Stabs at Happiness Read Online Free

thin and awkward and shy.
    His mother, Elena, who was widowed at nineteen (through the agency of a knife fight over dice), had had a difficult time of it for a while, until she met a susceptible mafioso named Gino, a simple heart, who worked at one of the big casinos in Havana. He fell for her hard. If it had not been for Gino, with his money and influence, Angel and his brother Miguel might well have ended up, like so many others, cutting cane out in some hellishly hot field, having nothing to look forward to but more of the same.
    Even after Gino was killed, falling prey to the ubiquitous machine-gun, his boss and friends continued to look out for Elena, to help her with her boys. When he was of age, Angel got a commission in the army, impossible without influence, while Miguel was given a job as a school teacher—the best deal of all, because he’s never actually had to teach a class. Since teachers appointed by the Minister of Education have lifetime tenure, he can never be fired. All he has to do is kick back a portion of the salary they pay him to do nothing. Miguel is supposed to be a math teacher: the only numbers he knows are the ones on money or dice.
    â€œRoll over, Romeo,” says Sally. “I want to see what you’ve got there. Are you hiding something from me? You’re a bad boy, aren’t you?”
    â€œDon’t call me Romeo.”
    â€œYes sir. Is that how I should address you from now on, Lieutenant-sir? Shall we keep things military?” She speaks to him in a babyish ‘love-voice’ that Angel finds unsympathetic. That last daiquiri has made her drunk.
    He sighs. His fingers are in her hair. He shuts his eyes tight, and thinks of Leonora Christina. Then Brigitte Bardot. Then Leonora Christina again, helpless, in distress. It excites him. He doesn’t know why, but it does.
    He opens his eyes. Sally seems lost, her own eyes closed, in a devotion that Angel, rightly or wrongly, identifies as greed.

    â€œPancho Villa was drunk all the time,” says Fidel, drinking from a bottle of white rum. “And look what he got done.”
    Che laughs, and says then maybe they too should be drunk all the time—who knows? He’s only kidding, he hastens to add. Fidel laughs again, in another of his unpredictable moods.
    Next to the campfire, they talk about the French Revolution of 1789. It’s interesting because of all the actions and reactions, each victory lasting only a couple of months before the next coup and associative purge.
    Che speaks of Robespierre’s ‘Republic of Virtue,’ which he admires as the first big attempt to found a secular religion. Fidel interrupts him by making a joke, he can’t resist.
    â€œIn Havana, we already have our Virtue Street. It’s where all the whores hang out, you know, waiting for gringos.”
    Che laughs, but he wants to continue with his point.

    Justo goes to see his friend Ulpiano, who makes bombs. Some of these don’t do any damage or kill anyone, they just make a lot of smoke and noise. Ulpiano, who is black, offers Justo a warm bottle of Coke. They talk for a long time then about all of the things they’d like to see changed.

    Betting eleven eleven eleven, eleven eleven eleven, seven and then six, always red, according to a system based on the astrology of the Mayan Empire, I lose again and again, in the black of bluest night, trying to hang on to the shreds of my cool.
    â€œIt’s painless,” I say to myself, only the briefest flicker of disappointment betraying me, as I watch some American woman bet on zero, like an asshole—and win.
    I can read a sign. I turn away from the baize and go to the bar.
    I order a drink, mentally calculating my finances. It would not be cool to take my money out and add it up in public, so I try to remember all of my bets. Obviously, I missed noticing an omen.
    Behind me, the bitch shrieks again, as if having an orgasm. I wouldn’t be