Minutes later a senior black Ressource woman dressed in a yellow garment more light tresses emerged about next-floors windows. She seemed mislead but accepted Willy. “ Hola. Hola. ” She allowed you upstairs.
Their unique name try Gladis Castaneda, and you can she was a specialist traditional pianist for the Havana throughout the fresh 1950s. She was a tiny lady inside her eighties otherwise 90s. She nodded as he stated La Reina. Yes, she said, he’d stayed in so it area, proper next door. Right here, regarding the flesh, are someone who know the brand new epic Superman-research, actually, your man in fact lived.
Superman, Castaneda told you, try tall, strong, known. “Individuals realized him since the Queen,” she said. “He was gay, however did not wreck havoc on your.” She requested me to stand. “He was their peak. However, solid. Muscle.” He previously body particularly hers: black, although not extremely. “He was an excellent man. No-one had a problem with your.” I asked in the event the everybody in the people knew what he did to possess an income. “Son, it actually was years ago. He left years ago.”
Willy questioned in the event that she knew exactly what turned off your, and she told you she believes he passed away into the Miami. Their particular times is waning, and Willy nodded for me to indicate the time had come i wade.
Down on the road, i met an old people tilting against the wall structure. His name try Elado. The guy sent a good cane and you may wore a free environmentally friendly sweater that have a great Masonic symbol holding regarding a chain doing their shoulder. Willy advised him we were trying to find information on the guy they titled La Reina.
“ Si, si, ” the existing man said. “Los angeles Reina-anyone knew him. Mulatto. About your peak,” he nodded in my direction. “Folks respected him. He existed right here to own two decades. Needless to say, people know exactly what he did to have a living.” He told you Superman kept for the U.S. from inside the 1959. “No one understood his term. Folks simply titled your Los angeles Reina.”
We joined their unique spacious apartment, and Willy informed me everything we was in fact performing
Outside by the church, roosters crowed. A great girl putting on Rollerblades talked for the a wages cellular telephone. A vintage guy inside the a leather-based tennis cover used good cigar into the a good backless wooden chair.
His tresses are white and nuts
I wandered as a result of Los Sitios to your Barrio Chino up to i arrived within 507 Marquis Roadway. I stood on the street taking a look at the entry in order to a beneficial martial-arts school: Escuela Cubana de- Wushu. It had a yellow and you will red facade with a silver foo canine and you will a red iron entrance.
The door are open. When you look at the side gate are a beneficial courtyard that have a tiny bistro and several stationary gym equipment. Brand new theatre shortly after stood the spot where the school’s outdoor courtyard is actually. We attempted to believe where in fact the phase could have been. New putting on a costume place where Superman ready to accept the fresh new reveal. The newest balcony in which drunken people watched the fresh abilities.
A short time later on i returned to Barrio de los Sitios to fabric for other individuals which possess identified Superman. Regarding the apartment building near to Gladis Castaneda’s, i met Superman’s real neighbor: an old pizza cook named Roberto Cabarero, 82 years old, with a seriously discolored and you may extended muscle top, sagging brown shorts towards the fly open, and you will black clothes having holes on the foot. His facial skin sagged such a sea turtle’s.
Cabarero’s apartment, in which the guy existed together with his partner, are small and you will ramshackle, littered with rubbish. Their partner seated in the exact middle of the little home, rocking backwards and forwards into the a solid wood sofa, talking loudly in the no body in particular. A radio blared tinny dated Foreign-language musical, and a dog was available in and you can from the place to eat crumbs from the floors. An alarm clock seemed through the duration of our appointment. No-one bothered to make it off.