Read Online Leaving Glorytown by Eduardo F. Calcines - Free Book Online

suicide!” the neighbor said.
    â€œIt’s the hunger, the propaganda, the executions. We’re not even allowed to go to church or play dominoes. What do you expect?”
    â€œHe couldn’t handle the pressure. Every day, he thought he might be arrested for no reason at all. And why stay alive just to go into the army and get killed? How can we all live like this?”
    Surely it was gossip, I thought. But then over the next few months I began to hear Mama, Abuela, and Madrina Magalys whisper more and more names of the dead men.
Hugo, Ernesto, Gerardo.
I knew them all! They were only boys. I could see their faces in my mind, and they began to haunt me. Suicide is a sin, but if God was watching what was going on in Cuba, surely he would understand. I thought of the boys as martyrs to the cause of freedom, and in my daydreams they took on a heroic status. It required guts to kill yourself.
    A lot of young men were choosing suicide over being drafted into Castro’s brutal army. Suicide was not a coward’s way out if one had no other choice. It was the ultimate act of defiance against the government, a reminder that Castro could never really control the people the way he thought he could. His armies and thugs might take away our livelihood, our food, our peace of mind, but they could never touch our souls. I prayed that the boys who killed themselves would find peace in the next life.
    Even though I was still a kid, in a few short years I would be fifteen, old enough to be drafted. It could take that long for us to get permissionto leave Cuba. The lesson of the suicides was not lost on my parents. If we were going to get out, we would have to start making plans now. Otherwise, it might be too late.

    One night toward the end of August 1966, I was listening to Papa and Mama talk as they lay in bed. I could hear every word through the wall, and I remained still and silent, absorbing everything.
    â€œWe have two choices,” Papa said. “We can do it the legal way, or the illegal way.”
    The legal way, I knew, meant applying to the government for an exit visa. But what about the illegal way?
    â€œWell, I can tell you right now that I am not putting my children on an inner tube and pushing them off into the ocean!” Mama said, tears in her voice. “You know what the military does to those people they catch trying to leave!”
    So that was what she meant. Even I knew all about the people who tried to get to America across the Straits of Florida, clinging to anything that floated. With American soil a tantalizing ninety miles from Havana, it wasn’t hard to see why so many people made the attempt to escape the island prison. The Gulf Stream passed Cuba and went right by Miami, and it was tempting to believe that one could get to America in a few short hours. As long as the Cuban navy or the sharks didn’t get you, and as long as you didn’t get caught up in a storm or somehow end up floating in the wrong direction, you could make it. It had been done.
    But nobody knew how many people had died trying. The government wasn’t exactly forthcoming about how many escapees they murdered every month, but the stories I heard whispered on the streetswere chilling. When the navy came across boat people, regardless of how many or how old they were, they all got the same treatment—a burst of machine-gun fire. Then the sharks got a free lunch.
    â€œShh, Concha,” Papa soothed her. “Yes, I know. And I will not put my family in such a position.”
    â€œI would do it if there was no other way.” Mama sobbed. “I would. But as long as we have a chance to get out safely, we have to take it. For the sake of the children.”
    â€œYes,” Papa agreed. “For the sake of the children.”
    â€œWe’ll do it, then?”
    â€œYes. I’ll go tomorrow and make the application.”
    Mama was quiet for several moments.
    â€œI’m