Storm Clouds Over Havana - Mike Marino (read full novel TXT) 📗

dizzy and sees black spots before his eyes. The fish riots against the line, battering the boat.  When it passes under the boat, Santiago cannot believe its size. As the marlin continues to circle, Santiago adds enough pressure to the line to bring the fish closer and closer to the skiff. The old man thinks that the fish is killing him, and admires him for it, saying, “I do not care who kills who.” Eventually, he pulls the fish onto its side by the boat and plunges his harpoon into it. The fish lurches out of the water, brilliantly and beautifully alive as it dies. When it falls back into the water, it’s blood stains the waves.”

 

Pilar was not about to pit wits against a fish who did her no harm. I could see the pain in her eyes and told Hem, “Look, she’s a little sensitive about it so I’ll go sit this one out with her as well. Besides, I don’t think I’m a match for a 1,000 pound behemoth. Now, meet me in Northern Michigan where you used to hunt and fish and I’ll go one on one with large mouth bass.”

 

Hem laughed that outdoorsman laugh that came from deep within his being. “I’ll do that and the one who can’t catch his limit for the live well, buys the beer at the Keyhole Bar in Macinac.” Having been born and raised in Michigan I was all too familiar with the haunts of Hemingway. You couldn’t take a step without standing where he stood pole or shotgun in hand.

 

The day proved, much to Pilar’s delight fishless. Only because Hem decided he would put pole aside and instead went fishing for words from his typewriter. Most of his greatest works were behind him in the dust of the past but, he was mid-stream on his memoir “A Moveable Feast” and worked on it that afternoon at sea as we had one day to go before we would end our fantastic voyage with this man for all seasons.

 

Later when I began writing novels I knew a writer needed sanctuary for thought  I remember what he wrote about the art of wordsmithing. “There is no rule on how to write. Sometimes it comes easily and perfectly; sometimes it's like drilling rock and then blasting it out with charges.  Writing, at its best, is a lonely life. He grows in public stature as he sheds his loneliness. For he does his work alone and if he is a good enough writer he must face eternity, or the lack of it, each day.”

 

Pilar and I spread out a blanket on the deck and fell asleep to the rocking quiet motion of the boat and the caress of the setting sun. Soon it would be time for the dinner bell to ring and we’d all come alive again for a few hours until too much drink would gently cloud or cleanse our minds, never sure which.

 

Soon Pilar and I would be on our way into the heart of the revolution in the Sierra Maestra. Before that happened however, I had another thought and shared it with Pilar. “I always heard a captain at sea can perform a marriage ceremony. Well, Hem is the captain of this ship wasn’t he? He himself thinks at times he is God Almighty!”

 

Pilar smiled sweetly. “Are you proposing to me Senor Mickey, yes?”

 

“Yes, I guess I am. I love you Pilar!” Rum and sun were not to be blame this time. It was heart and soul!

 

At that moment Hem came from below deck where he had been writing, emerging with a bottle of wine. “No need for glasses this time,” he said. “I couldn’t help but overhear you. Well, no I was listening and moved closer to hear better. Fact is, a captain really has no such power in the eyes of law or God. Both manufactured to mankind’s specifications. That being said, I will be honored to perform a symbolic ceremony. It won’t count of course, but you can always get the real McCoy later by some padre for a few pesos in some  church on the island. As Pilar is like a daughter to me…..I am happy she has such a fine protector and a writer who is not afraid of life. You both have my blessing. Now, drink!!!! Dinner will be a feast to celebrate your lives as one! I’ll perform the ceremony tonight under the stars!”

 

This would not be the last time we would see Ernest, but I didn’t know that at the time. As he went below deck to get dinner started I held Pilar and kissed her. “You know, I’m really gonna miss that old man and his sea.”

Chapter 21 - The Sierra Maestra

Personal Journal Entry: May 2, 1958

Glad to report we  are finally on the road (dirt cow path) to the rebel encampment high in the Sierra Maestra. When  we  landed in Santiago de Cuba we were taken to the CIA spook house already outfitted with all the electronic gear and transmission gadgetry that Dick Tracy would be proud of if he weren’t a comic strip character. Buster Scalisi, who should be a comic book character told us all was ready for the mission. All he was missing was a rumpled trench coat and a Lone Ranger decoder ring

 

Hemingway  left immediately for Havana after dropping us off and not to mention having a few snorts of rum. Who needs a bottle of rum when you have Ava Gardner waiting in your house! He got a message from Buster that  she had arrived the day before from Spain and made a stop over. She’s been having  a fling thing with him as well as a few bullfighters along the way from what I read in Variety magazine. Ava Gardner! Hell, what red blooded Americano or hot blooded Latin bullfighter wouldn’t want to put on a pair of tight fitting bulge enhancing matador pants just to get into hers?

