T A B L E_T A L K Is Chicago loaded with too much testosterone? Chat up the Windy City in Table Talk R E C E N T L Y How to buy a Turkish rug By Laura Billings A priceless encounter (01/21/98) First descent By Steve Van Beek Rafting where no human has been before (01/20/98) Olympics bound By Gina Arnold A trip to Japan rekindles a life-shaping obsession (01/19/98) Bad trip By Dawn MacKeen Tale of a flight from hell (01/16/98) Remembering an Everest hero By Suzette Lalime Death of an Everest hero: Anatoli Boukreev (01/16/98) - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - Your virtual travel agency - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - Browse the Passages archives		W A I T I N G _ F O R _ F I D E L _|+P A G E+2+O F +3 - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - I learned more about capitalism, Cuban style, near Old Havana. A cluster of men gathered in a tight circle in the plaza of Central Park. Judging from the boisterous shouts and shaking fists, they were watching a brawl. Closer, I saw that the crowd was focused on two men faced off like cocks in a pit. A black man in a faded yellow tank top pushed his face to within inches of his opponent's nose. His brown eyes widened. Smooth features contorted. One palm extended outward, as if pleading for reason. The other hand flapped like a bronco. His point made, the aggressor planted his feet and folded his arms. The adversary, a stocky man in a checked shirt, sprang to life. Arms spread, veins popping, he launched an oral bombardment that looked likely to end in fisticuffs or apoplexy. Communism versus capitalism? Is there a God? The chainsaw buzz of their Spanish made it impossible for me to tell the stakes. I turned to a sturdy youth who was also watching the debate. Broad shoulders and a square jaw gave him the air of an athlete. A button-down shirt, khaki pants, and tasseled loafers were pure Brooks Brothers. "What are they arguing about?" "Baseball." "This is about baseball?" "Baseball is very serious for Cubans. Do you want to buy cigars?" "No. Thanks." "Cuban cigars are very good, very famous." "I don't smoke." "Maybe you have friends who smoke." The dapper hustler, Luis, also told me to watch my step. Matching my slow strides across the park, he warned that the streets of Havana were filled with cigar dealers. Most sold phony stogies. He, on the other hand, insisted that he had the real deal: "My uncle works in a cigar factory. They give cigars to the workers. But my uncle needs money more than he needs cigars. So we sell them to tourists. Good quality." When not hustling, the twenty-two-year-old worked at the airport. His dismal salary -- the equivalent of six dollars a month -- barely dented the cost of supporting his wife and infant son. So Luis became a "businessman." Cigars were his main line. His sideline was befriending foreigners in the hope of getting cash and clothes. That didn't make him a thief. Nor did he hurt people. Others were less scrupulous. Luis took my notebook and asked for a pen. The young mulatto opened the back cover and began to scribble. Speaking as he wrote, he said that new words were entering the Cuban vocabulary. To understand the new lexicon was to understand Cuba. Luis finished writing and handed back the notebook, now filled with the local lingo. Wanikiki meant money. Fula was a more specific way to refer to dollars. These were usually found in the possession of a papirici, a word that combined the words for "papa" and "rich." A jinetero, Spanish for "jockey," was a guy looking to separate a papirici from his wanikiki. The process of doing so was el fuego. "The fire," literally. "So you're a jinetero," I said. "These days, all Cubans are jineteros." Luis asked if I needed a taxi to take me home. I did. The afternoon sun had drained my energy. What I didn't need was to pour more money into a state cab like the one that charged me twenty dollars -- three times Luis's monthly pay -- for a ride from the airport. "No problem," said Luis. "I'll get you a taxi for Cubans." Luis surveyed the vehicles stationed along the rim of Central Park. Cardboard signs hand-printed TAXI rested inside the windscreens of battered American classics and slightly less battered Soviet buckets. Luis approached a Lada idling in the shade. The seated driver listened hard as the hustler spoke. The chat ended with the Cubans shaking hands and beckoning me to board the front seat. "He will take you home for three dollars," Luis announced. Cooled by the breeze created by the Lada's movement along the Malecon, I looked at the driver. The sun had burnished an indelible tan as well as dozens of lines on his gaunt face. Scarred arms and rough hands identified the man as a manual laborer. I wondered how he could afford a car. "I earned it by cutting sugarcane," he said. "It must take a lot of cane to pay for a car." "I was one of Cuba's best cane cutters." The driver explained that the state motivated workers with promises of goods. Televisions were common rewards for top workers. The big prize was a car. The country's best cane cutter got one for free. Lesser standouts won the right to buy a vehicle. Named to his province's all-star team in 1981, he paid for the Lada by pooling his savings with loans from friends. Havana's fleet of free-lance taxis was rife with similar success stories. The drivers of the Soviet bloc autos were men who had played and won the government's game. In the weeks that followed, crack factory workers drove me to Old Havana. Top-notch bureaucrats brought me back. So did military heroes. In other words, model communists were leading the capitalist charge. "Three dollars is a lot," I noted at the end of the ride. "Gas is very expensive in Cuba. Ninety cents, American cents, for one liter." "How many liters did you just use?" "One." "So your profit is two dollars." "Only one. I have to give one dollar to your friend." My friend? The meeting in the park. The stuff about Cubans surfing the changing economy. Had any of the banter been genuine? I handed over the fare. The cane cutter passed the notes from his right hand into his left. Raising his index finger on his free hand, he leaned across the seat. Rather than thank me, the driver offered a broader view on dollar-wielding outsiders: "In Cuba, you are Jesus." "Do you have a light?" "What?" "A light." "No. Sorry." The