Cigar City Stories: Tales of Old Ybor City

by Emilio Gonzalez-Llanes

Overview

In 1885, Vincent Martinez Ybor, a Spanish entrepreneur, purchased forty acres east of Tampa and built a company town of tall red-brick factories and small wood-frame houses for the workers. Over the next forty years, this community of cigar-makers from Cuba, Spain, and Italy grew into a thriving industry that made Tampa the “Cigar Capital of the World.” The urban renewal of the 1960s, however, struck a deathblow to Ybor City; thousands of cigar-makers’ homes and businesses were leveled by bulldozers, and an interstate highway stormed through the dying neighborhood.

The narratives, reflecting a coming-of-age in this colorful community that no longer exists, speak of a kidnapping, a hold-up, a shark attack, a deadly duel, and a murder. A teenager comes to grips with his sexual identity, an activist mother resists Jim Crow laws, and an unexpected baby changes everyone’s life. In Cigar City Stories, author Emilio Gonzalez-Llanes presents a collection of short stories that provides a snapshot of this lost island in time.

Julian stood on that raised platform in the middle of the factory floor, reading to the workers: Anna Karenina, War and Peace, Les Miserables, writings of Cervantes, newspapers, and the poems of José Marti. He didn’t just read the words; he took on the voice and mannerisms of the characters in the novels, like an actor in the theater. Good performances were followed by the sustained thumping roar of two hundred chavetas, or tobacco knives, repeatedly striking the workers’ tobacco-cutting boards.

—from “El Lector”

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781475950946
Publisher:	iUniverse, Incorporated
Publication date:	09/28/2012
Sold by:	Barnes & Noble
Format:	eBook
Pages:	86
File size:	2 MB

Read an Excerpt

CIGAR CITY Stories

Tales of Old Ybor City

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By Emilio Gonzalez-Llanes

iUniverse, Inc.

Copyright © 2012 Emilio Gonzalez-Llanes
All right reserved.
ISBN: 978-1-4759-5093-9

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Chapter One

EL PARAISO

José hung the white canvas apron around my neck. "It's time you wore this, Rafa; last summer you were too young, but this year you can help me collect the money and keep an eye on the women customers—they're a bunch of thieves."

I slid my hands into the deep pockets of the new apron. "Thank you, José. Can I take it home?"

"Just to wash it, otherwise leave it here."

I reached behind me and tied the straps. "Can I get more pay, too?"

"More pay?" José howled. "I'm two months behind on the mortgage, my children need shoes, and you want more pay?" He walked down the narrow aisle of the store to the cash register.

"O.K. I'll pay you thirty cents an hour instead of twenty-five. Now, get to work! Clean up this place, it looks like a toilet, not a food store."

As he spoke, José Sanchez, his straight hair slicked back with Brilliantine, wrinkled the large nose that was the centerpiece of his Cuban face. He'd left Cuba when he was eighteen; a fight in a cane field—dueling with machetes over a woman, he claimed—had left him with a big scar on his jaw and without work. The cigar company paid his passage to Tampa, and he got a job as a shipping clerk at El Paraiso the busiest cigar factory in Ybor City, Perfecto Garcia & Company, nicknamed El Paraiso by early immigrants from Cuba because of the flowering magnolia and paradise trees that surrounded the four-story brick building. In five years, José had saved enough to start a small business selling fruits and vegetables, located just across the street from the factory.

José's Fruiteria was a combination fruit-stand, grocery store and commissary. It was housed in a former garage with a back door that opened into a large shaded yard where every day a dozen Sicilian women, all cigar-makers, ate their lunches of salami, cucumber and tomato-sauce sandwiches.

Lola Valdez-Riley, a neighbor and regular customer, always shopped near closing time on her way home. I watched her pinch the avocados, smell the cantaloupes and toss a seedless grape into her mouth.

"Quanto le debo, M'ijo?" Lola didn't just say this; she sang it, one hand on her hip and her foot tapping the floor with the open toe of her high-heeled shoes.

"Two ears of corn, three onions, two sweet potatoes, a dozen eggs, a Spanish chorizo, and a small bottle of sweet vermouth. That comes to two dollars and ten cents, Senorita." I avoided her probing eyes.

