[Finca Vigia-de Cuba]
Who would be better than I to tell this story, I thought about it and I could not come up with anyone but me. I was in La Habana Cuba it was in the months of March and April of 1948. I liked toasting and eating at the bar-café-club, called La Bodeguita del Medio, I knew the manager slightly, and my wife Delia, loved to sit with me at the front bar, as the musicians played against the wall, and the crowd would stand halfway outside the door: --everyone singing together.
James would capture a picture of me now and then; sell them to me for a buck and save the rest. Had me sign a few, I was a writer back then, or trying to be, I'm retired now, that's when I met Mr. Hemingway in that very bar. He was standing behind me. Matter-of-fact, it was on three different occasions I met him, once in the front, that day with my wife sitting at the bar when James took all them pictures, also in the backroom where another promising writer was, named Gabriel Garcia Marquez; or at least I thought it was him. He was there one night and James took a picture of him, they put it up on the wall the next day, as they did with Hemingway's.
Anyways, Hemingway was back their once in April when I was eating, and once in the front, in back of me as I was saying. And then there was the time I seen him in the month of March there, it looked like he was talking to the bar keep, or perhaps he was the manager.
I introduced myself to him and my wife, he was huge compared to me, at 5'8", 160 lbs; he was also very rustic looking. In 1948, I was a young man he was close to fifty I think, I was thirty-three, again I say trying to be a writer, as I explained to him. I had been living in San Francisco, California for a while, coming down from the Midwest, and I worked for Lilly Ann, a dress designing top-notch label. Oh well, that didn't turn out. I work for Adof Shoeman, an anxious kind of guy—a Jew with a sensitive disposition. He once told me not to drop the fabrics, he actually fired me, but the general manager of the three-story shop rehired me back—instantly, that is to say, as soon as he walked out the door, and he went back to having his models chasing him around the premises. One new gal he was stroking had this huge pearl ring on, man she held the door tight and asked me to take it and I said no, for I had gotten into enough trouble with him. That was the end of my dress-designing career.
But back in old Habana, Mr. Hemingway was very gracious with his time for me. And although this was our only real conversation, for when he seen me before he'd just nod his head, that was when I was eating, and the time I saw him with the manager he looked up, and that was it, he acted as if I didn't exist. But he was a busy man I suppose writing all those books and drinking and so on and so forth, and I know our conversation went well.
As I was saying, he was behind me in the bar, and I was talking to the barkeep, and my wife and I owned a business in Minnesota, a Rental Business. I had at that time several things going through my head, wanting to be a business sort of person, and looking at designing cloths, but being a writer was thicker than blood for me, and Habana was simply a stopping spot for spring vacation.
My property is what supported me on my long trips, and writing. I had three books out, all self-supporting. I was more hopeful than anything. And here was the man of the century talking to me. It reminds me of when Jack Benny bumped into me, that is, bumped into my arm when I was in Erie, Penn, some time ago, in the Russian Club, I was sitting at the counter and he bumped me, I said 'hay,' you know how you get when you got a few drinks, than I paid no attention, as I was turned about, and continued my drinking, I turned around, and the guy walked away: Jack Benny. I really only knew the name Jack Benny slightly as a comedian on TV, not much else, the drunk next to me said
"…it's just that Jack Benny again, he never talks to any one, thinks he's too good."
I paid little attention to him also. When I got to a TV set again a few days later, he was on it, and I check it out, it was he all right. Then I found out it was a place he went to when he came to Erie each time, a drinking hole, one of his drinking holes; and he was Russian like me.
Funny how you meet people sometimes: well, as Hemingway was putting some of his famous drinks down, he ordered me one, they called it Mojito and as we got talking and I guess now drinking together he mentined a farm boy who was a baseball player, or could be one some day. But needed a job in America to get him started, you know, while he was seeking out the teams. Well, I told him I was not a player of the sport, I liked boxing, and karate, and other such one-to-one sports, and I think it was the Saints, back then who played in St. Paul, Minnesota, and I didn't know them well.
As the night went on he asked for my address, and if he sent a Cuban boy to Minnesota if I could rent an apartment out for him, while he sought out possibilities, and if possible even call the Saints manager up for him, if the boy wanted to. I said sure. And we exchanged handshakes; I gave him a card of mine. And that was that.
The boy from the farm land never did show up, and I never did follow through on this, and so I cannot tell you the rest of the story, except, I did once stop at Ernest's apartment, sat in his wooden chair, typed on his typewriter, looked over the street from its 5th story, that was in April, 2002, when I went back to Cuba with my wife, and visited the Hotel, Ambos Mundos where I walked by his apartment 100-times before, never going up to it.
Notes: Historical Fiction: never before in print, and of some actual events that took place. Written 2001, from information gathered from a letter written by Hemingway, now kept in England, that the Author received a copy of and was going to purchase the original. The author went to Cuba in 2002, to investigate, and to the bar mentioned here, and the hotel he stayed at in Havana itself; gathered additional information concerning this event, and here is the story, with his added fictional characters. In 1972, Jack Benny did bump into the author in a Russian Club in Erie, PA. Reedited 6/2006 Rosa
See Dennis' web site: http://dennissiluk.tripod.com |
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