The Cuban 5

By Varela

Imagine that your neighbor has a guest house where he rents rooms and plans to expand and improve his business in the neighborhood.

For that reason, your neighbor wants you to leave your home so that he can buy it and either turn it into another guest house or demolish it and turn the grounds into a parking lot.

But because you don’t leave (because even though your property is small and humble, you like it) the neighbor starts harassing you. He throws stones to break your windows and busts your outdoor lights. One day, one of your guests is hurt by the glass sprayed by the rocks your neighbor throws.

Your neighbor begins to slip into your backyard at night to alarm the chickens and destroy your ornamental plants. Your faithful dog is poisoned and your cat is hanged from an avocado tree. Your neighbor even laughs when he sees you burying your pets and repairing the damages.

One morning, you find the mailbox ripped open, the garbage strewn outside your door, the plumbing clogged and the TV cable cut. To make things worse, as you leave your home, the neighbor drives a truck onto the street and blocks your driveway. And you have to wait for hours until he removes his truck, so you can have access to the street.

Your neighbor, who is a friend of the owner of the nearest supermarket, somehow influences him not to give you credit, and you are forced to travel to another, more distant supermarket to buy your food and basic household necessities on credit.

In a psychological escalation, your neighbor plays loud music all day long. You barely can watch television or listen to the radio in peace and must make all kinds of acoustic adjustments to hold down the noise that comes from next door.

On every occasion you want to dialogue, your neighbor pretends he’s deaf, so you finally call the police and complain. But the police looks the other way. They say there is no proof of harassment. And then you discover that your neighbor has connections with the authorities and the court, because he extorts them.

Then you have no alternative but to hold an emergency family meeting. And you decide to send your son to the neighbor’s house with one mission: Stop the harassment from your neighbor’s house.

Your son goes to the neighbor’s house and tells him he’s angry at you and wants him to rent him a room. Your neighbor agrees to do so. And then your son proceeds to throw away the neighbor’s rocks, bat, goat’s foot, machete, poison, rope – and to disable the truck he uses to block the street.

The neighbor catches your son and presses charges against him. Your son is arrested, tried, and sent to prison for transgression and damages.

In truth, the least you can do is to place a picture of your son in your living room, venerate him as a family hero, and try to get him out of prison. At least, one way or another, the harassment from your neighbor’s home has abated, even though the guy remains hostile toward you.

So, if you want to understand the case of The Five Cubans, imagine all this and multiply it by five.

Born in Cuba in 1955, José Varela has been an editorial cartoonist in Miami for 15 years. His artwork has appeared in the magazine Éxito (1991-1997) and El Nuevo Herald (1993-2006). A publicist and television writer, he is a member of the Progreso Weekly team.