because of my initials and JP-4, then it settled on Dolly, like the country singer Dolly Partin, because a paratrooper named Dolly sounded as funny to my team as a wrestler named Hillary had to me). I knew my head’s diminishing maximum rotation better than an army of physicians ever could in annual exams using an elaborate goiometer. My neck was around 15 degrees stiffer after the long days of flights, and my neck muscles twitched slightly from relentless tightening.

I looked back straight into the mirror and leaned slightly forward, resting my right hand on the sink for balance. It was slightly numb from radiculopathy, a consequence of narrowed cervical disc space after sitting all day, and nerves rubbing against bone spurs that looked like a sharp wood rasp on x-ray. I stared at my right and as if willing it to feel, and took a few breaths. Nothing changed. I reached back with it and ran a finger along the scar, an old habit that grounds me like a talisman, imaging the feel from memory and comparing memories with my numbed fingers. It’s a finger width apart, curving from top to right to bottom, slick and waxy compared to the rest of my scalp. Before my hair thinned, I could feel a forest of folicles rising at the junction of a horseshoe lake. Now, I felt a few scraggly weeds poking up in the barren ground beside a drying C-shaped waxy mud puddle. The sensations from my finger tips were accurate compared to a lifetime of memories from rubbing that scar when fatigued, so I knew the numbness wasn’t as bad as I first imagined. I felt relieved, and stood up a bit more straight and took a deep breath to expand my lungs.

I held my breath and pulled my finger away from the mud puddle and bowed my chin to touch my chest. I exhaled slowly, and stretched my eyeballs upward. I couldn’t see my bald spot yet. But I knew it would happen soon. “Hair today, gone tomorrow,” my mostly bald Uncle Bob had said after I asked to grow my hair longer and hide the scar. He wasn’t the Buddha, but he always quipped about how we all inevitably grow old and get sick and die, so there was no point in taking physical appearances seriously.

I splashed more water on my face and washed the fatigue from my eyes. I scrubbed my hands, and tried to scrape dirt from under my fingernails using thumbnails that were too short to work effectively. I lamented my Victorionox keychain being confiscated, and scrubbed a bit longer until they were clean. I attempted to dry my face with a simple electric hand dryer mounted on the wall. I don’t recall the brand, but I guarantee it wasn’t a Dyson Airblade. James Dyson was recently called “England’s Edison” by some engineering magazine, and had been knighted by their queen for, among many things, reinventing the wheel. He literally remade the age-old wheelbarrow into a more maneuverable ball-barrow using modern manufacturing methods that could form spherical wheels, and was known for improving old designs most of us take for granted, forming the future by remaking the past. His Dyson vaccuum cleaner created a cyclone because he spent years using injection molding to create elaborate shapes rather than stick to standard straight or round manufactured parts, and his Dyson Airblade drier had become ubiquitous in California’s bathrooms that wanted to reduce paper towel waste. I walked back to the bar wiping face cheeks on my biceps, and patting damp hands on my buttocks.

The bartender walked over with a pleasant grin that hadn’t changed since I first walked in. He was about 28 to 30 years old, skin the color of cafe au lait, shorter than I am by a normal sized hand, and fit. His thick wavy hair was meticulously yet unostentatiously groomed, and probably required only a few extra minutes of effort each morning, probably using a hair dryer that wasn’t one of Dyson’s ridiculously expensive ones that didn’t have fans but worked just as well or better. He had a confident demeanor that was more like an absence of worry than anything he tried to project. I smiled thinking he may have only a vague idea about Hoffa, the way I had a vague idea of El Che Guevara from watching The Motorcycle Diaries or seeing his iconic and ironic t-shirts sold all over the world. He smiled back.

He asked what I’d like. On a whim, I changed from ordering a Hemmingway Dacquiri and began dusting off my Spanish. I said that I had never tasted Cuban rum, but I was hoping to learn how to make a mojito. But, I said, I’d like one not with the most expensive rum, but the rum he felt was… I paused, looking for a phrase that matched ‘bang for your buck,’ but I couldn’t conjure up one. Instead, I said I’d like a good value rum, one he’d keep at home for when someone who appreciated rum was coming over for dinner. Not a boss, but someone like a grandfather or a date. His smile broadened and he tapped the bar top and said something I didn’t understand. He turned and took down a bottle and went to work crushing fresh mint.

