Several hours later, the group took a morning tour-bus trip around Santiago, and we ate lunch on the road. Then we returned to the hotel, and everyone disembarked for naps and/or afternoon activities by ourselves before our scheduled evening tour-bus trip would leave, at 5:30PM sharp. I tried to nap and couldn’t, so I strolled around the hotel’s environs a while and then hit the veranda around 4 PM, in the shade like the Cubans in the square below. God it was bright and peaceful and beautiful. And my first mojito was incomparably delicious.
As I recall, I was on only my second one when I saw my boxer acquaintance on the street below, heading toward the steps up to the veranda. I greeted him warmly and with relief that he’d actually come. He sat down with relief from exertion in the hot afternoon sum, sweating profusely. I ordered two mojitos, and we continued our conversation about boxing in the United States in the 1950’s. I told him how my father had boxed in college in the 1930’s, and how he took me to see Golden Gloves fights in San Antonio when I was in high school in the 1950’s, and once, to see the great Willie Pep in the San Antonio Auditorium. When the old boxer heard me say Willie Pep’s name, he smiled and told me the American promoters had told him they could get him a fight with Willie Pep. He said his promoters never mentioned Pep’s name again, but just took advantage of him, and how he spent up the tiny purses he got paid, adding that he returned to Cuba totally broke. I commiserated again, and we began talking about living conditions in Cuba at the time, seven years after the “Special Period in Peacetime” of personal sacrifice began, after the USSR became Russia again. The old boxer was bitter about his monthly unemployment payment, and explained that its insufficiency explained his panhandling strangers in the early morning.
Then I noticed several other tour-group members on the veranda, and I realized the evening sightseeing was getting itself together. The old boxer and I continued talking about present-day Cuba, and I ordered two more mojitos. After the drinks came, the light-bulb finally went off.
I asked the boxer if he’d ever heard the funny way some American aficionados of boxing referred to the sport. He said no. “La deportiva dulce,” I told him (the sweet sport.) The word “dulce” was hardly out of my mouth before my companion erupted in a guffaw, the only time I’d heard him laugh. And he was still laughing and smiling as I got up from the table, tears in my eyes, and left to get organized with the group.
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