Free Havana Lunar by Robert Arellano

becoming a grandfather, everyone, his own children included, has called him Abuelo. My uncle Manolito, who is a month older than me, was dubbed diminutively because, as Abuelo’s son, he had been born to another Manolo. When I, the city boy, first visited Viñales in the summer of my tenth year, I was called Manolo to keep things easy for Abuela, although most of my father’s family still calls me Mano.
    Something smelled good. Going to Viñales, there’s actually food. Guajiros always scrape something together. In the bohío Abuela and Lydia were already at work on lunch. I kissed them both and gave Lydia the garlic, Abuela the bit of guayaba con queso. They don’t have Havana’s metropolitan walks en provincia, but there’s always a bit of pork and a garden supply of coffee. I thought about how much Julia would like it here.
    I went back out to sit with Abuelo. “I brought you a little chocolate. It’s Belgian, el mejor del mundo.”
    â€œYou never forget about me, Mano.”
    Abuela brought us café and we watched a pair of hawks spin their sunset shadows into mesmeric lace on the mountain. They rose on the updrafts without a single flap of wing. When we heard the ox low from the valley trail, Abuelo said, “Viene Manolito.” My uncle Manolito was coming up from the field. Wild Manolito can climb the mountains like a tiger. He believes that taking the trail is lazy if you don’t have a mule or ox to mind, so wherever possible he goes right up the steepest rocks. I told Abuelo I would surprise Manolito and got up to hide with the hens.
    My plan was to come jumping out of the henhouse just as my uncle arrived, but while Manolito tied up the ox at the edge of the vega he was already hollering, “¡What cabrón is hiding with my hens?” Manolito’s dogs got to barking and I came skulking out with my bottle of Ron Mulata.
    â€œHow did you know, Tío?”
    â€œMuy fácil … I smelled you.” Manolito’s whoop carried out across the valley and echoed off the mogotes, hysterical laughter that always reminds me where that phrase reir a carcajadas comes from: sides-plitting, ear-splitting, tree-splitting laughter. They could probably hear him all the way in Havana.
    My uncle and I shared a bear hug, Manolito almost crushing one of my ribs. Un grito: “¡Mono!” Monkey, he calls me.
    He tied up the mule so she wouldn’t eat green leaves and get too fat. “Mules will eat anything, just like goats: maíz, palmiches, hasta café.” She drank from the same bucket he used to wash her hide. He said to her, “Drinking soapy water, that’s what you like. Mira qué mujer es esa mula.” Then Manolito sent up a shout: “¡Hay hambre!”
    From the bohío Lydia called, “Ya está listo.”
    This eased my uncle’s mind. There was still work to do, and we took a minute to give the chickens feed corn. Manolito broke hard kernels off the cob with the heel of his hand. He gave the husks and cobs to his pigs. “You’ve got such pretty hands, Mono, like a lady, but nothing except your belt to hold your pants up.” Manolito himself has no belt, but his muscular hips hold his workpants on his ass even when he shimmies up the trunk of a royal palm.
    We all crowded around a table to eat. Abuela is too old now to do the actual serving, but she refuses to eat until Abuelo is finished. It has always been this way, but she has slowed down, passing serving duties along to Manolito’s wife now that the rest of her children have left. Abuela said, “Why do wives today have to talk and talk and talk so much at their husbands? He’s the father of her children. She should serve him. What does talking and complaining accomplish? In sixty years of marriage, Abuelo has never had to hit me. Not once.” Abuelo is peaceable at the head of his table. He inhabits a place perceptible only to