Ms. Roque: Here's another true story, Wide Eyes. Your hair reminded me. Twelve-year-old Cuban girl, hair long like yours, she's been growing it half her life, riding home from school on the bus. Comes in the house, I'm home, Mamma. Mamma says what happened to your hair? Girl reaches back and discovers her long beautiful ponytail was cut off by someone on the bus who knew how to get money for it. (Makes scissors out of her fingers and reaches over The Assistant's shoulder.) Snip snip! Welcome to Cannibal Island! (Looks at her raised left arm) You know, in prison, I can't even feel my left side. This is nice. . .
Jerome Du Bois, The Tears of Things: The Prisons Behind Lisa Sette Gallery: Cuban Art Series #6
A week ago, Jerome Du Bois of The Tears of Things emailed me a link to the above, a postmodern essay/story about the growth of false dissident art disseminated by the Cuban government. False, of course, because of the horrifying treatment actual dissidents receive in Cuba.
I was busy last week - busy with work and golf and family deaths and editing work on my own stories - and I missed this. It ended up in the deferred/maybe section of email (and so, yes, this post is, in part, an apology to Mr. Du Bois) until today.
The piece by Du Bois is good. Very good. Had it been longer, I think it might have given Angels In America a run for its money.
More importantly, for me at least, it brings me back to thoughts I've had of Cuban culture and struggle. I've often felt a sort of kinship to Cuban culture. It's had to deal with the same suffering that all Socialist nations have had to deal with: the secret police, the executions, the denial of medical care, and, most importantly, the denial of the right to speak carelessly.
My family came over from Poland during and after World War II. For those that came before, the suffering was intense, yet brief. They spoke of battles and shrapnel and bayonet wounds. For those that came afterwards, after the Soviets took hold of Eastern Europe, the suffering was longer, more personal. They did not speak.
I think of those who carelessly toy with the language of Marxism nowadays, and I think of those old relatives who carried the real, physical and mental scars of Socialism. I think of the Cubans who still do so, and who are championed, in his short piece, by Du Bois.
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