Minutes later on an older black woman wearing a red garment over white locks came up in the second-floors windows. She looked mislead however acknowledged Willy. “ Hola. Hola. ” She greet you upstairs.

Their particular title is actually Gladis Castaneda, and you may she had been a specialist classical pianist within the Havana throughout the fresh 1950s. She is actually a tiny woman within her eighties otherwise 1990’s. She nodded as he said La Reina. Yes, she said, he’d stayed in so it people, proper next-door. Right here, in the flesh, are somebody who know the new legendary Superman-research, indeed, that man indeed lived.

Superman, Castaneda said, is extreme, strong, recognized. “Folk realized him because Queen,” she said. “He was gay, however failed to mess with your.” She asked me to stand. “He was your own peak. However, good. Muscular.” He had facial skin instance hers: ebony, not really. “He had been a beneficial guy. No one had an issue with your.” I asked in the event that everyone in the area know just what the guy performed to own a full time income. “Son, it was years ago. He left many years ago.”

Willy expected in the event the she knew exactly what turned out-of your, and you may she said she thinks he passed away during the Miami. Their unique energy was waning, and you can Willy nodded if you ask me to indicate it was time we go.

Upon the road, i came across a classic guy tilting up against the wall structure. His identity are Elado. The guy carried a great cane and you will wore a loose eco-friendly jacket having an excellent Masonic symbol hanging out of a sequence doing their neck. Willy told him we had been trying to find information about the person they named Los angeles Reina.

“ Si, si, ” the existing guy said. “Los angeles Reina-everyone know him. Mulatto. Concerning your peak,” the guy nodded inside my recommendations. “Every person acknowledged him. He stayed here for twenty years. Definitely, everybody else realized what the guy did having an income.” He said Superman left on the U.S. inside the 1959. “No body understood their name. People only named him La Reina.”

I registered their large flat, and you may Willy told me that which we was creating

Outside by the church, roosters crowed. A beneficial girl sporting Rollerblades spoke on a pay cellular phone. A classic guy into the a fabric golf Wie ist es, eine Brasilianerin zu heiraten cap smoked an effective cigar on the good backless wooden sofa.

Their locks are white and you will insane

I strolled due to Los Sitios on the Barrio Chino up to we turned up at the 507 Marquis Road. I endured on the street studying the entry in order to a great martial-arts university: Escuela Cubana de Wushu. It got a yellow and you may reddish act having a silver foo canine and you will a yellow metal door.

The doorway is open. During the top entrance is a great courtyard that have a small eatery and several fixed gym equipment. This new movie theater once endured where school’s outside courtyard has become. We made an effort to consider where in fact the phase could have been. The fresh putting on a costume area where Superman open to the fresh new reveal. Brand new balcony where drunken visitors spotted the new abilities.

A short while later on i gone back to Barrio de los Sitios to help you material for other individuals whom possess identified Superman. On flat building close to Gladis Castaneda’s, we fulfilled Superman’s real neighbors: an old pizza cook called Roberto Cabarero, 82 yrs old, with a heavily discolored and prolonged muscle mass clothing, drooping brown shorts toward travel available, and you can black socks which have openings on the leg. Their body sagged eg a sea turtle’s.

Cabarero’s flat, where he existed together with his partner, try lightweight and ramshackle, plagued by junk. Their spouse seated in the tiny family room, rocking back and forth within the a wood sofa, speaking loudly from the no one specifically. A wireless blared tinny dated Spanish sounds, and you may a dog came in and you can out of the place so you’re able to eat crumbs off the floor. An alarm clock seemed throughout all of our conference. No-one bothered to show it off.