North of Havana

4

The way Tomlinson's voice faded in and out, it was as if my house, elevated on stilts off Sanibel Island, was connected to Havana by a piece of string that was being battered by a Gulf Stream squall. On a crow-flies course, the only landfall between Sanibel and Cuba is Key West. Couple of hundred miles of water stood between us; all that dark ocean out there… Tomlinson's voice straining to get across it.

"This is serious, Doc. I shit you not. They took my damn boat!"

Talking about the Cuban military.

"You've got to get down here with some money. Cash. They won't take credit cards, they won't take checks, and my good character wouldn't get me a cup of their damn sugar on loan. I'm talking about No Mas!"

No Mas, his 35-Morgan sailboat. It's one of the curious things about water-people: Sailors love their boats-or pretend to; power-cruisers almost always hate their boats-but pretend as if they don't.

Tomlinson said, "When I got here, I had close to two grand stashed away. You know where I kept it-in that little hidey hole forward the bilge? I was damn lucky to get it out before the bulls took my boat."

Dewey was up off the bed now, giving me her "You-were-a-jerk-to-answer-the-phone" look; a little brazen, a little shy. She'd seemed comfortable touching me; comfortable with my hands on her. Not tense, not working at it too hard… not at all like the first time we'd tried.

Tomlinson said, "So now I'm down to five hundred bucks or so 'cause they're charging us on a day-to-day basis. You know what they're hoping-"

Yes, I knew what they were hoping. 'They' was the Guardia Frontera, the harbor-tasked body of the island's largest governmental agency-MINFAR, which stood for Ministry of the Revolutionary Armed Forces. Largest and also the most corrupt branch of a very, very corrupt government. All under the control of Raul Castro, Fidel's younger jockey-sized brother.

I said, "They want you to spend every cent you have so you have to abandon your boat. Put you on some government flight out."

"Exactly! That's just what I've been thinking." The flavor of panic was beginning to fade from Tomlinson's voice; he was sounding more and more like the old laid-back hipster and sociology guru that he had once been. "So how long before you get here, Doc?"

There was something I had to communicate to him, but I couldn't come right out and say it. I knew from newspaper reports, and also friends who are paid to know, that the Cuban government had gotten sloppy and desperate and meaner than ever, but there were probably still a few good people around doing their jobs, manning the Lourdes eavesdropping systems that the Soviets had left behind.

The call probably was being monitored.

I said, "Look, buddy, how's an American go about getting into Cuba?" Gave it a hick-hard inflection. Said, "It's illegal, right? I mean it's not like I've been there before."

Tomlinson said, "Huh?"

I watched Dewey cross to the telescope; watched her stretch the bra around, sliding the cups down over her breasts, then snapped it tight as I said, "What am I supposed to do, call my travel agent? Or maybe run down there by boat? But I do that, hell, they'd probably just take my boat, too."

I was rewarded with Tomlinson's guarded tone-he understood. "Yeah

… well, I was thinking maybe you could take a plane. Fly in here. I've heard they've got flights from Nassau and Mexico City. Americans fly in, the Cubans don't ask any questions, give them a temporary visa right at the airport. They need the tourist money."

"That's why you sailed there? As a tourist?" Changing the subject, like I wanted a little time to think about it.

"Hell, no. Why do you think they took my damn boat?"

"That's what I'm asking," I said. "I get there, carrying all that money, what makes you think they won't try to keep me, too?"

Tomlinson said, what had happened was, he'd met a woman in Key West, the night of Fantasy Fest, and she'd talked him into taking her on an extended cruise.

"Julia DeGlorio," Tomlinson told me. "That's her name. I'd let you talk to her but she's up in the room right now. Very handsome woman; Cuban-American. Her family came over January second, 1959, and she was born nine, ten years later. In New Jersey. That was the day after Fidel came to power. January second, I mean."

I was thinking: Julia DeGlorio-a feminized Spanish version of July of Glory. It was in July 1953 that Fidel Castro and his followers made their failed attack on the Moncada Garrison in Santiago de Cuba, thus beginning the revolution. A very important month in Cuban history and a very, very strange name for the daughter of Cuban exiles.

