Minutes afterwards a senior black colored woman dressed in a yellow garment over white tresses came up throughout the 2nd-floors windows. She searched baffled but then accepted Willy. “ Hola. Hola. ” She welcome all of us upstairs.
Their unique identity are Gladis Castaneda, and she got an expert ancient pianist for the Havana through the the fresh 1950s. She was a small woman in her own 80s otherwise 1990s. She nodded as he stated La Reina. Sure, she told you, he would lived-in it people, best next door. Here, on tissue, is a person who knew the epic Superman-evidence, actually, the man indeed resided.
Superman, Castaneda said, are high, strong, known. “Men and women knew your as the Queen,” she said. “He had been gay, you did not wreck havoc on him.” She questioned me to sit. “He had been your own level. But strong. Muscle.” He previously epidermis eg hers: dark, not really. “He was an effective man. No-one got an issue with him.” I asked in the event the everybody in the community understood exactly what he did to possess a full time income. “Young man, it was years ago. He leftover years ago.”
Willy asked if the she knew what became away from your, and you can she told you she thinks he passed away when you look at the Miami. Her time was waning, and you will Willy nodded for me to indicate the time had come we wade.
Down on the road, we fulfilled a mit jemandem aus der dominikanischen Kultur classic man tilting from the wall. His identity was Elado. The guy sent a cane and you will used a free environmentally friendly jacket having a Masonic icon holding of a sequence as much as his neck. Willy advised him we had been wanting information on the guy they entitled Los angeles Reina.
“ Si, si, ” the outdated guy told you. “La Reina-everyone know your. Mulatto. About your level,” the guy nodded within my guidance. “Anyone known your. He resided right here getting 20 years. Definitely, everybody else know just what the guy did to have an income.” He told you Superman remaining towards You.S. into the 1959. “No body knew his label. Anyone merely entitled him Los angeles Reina.”
We inserted her roomy apartment, and Willy explained that which we were doing
Outside of the chapel, roosters crowed. Good girl wear Rollerblades talked on a cover mobile phone. A vintage people in the a leather-based golf cover used a beneficial cigar towards the a beneficial backless wooden sofa.
His hair is white and you will wild
We wandered courtesy Los Sitios with the Barrio Chino until i turned up in the 507 Marquis Highway. I stood in the street studying the access so you’re able to a martial-arts school: Escuela Cubana de- Wushu. They got a reddish and you may red facade with a gold foo dog and you may a red metal entrance.
The doorway was discover. In the front gate is actually an effective courtyard with a little restaurant and several stationary exercise equipment. The theater just after endured where the school’s backyard courtyard is now. I made an effort to consider in which the stage has been. The new dressing room in which Superman open to the brand new inform you. The balcony where drunken travelers watched new performance.
A short time later on i returned to Barrio de- los Sitios to help you fabric for other people which may have identified Superman. On the flat strengthening close to Gladis Castaneda’s, i met Superman’s real next-door neighbor: an old pizza pie chef titled Roberto Cabarero, 82 yrs old, with a heavily tarnished and stretched muscles shirt, drooping brown shorts into the travel open, and you may black clothes having holes from the feet. Their facial skin sagged such as a sea turtle’s.
Cabarero’s apartment, in which the guy stayed together with spouse, are small and you can ramshackle, full of rubbish. His partner seated in the exact middle of the tiny living room, rocking back-and-forth inside the a wooden sofa, talking loudly within no-one specifically. A wireless blared tinny old Foreign language musical, and you may a puppy was available in and you can out from the room so you can consume crumbs off the floors. A security clock sounded throughout our very own meeting. Nobody bothered to turn it well.