On the beach, with Pánfilo
A Progreso Weekly exclusive
By Aurelio Pedroso
What a coincidence. According to a not-so-recent census, there’s almost 12 million Cubans (Havana has almost 2 million), and right in front of me, in a remote corner of the beach at Guanabo, 20 kilometers east of Havana, I see a man almost 50, accompanied by three hyperactive nephews, who, armed with a pail, a watering can and a shovel, builds a sand castle with them.
Yonder, under the shade of a few pine trees that survived a collective felling because some people said they ruined the sand, the rest of his group opens cans of beer. The heat is enervating and there’s no better place for that beverage than that natural stage.
I can’t believe my eyes, and my girlfriend confirms my sighting. “That’s Pánfilo; none but.”
While during the apogee of the Pánfilo incident I didn’t write anything about it (Ramy did devote to him a chapter of his Reporter’s Notebook), I was truly interested in everything that happened, happens and will happen due to that phrase with a whiff of alcohol that circled the world on the Internet, a phrase that, if truth must be told, is more evident than the sun above us, because this island’s Number One Problem right now is food, or “jama,” as hundreds of thousands of Cubans in and outside the island say in the popular vernacular.
Has anyone forgotten that TV spot on the state channel during the sugar harvest of 1970 that showed a cartoon character shouting from a cane field: “Hey, folks, the jama truck is here!”
Pánfilo said it after the island’s chief authorities had said it, but, as is well known, because of form, manner, circumstances and assorted reasons, Pánfilo passed into history. He was shoved into history.
A history ill-conceived and ill-treated, heavily manipulated by not a few foreign media and forgotten by the local media, though no one will let go of it until something more or less interesting, more newsworthy, happens. If Pánfilo is cured of his addiction, as he and all of us hope, he won’t appear in headlines or be videotaped. It’s his alcoholic side that makes him useful.
There are thousands of people in Cuba who at this moment debate the future of the island with proposals that would scare the bejeebers out of a bureaucrat in politics or economics. Nothing is said about that. Those people argue in the proper places and, as far as I know, nobody has been jailed or sent for a medical examination.
Juan Carlos González Marco is a man with whom you can talk. He knows how to talk. The years he spent in the Navy and in the special troops of the Interior Ministry enable him to hold a well-threaded conversation that makes sense.
My first question was about his health and his treatment. “I feel fine. On other occasions I decided not to drink, and I managed it, so this time it will be the same. A little more difficult, though, because at the same time I’m trying to quit smoking.”
Because I respect journalism and because “firemen should not step on each other’s hoses,” I won’t name the newspapers, news agencies or TV networks that poured fat on the fire. The man knows that he has been misquoted many times, that he has been blamed for things he didn’t say.
“I’m not in Mazorra,” he says. “I’m in a clinic where I get treatment and medical attention.”
This Friday, he will be released and will return home, where he lives with his elderly mother. She has shut the door on many who have arrived at her home (from Miami, mostly) carrying money for her son – between $300 and $400 apiece – sent by real personalities. “My old mum returns the money, doesn’t accept it,” he says.
He doubts that he is watched whenever he’s given a weekend pass. Others in his family circle claim he’s always trailed. The truth is that he feels uncomfortable because, wherever he goes, someone stares at him, identifies him, smiles at him and shovels his right hand into his open mouth, imitating the way Pánfilo was seen on the screen. I suggest to him that he wear a hat and sunglasses, the way famous entertainers do to travel incognito, but he laughs.
Only he knows what Pánfilo is up to. With his unplanned and frenzied on-camera appearance, he learned one more lesson of life. Others learned a lesson about judiciary overkill when, as he painted a wall in prison, an official handed him his release papers. The disproportionate treatment meted on him, was, fortunately, wisely rectified. If after all this is over he chooses to leave the country legally, he can always take his brush with him, because he has a trade and a lot of people would like “the famous Pánfilo” to paint his house.
There’s no shortage of promises. Some folks (he omits their names) have assured his family that 30 percent of the earnings of a Miami restaurant named Don Pánfilo belong to him, and he answers that “seeing is believing,” because he’s not sure that “such a restaurant exists,” and besides, “30 percent? weeeell …” He smiles, in disbelief.
He looks healthy. He speaks measuredly, not afraid to make mistakes. During the more than four hours we spent on the beach, only occasionally did he look longingly at the cold beers being quaffed by his brothers, who forbade him to even hold one in his hands. He showed the strong will and self-discipline he once had and still remembers.
Juan Carlos wanted to continue the chat into the evening, but I told him I didn’t like to drive home at night. Hours later, after I returned home and welcomed a few friends, the phone rang. A member of the family took the call and shouted that “Pánfilo’s calling.”
After a moment of silence, one of my friends asked if it really was Pánfilo, “the guy of the jama.”
“The very same, gentlemen,” I said. And the topic of conversation switched to food, to those tons of food that are lost because the farmer harvests it and it never reaches the table.
Aurelio Pedroso, a Cuban journalist, is a member of the Progreso Weekly team.
