| 93. A DRUNK FISHERMAN:
Ferries go from Muelle de la Luz, across the street from Dos Hermanos,
to Regla or Casablanca. I think it was the one I rode to Casablanca that
day that was highjacked out to sea the next year, leading to the execution
of 3 of the highjackers, which was widely protested. But the ferry is only a water bus, a light barge with a potentially slippery deck and no seats, ridden by old people and children and bicyclers and girls in high heels, nobody dressed or equipped or supplied for hours on choppy seas, and if you'd ever been on it and also read what happened on the Granma website, you'd be for shooting somebody, too. But U.S. Coverage wasn't very real. I took pictures and talked to people in Casablanca and was focusing on a small boatyard when I was accosted by a red-eyed, stubble-jawed drunk who told me I couldn't take the picture. I snapped it and then asked him how many CDR's were in a small town like that. He told me none; the fishermen were all anti-communist. "Everybody here is gusano." But he didn't speak loud enough to be heard by the table inside the gate, where other fishermen were drinking and playing dominos. There was another, more sober domino game in a small park about 20 yards outside the gate. I asked, since he was a fisherman and had all these boats, why didn't he just go to Miami? He claimed 20% of the townspeople had, but he was 40 and he knew he couldn't get work in Florida. Here he had a house and they had to take care of him. "I don't want to trade the shit I know for the shit I don't know." I said I was looking for people who hadn't signed the petition to talk to and maybe this was the place. He lowered his voice almost to a whisper to tell me he hadn't signed, but then he blustered a little louder, "Nobody here signed." "Then I want to talk to everyone." "No. No good. Listen. Some kids are swimming over there a little. You want to take a picture of that. Follow me." I didn't really want to talk to more drunks, but I approached the other domino game, while the drunk tried to steer me away, and said, "I've heard there are a lot of ant-communists here." A teenage boy waved his hand at the fisherman and told me, "Don't listen to him. He's a drunk. Ask the cook." The cook was a very big man at the head of the table. "There are no gusanos here," he told me sternly, without lifting his eyes from his play. The drunk fisherman had retreated into the boatyard. I took his word only for himself, so he was the 4th and last person I talked to who didn't sign. |
