Hawke

Joe went to A

Joe, knowing the Cubans—the Frontier Guards, they called themselves—were up in their own towers, had their scopes trained on him, goes up there, turns his back on ’em and drops trou! Moons them, for chrissakes. The friggin’ CO of the whole friggin’ outfit! The Marines all went apeshit and everybody started calling him the Moon-man.

And then one day he has this fancy-ass barbeque for some big shots from the State Department and he’s laughing, telling them all about mooning the Cubans, and this wise guy from the Cuban Desk says, “But, Admiral, you obviously don’t understand Cuban culture. In Cuba, they don’t see your action as an insult. They see it as an invitation!”

Whoa.

Everybody within hearing range was smart enough not to laugh right out loud except Gomez, who doubled over with tears in his eyes.

Gomez had never been invited back to the CO’s house, which caused his wife Rita to pitch a shitfit every time the Nettleses had a party and they didn’t make the cut. That’s why she was so hopped up about this damn birthday party. Maybe they’d gone from the shitlist to the A list.

Rita and their two daughters had gone straight to the party from school. The party was going to be out around the pool in the CO’s backyard. Man. He could see it all now. All those screaming kids ru

Gomez, as his buddies on the base called him, had called his wife and explained that he might be a little late getting to the party. He was stopping by the house to finish wrapping a special present for little Cindy. That’s what he was doing now, at the workbench out in his small garage.

He placed a large box on the bench, opened it, and pulled out a teddy bear. One big teddy bear. The biggest, fluffiest one he could find at the base exchange. Thing had to be at least three feet tall. The tag around its neck said it was a Steiff, imported from Germany or somewhere. Expensive, but, hell, he could afford it. He was a goddamn millionaire!

The bear was snow white. And nice and plump, with a big fat belly too, which served his purposes. The idea for the birthday present had come to him over a few too many beers one recent afternoon in the PX. One minute he’d been mulling the whole thing over. The next minute he had it. It was just the way his brain worked. It was an ability that had brought him a long way from the barrios of Miami.

A long way from the gusanos of Little Havana, seсor.

Los Gusanos. That’s what Fidel called his people. The Worms. Like his father and all his aunts and uncles. The ones who’d abandoned their homeland and tried to make a better life in America. The worms. He couldn’t decide who was worse, the fidelistas or the americanos. They were all shit, weren’t they? The Cuban people deserved better, he knew that much.

Castro? America? He could give a shit. That’s why he’d agreed to go along with the Million-Dollar Plan, right? No shit, Sherlock.

A toy. He’d been sitting there at the bar, and whammo! The idea had just popped into his brain. Poof! But not just a toy. A toy inside the home of Guantanamo’s commanding officer. A toy in the room of the CO’s little girl. It was perfect. He had actually started giggling when he thought of it, and his buddies at the bar had looked at him fu

Damn, he was good, though. You had to admit.

He stopped giggling and started gulping. He’d noticed he was drinking a lot of beer lately. Beer and tranks and, at night, cold potato juice, Vitamin V, right out of the freezer. Then a couple more beers before bedtime. It seemed to help. Bam, he was out like a light. Gonzo. Up at six and he never missed a day of work, did he? Hell, he still pumped iron at the gym. He was doing just fine.

But Rita didn’t think so, obviously. She was ragging his ass day and night. Still bugging him about the goddamn initials on his left hand. A tattoo, he’d told her. It just looked a little weird ’cause it had gotten infected. Then of course she has to know whose initials. Whose? Whose? Some little whore in Havana he’d gotten drunk with? Some AIDS-infected puta?

At that exact moment, a moment when most guys he knew would have lost it, what’s new, he’d nailed it. Just looked her right in the eye and hung it out there.

“MM. ‘My Mother,’ ” he said.

“Oh.”

“The one who died? Remember her?”

That shut her ass up. But she still never let up about the hootch. Afraid a little booze now and then was ruining his Navy career. As if it wasn’t ruined enough already. You didn’t exactly get promoted for spending a lot of consecutive nights in the brig.

What she didn’t know was that it didn’t goddamn matter! They were rich! That would shut her up on a permanent basis. He’d made them so goddamn rich they could thumb their noses at anybody in the whole stinkpot Navy.

Who wants to be a millionaire?

Rafael Goddamn Gomez, that’s who, and by God, he was one.

He even had this number he could call in Switzerland. He called it every day and gave the guy at the bank his secret account number. They’d give him the current balance in his secret numbered account. Money was growing like weeds over there. Hell, the interest alone was more than his shitty Navy salary.

Did he feel guilty taking all that money? Well, that was a good question. Did Uncle Sam feel guilty about the agony of his sainted mother in that hospital in Havana because of the goddamn U.S. embargo on medicines? That was another good question. How many i

Guilty? Him?

“I don’t think so,” Gomez said aloud, looking out the greasy garage window at some little kids on their bikes. American kids with lots of Armour hot dogs and Diet Coke and individually wrapped American cheese in the fridge and eardrops in the medicine cabinet if their little ears got little friggin’ earaches. Hell, they even had a McDonald’s here.

Happy Meals! While everybody else in Cuba was going to bed hungry, these little rugrats were wolfing Happy Meals!

Guilty? Not in this friggin’ lifetime.

Gomez took out his pocketknife and flipped open the big blade. He held the teddy bear down on the worktable with one hand and slit it open along the seam under its arm with the other. White stuffing popped out and flew all over the bench. Christ. He looked at his watch again. Four-fifteen. How long did birthday parties generally last anyway?

It would look weird if he didn’t get over there pretty soon. The phone in the kitchen had been ringing off the hook and he was pretty sure it was Rita, wondering what the hell was keeping him. He was doing the best he could, wasn’t he? Providing for his family? There was a cold Budweiser sitting on the table that he didn’t remember bringing out to the garage. Weird. He took a gulp and felt better already. Beer was a goddamn miracle food and nobody ever gave it any credit.

Gomez walked over to his car and pulled the keys out of the ignition. It was an old car, a goddamn embarrassing heap to tell the truth. Well, his days of tooling around in crap like this would be over before you knew it. He had a stack of Corvette magazines under his bed to prove it.