"Listen hermoso, please don't call me Senorita." She leaned closer. "I am not a virgin, I am not a wife, but a lonely widow. Call me Senora." She adjusted a bra strap and reached for her purse. Her long auburn hair tumbled down her face and stuck to her glossy red lips. "Rafa, Lola doesn't have to pay." José announced from the front door, "Give her the money back."

"What?" I was puzzled. José had told me no discounts for anyone.

"This lovely young lady is a pillar of our community and has a good position at the factory. We need to be good to her."

I dug into my apron pocket and returned Lola's cash.

"You'll make a good cashier, machito." She stroked my curly brown hair. "I handle thousands of dollars every week at the factory, but none of it is mine,"

"Let me walk you home, querida." José picked up her grocery bag, offered his arm to Lola, and the two of them strolled down the street, whispering secrets under her red parasol.

Ten years earlier, Lola had spent two weeks in jail for defying a ban on picketing for higher wages in front of El Paraiso. In the settlement, the Union demanded that she be given a clerk's job in the office. On paydays, she stuffed tiny envelopes with cash and coins to pay the workers.

Her full figure, curves front and back, made her a constant target for Latin men's eyes. On her three-block walk to the factory in the early morning, cigar-smoking men, flush from their cognac and café solo, whistled and hooted, shouted proposals of marriage, expounded poetic fantasies, or just plain grunted at the sight of this lovely creature. She lived alone, but lately she'd been escorted to the Sunday-matinee tea-dances at the Centro Español Club by Santiago Nuñez, a recent arrival from Cuba who had become the new doorman at El Paraiso. He was younger than Lola, tall, with broad shoulders and muscled arms like a blacksmith.

"Is Lola your girlfriend?" I asked José. We sat at the picnic table in the backyard after closing up the store.

"That's none of your business." José took a slug from a silver flask he carried in his back pocket. "I'm a married man with three children."

I snacked on a Cuban sandwich. José did not eat. He looked tired.

"Lots of husbands in Ybor City have girlfriends." I continued.

"Not me Rafa. Lola's husband, Patrick, was my friend. You heard about the murder didn't you?"

"Murder? What murder?"

"They called it a suicide, so Lola got no insurance, no pension."

José chomped on his cheroot and spit on the ground.

"Lola's husband, a police sergeant, asked too many questions about bolita, the Cuban lottery run by the Mafia. They found him in his squad car on Palmetto Beach with a twelve-gauge shotgun between his legs, his head blown away."

It was still dark on Saturday morning when José and I got back from the farmers' market in his '46 Chevy panel truck packed with bushels of fruit and vegetables. With sisal rope, we hung bananas and platanos to the beams that held up the tattered tarp over the sidewalk. José's legs shook as he lifted the heavy stems. Across the street, waiters in white jackets carried large pots of Cuban coffee and steamed milk to pour café con leche for the cigar-rollers arriving at their workbench. Saturday was payday at El Paraiso.

The armored truck that brought the payroll pulled up in front of the factory at precisely 8:00 a.m. as it did every week. But that day something was different; the driver was alone, and no guard accompanied him. He lugged big bags filled with bills and coins up the wide wooden steps of the factory to the office. making two trips. When the armored truck pulled away from the curb the driver waved and smiled at José. José did not wave back.

Streaks of lightning flashed nearby. Within minutes, large raindrops turned to steam on the hot red-brick streets lined with granite curbstones. People scattered for shelter in doorways, under awnings; wind-driven clouds released slanted sheets of water on a thousand tin roofs, creating a roar that sounded like a speeding freight train. Then just as suddenly as it arrived, the thunderstorm moved on, the sun came out, and people emerged from the shadows.

"I'll be back in an hour, Rafa," José said. "I have to go to the bank. Be sure to collect the tabs owed by these women."

"Don't worry José, I can handle it."

José was sweating more than usual and chain-smoking Chesterfields instead of his usual cigar.

"If I'm not back by closing time, lock up and take the money home." He gunned the panel truck and scratched off down the narrow alley.

I shelved canned goods and mopped up pools of water that had leaked through the roof during the storm. In the backyard, a hairless dog snored in the shade of a banyan tree, amid branches that had spread like an octopus and touched the ground to root there.

When José got back to the store, the streets were lined with people gawking at the ambulances, police cars and vans jammed in front of El Paraiso. The news about the hold-up at the factory spread like brushfire in Ybor City. The workers would not be paid until Monday. Depending on who you talked to, the burglars had taken between fifty and one hundred thousand dollars.