Into the phone I said, "Nineteen fifty-nine? No kidding. It's really been that long?"

"Fidel, you mean? Yeah…" Said it like: "Who else?" Then he said, "So Julia's in her twenties. Pretty little young thing. The way I met her, I was sitting at a table at Louie's Backyard-I'm talking about Key West now-and I was talking to a bunch of people. Not the freaks like I was hanging out with but Key West straights. Sitting there thinking, 'How the hell did I end up with these people?' as I was telling them about myself. What my life was about, some of the places I'd…" Tomlinson's voice faded, became garbled. Then I heard him say, "You remember Jimmy Gardenas?"

"Jimmy? Sure-"

"Top Key West guide; an old buddy of yours. Now he runs Saltwater Anglers, the fly shop? Jimmy's there and he tells me, 'Tomlinson, you're too drunk to deal with human beings. You're going to wear yourself out trying. Go back to Duval Street. Better yet, go back to the boat. The strain's beginning to show.' "

"That sounds like Jimmy."

"Um-huh; pretty good advice. I mean I had seriously over-served myself. Rum and some really first-rate Jamaican Blue."

Drugs. Tomlinson was doing drugs again, not even attempting to pretend he wasn't. I could hear his doctor telling me, "Sometimes they regress; go back to the way they were when they were kids. Or teenagers. Sometimes they have to revisit what they were to re-establish who they are."

Into the phone, I said, "Really drunk, yeah. I'm with you," as Dewey, in bra and panties, caught my attention and mouthed the question, Tomlinson?

I nodded, covered the receiver, said: "He's in trouble."

Watched her expression change, becoming serious, and she began to dress, listening to me talk-playtime over.

Tomlinson said, "So there's this woman at the table and she leads me out. It's Julia. Says she was getting tired of that group, too, but she loved what I'd been saying."

I asked, "What was it you were saying?"

"How the hell am I supposed to remember, man? I was screwed-up; doing some serious vision-seeking. I remember telling them a bit of my life history… you know, most of the high points. Dual doctorate, divinity and sociology. My mail says The Reverend Sighurdhr Tomlinson for a reason, right? Asked if anyone at the table needed any spiritual guidance. That much I remember. Then the nuts 'n bolts stuff like being struck by lightning and raised from the dead. That the doctors wanted the respirator off, so God had to take things into His own hands. Waited for the third day and-ZAP!-turned on the juice. Nothing outrageous- not like I was knocking over chairs and offending people. I pretty much gave them the straight scoop: that I am an alien being who is in spiritual contact with distant galaxies, and that I was sent to earth on a mission I have yet to understand."

"You told the girl that?"

"Julia and the others at the table, yeah. What? You want me to lie?"

"No… no, I certainly wouldn't want you to lie. You mention anything about cutting cane in Cuba?"

"Goddamn, Doc, who cares? I'm talking about my boat."

"Or your support for the revolution? There's a reason I'm curious-"

Tomlinson said, "Christ, arguing with you is like arguing with the multiplication table."

"I'm trying to figure out how you ended up in Cuba, that's all."

Heard a groan of exasperation. "Good grass and cheap rum, that's how. Times I've been in Key West, almost everything I ever did, the story always starts the same…"

The way Tomlinson got to Cuba was that Julia DeGlorio had moved aboard his boat and talked him into sailing for Cay Sal, a cluster of uninhabited islands about eighty miles east-southeast of Hawks Channel marker, and only about thirty miles off the northern shore of Cuba. She wanted to go to Cay Sal, Tomlinson said, because she had heard that no one else went there.

"Julia was sure right about that," he added.

Controlled by the Bahamian government, Cay Sal is a cluster of sandbanks with a lone shack built for the customs official who kept a watch on the islands and who, upon their arrival, refused to allow Tomlinson and his girl to land. "I asked him if it was because I was an American," Tomlinson told me, "and he said, 'No, mon, it 'cause you a damn hippie!' The man didn't even know me and he's passing judgment. Jeesh! And it wasn't like I was holding any drugs. All used up by then, I'm sorry to say."

