The Prince of los Cocuyos: A Miami Childhood (20 page)

When I was younger, I was a finicky eater. “You look like
un gargajo,
a piece of phlegm—skinny and frail like a girl.
Los hombres
need to eat a lot,” Abuela insisted, and began fattening me up with a concoction of sweetened condensed milk mixed with Coca-Cola, all the Easy Cheese I wanted, double portions of rice with
frijoles negros
at dinner, and mandatory desserts:
arroz con leche,
guava marmalade, bread
pudín
. But now that I was twenty pounds overweight, she was mortified: “Bad enough being a sissy—but a fat sissy—
¡qué va!
You have to lose all that
gordura
.” And so began her campaign to slim me down. She made me ride my bike ten times around the block every day after school, and roller-skate twice a week for an hour up and down the front walkway, wrapped in garbage bags so I would “sweat out the fat.” She even agreed to my request for a pogo stick just like the one my cousin Marlene had, after I convinced her that pogo-ing would be good exercise; although she immediately cut the plastic tassels off the handlebars. She banned all my favorite foods—the same foods she had used to fatten me up into
un macho
.

After weeks of watching Abuela torment me, Mamá spoke up, albeit with caution. “
Bueno,
he’s not that fat,” she told Abuela. “He’s more like
hoosky,
” she said, mispronouncing the English word she had learned from the husky section of the boys department at Kmart, where she bought all my clothes. Riffling through the racks, she’d load her arm with a dozen gabardine blazers and pleated trousers. I’d step out of the fitting room, branded with the giant H on the tag hanging from my sleeve, modeling each piece with my head bowed until we found something that fit. Or almost fit.
Hoosky
was still embarrassing, but it was better than
Lardo,
I supposed.

I WAS LOOKING FORWARD TO THE SUMMER: RUNNING
errands all day with my grandparents in their baby-blue Comet that smelled like oranges; playing Aquaman at
tía
Ofelia’s swimming pool; watching
The Price Is Right
and reruns of
I Love Lucy
all afternoon, sitting on the couch in my underwear, munching on cheese puffs. But that all changed a week before school let out. “What
Riqui needs is hard work, a good
trabajo
. That will make him
un hombre
. He’s old enough; it’s time,” Abuela announced at dinner, speaking to my parents about me in the third person as if I weren’t sitting right across from her. “
Además,
” she continued, “working he will lose weight so that his
pipi
will grow. You know, if he doesn’t lose all that fat before he turns thirteen, his
pipi
will shrivel up—become
nada
.”

I gulped. My
pipi
shriveled right then and there. Except for Caco choking on his food as he tried to stifle his laughter, complete silence followed Abuela’s announcement. She shoved another mound of black beans and rice onto her fork with her pudgy thumb, stuffed it into her mouth, and continued talking with her mouth full, pausing only to chew. “Remember what happen to Juan
el bobo
back in Cuba? I warned his mother,
pero
she didn’t listen to me. Then it was too late, he had to have an operation to pull it out.” There was
always
some character Abuela knew, in some town in Cuba, who served as a perfect example of good or bad fortune.

She continued with her plan: “
Ya hablé
with Don Gustavo. He’ll let him help out at El Cocuyito all summer for fifty-five dollars a week.” Don Gustavo was my
tío
Pipo’s father-in-law and the chief of that side of the family, while Abuela ruled our side. She continued, instructing my father: “You drop him at the store
por la mañana
before going to work, and then pick him up.” Exiled Cubans who ran family-owned grocery stores, like Don Gustavo, were exempt from child labor laws, apparently. Then Abuela delivered her ultimatum: “He goes to work or
si no
he goes back to baseball at Flagami.” No! Anything but baseball, I thought, flashing back to those dreadful ninety-eight-degree afternoons in left field, shooing away gnats, terrified of fire ants, the fly balls I could never catch, and the boos every time I struck out at bat. I hated baseball and Abuela knew it; she knew I wouldn’t object to working at El Cocuyito given the alternative. Once again, my parents didn’t protest. “
Bueno,
we’ll see . . .” was all Mamá could say to her. “Maybe . . .
vamos a ver,
” Papá said, but I knew the deal was done.

