Stabs at Happiness Read Online Free Page A

surprised.
    â€œTell me, is there anything worse than a Yankee?” I say to the bartender, who gives me a slow-developing, collaborative smile.
    â€œTwo,” he says, and I agree.

    The music, that music… echoes and is magnified inside of Lieutenant Santamaria’s head. His body is flushed with warmth. He’s high.
    The air-conditioning isn’t working very well, and Leonora Christina is perspiring, in her blue x-ray dress. Tan nylons that Angel knows are held up by a garter belt, lacy panties, and—oh, he wants her, there’s never been any doubt about that. But lately their lovemaking has been contaminated and corrupt. Something is wrong. Where they used to share secrets, now they conceal them.
    The saxophone shrills, like some kind of exotic talking bird. In black and white and then, in a spurt of musical blood, the deepest of reds.
    The moment passes. Some girl begins to sing, in English, “Fly Me to the Moon.” She was hired for the size of her breasts; her dress is made to show them off.
    â€œLook,” says Angel. “See that guy with the little mustache? He’s the biggest pusher of reefer in the world.”
    â€œDoes he pay protection?”
    â€œOf course.”
    â€œWhat’s your cut?” asks Leonora, looking at Angel half-mockingly, as though she knows the score but will put him through his paces nonetheless.
    â€œThree reefers a week,” he says, keeping a straight face. “Sometimes four.”

    Fulgencio Batista is having a hard time getting to sleep. He can’t stop thinking about the horror movie he saw tonight. It really scared him. The girl in his bed, who has luxurious dark red hair, tries to console him.
    â€œSweetie,” she says, “You worry too much.”
    â€œI’m just thinking,” says ‘
El Hombre
’. “Tell the truth, will you? Do you believe in vampires?”
    Yes, she does. To reassure him, however, she says no.

    Oh Jesus the bomb goes off so loud it breaks the windows of the shops across the street: all you can see is smoke, all you can hear is the big echo of the explosion and then the screams of the wounded, horrible cries—or maybe you’re deaf, and it’s all inside your head. Maybe your screams are the loudest, the most abandoned of them all. Or you’re dead and you don’t know it. Come on then, amigo. Try to run away.

    Mariarosa and her friend Leonora Christina go for a drive down Fifth Avenue, looking at the surf off to the right. The car is a Thunderbird, given to Mariarosa as a gift by her lover, a fifty-three year old vice president of some American company that imports or exports something—she never listens to him talk. His wife finds Cuba too humid, she’s always tired. While he likes to have some fun.
    â€œOne week Justo wants to be a poet,” says Leonora, “And then the next week he wants to play the trumpet in some band. If he can ever decide what he really wants to do, and stick with it, I think he’ll be okay. He’s not so complicated as Angel, but Angel’s too complicated for his own good. He’s moody; he won’t talk about what’s on his mind…”
    Mariarosa frowns. She’s only met Justo once, but she was not impressed. Angel is so handsome: to her mind there’s no comparison.
    â€œAt least,” she says, remembering an intimate confession, “Angel knows how to make you happy.”
    â€œYeah, that’s true. Justo gets too excited. He wants to please me so bad… Maybe I can teach him. I don’t know.”
    There’s nothing she can teach Angel.

    Jagged streaks of theatrical lightning tear apart the sky, followed closely by several basso profundo roars of thunder, which some people mistake for explosions. The rain attacks the island in a fury, only gradually losing its concentration and getting lazy, slacking off.
    Ulpiano Gutierrez answers the front door, expecting someone