By Pedro Pablo Morejon
HAVANA TIMES – Once a week, I have to travel and endure the scourge of a chronic problem worsened by the rise in fuel prices. Transportation is now scarcer and more expensive.
I’ve been at this place on the road for two hours. There are people there since very early, around 40 of them. Finally, a state truck stops that would drop me off halfway. The driver charges an amount to transport us in a rickety dump truck. Almost everyone gets on, some heading to that destination and others, like me, to move ahead bit by bit.
When I get off, I become part of a group that joins the other group waiting under the sun that emerges from a sky that until recently was cloudy.
Minutes and hours pass, nothing happens, the sun intensifies, and the group of people grows. A man over 60 approaches, seems to know me, and indeed, he does. I start to remember him. It was September 1994, I had a few days off from military service, and visiting my revolutionary paternal family, I encounter a man in a Ministry of the Interior (MININT) uniform, the new boyfriend of my eldest aunt.
He worked in prisons, and I found him unpleasant. I tried to avoid him, although for some reason, he sought me out. He disappeared, and later we coincided on some occasions.
This time, he was wearing a uniform as a guard in some company. At first, it was hard for me to recognize him due to the deterioration of his appearance, as if the years had fallen harshly on his skeleton. I, not being a gregarious type and even less willing to listen to inconsequential chatter from people I don’t like, began to find a way to, as they say in Cuban, “get rid of him.”
I started to edge into the topic that always comes to light in these times, namely, the situation, until we were well into the matter of misery and how tough 2024 is going to be. The man surprised me with a statement.
“All of this is the fault of” … (making a gesture with his hands on the bottom of his face in reference to a beard, and we all know who that is) “He’s the one who led us astray.”
Seeing the shyness of his body language expressing such a confession, I decided to dive in deep. I told him everything I thought about that character and all those who support him inside and outside the country. At some point, he tried to change the topic of conversation, but I didn’t take my foot off the accelerator.
He looked uncomfortable from side to side; I could see the fear in his eyes. That fear that always emerges in men of his generation. Slowly and discreetly, he distanced himself. My strategy worked.
Finally, I reached my destination; it had been almost four hours since I left, and my emotions swung like a pendulum between laughter and concern.
Read more from Pedro Pablo Morejon here on Havana Times.
