Curveball

              I turn on the television in our hotel room and land on ESPN. This is my nightly routine: winding down to Sportscenter en Español. I watch the baseball highlights of the day and see players like Alexi Ramirez, Yeonis Cespedes, and Lyonis Martin, all of which are Cuban defectors. I can’t even imagine what a transition it must be to go from Cuban baseball to American baseball, to go from making virtually nothing to making millions. Then again, I’m American: I’ve been programmed to assign the idea of value to that of monetary worth. It’s hard to break bad habits. Or is it?

               

              I threw a baseball to a young child earlier today. While I was standing outside, waiting for the rest of our group to gather for dinner, this young boy was walking home from school with a cluster of friends. I was tossing a fairly new Nike baseball up in the air, reminiscing back to when I was a freshman in high school, a starting pitcher on the varsity team. The boy spouted something in Spanish that I didn’t quite understand, that is, until he raised his hands. It was clear that he wanted me to toss the ball to him. So I did. He caught the ball and moved a few steps away from his group. He immediately fixated on the ball, eyes staring intently at the words “Nike Official League.” I’m not sure that he understood what he was looking at other than a baseball, just like I’m not sure that the words “Nike Official League” mean anything other than that this baseball was made by Nike. After he quickly showed his friends the ball, he raised his arm to throw it back to me. I said, “No. Keep it.” He didn’t totally understand, that is, until I raised my hands and gesticulated in that universal way that the ball was now his. I can honestly say that this particular second in time was probably the most valuable of our trip, at least for me. When the boy made the connection that he had just been gifted a Nike Official League baseball, a slow yet overwhelming grin crept across his face; it was slow for him and overwhelming for me. I’m thankful that I was wearing sunglasses. From ear to ear this boy looked as if his face was made of shiny gums and brilliant white teeth. Immediately, when the rest of his group understood what had just happened, he was mobbed by his friends. He hid the ball with a joking selfishness then trotted in front of the group with the bravado that most children are innately equipped with. It was magical. We shared something during that second, and I’m not exactly sure what it was, but it was potent. Memories from my youth flashed by, an enchanted time where the mythological was still very much a part of my reality, where gods still walked the earth and blessed the most worthy of mortals, and I remember, for that brief second when the boy realized that the baseball was now his, I felt that magic again. Though the boy ended up with a fairly new Nike Official League baseball, he gave me something so much more incredible, so much more valuable. Without overly appealing to sentimentality or sounding too cliché, I have to say that though I gave this young boy a baseball, the gift was totally mine.

Havana Realism

Perro Means Dog

                There is a distinct sound made when the rusted fender of a ’55 Pontiac Star Chief meets the skull of a medium-sized dog. This happened five minutes ago on one of our daily trips to Case de la Alba, and the sound still reverberates in our minds, our souls.

                We’ve walked the same way every day so far to our lecture meeting place, and during these morning journeys we always see a smattering of feral animals. Well, today, about five minutes from our destination, we walked past a kitten and a young dog; they looked like friends, half grooming and half playing. As we walked by, I attempted to communicate with the kitten via that Universal Kissing Language that humans seem to assume all animals understand—though I must note here that I have to be careful because that kissing sound is a Cuban form of greeting, and one that on many occasions seems to have subtextual sexuality imbedded within it. The last thing I want is to make that kissing sound and piss off a Cuban; I don’t want them to think that I’m mocking them. Moreover, I also don’t want anyone who reads this to think that I’m comparing Cubans to animals because I certainly am not. I’m the animal here; I’m the foreigner, and just as I finished making that kissing sound I noticed an elderly man glaring at me. So, I had to tell him in English “No. I was talking to the cat.”

                As cats are wont to do, the baby blue eyes of this three-or-so month old tabby barely moved, looked at me with an oblivious innocence, sized me up, and decided that the absolute best course of action for this particular situation was to lick its genitals with a specific kind of feline ferocity. The dog, a young, light-brown Labrador mix, though with a noticeably more compact frame, turned with its tail wagging and its tongue flapping and walked. I’m not sure, but I don’t think the dog was following us, just like I’m not sure that it was inspired to walk because of my use of the Universal Kissing Language.

                It was a hauntingly hollow sound, like slamming the door of an empty washing machine, and it cut straight through the cacophonous sounds of a bustling Havana. When I first turned to locate where the sound came from, it didn’t register, nothing did. I saw the ass end of a red ’55 Pontiac Star Chief, its brake lights blaring as it hovered over what appeared to be a dog, one horrifyingly similar to the dog we just past. The dog looked as if it were trying to wake up from a nap in the middle of the street: it lay on its side with its tail still wagging, though with a new, pathetic energy. Its left leg was kicking, trying without success to run away from the Star Chief, from the concrete mattress where it lay, from the jumbled confusion of what just happened. The rest of the dog was statue still, save for the shallow rise and fall of its emaciated rib cage. It became immediately clear that the dog was broken; it was trying to flee because that’s what dogs do. This dog could no longer flee, and the distraught look in its eyes revealed to those of us still staring that such a fact was excruciatingly unacceptable.

                I couldn’t help but stare. I couldn’t help but watch as the dog kicked with its only functioning leg, laying there with the rest of its mangled body motionless, no doubt searching for some dog-explanation, some dog-meaning as to why it could no longer move the way it had just seconds before. That’s when I heard the miserable, heart-stabbing wheeze-slash-whimper, a knife that cut through horns, birdsong, idle conversation, and the souls of those who stared at its origin.

                My initial reaction was to run to the dog. If the dog was suffering, then I had to put it out of its misery; it’s my duty. Was it suffering? It sure as hell looked that way. I mean, wasn’t it my duty? Wasn’t it my obligation to immediately end the dog’s life because letting it continue to suffer was inhumane? Torture? This is not the type of thing I’m familiar with. I didn’t even know how I was to go about doing it if I indeed had to. Did I have the necessary tools required for such an undertaking?

Contents of backpack: baseball, baseball glove, mechanical pencil, plastic Bic pen, an umbrella, and a common Spanish phrasebook. What if I was wrong in my estimation? I mean, the only veterinary experience I had up until that point was changing kitty litter and overusing that Universal Kissing Language. I pulled out the Spanish phrasebook as if therein was the answer. Nothing. Maybe if I used the Universal Kissing Language and the dog responded in a somewhat normal fashion, then I should try to save it, I thought. But the dog did not look normal; it was still kicking the air and the wheeze-slash-whimper had just been accompanied by a wet gurgle. Oh God. I fingered through the phrasebook for something like “Hurry! I need to kill this dog!” It wasn’t in there; this book’s for tourists, and that’s exactly the way I felt as a tall, dark Cubano trotted disinterestedly out to the dog, grabbed its erratically kicking leg, and dragged the dying animal out of sight. This was the best of all possible solutions as far as I was concerned and I’ll tell you why:  the only other option I had was to pull out the Bic and frantically stab the dog to end its suffering. This was a terribly frightening proposition for the dog, any spectators, and for myself, its improvised and exponentially inadequate executioner: I am a naïve foreigner; a dumb animal. I am just a tourist here and they certainly don’t make pens like they used to.