So they had spent a week gunkholing around the islands-lots of drinking, lots of nude sunbathing-before setting sail back to Key West. "That's when the trouble started," Tomlinson said. "We left Cay Sal Bank about dusk. By then I knew Julia well enough to trust her to stand watch. Understand, we'd spent a couple weeks bumming around the Keys, then a couple more weeks on the boat before we headed for Cay Sal. The woman knew her way around No Mas and I felt comfortable leaving her at the wheel.

"So that evening I got us into deep water and set the autovane for 305 degrees-Key West, right? Then I went below to get some sleep because I was going to stand the twelve-to-two and the dog watch. Julia was going to handle it until midnight. Next thing I know, I wake up and my boat's dolphining in what feels like heavy sea and we're luffing. A norther's blown up and I go topside to find we're in some serious shit. Waves are crashing over a reef directly astern and there's a gunboat off our bow with people shouting at us in Spanish. It's pitch dark, near midnight, and I have the hangover from hell, but I'm still alert enough to realize that we have suffered a terrible navigational error. We're in fucking Cuba, man.

"The gunboat takes us in tow-gad! What a nightmare that was!-and they haul us into Havana Harbor where these Cuban bulls search my boat, steal some of my best equipment, then try to shake me down for a five-thousand-dollar towing fee. I don't have it. Hell, I'd just barely had time to get into my hidey-hole and sneak the two grand into my shorts. They search my boat again, then move us downtown to a hotel where they're charging me two hundred bucks a night for a room against the worth of my boat. That's why we're thinking about moving up the street to the Havana Libre. A little cheaper hotel-if they'll let us."

"Did you offer them a bribe?"

"Sure. Told them I had a couple hundred bucks they could have if they'd turn me loose, forget the whole thing. This Comandante guy-the crew chief; whatever he was- he tells me, yeah, it's a deal. Only he can't let me go until tomorrow. Like manana. Everything's manana down here. So I slip him the dough and that's the last we've seen of the comandante.

I had to keep reminding myself that the authorities might be listening. "Geeze," I said, "like some kind of deal out of the movies. So they question you or anything? Or did they believe your story right off?"

"Took me in a room and slapped me in the face a couple times-"

I winced, hearing that. Tomlinson's brain had been banged around too much already.

"-asked me if I knew anything about Alpha Sixty-Six or maybe Brothers to the Rescue. Like I was some kind of Cuban-American spook come back to help overthrow Fidel. You know, one of those right-wing Miami groups? I told them, talk to Fidel. Maybe he'd remember meeting me and my comrades back in seventy-one. Came down here in a gesture of solidarity; shook the man's hand and had our pictures taken. Huey Newton, man! He was there. Now they're treating me like some kind of bourgeois stiff. I say, 'Ask Fidel,' and it really gets a big laugh. I'm telling you, Doc-the old days, they're gone forever!"

I thought: Goodbye, good riddance. "And you with a hangover," I said.

"The hangover from Planet Zoltare."

"Drinking that heavy before sailing the Florida Straits. You should have known better."

The groan again. "I'm really not in any mood for lectures right now. You hear what I'm saying? They're taking my money, they've taken my boat, so this little excursion, frankly, is beginning to lose its vacation feel. Besides, I didn't drink that much. Just a couple of beers. Six-pack maybe? So maybe it was food poisoning. Like some bad guacamole." Tomlinson paused, then sounded as serious as he can sound: "You want me to ask for it? I will. I need help, Doc. I need you to get down here with some money and spring me. That's what I'm asking."

I wanted to explain why I was so reluctant; why it would be so dangerous for me to return to Havana. Instead, I said, "Isn't there an American Embassy or something there? I could wire you the money."

"No embassy, just an American Interest Section. I already checked. A couple of people who work out of the Swiss Embassy; acted like they could care less. Said I ought to be arrested, an American breaking the law by coming to Cuba."

