(it’s rainin’ patos….halleluiah it’s rainin’ patos!)

“man, you can bounce a quarter off her ass! her legs are long and lean, her titties round and robust…..i’d do her, for sure”, exclaimed my very enthusiastic cuban compadre about the blonde strutting in front of us. “heeee heeeee”, i giggled to myself. “shit, really, i would so do her. i would bend her over my kitchen table….” i had to stop him. i knew this conversation would end in him taking a shower a-la-the crying game. “sorry chico, but that’s a dude”. silence. disappointment. utter horror. “QUE!?” he chokes. “yeah, sorry buddy but those long, lean legs lead all the way up to something you very much don’t want banging against your kitchen table”, i explained quasi-sympathetically. he spits in disgust. he shakes a little. and then….he makes a clucking sound. huh? what is this familiar clucking sound i have heard so many times?

this may come as a bit of a shock, but most latin american guys are a little on the machismo side. i know of a certain someone who was genuinely quite distraught that he might have AIDS because his gay barber accidentally knicked him with the razor while cutting his hair. i have come to learn that my very queer positive world that i once lived in no longer exists. at least while i live in this country. don’t get me wrong, there is an organization that works very hard to support gay rights (and run by none other than raul castro’s daughter no less) but the average jose, well, he don’t dig the gays. and don’t even get them started on the transgendered folk. not only do they call them names (maricas, playeros, locas, gueichas, pajaros, descarados, disfrazados), to name a few, they will happily dodge oncoming traffic to avoid walking by them. it’s bad enough that when i am with some of my new pals (who really are quite liberal by latin american standards) they literally cluck like chickens when two cute gay boys walk by holding hands. and the trans guys and gals? well, they get extra enthusiastic clucks.

i live in central havana, probably one of the poorest of the poor, hard core hoods in this city. most of the time i see families pouring out on to the street to escape the heat of their 2 bedroom apartment housing 17 people, dogs with one eye and no fur scratching themselves against the pavement, garbage dumpsters overflowing with things i shall not describe nor shall i divulge the odor that emanates from them…..and on every other corner on a saturday night, a gal with shockingly real tits (how can she afford them here?), a face full of make up and shorts so short they lead me to believe you can get your hands on some seriously strong duct tape here. and although they are getting clucked at, spit on, looked at with utter horror and disgust, they are strutting those long lean legs up and down the main drag lookin’ for some action. and in this city, i have come to learn, anyone with an ass in a pair of short shorts, regardless of what’s inside of them, can rustle up some action. i am told that cuba is actually one of the most liberal, tolerant countries in latin america when it comes to acceptance of the queer lifestyle. that being said, there still isn’t a legal gay or lezzie bar to be found. and if you want to hook up, the only place to go is hang out on the malecon (the sea wall) or the ‘gay’ movie theatre (it’s hard to really tell the difference between where the boys hang and where the ‘regular folk’ hang, they all have suspiciously sticky floors) on the weekend and see where the house party is for that evening. it’s super old school but we are in a communist country after all, where everything is indeed, super old school.

(as i write this, i am drinking a (delicious!) pineapple juice, juiced in none other than a 1952 russian blender. and that’s young for some appliances here. not to stray from my rant on the queers but as an aside, i have to say, things here are crazy old. and the cuban people, resourceful as they are, make these things work. like new. a bit of string and a glue stick and there you have it, a car muffler. or a rock in a sock and you have a baseball (watch your head on the street). or cut up pieces of condoms disguised as cheese on pizza during the ‘special period’ (i am told that latex can get quite stringy when heated – yuck) when there was no food. how about one bar of fluorescent green soap that is used to wash your dishes, , wash your clothes and wash your ass? yeah…resourceful. granted, you always have greasy dishes, crunchy underwear and an itchy bum. )

all this to say, if the cubans want to make it happen, they will find a way to make it happen. and that goes for all the carpet munching, fudge packing fun they can possibly have on a saturday night. and if you want fake tits, well 500 bucks can get you a pair and i can tell you this, there ain’t a canadian/italian/german perv around that doesn’t want to spend a few bucks on these very well endowed latinas that will give the gals on church street a serious run for their money.

and you know, in a country that is outrageously oppressive, repressed and utterly homophobic, i say “cluck, cluck, cluck!”

translation: “you go chicas!”