Escape from Castro's Cuba, page 13
“I can’t tell you how good that felt,” Chuck said, as he jogged over to the car and got behind the wheel. “That’s a home run in any ballpark.”
With that he turned over the engine and we were on our way, heading for the border.
22
We kept to the backstreets until we were well out of town. As soon as we were past the Monterrey city limits, Chuck hit the gas, staying within a few miles per hour of the speed limit as we headed north. Over the next two hours, we fell in with the flow of traffic, keeping mostly in the right-hand lane, refusing to stick out. For the longest time, nobody said a word, and Gabby Santos eventually drifted off to sleep.
We had decided to follow the customs officer’s advice and stay away from the larger border crossings. Instead we headed for the border post at Falcon Dam station. Even though Falcon Dam allowed a limited number of big rigs, we found ourselves in a long line of cars, a half mile or more, all of us idling under the starry sky, with dawn fast approaching.
“We’ve gotta wait it out,” Chuck said.
“We may not have the time,” Eván said, looking behind us.
“Ye of little faith,” Chuck said. “We got this far.”
He reached for a Cuban cigar he had stashed in the glove department. “Anybody else for a victory smoke?”
“That’s what I was afraid of,” Eván said and pointed at a pair of black sedans that pulled to a stop a dozen or so vehicles behind us. We saw the doors open and several guys, in dark suits and ties, get out.
“God damn,” Chuck muttered. “Now what?”
“We have to get him into the United States,” Eván said. “Just a foot across the border, isn’t that right, Papa?”
“That was U.S. policy when we left,” I replied.
“We’re running out of time,” Chuck said, as he studied events in the rearview mirror. “Those sons of bitches will be on us soon enough.”
All of us turned to see the suits moving methodically up the line of cars, shining flashlights into vehicles, asking a few questions, before moving on. Now wide-awake, Santos slumped down in the seat as if he wanted to disappear.
In rapid-fire Spanish, my daughter went over the border policy with him and he nodded his head.
“We need to get him to the other side,” I said.
“Any Cuban knows the drill,” Eván replied. “If he sets foot onto American soil, they cannot automatically send him back. It’s still the law. Sure, they may arrest him. Hold him for a while, but they cannot send him back to Havana. The exile Cuban community would have a fit, somebody with his talent, and the border guys know it.”
“That may be true,” Chuck said, drumming his fingertips on the steering wheel. “But right now, we’re still a Major League throw from Yankee territory.”
“Looks like the first checkpoint is in Mexico,” Eván said, nodding in front of us. “It’s a different setup than Laredo.”
Indeed, the smaller border crossing consisted of a ramshackle building and then a steel-girder bridge across a ravine. On the far side, we saw that the two-lane road widened to several more lanes, with a gleaming office building that could have belonged in Dallas or Washington DC.
“That’s where we need to be,” Eván said.
“We won’t be anywhere close,” Chuck grumbled. “Not by the time that posse catches up to us.”
By this point, we were abreast a lumbering semi. I rolled down my window and shouted out to the good old boy driving it.
“What’s the holdup?” I asked.
“What’s that?” he replied as I got out of the car and went up to his rig.
“Papa, be careful,” Eván said.
“What’s going on?” I repeated to the trucker.
“A flood of migrants closer to Laredo,” he shouted down.
“Migrants?”
“They’re calling it a caravan,” the driver told me. “Thousands of them, and it’s rippled right down the border.”
He briefly turned up his CB unit. “You hear that?”
I shook my head. It was nothing but static from where I was.
“The federales weren’t prepared at all. Word has it we’ll be sitting here for hours. Officials are pissed off and looking to lock people up, too. This is going to be a long night, partner.”
I nodded and tapped the side of his cab in thanks. Before returning to Chuck’s BMW, I gazed back at the suits. They were working their way through the two lines of idling cars and would soon be upon us. That’s when I spied a sidewalk leading past the trucker and the line of vehicles. The route wound up to the border, where it was encircled by walls of metal mesh. Closer to the border, the fencing was lined by barbed wire. Still, the concrete path kept going, right on up to a narrower bridge that led across the ravine to the American side.
“Change of plans,” I said, opening my door. Chuck switched off the dome light, keeping us in the shadows. “Gabby and I are going to have to hoof it.”
“Papa, I should go,” Eván said.
“Stay here,” I ordered. “Slow them down when they get here.”
“But your bad knees—”
“You don’t have to remind me that I’m an old man. But trust me, I can still get around the bases. And we’ll attract less attention than you would, Evvy.”
By then I had Santos by the arm, urging him to get out of the car.
“We’ll see you on the other side,” I said.
“You sure about this, buddy?” Chuck asked.
The cars in front of us pulled up a bit, making for a small gap in the line. Some drivers behind us saw the opening and sounded their horns.
“Positive. It’s the only way,” I told him and closed the door.
Bent over at the waist, Gabby and I ducked behind the cars until we were in the open, moving as fast as I could manage toward the pedestrian walkway and the narrow bridge to U.S. soil. Of course, Santos could have left me in the dust anytime he wanted, but he remained by my side and took hold of my forearm, steadying me, as we scrambled up the small embankment to the walkway. God, my legs hurt, and again I was reminded that I wasn’t a fast man— never was and never would be.
