A couple of minutes later an older black woman wear a red-colored garment more white hair emerged on 2nd-floor screen. She seemed puzzled but acknowledged Willy. “ Hola. Hola. ” She allowed you upstairs.
Their own name is Gladis Castaneda, and you can she had been a specialist ancient pianist for the Havana during the the 1950s. She was a small woman within her eighties or 90s. She nodded when he said Los angeles Reina. Sure, she said, he would stayed in that it neighborhood, proper next-door. Right here, throughout the flesh, was a person who realized the fresh new legendary Superman-research, in fact, that guy in reality existed.
Superman, Castaneda told you, is actually tall, strong, known. “Folks know him given that Queen,” she said. “He had been gay, however you failed to mess with your.” She asked us to stay. “He was their peak. But strong. Muscle.” He previously surface such as hers: black, however extremely. “He had been good man. Not one person got an issue with him.” I asked in the event the everyone in the neighborhood know just what he did getting an income. “Young buck, it had been years ago. The guy left years ago.”
Willy questioned in the event that she know just what turned off your, and she said she thinks the guy died inside the Miami. Their times is actually waning, and Willy nodded for me to point it was time we wade.
Down on the street, we fulfilled a vintage guy bending resistant to the wall surface. Their label was Elado. The guy carried a beneficial cane and you can dressed in a free green sweater with a beneficial Masonic icon hanging out-of a cycle doing his neck. Willy told him we were finding details about the person it titled La Reina.
“ Si, si, ” the outdated guy told you. “La Reina-people know your. Mulatto. Regarding the peak,” he nodded during my recommendations. “People acknowledged your. The guy existed here to own 2 decades. Needless to say, everybody else understood exactly what he performed having a full time income.” The guy told you Superman leftover on U.S. for the 1959. “No one know their identity. Folks just called him Los angeles Reina.”
We registered their unique large flat, and you can Willy explained what we should had been undertaking
Down the street by chapel, roosters crowed. An effective girl dressed in Rollerblades talked towards a pay cellular telephone. A classic people when you look at the a fabric tennis cover used a good cigar on an effective backless solid wood sofa.
His tresses try light and you may insane
I strolled as a result of Los Sitios with the Barrio Chino up to i showed up within 507 Marquis Roadway. I stood in the pub studying the entrance so you’re able to a good martial-arts university: Escuela Cubana de Wushu. They had a red and you can red-colored facade which have a gold foo dog and you can a purple metal entrance.
The entranceway is actually unlock. During the top gate is a great courtyard with a tiny bistro and some fixed gym equipment. Brand new movie theater shortly after endured where school’s outdoor courtyard is starting to become. I attempted to imagine where in https://internationalwomen.net/de/nigerianische-frauen/ fact the stage could have been. The brand new dressing place where Superman open to the new show. The brand new balcony where drunken tourist watched the brand new show.
A short while later on i gone back to Barrio de- los Sitios to canvas for others just who may have identified Superman. Regarding the flat strengthening close to Gladis Castaneda’s, we found Superman’s genuine neighbors: an old pizza pie cook named Roberto Cabarero, 82 yrs . old, that have a highly tarnished and you may offered muscle tissue shirt, sagging brownish jeans to your fly open, and you may black clothes having holes regarding base. His epidermis sagged instance a sea turtle’s.
Cabarero’s flat, in which the guy lived with his spouse, was lightweight and you may ramshackle, littered with junk. His partner sat in the middle of the small living room, rocking forward and backward within the a solid wood sofa, talking loudly from the no-one particularly. An invisible blared tinny dated Foreign-language songs, and you will your dog came in and you can from the space to consume crumbs off of the floors. An alarm time clock sounded during our very own appointment. Not one person bothered to show it off.