dark-skinned woman stayed put. Standing flush against the rim of my bar stool, she waited, as if I might remember a matchbook buried in my pocket's lint. Or maybe she expected chivalry. Fidel Castro had promised social, political, and economic equality for women. But did progress excuse a comrade from helping a lady? Yes or no, this lady was a fire hazard. She nibbled thick lips painted scarlet. The swatch of color floated amid a stretch of chestnut skin that began at her forehead and ended at the neck line of a white leotard that hugged curves normally found in centerfolds. She held my stare for several elongated seconds before moving away, slowly, and casting a last look over her shoulder. Physically, the second woman to approach my bar stool had little in common with the first. A brown mane spilled past the edges of green eyes and an inviting grin. The hair came to rest on toasted shoulders left bare by a cocktail dress. Silver sequins covered, though just barely, buttocks raised three inches by black spiked heels. She, like her predecessor, wanted a light from an American barfly. "I don't smoke," I said. "Do you like to dance?" "I don't know how." Dumb answer. The music blasting from linebacker-size speakers wasn't salsa. Born in the USA, the tunes called for nothing trickier than a wiggle and a bounce. What's more, the girl in the cocktail dress probably wasn't looking for Fred Astaire. She may not even have wanted a light. I would never know. Two clipped answers were enough to scare off one feline Cuban. There were plenty more like her. I struggled not to stare at a mulatta wearing a black evening gown, the bleached blonde whose behind just about burst its Lycra casing, and the rest of the parade of head-turners populating Hotel Comodoro's nightclub. Deconstructed, the women provided a catalogue of undulating hair, painted lips, and unhidable curves. Reassembled, they were a harem. "Impressive, isn't it," said a voice behind me. The slightest of accents told me that Peter had returned. Turning, I found his familiar blue eyes and dirty blond hair. The German's doughy face cracked a sinister smile that spread to my mouth. "Unbelievable," I replied. A resident of Havana, Peter was teaching me about living large in Cuba. He started by instructing me on eating in paladares, private restaurants in the homes of Cubans willing to let foreigners masticate in their living rooms and on their terraces. He also told me about the wave of European and Latino businessmen streaming into Havana. "Everybody can see this should be a great place to do business. Their education system has produced a big pool of well-educated people." The German's true love, however, was cars. No newcomer could miss the automobiles cruising the capital. Paint weathered, bodies dented, windshields cracked like spider webs, classic Fords and Chevrolets clattered along the Malecon every few minutes. Engines minted back when Americans liked Ike rumbled like outboard motors. Maneuverability? Sherman tanks sprung to mind. That the beasts from Detroit moved at all was nothing short of a miracle. Not so the Buick convertible in which Peter had picked me up. A smooth layer of red coated the car's unblemished hide. The chrome grill caught and magnified the lights above the street. The convertible's soft top exposed shiny red seats. White wall tires were the final touch to a flawless flashback. The German revved the engine and hit the car's mighty horn. The cherubic entrepreneur blasted his klaxon again when the Buick passed a billboard on the Malecon. Painted in full view of the so-called U.S. Interests Section, America's unofficial embassy in Havana, the propaganda showed a hopping mad Uncle Sam reacting to the taunts of another cartoon figure. One hand gripping a rifle, the other cupped beside his mouth, a Cuban soldier was shouting, "Imperialists, we have absolutely no fear of you." Resettled on the bar stool beside mine, Peter demonstrated his mastery of things Cuban. Standing halfway around the bar from our spot was a woman who, while not beautiful, dripped sexuality. An eruption of kinked brown hair and swollen painted lips took back seat to a figure that punished the seams of a skimpy sleeveless top cut from black leather. Swaying to the throbbing beat, she scanned the crowd with the concentration of a big-game hunter. Her eyes landed on two of the bar's smaller fry. "Got a light?" said the slight lift of her unlit cigarette. "Of course," replied Peter's cool nod. The vamp swaggered her way around the bar. She placed the cigarette between her lips and waited for Peter, a nonsmoker, to produce a lighter and ignite its end. She closed her eyes to draw in the first breath and took pains to pucker her lips for the extended exhalation that followed. Only then did she introduce herself. And only to Peter. Just as well. No small-talker in English, I saw no hope of learning the nonstop banter that came naturally to Cubans. Peter chattered like a native, leaving me to wonder what was going on. Had I died and gone to heaven? Or was there something else at work? "Are these girls prostitutes?" I asked after the woman excused herself with a gentle stroke of Peter's thigh. "No." "Then why are they all so ... friendly?" "Cuban women know what they want," was the start of the answer. The rest took more explaining. Cubans, he said, had just enough money to survive. Extras -- clothing, for example -- were beyond the means of most locals. Foreigners, on the other hand, came to Cuba flush with cash. They were met by small-time hustlers selling cigars or renting rooms. Long on desire but short on cash, the ladies prowled through the night for their slice of the pie. Known as jineteras, they sought sugar daddies to buy a drink tonight, dinner tomorrow, and perhaps new shoes and a dress in between. Peter insisted that the Cubans in the nightclub were nice girls. Several were known to be the daughters of Party officials. The rest came from good families, the type that read books and said prayers. Virtually all had studied at a university. Breeding didn't mean they weren't (a) young and (b) restless. "That girl who was just here, the one with the black ..." Peter struggled to define the top, which covered more than a bra but less than a vest. "She has a master's degree in engineering." N E X T+P A G E+| "Tell your friend seventy-five"