Once more I pictured myself back in Cuba, trying my best to salvage what was left of my baseball career. “Bolo”—that’s what the crowd sometimes chanted at the games in the old stadium in Havana when I came to bat. For in my slowness, I reminded them of the team mascot, the real-life Bolo, the clown who used to twirl lighted sticks of fire atop the dugout roof and lead the crowd in cheers. His favorite trick, I remembered, was when he ran the bases during the seventh-inning stretch and handed the red-and-white-striped Lions banner off to our third base coach, Willie Gomez, as he turned for home. After a few more scuffling steps, he would belly flop across the lid to loud groans and plenty of laughter from those in the stands. Back during those days in Havana, team management once asked if I’d be interested in a race for the ages against the beloved Bolo. I refused. I mean, what was the point? I told them. I was a catcher for the Habana Lions, a guy with a starting job and I didn’t want to risk getting hurt in some silly promotion. But we all knew the real reason I turned them down: I would lose that race to Bolo.
Once more I tried to make myself go faster, really churn those worn-out legs. But truth be told, I wasn’t making much progress. Santos helped me up the embankment and together we hustled as fast as I could go toward the bridge across the ravine.
“What papers do you have?” I asked him.
“My team credential,” Santos replied, stealing a glance at what was going on behind us. The commotion grew in our wake, and I prayed that the dark suits weren’t onto us already.
“Passport?”
“Team officials took them all,” he said. “They keep them locked in their room until we go to the airport.”
There was no line for pedestrians at the Mexican guardhouse. In fact, it was unmanned, so we raced past, ignoring the cries for us to stop.
For a moment, Santos hesitated, until I pushed him forward.
“Get to the other side,” I said. “I’ll catch up. Go, go, you have to get there.”
That’s when the first of the shots rang out and I raised my hands in the air. Still, I nodded at Santos, telling him to keep going. And, thankfully, the kid shortstop took off, really running now, becoming a blur in the shadows, racing toward the lights on the far side of the bridge. I had to marvel at such ability, realizing that I had never run that fast in my life.
When another round of shots rang out, the U.S. side became abuzz with searchlights and noise and shouting. With my hands still raised, I tried my best to catch up to it all.
Several shots whizzed over my head and I was halfway across the bridge by now. Out in front of me all hell broke loose—a thunderstorm of light and barking orders. I saw Santos reach the other side and be swallowed up by a crowd of uniformed personnel. I ran for the chaos as bullets crackled against the concrete walls a few feet behind me and I fell forward and began to crawl toward the American side.
“Stop, stop,” somebody on a bullhorn shouted, but I kept going toward the blaze of white lights Santos had disappeared into.
Then somebody in uniform was beside me, pulling me to my feet.
“What the hell are you doing?” he asked, and I was relieved to hear the hint of a Texas drawl. The guy who had taken me into custody wore a blue-issue military shirt, with U.S. Customs in white stitching above the front pocket.
“I’m an American,” I said.
“So what are you trying to pull here, Gramps?”
“I’m with him,” I said, pointing at Santos, who was surrounded by so many cops.
“He’s not American,” the customs officer said. “He doesn’t even have the proper papers.”
“It’s okay, it’s okay. He’s Cuban,” I said.
“Cuban?”
“That’s right. That kid is the best damn Cuban ballplayer to reach America in years.”
23
Eván and Chuck didn’t catch up with us until hours later. By that point Santos and I were sitting silently in a meeting room under florescent lights, cut off from the rest of the world. Eván, bless her heart, barged in, ready to start kicking butt and taking names. At times like this she reminded me of her mother, unable to let any perceived injustice slip by. When she saw us, my daughter smiled, and I found myself grinning, too.
“You did it,” she said.
“We made it across.”
“And whatever cock-and-bull story you told them worked, too,” Chuck added. “Why do you think they let us come back here so soon?”
Eván shook her head, warning him not to speak so loudly. All of us followed her gaze up to a security camera in the far corner of the room. Somehow being Cuban in this day and age meant always knowing when somebody was eavesdropping on your conversation.
“All I told them was that Gabby here was the star of the Cuban ball club,” I said. “That we had to get him into the United States before the bad guys caught us.”
“And it worked,” Chuck said, with a hint of admiration.
“Because it’s the truth.”
Soon afterward the only door to the conference room opened and a pair of customs officers walked in.
“It does appear to be the truth,” said the older one. His nameplate read Collins. “Mr. Bryan, your story checks out.”
I resisted telling him that of course it did.
“We even obtained video of your young friend here in action,” Collins said, and he nodded to the other officer.
The younger one pressed several buttons on the wall and a screen at the back of the room descended from the ceiling as a video player hanging above the long table whirred to life. As the lights dimmed, images of ballplayers began to play out for all to see.
“Mr. Santos, I believe that this game was from last year?” Collins said.
Gabby Santos nodded, “Against Pinar del Río.” And we watched him turn the double play with the base runner bearing down on him. He threw on to first base and jumped effortlessly in the air as the runner slid underneath him.