 

After he left with appropriate bon voyage bon mots our delayed  wait began. It was  two weeks and a few days before Victoria arrived, so I spent my time mainly getting some advance copy out to New York and progress reports to Blake at the paper, and Sean Donovan at the CIA secret bat cave at Langley. At night...Pilar and I took in what nightlife was available to us before disappearing under the sheets after walking in the moonlight barefoot on the beach. Oh hell, you can have Ava Gardner...I’ve got Pilar!

 

Victoria was running messages for Castro during the wait,  but  the main delay was that  it took him two weeks for him to give the final thumbs up  for us to follow the Socialist Brick Road into the Sierra Maestra. It’s now day two of our journey and  we are now off to see the Wizard of Oz.

 

Pilar is excited. To her, this is the second coming of Jesus  Christ. I guess he had a beard too and was a revolutionary. Castro has the dragon Batista to slay, while JC had his own cross to bear so the speak.

 

While in town we outfitted ourselves for the trek with new boots and I even bought a pair of great white hunter pants and matching tan shirt, you know the kind worn by any well bred revolutionary involved in overthrowing a small island nation or a gas station attendant in at a Phillips 66 station near Barstow, California. “Can I check the oil? Fill ‘er up? Got a revolution?”

 

I had enough pockets on both pants and shirt  that would give an Aussie kangaroo  a massive marsupial hard-on. Thankfully, there were no horny ‘roo’s in Cuba that wanted to do the marenga in a smokey cantina.

I filled the pockets with small notebooks, pens, pencils, compass, waterproof matches, and my trusty Swiss Army Knife. The kind with a corkscrew just in case we ran into a wine cellar hidden in the lush jungle. I also brought along my canvas backpack with my pride a joy… my  camera, a unique German Leica rangefinder strangely with interchangeable Nikkor lenses, plenty of black and white film and  changes of clothes and toiletries for myself and Pilar. I also thought to bring a box of Cuban cigars and two bottles of tequila by way of introduction. Pilar carried those in her pack along with certain ladies items necessary for that special female time of the month.

 

Pilar had similar attire and damn if she wasn’t tempestuously torrid in equatorial khaki. She was as brilliant as Venus in the sky at 4:30 AM on a frosty January morning. She was a planet and I was merely a moon in her orbit, held in place by her gravitational pull. With her shirt opened at the top, two buttons released from its puritanical  bondage and duty of propriety, she exposed  tiny drops of sweat that blazed a trail through her cleavage that I wanted to follow all the way along its flow that would eventually lead me into the  pubic delta of her Amazon Forest.  Dr. Livingstone I presume?

 

Victoria could have been an iconic centerfold for an L.L. Bean Revolutionary Catalog complete with a fashionable stylish Eastern Bloc machine gun. The machete hanging from her army surplus web belt was the perfect accessory to compliment the Gerber commando assault knife she sported attached to what in civilization would be a Saks Fifth Avenue bandolero of ammunition sparkling  in sun as blinding as a diamond from Tiffany’s.

 

Our group was augmented by three of Castro’s crack commando’s who would run interference for us if we ran into government troops on our way to the Emerald City to have the bearded wizard grant us our wishes. I knew too well that Castro was not the Wizard of Oz, that my friends is a horse of a different color.  

 

After a three day trek following a path constructed by the Spanish in the seventeenth century, known as the ‘Camino Real,’ through jungle, pine forest, scrub and some strange lizards and snakes, we reached the crest of a small mountain commanding a view in all directions should an attack be attempted by enemy forces. Castro’s camp at last. Our mission was now in overdrive.

 

We walked through the small camp consisting of small wood planked buildings. A hut covered in palm fronds was the guard post.  Another interesting structure with an antennae reaching for the sky was the clandestine rebel radio station, The station was set up earlier this year  by Che Guevara designed to broadcast the aims and latest news of the 26th of July Movement. Transmitting on short-wave, Radio Rebelde also broadcasts the latest combat news, music and speeches to the people of Cuba to counter the government propaganda efforts as well at planted lies by the American CIA.   I wondered if they played Elvis?  

Just past the radio station, perched near the edge of a ravine was the lair of Zeus...Castro’s abode and headquarters.

 

The local farmers and peasants are the guardians of the rebel encampment. Protecting it’s location  and as they were doing  today, bringing in