The hold-up at El Paraiso made front-page news in all the papers; even the Miami Herald ran the story. La Gaceta, Ybor City's Spanish,/ English/Italian daily ran a special bulletin:

BOLD HOLDUP AT PERFECTO GARCIA

TAMPA—Just before noon on Saturday, two armed men wearing stocking masks broke into the offices of Perfecto Garcia cigar factory in Ybor city and stole the week's payroll, valued at more than $50,000. The doorman, Santiago Nuñez, said he heard a man's voice saying, "Abre la puerta, Santiago." He opened the door and the thieves swiftly chloroformed him and tied him up with sisal rope. Lola Valdez-Riley, the payroll clerk, was also gassed, gagged and tied to her chair. Senorita Valdez said that when she came to, her grandmother's diamond wedding ring was missing from her finger. The two robbers emptied the safe and drove away in a stolen 1938 Chevy sedan.

"What time did you get to work today?" the police detective asked José.

"Same as always, 6:00 o'clock." José looked directly into the policeman's eyes.

"And have you been here all day?"

"Sure; who else is going to run this business?"

"Did you notice anything unusual across the street at El Paraiso?"

"No, pretty much the same crap week after week."

"How about you, son?" the detective asked me, "Did you notice anything different at the factory this morning?"

A stern glance from José was all I needed to shut my mouth.

I lowered my eyes and choked out a whisper: "No sir, not a thing"

For the next two days, Ybor City's economy stood still. No one had money to pay debts, buy food, or eat at the local restaurant. Saturday's lottery tickets were sold on credit. The phrase "Abre la puerta, Santiago" was adopted by the Cuban workers and became a popular chiste, or joke, to be used on almost any occasion.

The factory owners sacked Santiago for incompetence, but he immediately got hired as a guard for the armored-car company. The trauma of the holdup was too much for Lola, who resigned for health reasons and never came back to El Paraiso.

As expected, rumors about the holdup spread throughout Ybor City, and the possibilities of an "inside job" with payoffs, and bribes became the hot topic of nightly discussions at the Centro Español and the Cuban Club. But eventually, when all the conspiracy theories had been aired and other subjects began to dominate the news, memories of the holdup faded.

* * *

"Rafa, I'm sorry, but after this week, I won't need you anymore." José digs into the cash register for my weekly salary.

"But it's still summer! School doesn't start for a month!"

"I know, son, but I've sold the business to a Sicilian family and they won't be needing you." He hands me my pay.

"Sold the business? What are you going to do now, José?"

"I'm moving back to Cuba. I've booked passage for me and my family on the SS Florida, sailing from Miami to Havana on Sunday."

"I'll miss you, José; I've learned a lot from you."

"You'll do all right, Rafa. You can be trusted, and that's important." He walks to the back door. "Come, I have a present for you. It's under the banyan tree."

A late-model used Schwinn Phantom bicycle waited for me in the backyard.

"Wow, it's beautiful, José! Thank you! Thank you! Has Lola seen it?"

"No. Haven't you heard?"

"Heard what?"

José strikes a wooden match on the leather sole of his shoe and re-lights his Habana Puro.

"Lola and Santiago eloped to Georgia and got married. They're living in West Tampa now, and she's opened a store to buy and sell gold jewelry."

My mouth falls open, but I say nothing. In the back yard, colonies of monarch butterflies blanket the solitary Paradise tree and savor its bitter berries.

NEW BABY

I'm sitting on the edge of my parents' double bed reading my birth certificate, newly found in a shoebox under the bed, buried among old photos, clippings, and faded Christmas cards. It certifies that I was "born alive" in Hillsborough County, Tampa, Florida, at 1:27 p.m. on November 21, 1937. In the blank labeled "color or race," someone had scribbled the word "white".

It also tells me that my father, Francisco Gonzalez, 39, a cigar-maker for 23 years, was born in Cuba and that my mother, Margarita Llanes, 37, born in Tampa, does "housework" at home. This is a yellowed photostat of the original certificate on file with the State in Tallahassee. The fuzzy signature at the bottom reads "Josefina Valenti, Midwife." She had also delivered my sister Carmen two years earlier on this same bed.

