Free Cardinal Numbers: Stories by Hob Broun Page A

little by little, like his grandmother, Che thought of Racetrack and Soccer Field as two political parties: pomp and control versus tumult and passion.
    In Leticia, where the borders of Brazil, Peru, and Colombia converge, Granados had been hired to coach a junior soccer team. Most of the players went barefoot, and their only ball leaked air. But they were tireless, ferocious tacklers, and ran all day with no more fuel than coffee and bread.
    The plane shuddered in an air pocket, and Placido sprang up, throwing his arms around a colt’s neck. Che thought: He works for the horses, not for the boss.
    IN Miami, at the airport luncheonette, Che had a doughnut and three glasses of water. Behind the counter, on a mat of paper grass, was a baby alligator, stuffed, with an orange in its jaws. He did not understand the money or the language. What kind of penance was this? New contexts for study, every form of contradiction. United Snakes, Granados called it. Really, the trip was already over. Proven: He could act on impulse like anyone else, Ernesto, the methodical future physician. Evident: He should have stayed in Caracas.
    Che approached a man in an authoritative black visor cap to ask about hotels.
    “Sure, you want a place talks your talk, serves your food. Come on, my cab’s right outside.”
    In the wide car Che heard American radio for the first time, brass music, an overexcited voice. He thought of Evita when she was on the radio. “Brought to you by Jabon Radical.” Evita as Lucrezia Borgia. Evita as Joan of Arc … Evita dying now in Buenos Aires, but giving her alms to the end, to the unending line of supplicants, her descamisados, moving toward the marble hall on Avenida Real.
    “Hey,” the cabbie said. “Are you in the cigar business?”
    The Moncada desk clerk didn’t care to see his passport, just cash in advance. The room had a sink, but no toilet. The bedspread was edged with dangling pom-poms of chenille. From the window he could see the backs of several buildings, a Chinese cook smoking by the trash cans.
    Later he sat on a green couch in the deserted lobby and read Marti. He could smell seepage, mildew, some disagreeable cologne. He leafed through tattered magazines and saw slogans like “Safety-Flow Ride” and “Self-Cleaning Magic.” Two prostitutes came in, noticed his rope sandals, and went right by. Che smoked his pipe and went to bed hungry.
    CHE knew where he was in the morning: alone with not enough money. He had guava and cream cheese for breakfast. He brewed maté in his room and studied a map. The ocean was miles away.
A postcard (Everglades ’Gator Wrestling) to friends:
    Dear Hawkeye & Tonio—Greetings from another onetime Spanish possession. But nobody worries about History here. Everything is paved. When the sun doesn’t shine, they give a refund. The local air seems to help my asthma. Back soon for exams? Maybe.
    Love to all—Nesto
    He went outside to look for stamps, walked quite a way not finding any. Nearly everyone he saw wore a hat. Their faces, even while smiling, were preoccupied, expectant. Heat came up as he went. There were scarred trees. Dogs ran loose and idlers smashed bottles. An aroma of scorched snack-bar onions passed on the air. Women in white shoes bargained with a man selling fish from the trunk of his car, boys jeered and shadow-boxed—everyone was black. A man in chauffeur’s whipcords stood by himself at the end of the street. He kept looking up, scanning, as though waiting for a bomber group to appear.
    ONE morning the manager of the hotel brought coffee straight to his room.
    “Black as the devil, hot as hell and sweet as love,” she said.
    Celia carried her wealth on her body, like a gypsy. There were rings on every finger. Che was embarrassed. “Argentina, eh? You look like a gaucho.” “I’m from Buenos. My family is in the shipping business.” “You got the smarts, all right. I’m not so old so I don’t notice.”
    It was hard to find