A city in free fall. A country in free fall. Every one of us on deathwatch, waiting out the Beard and his brother’s final days. Tick-fucking-tock. Hector says (in whispers), After Fidel and Raúl, le deluge. The successors will end up like Mussolini—upside down on a meat hook in the Plaza de la Revolución, if there’s any justice. Which there isn’t. Calle Gervasio to San Rafael. Walking. Everyone walks in Cuba. You need to be in the Party or have at least a thousand in greenback kiss money to get a car. Early. So early it’s late. High on brown-tar heroin, the whores don’t care that I’m a woman or that I look like a cop. They raise their skirts to show pussy lovingly injected with antibiotics or mercury sublimate by our world-beating physicians. “Qué bola,asere?” they ask. “Nada.” “Qué bola, asere?”