Josefina, a former nun, immigrated to Ybor City in the 1920s, together with many families from, the Magazzolo Valley in Sicily. Most of them got work in the cigar factories, but using skills she learned as a nurse, Josefina built a thriving business delivering babies, for an affordable fee that included pre- and post-natal care.

She lives close by, and I often see her in a white nurse's uniform and cap marching to the home of some lucky couple. She carries a black leather satchel, like a doctor's, on all her calls. After her visit, a baby usually appears in the household. I used to think she brought the babies in that mysterious black bag.

On hot summer evenings after dinner, our family sits on the long porch that stretches across the front of our faded yellow house that had been a moonshine distillery during prohibition. Avocados and papayas grow in the backyard, a huge mango tree shades the bedrooms from the intense heat, and brick pilings lift the house above the hot sands. We greet neighbors strolling past, and everyone is talking about the end of the War, or Roosevelt's passing. Carmen and I spend the evening playing games of imagination and make-believe.

"Who's your favorite hero, Jorge?" She asks, shooing mosquitoes from her bare legs.

"I want to be like Robin, live in a cave with Batman and share a life of crime-fighting."

"Not me," says Carmen. "I want to be strong, like Wonder Woman and beat up all the guys."

Father puffs away on his cigar and leans back in his wicker rocking chair. Mother crochets in silence. Most nights she tells us stories that she makes up as she goes along. But tonight, she has a distant look in her eyes.

She turns to face my father, "Paco, we have to talk." She puts down her needle and thread. "Carmen and Jorge, go inside; it's almost bedtime."

"No. Let them stay, querida. I want no secrets in this house."

"You may not want to hear this, but I'm six months pregnant. The baby is due in July."

"Impossible," he says. "You can't be pregnant at your age, and we don't need another mouth to feed."

"It's true, mi amor," she wipes her eyes. "I've been to see Josefina. She thinks it will be another boy."

He snuffs his cigar and places it on the handrail. "I'm going to bed now. Tomorrow we can talk about resolving this situation. Buenas noches, Rita."

Carmen is overjoyed by the news. I hate it. I will no longer be "el bebito" in our family and we'll have this screaming little boy to look after. I walk to the far end of the porch and hang over the railing. Carmen presses her ear to my mother's stomach to see if she can hear the baby sloshing around.

My father learned the art of cigar-making in Cuba. By the age of twenty-two, he was working as a finisher, the person who gives each cigar its final form and wrapper. In Ybor City, he's one of the top finishers at Perfecto Garcia. At the end of the workday, Father stashes a few unfinished cigars into his shirt to take home, smoke, and give to his friends. On paydays he sells the Communist Daily Worker on the factory steps. Most evenings after dinner he joins his male coworkers at the Cuban Club to play dominos and talk politics.

"Look, querida, you must understand," Father reaches for the sugar bowl on the kitchen table. "Since the War ended, more machines are being installed. Last week thirty workers on my floor were laid off and replaced by cigar-making machines and low-paid women to operate them."

"Why are you telling me this?" Mother asks.

"Because I could lose my job any day, and, I can't get work in America. I don't speak their language."

Wonder Woman and Robin crawl under the house and lie with their backs in the sand underneath the kitchen floor.

"It would not be fair to bring a child into this uncertain situation," he pauses. "I don't want you to have this baby. My sister in Havana can take you to a doctor who will fix this. It's safe and legal."

"Fix me?" She laughs. "But I'm not broken. I'm just doing what women do naturally—have babies." She walks to the refrigerator. "I don't know why I got pregnant so close to menopause, but this unformed soul inside my body is taking a chance with me and deserves to see the light of day. Please thank your sister." Her footsteps echo down the long hallway and out the front door.

(Continues...)

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Excerpted from CIGAR CITY Stories by Emilio Gonzalez-Llanes Copyright © 2012 by Emilio Gonzalez-Llanes. Excerpted by permission of iUniverse, Inc.. All rights reserved. No part of this excerpt may be reproduced or reprinted without permission in writing from the publisher.
Excerpts are provided by Dial-A-Book Inc. solely for the personal use of visitors to this web site.

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Table of Contents

Contents

Acknowledgements....................vii
Introduction....................ix
1. El Paraiso....................1
2. New Baby....................9
3. Paper Doll....................21
4. Streetcar....................31
5. Night Fishing....................43
6. El Lector....................53
7. Chucho and Sal....................61
8. School Daze....................69
9. Ybor Dreaming....................71