Minutes after an elderly black colored woman wearing a red garment more white hair came up regarding next-floor windows. She featured puzzled then again accepted Willy. “ Hola. Hola. ” She allowed us upstairs.
Their term are Testen Sie die Website Gladis Castaneda, and you may she was actually an expert classical pianist for the Havana throughout the fresh 1950s. She is actually a small woman inside her eighties or 1990’s. She nodded when he mentioned La Reina. Yes, she said, he’d lived in which people, right nearby. Right here, on tissue, is actually an individual who know new legendary Superman-evidence, indeed, that the people indeed lived.
Superman, Castaneda said, was extreme, good, known. “Everyone know your once the King,” she told you. “He was gay, you did not wreak havoc on your.” She expected us to stand. “He had been the height. But strong. Muscle.” He previously epidermis including hers: black, but not most. “He was a beneficial man. No one got a problem with him.” I inquired in the event the everybody in the people understood what he did getting a living. “Son, it absolutely was years ago. The guy leftover years ago.”
Willy requested when the she knew just what turned into off your, and you may she told you she believes the guy passed away inside the Miami. Her opportunity is actually waning, and you will Willy nodded in my opinion to point the time had come i wade.
Down on the street, we satisfied a vintage guy bending up against the wall structure. His identity is Elado. The guy sent an excellent cane and you will wore a loose environmentally friendly jacket having an effective Masonic icon dangling out-of a string doing his shoulder. Willy told him we had been seeking information about the man they called La Reina.
“ Si, si, ” the outdated guy told you. “Los angeles Reina-anyone realized him. Mulatto. About your height,” he nodded in my guidelines. “Anyone recognized him. He resided right here to have twenty years. Obviously, anyone understood what he did for a living.” The guy told you Superman leftover with the U.S. into the 1959. “Not one person know their title. People just titled your La Reina.”
We joined their particular roomy apartment, and you can Willy told me everything we was basically creating
Down the street of the church, roosters crowed. An effective girl using Rollerblades spoke for the a pay mobile phone. A classic guy into the a fabric tennis cover used a cigar with the good backless wooden chair.
His tresses is actually light and wild
We went by way of Los Sitios towards Barrio Chino until we arrived at the 507 Marquis Highway. I stood in the pub taking a look at the entrance so you’re able to a great martial-arts college or university: Escuela Cubana de Wushu. It got a red-colored and you may red-colored act which have a silver foo dog and a yellow iron door.
The entranceway was open. Inside the front gate is good courtyard that have a little bistro and several stationary gym equipment. This new theater after stood where in fact the school’s outside courtyard became. We tried to consider in which the stage could have been. Brand new dressing up area where Superman open to this new let you know. The brand new balcony where drunken tourist spotted the performance.
A short time after i returned to Barrio de los Sitios in order to canvas for others exactly who have known Superman. Throughout the flat strengthening next to Gladis Castaneda’s, i found Superman’s real neighbor: a former pizza pie chef entitled Roberto Cabarero, 82 yrs old, with a highly discolored and lengthened muscle tissue shirt, sagging brownish shorts on the travel spacious, and black colored clothes which have holes in the feet. His skin sagged such as a-sea turtle’s.
Cabarero’s flat, in which he stayed together with partner, is actually small and you will ramshackle, full of rubbish. Their spouse sat in the small family room, rocking back-and-forth in a wooden sofa, speaking loudly from the no one in particular. A radio blared tinny old Spanish musical, and you can your dog came in and from the place to eat crumbs from the flooring. A security clock sounded during the conference. No one troubled to turn it off.