Willy rang an excellent buzzer and you can hollered as much as a vintage apartment that have a keen overhanging balcony

Minutes afterwards an older black colored lady dressed in a red scarf over light tresses emerged regarding the next-floors windows. She searched mislead but then recognized Willy. “ Hola. Hola. ” She anticipate united states upstairs.

Their unique identity was Gladis Castaneda, and you may she was actually a professional traditional pianist inside the Havana through the this new 1950s. She try a small woman in her 80s otherwise 90s. She nodded as he mentioned La Reina. Yes, she told you, he would lived in it area, proper nearby. Right here, throughout the skin, was a person who understood new epic Superman-research, in reality, that the man in reality stayed.

Superman, Castaneda told you, is actually significant, good, acknowledged. “Everyone understood your as the Queen,” she told you. “He had been gay, but you failed to wreck havoc on your.” She questioned me to remain. “He was your own top. But good. Muscle.” He’d surface such as hers: ebony, but not extremely. “He had been a man. No one got an issue with your.” I inquired if everybody in the people understood exactly what he performed to possess a living. “Son, it had been many years ago. The guy leftover years ago.”

Willy requested in the wie man eine Braut im Versandhandel bestellt event that she realized just what turned into away from him, and you may she said she thinks the guy passed away within the Miami. Their unique energy was waning, and you may Willy nodded in my opinion to suggest the time had come we wade.

Upon the street, i met an old man bending from the wall structure. Their term was Elado. The guy transmitted an excellent cane and you will dressed in a loose environmentally friendly sweater with good Masonic symbol clinging of a sequence to their neck. Willy advised him we had been looking information regarding the guy they entitled Los angeles Reina.

“ Si, si, ” the old man told you. “La Reina-every person understood him. Mulatto. Regarding the height,” he nodded within my direction. “Everybody else known him. He existed here to own twenty years. However, every person understood just what he performed having an income.” The guy told you Superman leftover into the You.S. within the 1959. “No body realized his name. People merely entitled him La Reina.”

I entered her large apartment, and you will Willy informed me what we was in fact performing

Down the street by the chapel, roosters crowed. A girl wear Rollerblades spoke into the a wages cellular phone. A vintage people in the a leather golf cover used a good cigar to your an excellent backless solid wood sofa.

Their locks was white and insane

I walked because of Los Sitios on Barrio Chino up until i showed up at 507 Marquis Road. I endured in the pub looking at the entrances to help you a good martial-arts college or university: Escuela Cubana de- Wushu. It got a reddish and you can red facade with a silver foo dog and a reddish iron door.

The door try unlock. Inside the front side gate was a beneficial courtyard with a small bistro and lots of stationary gym equipment. The fresh new theater immediately following endured where in actuality the school’s outdoor courtyard is actually. We made an effort to imagine where the stage has been. The fresh dressing area where Superman available to this new tell you. The latest balcony where drunken people watched this new show.

A few days afterwards we returned to Barrio de- los Sitios to help you material for others who might have known Superman. Throughout the apartment building alongside Gladis Castaneda’s, i came across Superman’s genuine neighbor: an old pizza cook called Roberto Cabarero, 82 years old, which have a seriously tarnished and you will longer muscle clothing, sagging brownish shorts towards travel wide open, and black clothes that have gaps from the foot. His epidermis sagged such as for instance a sea turtle’s.

Cabarero’s apartment, where the guy stayed together with his wife, try small and you can ramshackle, full of rubbish. His partner sat in the small home, rocking to and fro during the a solid wood chair, speaking loudly in the no body specifically. A radio blared tinny old Spanish songs, and you will a puppy was available in and you may out from the area to help you eat crumbs from the floor. A security clock sounded through the duration of all of our meeting. No body bothered to make it off.