“And this one is something,” Collins added as the highlight montage switched to Santos at bat, this time wearing the white uniform with red trim of Team Cuba.
“Yes, I remember,” he told the customs officers. “It was in Holguín. How do you say, a pretend game?”
“An exhibition?” asked Chuck.
“That’s right. Against the American team.”
Together we watched him turn on an inside pitch, driving it into the gap in left-center field. The camera followed Santos as he hustled around the bases and slid headfirst into third for a triple.
“I’m sorry it came against your country’s team,” he said in halting English, perhaps wondering if such a classic hit would get him in trouble.
“Don’t worry about it,” Collins said. “Now, of course, anybody can say that they’re somebody famous and talented. That they’re somebody we should let stay in the country. But this last bit of film, I believe, cements your case.”
He nodded again and the footage on the screen became darker, with us trying to make out what we were watching now.
“This was taken an hour or so ago,” Collins said, and we recognized the two long lines of cars leading up to the border.
“See the guys moving up between the cars?” Collins asked, and the camera angle zoomed in, revealing two, now three figures, fuzzy and frantic with activity in the darkness. “They checked out every vehicle that they could.”
We saw them coming up to Chuck’s car, glancing at my old teammate and my daughter and then moving on.
“They meant business,” Chuck said.
“Yes, they did,” Collins said, nodding at his partner. “Watch this.”
The images became greenish in color, yet much more detailed. “We were able to put a night-vision lens on them. Dialed it up with some infrared technology. Look at their hands. What they’re holding.”
“Guns?” Eván said.
“High-powered ones, too,” Collins told us, glancing first at Santos and then toward me. “And I have no doubt that they would have used them if they’d found what they were looking for.”
All of us were silent, considering what he had said.
“They didn’t come any closer to the border, to the official crossing, so there wasn’t anything we could do,” Collins said. “Except take these pretty pictures.”
The lights came up and none of us said a word.
“They’re still out there,” Collins said. “But they won’t get any closer, at least not tonight.”
“Can you offer him any kind of protection?” Eván asked, nodding at Gabby.
“You’ll all be fine for now,” Collins replied. “Mr. Santos, we have some paperwork that will accelerate your path to U.S. citizenship. Give it to your agent or your new team. I look forward to watching you in the big leagues someday.”
Collins turned to go. But then he stopped and looked back at me. “That was a very brave thing you did out there, Mr. Bryan. I mean it. All of you really stepped up.”
24
A few months later, with a new baseball season well underway, I began to receive Cuban postcards in the mail. The first one was of the Capitolio, the Cuban National Capitol Building, whose dome looks like a miniature of ours in Washington. “Wish you were here,” it read. No signature. Nothing else except my name and address.
A few days later, I received another. This one was of the Presidential Palace, an ornate building of white marble, which was now the Museum of the Revolution. In the far right-hand corner, encased in glass, stood the Granma, the yacht Castro, Che, and the others sailed from Mexico, in 1956, to start the war against Batista. “Your friends miss you,” it read.
And then, the day before I was leaving to drive down to Kate’s in Tennessee, came a postcard of the Hotel Inglaterra, where I’ve stayed in Havana. It had no inscription, only a large X. Worried now, I made sure the front door to my old farmhouse was locked before I left for my latest trip south.
The next day I was making good time on Interstate 81 when my cell phone rang. I slipped on the headset Cassy had gotten for me and shown me how to use.
“Hi, Billy? I need to talk to you about our Cuban prospect.” It was J. P. Morse, general manager of the Chicago Cubs, the team that drafted Gabriel Santos in the first round that spring.
“He’s hardly my find, J.P. I just helped get him up here.”
“But you’ve got a great rapport with the kid. You know him as well as anybody, Bill. His makeup, what he had to do to get out of Cuba.”
“That may be but—”
“And that’s where I need your help, Billy. The bottom line is that I’m worried, heck the whole organization is worried sick about him.”
“He’s hurt?”
“No, it’s nothing like that. It’s off-the-field stuff.”
“Like what?”
“He drinks some. We know that. But what kid doesn’t?”
“Then what is it, J.P.?”
“Billy, let’s just say that the front office is wondering where his head’s at. He’s flying down to Miami about every chance he gets. We know he’s running with a fast crowd down there, with the Cuban American exile community.”
I had to laugh. “J.P., he’s an exile, too.”
“We know, Billy. But there’s the exile crowd in a place like Hialeah and then there’s the exile crowd in South Beach and West Palm, if you catch my drift. He’s definitely running with the latter. That’s the buzz on the street.”
“Okay,” I said. J.P. was right; this wasn’t good news.
“You know Francisco Peña, right?”
“Of course.”
“We put him in charge of Santos and it played well for a time. But I was just told that Peña has washed his hands of the kid. Our old hand wants nothing to do with him now.”
“I’m sorry to hear that.”
“Peña was staying with him in Knoxville. As you know, that’s where Santos is assigned now, playing Double-A ball, and we were hoping to bring him up to the Majors in September.”
