An American Son: A Memoir Read Online Free Page A

buy food and other necessities. Three of the older girls found jobs in a home in Havana where nuns cared for abandoned children. They soon determined that job prospects were better in the nation’s capital, and convinced my grandparents to move. In 1940, the family packed their few belongings, said good-bye to Cabaiguán and moved to Havana.
    They moved into a
solar
, a low-income housing complex that typically consisted of one large building surrounding an open courtyard. Several families would live in the building’s apartments, which were very small and without a private bathroom. No one knows how or when he learned the trade, but my grandfather began repairing shoes outside the
solar
.
    My mother found work as a cashier in a store called La Casa de los Uno, Dos y Tres Centavos (The One, Two and Three Cent Store). Like her sisters, she gave all her earnings to her mother, and kept nothing for herself. The job was menial and unrewarding. But it would change her life forever, when one morning a young man with an even sadder story walked into the store.

CHAPTER 3

Boy from the Streets
    M Y PATERNAL GRANDFATHER, ANTONIO RUBIO, WAS ORIGinally from the Pinar del Río province at the western end of the island. He was fourteen when he lost his parents, Dionisio Rubio and Concepción Pazos, in some sort of tragedy, the details of which are lost to history. He was left in the care of relatives. After his older sister, Pura, moved to Havana, Antonio ran away. He wandered the country alone, at one point spending nights in an abandoned canoe. Eventually he reached Havana, and was reunited with his sister.
    He worked odd jobs in the capital, where he met and married my grandmother, Eloisa Reina. My grandmother was born and raised in Havana and had six siblings. I know virtually nothing else about her family history except that her father, Rafael, was born in Spain.
    My paternal grandparents didn’t have their first child until 1920, when my grandfather was in his midthirties and my grandmother in her late twenties. Their first child, I learned from my aunt Georgina, died at birth; my father never spoke of it. Antonio (Papo) was the next of seven more children, followed by Emilio, Eloisa (Nena) and Concepción (Concha). Mario Rubio, my father, was next, born on October 29, 1926, followed by another sister and brother, Georgina and Alberto.
    The family lived in a house on Tenerife Street in Havana. When myfather was a boy, there were usually six children at home. My grandfather’s sister never married or had children of her own, so my grandparents let her care for Nena much of the time. My grandparents ran a catering business, preparing breakfast and dinner for the workers at a nearby cigar factory. My grandmother cooked the meals, and my grandfather delivered them.
    My grandfather liked to joke and tease his family, and my father inherited his playful character and clear blue eyes. My grandmother, who suffered from tuberculosis much of her life, is remembered as being more conservative and reserved. She had the stronger personality of the two, and was the disciplinarian.
    The family lived simply but comfortably in a large house by contemporary urban Cuban standards, and their children were content and well cared for. My father shared only general recollections of his early childhood, mostly scenes of playing at home with his siblings and holidays spent with relatives. They often held the family’s Christmas Eve dinner at their home. My grandmother would roast a pig that had been slaughtered and hung to dry the night before, and serve a traditional Cuban
lechón
.
    The good times came to an abrupt end when the cigar factory closed its doors, and the catering business lost its only client. The family was forced to leave their home and move in with relatives. Eventually the family moved into a boardinghouse in their old neighborhood.
    My grandfather would struggle the rest of his life to support the family, working as a vendor selling