One Hell of a Dramatic Ending

My sweet friend Agostine walks me all over Havana today and we end up at one of the coolest places I’ve been yet in this beautiful majestic city of rubble and piss.  La Patio Bar has a rhumba tonight and my body sings in anticipation. 

As we stand waiting for the music to start, the place fills up, then overfills, then packs itself so tight it’s like getting a frontal massage every few seconds when someone else walks through. I am pleased to see this many people coming out for Rhumba and hope that the fact that it’s mostly young men singing means there is a resurgence here also in the Roots of Cuban music.

An hour into the show, my phone rings.  “Where are you?  Who are you with?  I’m coming to Havana.  You want to see me before I go or not?  Meet me at 6:30 at Casa de la Musica.”  I seriously contemplate blowing him off.  I can feel the tension between us and the awareness that I’m particularly volatile and pretty sick of his shit right now runs thru me as a bolt of adrenaline saying “fight or flight.” 

Agostine escorts me to the Casa de La Musica, and I kiss him on the cheek hoping my lover isn’t watching from some close corner counting demerits.  He shows up dressed in red again and embraces me with a smirk on his face.  He is slurring and it takes me a few minutes to ask him why, “I drunk.”  I laugh not knowing the drama that’s in store for me because of his drunkenness.  I  now start to understand that he has a coldness inside him that is dangerous for me. 

Inside the bar, he buys a bottle of rum and a bottle of water for me.  The drama begins. “you kissed my cousin, I know you now, we can be friends, but we’re through.  I see you.” 

At first I laugh, the ridiculousness of the accusation is so incredible.  Then I remember that he’s drunk already and I try to talk sense into him. I didn’t kiss anyone, “I’ve been waiting for you, don’t you know I am falling in love with you.”  He can’t hear me, he is so deep in his jealousy and so incapable of even listening to me.  He says I disappointed him, and I tell him I feel the same because I haven’t done anything wrong.  He is making up a story and believing his own lie.

His hostility and sharp words frighten me.  I don’t understand how or why this is happening and I’m mostly sad that this is how he’s choosing to end our time together.  I try to rationalize with him, “Please don’t do this on our last night together.  I just want to dance and enjoy this night with  you baby, I love you.  There’s been no one else.”  He gets nastier and nastier and looks at me with loathing and my heart sinks.  I walk away and sit somewhere else wondering what the best course of action is right now.

Leaving feels heartbreaking, staying feels heartbreaking.  Taking space is the only thing I can do at this moment.  I go and dance with some other beautiful men but my heart wants him.  He tries to get me to dance with his cousin, and this time I say “Dammit no, I didn’t come to dance with your cousin, I came to dance with you.”  I slam a few shots of rum to try to meet him where he is and fight fire with fire, knowing it could be dangerous, but not knowing what else to do.  My bag and keys to my room are in the car and he’s now refusing to give me the car key.  I am stuck, he is, as he has always been in this love affair, in control. 

Finally we dance together.  It’s one of the most incredible dances of my life, so filled with firey passion.  We dance together perfectly.  Matching every step, making love in the dance and for a few moments I think maybe this night can heal.   After a few minutes he passes me to his cousin and my heart sinks again.

I realize I am drunker than I have been in years when we go to leave.  The room is spinning, and I can’t see straight.  Stupidly, I get into the car with him, knowing he’s more drunk than me.  Lights and cars speed by me.  He’s still accusing me of kissing his cousin, his cousin even tells him with me right there that it didn’t happen and still he can’t let it go.  His jealousy and insecurity amaze me, and I find myself getting angry and frustrated by the moment.

I have no idea why, but the car stops for a moment and I grab the key out of the ignition, get out of the car and run down this random street of Havana and hide behind a big tree.  I know he will be behind me and I am not moving until we talk.  He comes and I am laughing, and he’s like a little boy when the power gets switched around. 

Looking at the ground, saying “I’m sorry. OK I believe you.”  For a few minutes, I have power.  I reluctantly go back to the car, not knowing if he really heard or got anything I just said to him.  Too drunk to keep trying. I know he has never dealt with a woman as strong and fiery as me.  I know he has feelings he’s afraid of.  I know he’s sabotaged our night out of not knowing how to feel the sadness of our separation, but still I am dumbfounded and mildly traumatized.  I can’t help but keep rerunning the scene of him trying to pick up another woman right in front of me, though I give him credit for at least introducing me to her. 

His cousin drops us off and takes the car and he and I stumble to my room with him mumbling about fucking and having sex the whole time like a strange primitive creature.  We make love for a long time, deeply.  I’m not sure if it’s good, but it’s so intense I want it to last all night. I remember being slapped in the face and knowing that that wasn’t OK, and stopping him in that moment.  “Never do that again.  That’s not OK,” but I am so drunk and I want more of him.  He falls asleep inside of me and holds me close to him and I feel comforted, confused and fall asleep not caring as long as he is holding me.  

He wakes me again in a few hours for seconds, and in a few hours after that he wakes to leave.  “Listen to me, you can never hit a woman in the face, that’s not OK.”  “I didn’t baby, I didn’t do that.  I would never do that,” he says and I am scared for a moment of what he might be capable of when he’s drunk.  “Yes baby, you slapped me last night,”  “Oh,” he says, “that was just sex,” and I am disturbed and a little sick by the fact that somehow I understand that and am even slightly turned on by it, but more than that I know it’s dangerous for me and I vow in that moment to be done with him. 

I walk him to the door, feeling less sentimental that I would have if we had had a great last night instead of a night of bullshit drama.  I’m mostly sort of repulsed by him at this moment, and deeply sad that this is how it has to end.  I think about walking with him to meet his cousin on the Malacon, but I decide he’s not worth it and doesn’t deserve my companionship in these last moments.  He deserves to stand there alone and think about what he’s created.

“Thanks for helping me out with things here.  I love you. Good bye.”  I say to him.  “I’ll see you back in Colorado,” he says, “I had a good time with you here in Cuba.”  I go back to bed feeling the stinging on my cheek as if the slap had just happened and think to myself, “I hope not.”

I realize I have no way to contact him when he leaves Cuba and I start to call his sister to get his contact info, then think better of it.  It’s better if I have no possibility of being able to communicate with him.  My stupid tender heart will want to reach out and try to heal things, try to make him realize how much I love him and how he hurt me, but this time, I need to learn the lesson of letting go, and walking away and not looking back.

It will and can only get worse, and I don’t need to waste any more time on men who turn out to be abusive and hurtful.  That’s the first and last time I will ever be hit by a man.  Once is more than enough.  I run through the night in my head a hundred times trying to make sense of it and tell myself there’s no sense to be made.  I think about the number of things he did last night alone that hurt my feelings, and remind myself that I deserve more respect than what he showed me last night. 

It doesn’t matter if he acted that way out of fear of his feelings or just being a psycho, what matters is for me to be smarter this time, to take it for what it was.  To realize I had some fun sex with a super hot Cuban and leave it at that.  Love this time has nothing to do with it.  I commit myself to leaving this all in Cuba and staying away from him when I get back and feel so grateful that it will be 3 months or more before I return.