Chango's Beads and Two-Tone Shoes (53 page)

He expected major applause from this remark but the two remaining women in the room silently left their chairs.

“Ours is a cosmos in motion,” he said, “moving relentlessly in an arc of justice.” He smiled, fully aware his remarks were menacing. The room was now empty.

“In an arc of justice,” he said.

What a line.

“In an arc of justice,” he said again.

Always leave ‘em laughing.

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ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

This novel is full of true stories of both revolutions it addresses, and of the people in them. I have changed dates and names, and telescoped time and events to control the story; any real people have been reimagined.

I am indebted to many Cubans for providing me with personal or historical memories of the revolution, most notably Natalia Bolívar Aróstegui, who gave me abundant access to her remarkable life story; I have drawn on it, but she should not be held accountable for the behavior of any Cuban women in this novel, unless she wants to be. I am also profoundly grateful to Norberto Fuentes, a longtime friend and chronicler of the revolution in fiction and nonfiction. His counsel on Cuban political and cultural history has been invaluable to this book.

Among the many witnesses to the revolution who told me stories I must mention Manuel Penebaz, the late Amadeo Lopez Castro, the artists Aldo Menéndez and Ivonne Ferrer, Rafael Del Pino, Patricia Gutiérrez, Eloy Gutiérrez Menoyo, the late filmmaker Tomas Gutiérrez Alea, Helmo Hernández, Pablo Armando Fernández, Gabriel García Márquez, Richard Burton of Miami, William Irizarry, Max Lesnick; also Joanne Dearcopp, the late artist Peter Taylor of Troy, who knew Hemingway; also Omar Gonzalez, Alfredo Guevara, and Fidel Castro.

There are too many books to list but I must note an important few:
El Asalto al Palacio Presidencial
by Faure Chomón;
Asalto
, edited by Míriam Zito;
The Mambi-Land
by James J. O’Kelly;
Diary of the Cuban Revolution
by Carlos Franqui;
Cuba
by Hugh Thomas;
Episodes of the Revolutionary War
by Ernesto Che Guevara;
Salida 19, Operación Comando
by William Gálvez Rodriguez;
Fidel Castro: My Life
with Ignacio Ramonet;
The Autobiography of Fidel Castro
by Norberto Fuentes;
Fidel
by Tad Szulc;
Behind the Burnt Cork Mask
by William J. Mahar;
Ragged but Right: Black Traveling Shows, “Coon Songs,” and the Dark Pathway to Blues and Jazz
by Lynn Abbott and Doug Seroff. Writings of Daryl Pinckney, Julian Mayfield, and Caryl Phillips were of particular importance, as was a Florida State University master’s thesis by Scott Freeland,
Kinking the Stereotype: Barbers and Hairstyles as Signifiers of Authentic American Racial Performance.

In Albany I am indebted to Leon Van Dyke of the Brothers, whom I have known for forty-six years; also Brothers Earl Thorpe and the late Sam McDowell; also my old friend Peter O’Brien; the late Olivia Rorie; the late George Bunch; the late jazz pianist Jody Bolden (a.k.a. Bobby Henderson); Hank O’Neal, who salvaged Jody’s work; my legal counselor, David Duncan; Father Nellis Tremblay; the late Reverend James U. Smythe; Larry Burwell; the late Dottie Ann Kite; Jane Schneider; Michael Nardolillo; Richard Collins; my splendid researcher, Suzanne Roberson; my editor, Paul Slovak; my agent, Andrew Wylie; my perennial translator, Betsy Lopez Viglucci; and my early readers: the poet Peg Boyers, my son Brendan, and my gorgeous wife, Dana.

ALSO BY WILLIAM KENNEDY

FICTION
The Ink Truck
Legs
Billy Phelan’s Greatest Game
Ironweed
Quinn’s Book
Very Old Bones
The Flaming Corsage
Roscoe

NONFICTION
O Albany!
Riding the Yellow Trolley Car
WITH BRENDAN KENNEDY
Charlie Malarkey and the Belly-Button Machine
Charley Malarkey and the Singing Moose