The band began playing something that sounded like the Buena Vista Social Club but wasn’t. All band members were 20-something men who seemed fit and had darker skin than the bartender, probably due to creole descent. They knew how to play above the din of patrons chatting but without drowning out conversations. The bar was a good choice. The bartender slid a drink in front of me, and I sipped it while tapping my fingers to the beat.

The mojito was everything I hoped for. He came back around and asked how it was. I smiled broadly and told him that if you ask someone to be creative, you shouldn’t tell them your opinion one way or the other, so that they can be innovative rather than seek to mimick. He didn’t understand my broken Spanish, but kept his grin and was unphased.

I changed gears and said it was the best mojito I had all day, and I said it with a grin that matched his. He laughed and seemed to understand a deeper meaning and asked if I’d like food. I ordered the daily special with a side of mojo sauce, and he quickly brought it and a cloth napkin with a stainless steel knife and fork. I said gracias, glanced at my watch, and began to eat. The sauce was delectable, probably made with freshly squeezed orange juice rather than pasteurized juice from a store, but the parilla was a bit chewy. I cut off a few pieces and drowned them in sauce, hoping the enzymes from fresh juice would tenderize them, like the lime in ceviche softens seafood. I wished I had a sharp knife to cut my slices more thinly than possible with the dull generic restaurant knife, because that would exposed more surface area to the juice and made chewing each bite more pleasant. I lamented my confiscated Leatherman, and almost whipped out my sharpener.

Confiscating my Leatherman was a dull safety measure. The double edged razor blade in my German safety razor passed through three security checkpoints with fancy imaging software and small teams of uniformed TSA agents, and I could have easily removed it and taped to a plastic spoon with the duct tape in my carryon backpack, or slid it into a slot I could have pre-made in my toothbrush handle; or a simple 3D printed handle could have held the safety razor more securely and with more reach than the stubby box cutter used in 2001 to hijack and crash airplanes into the World Trade Center. Passengers had already proved willing to tackle an assailant with a blade, but with the modified knife I could have used any slit the throat of the air marshal seated casually near the exit door and used the firearm he wore appendix carry and had inadvertently flashed with a lazy belly pressed against a too-tight shirt. He likely had a Glock 19, which had become the standard issue sidearm for most police and army Rangers, and was preferred by many FBI agents and federal marshals. I sometimes carry a Glock 17 because my hands are bigger than most people’s, but I’m still accurate with a 19 if I curl my pinky finger under the grip, and once armed I’d be able to take out at least a dozen people or puncture a few windows and send the entire plane into a tailspin. I assumed he wouldn’t have a round chambered – that would be a risk to firefighters should the plane crash – but I rarely have a round chambered myself, and I automatically chamber one every time I unholster a firearm. Glocks have no safety, so there’s no need to check that before squeezing off a couple of rounds. I could quickly adapt if he had a different weapon, because long ago, the government sent me off to train with other countries’s equivalent of special forces, including being able to assemble them from a mixed pile when fatigued and practically hallucinating from food and sleep deprivation and torture. On paper, I was certified as an expert in every firearm used by NATO, but knew how to handle many more, including relatively recent versions with biomemetric safety features that were easy enough to bypass. Old habits die hard, and my skills with firearms were deeper than my patience with dull safety measures.

All of that could have been avoided if the TSA let me keep my Leatherman. Or, at the very least, let me keep my tiny red Victorionox keychain to clean my fingernails and slice my pulpo de parilla. The Victorionox had a useful fingernail file and scraper, scissors, and a small but sharp knife. My knife sharpener was more dangerous. I could have unsheathed it and pushed it through the air marshal’s temple or eye, then taken his firearm. Or, for that matter, I could have waited for him to go to the restroom and crushed his windpipe with my big hands or poked one of my long fingers through his eye socket, and simply taken it from him and shoved his body into the tiny cramped airplane bathroom.

The bartender approached and thankfully interrupted my thoughts. I looked up and casually glanced at my watch – almost two minutes had passed. More and more the past few years, after long plane rides or car drives I noticed my thoughts turning angry, and my mind getting trapped by them until something triggered the release. I must be more fatigued than I thought, I told myself. The bartender must have asked something, because he slowed his speech and articulated, and asked if I wanted another mojito. He was still smiling, so I think he was used to people not hearing over the music. I flashed the whites of my teeth through my beard and cheerfully exclaimed: “Claro qui si!”