I had attended a reception once at the Swiss Embassy, out east of Havana near Miramar; could picture it: big colonial house with wrought-iron gates, banyan trees dropping red berries on the shaded sidewalks; part of Embassy Row.

I said, "I'll get the money to you, Tomlinson."

"When? When can you get here?"

Today was Friday. I did so little banking I wasn't certain if banks were open or not on Saturday. I said, "Soon as I can. Friday next week at the latest."

"Shit! That long?"

"I'll do my best-but I want you to answer this: Does the girl know where you keep your money?"

"Julia? Sure. We're staying in the same room. Not that she's around much. Every day she disappears, comes back late."

"Does she say where she goes?"

"Nope, and I'm not the type to press."

"Do me a favor and move your money. Don't tell her where."

"But why, man?"

I said, "Because I think it's the smart thing to do. Think back: Once you got to Cay Sal, did she begin to act strange; maybe a little distant?"

"Well… matter of fact, she did. Actually canceled bedroom privileges. Not that she'd given me bedroom privileges to begin with, man, but I had high hopes. I don't have to tell you that out there on the high seas, what a downer it is to have your crew tell you the nookie lamp is not gonna be lit. How'd you know?"

I repeated, "Move your money."

Tomlinson said, "Okay, okay-but you're not helping this damn paranoia I've been fighting." Then in a frailer voice, he said, "I mean it, Doc. I'm scared and I keep getting these absolutely killer headaches. Get down here 'cause I can't take much more."

I said, "I can tell."

Dewey said, "Did you hear what I said?"

I looked up and said, "Huh?"

She was sitting beside me on the armrest of the reading chair, arms folded, studying me. "For the last few minutes, it's like you were in a coma. Didn't hear a word I was saying."

"Yeah… well…"

"You want me to leave?"

I looked up again and said, "Huh?"

She put her hands on my shoulders, gave me a little shake and pressed her face nose-to-nose with mine: gray-blue eyes becoming huge. "What the hell's the problem? Tomlinson's in trouble, that's all you told me. What kind of trouble?"

I stood and went to the little ship's refrigerator; rummaged around until I found a beer. Popped it open and began to pace slowly around the room. Then I spent the next few minutes telling her what had happened, sorting it out in my own mind.

When I had finished, she said, "If he's that scared, why doesn't he leave his boat and fly home? What's the big deal?"

"It's his boat. The only home he's had for fifteen, maybe twenty years."

"But if he's that scared-"

"I know what you're saying. If Tomlinson were rational, yeah, maybe that's exactly what he'd do. Cut his losses.

But he's never been rational. And on the phone just now, he sounded… lost. Like some misguided teenager who's close to being out of control."

"You need to help him, Doc."

"I know. That's what I've been thinking about-how?"

"If it's the money you're worried about. I've made some pretty good investments-"

"No, I've got it. I'll have to wait until the bank opens."

"Why can't you send it down? Or have somebody take it for you?"

"We're not allowed to take or spend money there. Americans, I mean. We can go to Cuba-that's legal. But you have to go penniless and come back penniless. It's part of the embargo. Department of Treasury."

"You have any Canadian friends?"

"Yeah, but none who know how to deal with Tomlinson. If we pay the money and they still refuse to hand over his boat-that's a real possibility-then Tomlinson may well slip over the edge."

"It's got to be you, then."

"That's what I keep coming back to."

Dewey said, "So let's hop the next plane to Havana," giving it a let's-turn-it-into-an-adventure inflection. "My calendar's open, buddy."

"If I go, I'm going alone."

"Bullshit. My life's in what you'd call a transitional period. A little adventure is just what I need."

"No way, Dewey. You're very good at what you do, but going down there, carrying money to a place like that, it's serious. You don't know anything about it."

"You do? The hermit biologist talking. Like you're an expert."

I let it pass; said nothing.

She said, "What you're forgetting is that Tomlinson's a friend of mine, too. You book a seat, I'll book a seat on the same flight. I don't need your permission."

What I wanted to tell her I couldn't tell her. So I said, "I'm going to bed. I need to think about it."