When I was a young child, before Abuela and Abuelo had moved to Miami and could babysit me on weekends, my parents had to take me with them every Saturday and Sunday to El Cocuyito, where they worked at the time—he as a butcher, and she as a cashier. I’d spend the day playing hide-and-seek by myself, crouching between dusty boxes stacked like giant toy blocks in the storeroom; or chasing the old guard dog, Napoleón, as he limped through the stockroom. When there were no customers at the checkout, Mamá would plop me on the conveyor belt—my magic rubber carpet. When Don Gustavo went home for lunch, Papá would let me wear one of his white smocks that reached my ankles like a dress; he would take me into the meat locker, a room full of death and bitter cold that somehow also felt magical: the hanging sides of beef towering over me like dinosaurs in a museum, the bags of frozen cow tongues as big as my arm, my breaths floating away like tiny clouds, which I followed in awe until they disappeared. El Cocuyito was a magical part of my childhood, and despite the reason for my employment, I looked forward to working there.

When I arrived at 7:30
A.M.
that first day of work, I was reminded of that childhood, and just how little El Cocuyito had changed over all the years I had continued visiting the store with Abuelo and Abuela. I noticed the same translucent emerald letters hand-painted on the plate-glass doors, announcing:
EL COCUYITO SUPERMERCADO
|
CARNICERÍA—MEATS
|
CAFETERÍA—CAFÉ CUBANO
, set aglow by the rays of the sun; the same narrow aisles, tiny canyons four feet wide; the metal shelves painted a pale green, the color of mint ice cream; the same chipped linoleum tiles, worn and bleached almost white from years of mopping; the fish bowl filled with gumballs still atop the
cafeteria counter; and the same smell of
papas rellenas
frying and
café cubano
brewing.

There were no customers yet, only the cashier, Sonia, wearing a knit sweater and rubbing her hands to warm herself up in the cold air of the store, chilled overnight by the open-faced refrigerator cases. But she greeted me warmly: “
¡Hola! Ave María,
look how big you are!
Bueno,
let’s get started; I could sure use
una manito
around here.” She showed me how to stack the brown grocery bags in the cubbyholes and how to wipe down the conveyor belt with Fantastik. The next day I graduated to more challenging tasks like bagging groceries and price checks. By the third day, we already had a routine. I’d spend the mornings bagging groceries for housewives who would twaddle on about what a good job I was doing, how mature and responsible I seemed for such a young age, and how I reminded them of one of their sons or nephews. After lunch, I’d walk down the spotless aisles with a broom and dustpan looking for a bit of dirt to sweep up, or I’d clean the already clean shelves with a feather duster like a French maid. When things slowed down and there were no customers in line, Sonia would let me ring up a few “practice” items as she looked over my shoulder, shaking her head whenever I was about to hit a wrong key.

The first week felt like I was playing grown-up rather than working, but this didn’t last for long. Don Gustavo began keeping an eye on me as he patrolled the aisles day after day wearing the same bland uniform: gray polyester trousers with a cracked leather belt; a short-sleeve shirt, white and starched and tucked in; and black lace-up shoes with rubber soles. Like his clothes, he was no-nonsense, a call-them-as-he-saw-them man who seemed to leave no room for arguments or excuses. He gave me a sideways glance every time he caught me chatting with Migdalia, who staffed the cafeteria counter, and tsk-tsked whenever he saw me munching on a
pastelito
and sipping a soda.

He was waiting for the right moment to pounce on me—and it came. During one of my afternoon breaks, I grabbed a magazine from the tabletop rack at the cafeteria and sat at the counter, pretending I could read Spanish as easily as English, paging through new words and new faces of Latino heartthrobs with bushy eyebrows and hairy legs. Suddenly, I felt a bony tap on my shoulder and turned around to face Don Gustavo, who was in cahoots with my
abuela
. “You want
un cafecito
while you read,
señorita
?” he asked. “You think this is a country club? I’m not paying you to sit on your
culo
.
Vamos,
come with me,” he commanded.

I followed the squeak of his shoes down the cereal aisle and into the storeroom. “Put these on the cart,” he ordered, pointing to a tower of boxes marked Mazola Corn Oil. “Drop one,
caramba,
and you be cleaning oil off the floor all day.” I was barely able to get a grip on the first one; it slipped out of my hands and landed with a thump on the cart. “
Vamos a ver,
let’s see if you are as soft as your
abuela
says,” he egged me on, a smoldering cigar dangling from the right side of his mouth, puffs of smoke spewing from it like dragon’s breath. I was too scared of him to protest; instead, my fear was channeled into brute force. I loaded the next box, and the next, and the next—all eight of them. “Now what?” I asked cockily, feeling a little more courageous but still unable to look him in the eyes, magnified behind the thick lenses of his glasses.

