Thursday, December 17, 2009

Postcards; continued.


In thinking back to all the people I met in those six short months I worked at the factory, it seems that much life learning was compressed into that span of time. These were people that would have never crossed my path in my other life; that relatively protected one which I had lived for almost 14 years. Me thinks that my lot in life would have been much less had I not spent that time at Calle Casales.
I will be back to my Puerto Rico years; my head is getting on in that direction; yet, there are at least 2 or perhaps 3 other significant short stories from that time. They might be interesting to you. Back now to finish the time I call "Rosie's Time".

Under her wing I met many people who lived in the area and were part of “her” world, as she referred to it. Some of these were true characters and some actually worked at the factory, I just had never seen them under this personal light before. We had many conversations as time went on, but these had to be done without my family or someone who could tell them finding out. Had news of these adventures reached my grandparents ears, I am sure my job would have been cut short and my visits to Calle Casales would be summarily terminated.

It was a streetsmarts school. During the summer months or the week ends, when I would get together at parties with friends, the society girls would all play at being naughty and flirty, without really knowing what this meant. In my daily walking “tours” I would spend the time with those girls whose livelihood and that of their children actually depended on being able to sell their bodies and have that sex the others, usually of their same age, could only talk about as vague insinuations and in between nervous giggles. And then try to go on with life as if this was just a job, and nothing more.

Harry Chapin, the great singer songwriter of the 70's put it best when in one of his songs he talked about the girl who, being an expensive call girl, had achieved her life’s dream: she had become an actress... This self imposed emotional blindness may work for a while; but reality, being the harsh master it is, never failed to eventually grab their hearts and minds, reducing them to not much more than living human remnants.

Every once in a while there would be news in the grapevine about one of the girls having met her death, and not always at the hands of someone else. Then, we would all pony up (myself included) and get the funds needed to send her body back home (usually somewhere in a countryside village) to a decent burial. If there were children involved, the requests would include the funds needed to get them back home to grandparents who often did not even know of their existence.

From Rosie and her friends I learned more than what I could perhaps take in or understand at that age; there was true friendship and interdependence within that mini society; they could not live or subsist without this support network and the open interaction amongst peers. This sojourn into this lifestyle was really an eye opener as well as an experience; it taught me first hand much about many subjects that regular schools would never include in their teacher’s plans. Especially those schools managed by the Catholic Church.

Sometime after I left Cuba I learned from a common friend into whom I ran in Miami, that Rosie had met her death not much longer after I had left. Her lifestyle had finally caught up with her somewhere near the docks, at the hands of some foreign sailors. I truly mourned her and the sadness of her life. Then I thought of her as someone who was willing to live, share and laugh, despite her troubled existence.

This made for an easier remembrance.

Perhaps more postcards tomorrow...

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