Don't Axe, Don't Tell

I Don’t Sleep Well in Cuba

                I woke up this morning breathless, partially due to the amount of combusted carbon I’ve inhaled since arriving in Cuba, and partially because I just had a nightmare. I had just witnessed a vivid and dramatic axe-fight in my dream. I’m not sure what started the whole incident, but the results were undeniable: a group of men began fighting with large axes. The dream was extremely graphic, too. I won’t go into detail here, but just know that I saw a very detailed type of gore and brutality.

                This dream was significant for a couple of reasons. After seeing a man get the side of his cheek smashed in with an axe, I immediately felt the urge to run. In the dream with my mouth open and heart pounding, I began backing away. Unfortunately, (or perhaps most fortunately) I didn’t see what followed because I woke up right after this, but the notion of escaping doom was so real I could taste it. In fact, my jaw is still sore due to its crocodile-like, vice-tight clench. As I emerged from the very real sounds of metal meeting flesh and bone, (which can only be described as having that same wet thud that one might experience if he or she were to chuck meat-filled-water-balloons from atop the Empire State Building) I started thinking about the Vikings, the Samurai, Native Americans, the machete wielding Cubans, and a swath of other groups that would have most assuredly done battle with such metallic implements. Then I started thinking about modern warfare, which, of course, includes everything from bayonets to bombs to Bouncing Betties. And then I started thinking about the countless dead. There are lots, vast lots.

                So, there I was lying in bed, thinking about axe fights and war while listening to Havana awake from a very short night. Then, in that special way in which my pre-morning, pre-coffee, pre-conscious, and precluded mind is wont to operate, I began to flesh out this idea a bit further. I started thinking of my detachment from violence. Sure, I’ve seen some documentaries, but I’ve never experienced soul-raking violence first hand, and for this I am grateful. I started thinking about the dichotomy which exists between eras of war; between civilian soldiers and professional soldiers. I started thinking about the concept of sacrifice. Of course, in war exists a sacrifice much deeper than physical; it’s spiritual and psychological along with the physical—but this is a dumb cliché, so I’ll retract.

                Regardless of the sacrifice, we (and I say we as those who have never experienced this sort of violence) have been taught that this is the price for freedom, but such a primitive sentiment has morphed over the years into a sort of motto, a militaristic mantra. Nonetheless, I think there is a more fundamental truth in this idea of sacrifice. What is the meaning of sacrifice if not the selflessness of one for the selfishness of others? In other words, one self gives his or her life so that other selves might have, well, selves. Whether or not my dream was due to something I saw on T.V., an idea inculcated, or the result of a stomach full of rich and hard-to-digest Cuban food I cannot tell. Nevertheless, it was still pretty compelling.

                I think about conversations I’ve had in the past with my friends. We’d puff our chests while consuming multiple adult beverages and boast about our unflinching ability to do what was necessary to protect ourselves and our loved ones, when in all honesty I’m not actually sure what I would do if I was confronted with such a thing. But, if my dream is any indication, and if the perpetrator wields an axe, a sword, or a machete, then you can bet your bright little behind that the only thing anyone will see is my behind making its way fast and furious in the opposite direction.

          I tried to kick up some dust in Hemingway’s hotel room today, but it had been cleaned, meticulously. It was sterile in the most counterfeit of ways, replicated ineffectually with museum-esque forgery. Hemingway might have stood here once, but the aura is gone now, and all that remains is the perfume of a tour guide.

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        I’ve been in a handful of gift shops recently and I’ve noticed an abundance of Hemingway memorabilia in each one of them. This is tourism at its most recognizable; it happens everywhere and Cuba is not immune: the commodification of some regionally important (insert noun here). In this case it’s Hemingway’s aura that is being commodified. This is sort of another glimpse into capitalism, which is, I opine, even more ironic in a country like Cuba because it reveals another basic human characteristic: the desire to be profitable. Hemingway has been idealized and commodified in Cuba, which is no doubt something that he would have hated, (though he also would have probably predicted with a superb fatalism). As I pick up a postcard with Hemingway’s bearded face on the front, a woman behind me says “one CUC.” That’s expensive for a postcard.

I buy it anyway.

          It’s still sort of magical, though. That is, Hemingway’s aura. At least it felt that way when we visited his house in Finca Vigia. I gazed into his extra-organized house and noticed it was eerily well kept. Thousands of books were aligned perfectly on shelves and bookcases, which is curious to me when I think about it now because Hemingway was a writer, and writers tend to have books scattered everywhere; it’s almost policy. I wonder what he would think about what they’ve done to his hotel room, his house, and his beloved Pilar. I stared in through an open window: a military uniform was positioned just so, and a half dozen decapitated and taxidermied heads overlooked the hotel-like-made-up-beds and the ghosts of Hemingway’s cats. It cost five CUC. That’s cheap for aura.

06/13/2012

A Storm of My Own Making

                I’m pretty sure that a large brick is lodged somewhere in my midsection, which is an extremely regrettable thing to have happen in Cuba. It’s regrettable due primarily to a noticeable and significant lack of toilet paper here, (not to mention a significant lack of toilet seats!) I’ve been stuffing my face with rice, beans, and some form of meat for nearly two weeks, and I’m quite certain that most of it is still chillin’ out somewhere in an intestine. At least twice a day I enter into a state of emergency, eyes searching for the nearest place to unleash hell upon a porcelain god. I have yet to unleash anything except numerous beads of sweat and weightless grunts of frustration. Apparently, though I guess quite fortunately, the brick in my stomach is taking its sweet time making its way to the exit in the rear. The down side to my predicament, of course, is that I am terribly uncomfortable: my pants don’t feel or fit right, both my stomach and back hurt, and I’m becoming increasingly irritable. The problem is compounded every day that I don’t purge: food, food, and more food is piled atop an already incapacious arena, and gravity is no friend to this situation. I think about the food shortage again. I think about how well off I am as an American; how spoiled I am. I think about how easy it is to get toilet paper back home; it’s everywhere. People even use it to decorate trees. I think about how easy things are for most of us back in the States and it sort of makes me sick. Whatever. Two things are certain at 5:04 p.m. of June 13^th: it looks like it’s going to rain soon, and I’m finally starting to understand what it means to shit bricks.