Don Gustavo took me, or rather,
crushed
me, under his wing. I began reporting to him every morning. Hard of hearing (though he never admitted it), he was a human bullhorn, yelling instructions and commands over my shoulder all day long. The whole store could hear him and the corresponding silence of my embarrassment. Lesson number one: No! Nunca
sit on the floor. Kneel like
un hombre
when you’re working on the shelves at the bottom
. Lesson number two: Coño
—move the older eggs to the front; if they go bad, I’ll make you eat rotten eggs for a week
. But my apprenticeship went beyond learning the stock boy’s trade. In Don Gustavo’s view, hard
work made a man, and being a man came with its own subset of lessons. Lesson number three:
Only women use straws
(he never let me drink anything, not even mamey shakes, from a straw). Lesson number four:
Real men don’t work in shorts; shorts are for little mamacita’s boys
. Lesson number five:
Real men are not afraid of getting dirty,
he’d say every time he made me climb into the Dumpster to stomp down the heap of putrid trash.

By midsummer I was worn out physically and emotionally. I thought about quitting, even though it would mean spending the rest of the summer in Little League. But then Don Gustavo asked me to help him stock and fix up the fruit and vegetable aisle, his pride and joy. I noticed a tenderness in the way his callused hands cradled the guavas as he took them one by one from the box, praising the choicest—
¡Qué linda!
—and tossing the ones that were too small, scarred, or bruised. With the patience of a sculptor, he shaved the fuzzy nap off each yuca and malanga root. He showed me how to pick out the ripest mangos. Lesson number six:
Press the flesh with your thumb. Smell the sap at the root of the stem
. ¡Qué rico!
Hold it to the light. Can you see all the colors?

After several weeks, he let me stock all the produce, even allowing me to pile the oranges into pyramids, watching my every move, nodding his head in silent approval. And he broke out of character, sharing snippets about himself as we rotated the ripest avocados to the top of the pile or separated the
plátanos verdes
from the
plátanos maduros
.
You know I owned three
mercados
in Cuba till that
hijo de puta
took them for his
Revolución. He lost everything. According to family lore, his wife smuggled a one-thousand-dollar bill rolled up her butt when they left Cuba. He used the money to set up his own business buying fresh produce in rural Homestead and then selling it for a profit to grocery stores and restaurants all over Miami.
You know, when I got here in 1965, there was
nada,
not even a place to get
un cafecito
or a loaf of
pan cubano. By 1968, he had saved enough to open El Cocuyito. Since I’d been a child, he had told stories about the hundreds of
cocuyos
that had lit the night sky of his village, Palmira. He’d chase the fireflies with his father and trap them in jars—just as I had done with Papá in Güecheste. He also told me about the
señoritas
who’d wear
cocuyos
clipped to their earlobes and their dresses to vie for the attention of
caballeros
at the village square.

Soon after he opened El Cocuyito, it became a renowned and treasured place where Cuban exiles could satisfy their nostalgic hunger for foods that were almost impossible to find elsewhere.
You know,
a veces
it’s the simple things people miss
. He stocked the store with sweet boiled ham imported from Spain; tropical fruits like mamey, papaya, and loquats from the Dominican Republic; and canned
dulce de coco
and guava marmalade from Puerto Rico. Puedes creer
I got that oven in the back for a hundred dollars from
una pizzería vieja.
My abuelo taught me to bake
pan cubano
and those
pastelitos
you keep eating all day
.

Despite the store’s success, Don Gustavo still put in fourteen-hour days. El Cocuyito was more than his livelihood, it was a substitute for the life he had left behind in Cuba.
You know,
mi familia
had a big farm in Palmira
. Through his words, I saw him as a child sitting with his father in their groves, slicing into dozens of oranges with their fingernails. I watched the sugarcane fields set ablaze after each harvest, the ashes dusting the entire town like a tropical snow. One day, he took me into the office and opened the safe. From the safe he took a small pouch—it held a handful of dirt he had taken from his farm thirteen years earlier. “Smell it.
Anda,
smell it,” he said. “That’s what Cuba smells like. It’s all I have left—this little bit of my
tierra
.” Lesson number seven: Exilio
will kill a man. May you never have to leave this country of yours
.