But, I said, leaning in a bit, tilting one ear towards him to hear better, and wearing a collaborative smirk on my face. Did he know how the Margarita was invented? He did not. I kept my voice low, but not obviously so, and he leaned forward and focused. I told him it was by a bartender in Ensenada, Mexico, who was asked to have fun creating something that had not been done before. I said it was like Puerto Rico’s Pina Colada, and that once there was the first person to make a Cuba Libre. I leaned back and in a normal voice asked him if he would try to have fun and create something fun using rum and mint. He seemed enthusiastic and said: Si! and tapped the table and went to work. I glanced at my watch and continued eating. I set my fork down between each bite and tapped my fingers to the band’s beat, and watched the bartender in my periphery. He searched his shelves, then walked into the kitchen and came out with an orange. He squeezed a bit into the mojio, added a slice next to the green mint garnish, and slid it in front of me.

I wiped my mouth and took a sip of water, smiled, and sniffed the glass. I sipped and smiled broadly, and exclaimed: “Gracias!” He almost asked what I thought, but instead smiled just as broadly as me, tapped the table, and was about to spin around when I stopped him.

I said I was expecting an old friend. I asked if he would put all of our orders on one tab, and hand me the bill no matter what my friend said. Si, he said. I added to please keep a glass of tap water with no ice filled for both of us, that we’d be catching up after a long time and wanted to talk without interuption. He nodded that he understood. And, I said with a mischievous grin, if mojitos kept magically appearing, I promise he could do no wrong and we’d be happy. He nodded affirmatively, told me he hoped I had a fun evening with my friend, tapped the counter, and spun around.

I sipped the orange tinted mojito and grooved to the band. The alcohol began to soften my thoughts, and regardless whether or not the mojo sauce tempered the parilla, it began to feel more tender and taste more delicious with every bite. As I cut a piece with the knife in my left hand and pushed it onto the back of my fork, I glanced at my watch. Just in time, I saw Tim walk in and stand in the door. He quickly saw me – I was the only other caucasian there – and walked towards me with the same cheerful smile pushing up chubby cheeks that hadn’t changed thirty years. He had always looked like the fictional CIA agent Felix Under in 1960’s and 70’s James Bond films who showed up in New Orleans and Jamaica. Because of his perpetual paunch, Tim never carried a weapon in appendix carry, and I couldn’t see if his baggy light colored shirt hid one on his hip, or if his loose fitting tan cotton slacks concealed an ankle holster. He was wearing the same battery powered Rolex Submariner with a gaudy metal band; as he strolled over, the band caught a hint of light with every arm swing and stood out like a beacon. I stood to greet him.

“J.P.!” he said, opening his arms.

“Timmy!” I said, stepping in.

We patted each other’s backs with Hemmingway-esque manliness, then we stood still for a few moments.

“It’s good to see you,” I said towards his back.

“It’s been too long,” he said towards mine.

We stepped apart and glanced up and down at each other.

“Dude,” he said, “You’ve aged.”

“Fuck you,” I said.

“Seriously,” he said. “That beard makes you look old.”

“Fuck you,” I repeated. I scratched it and heard the crinkle over the band. “I’ll shave it before diving.” I resisted the urge to comment on his belly. That would come later.

I stood at the bar and Tim plopped onto the barstool next to me. The bartender saw us and walked over wearing his confident smile and carrying a glass of water with no ice. It was going to be a good night. We let it begin.

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Footnotes:

1. Frank Ragano’s three clients were International Brotherhood of Teamsters president Jimmy Hoffa, New Orleans mafia boss Carlos Marcello, and Miami mafia boss and Cuban exile Santos Trafficante Junior. ↩︎
2. More than five randomized, double-blinded, clinical trials following a total of more than 800,000 people for ten to twenty years has unequivocably shown that sitting for long periods every day leads to four times the rate of diabetes, back pain, obesity, and death. The only people immune got up and moved for 5 to 10 minutes every 20 to 30 minutes all day. In similar studies with other people, the longest living and happiest people on Earth have a happy hour beer. ↩︎