Boy Who Said No : An Escape to Freedom (9781608090815)

THE BOY WHO SAID NO

AN ESCAPE TO FREEDOM

HISTORICAL FICTION

Patti Sheehy

Copyright © 2013 by Patti Sheehy

FIRST EDITION

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means, including information storage and retrieval systems, without permission in writing from the publisher, except by a reviewer who may quote brief passages in a review.

ISBN: 978-1-60809-080-8

Illustration copyright © 2013 by Emily Baar

Published in the United States of America by Oceanview Publishing,
Longboat Key, Florida

www.oceanviewpub.com

10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1

PRINTED IN THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA

This book is dedicated to my husband, Robert Hunter, and to my daughter, Patricia Larson, the bravest woman I know.

I would like to acknowledge Frank Mederos for his brilliant storytelling and his depiction of people, places, and events that form the basis of this true-life novel. His ability to convey detailed information in a language other than his native tongue was truly inspiring. Without him, this story would have never been told.

Books on Cuba, too numerous to mention, informed this narrative, but two were particularly helpful: Hugh Thomas's weighty tome,
Cuba: The Pursuit of Freedom
and
Fidel Castro
by Robert E. Quirk. I highly recommend them to anyone wanting to gain a better understanding of Cuba's complex history and culture. I would like to credit both gentlemen for their contributions to the details that enhanced or clarified this book. Any errors regarding the history and politics of Cuba are mine, not theirs.

My heartfelt thanks go to Donald Gibson for his work surrounding this book. Thanks to my friends Barbara and Tom Gardner and to David Lenihan for introducing me to the fine folks at Oceanview Publishing. Thanks to the Haddon Heights Library for excellent customer service and to the Happy Bookers for their encouragement.

Finally, thanks to my wonderful family and friends for their suggestions and readings of
The Boy Who Said No,
especially my book-loving friends, the Israels, Joyce Herrman, Carol Larro, and Janice Stridick. And always, always, thanks to my dear husband and partner, Robert J. Hunter, for his love and support.

The Boy Who Said No
is based on the life story of Frank Mederos, who was born and raised in Guanabacoa, Cuba. Through a number of childhood experiences and the influence of his grandfather, Frank grew to despise the policies of his government.

As Frank matures, he falls in love, is drafted into the army, and becomes a member of Castro's special forces, making him privy to top-secret military information and placing him in direct conflict with some of the most powerful people in the Cuban military. He becomes an Antitank Guided Missile operator, defects, and escapes from Cuba in the manner described.

After being introduced to Frank by his daughter, I began to write his story as part of his family's history. But after several meetings with Frank, I decided that this story was far too compelling not to share with a wider audience.

To advance the plot, I have fictionalized some descriptions and dialogue based on interviews with Frank and with information he obtained from his family, friends, and fellow soldiers after the fact.

Since these events happened several decades ago, and since Frank does not have firsthand knowledge of certain events and conversations that occurred during his absences, I am calling this a “true-life novel.”

With the exception of the name of Frank Mederos, all names have been changed to protect the privacy of family members and individuals still residing in Cuba. The material is presented as well as Frank's memory serves.

We are an army of light And nothing shall prevail against us And in those places where the sun is darkened, it will overcome.

—José Martí

Cuban poet

THE BOY WHO SAID NO

My grandfather loved to fish.

He fished for tuna, yellowtail, red and black grouper. Sometimes he'd catch octopi, pound them on rocks, and hang them up to dry before bringing them to his home on Pepe Antonio Street. He lived only two houses from my family's simple bungalow, the one my father supported on his meager wages from the fertilizer factory in Havana.
Abuelo
liked the solitude, the peacefulness of fishing. “Gives me time to think,” he said.

Abuelo was always ruminating about something, his thoughts fueled by various radio broadcasts and his daily ingestion of news contained in the pages of
The Havana Post
and
El Diario de la Marina.
His was the only house in the neighborhood filled with books, fat tomes on history, philosophy, and religion that sat helter-skelter on tables, some opened to the page he was reading, some underlined and bookmarked with bits of paper, some coated in a thin layer of dust. The neighbors all looked up to him. He was revered as an intellectual by those who knew him.

By the time I was four, Abuelo had declared me his “official fishing partner.” This made me feel very special. I was his oldest grandson, and he was my hero. When I was around him I felt safe in a way that was hard to explain. I think it was partly because he was a strong man with a soft heart and partly because I thought he was the smartest man in the world.

Abuelo and I fished off the shoreline of the small village of Cojimar, where Ernest Hemingway kept the
Pilar
, the famous writer's boat.
Sometimes we'd fish from the dock. And sometimes we'd hop into my grandfather's old fishing boat and head a little way out from the coast, gazing at the rum and sugar fleets in the distance and listening to the calls of seagulls and the waves lapping gently against the shore.

I loved the smell of gasoline and the white burst of smoke that appeared when Grandpa yanked the cord on his small outboard motor. I was fascinated with how the clear blue water churned bubbly white around the propeller.

Occasionally, Abuelo would take me for a walk along the Havana harbor, a place teeming with fish and clotted with lights, a place where painted ladies in fine fur stoles and glittering jewels teetered on spindly heels so high they could barely walk. These were the wives of rich Americans and Europeans who frequented Havana's lavish hotels and brightly lit casinos, not people we interacted with, not people we knew.

From there we could see the Havana Yacht Club where the wealthy Americans who ran the United Fruit Company entertained each other on their expensive boats. Nattily dressed men smoked Montecristo cigars and gulped shots of Dewar's White Label, while their women sipped daiquiris decorated with tiny paper umbrellas. Abuelo told me that Fulgencio Batista had been blackballed from that club because he was uneducated, a
mestizo
, and a former cane cutter. I thought it strange that the president of the country could be kept out of any club, even if he did have mixed blood.

Early one evening when the air was rich with the scent of jasmine and Abuelo's boat was bobbing beneath us, my grandfather put a hand on my shoulder and urged me to look up.

“I want you to get to know the sky, Frankie. And to learn about the wind.”

“Why?” I asked, sensing his seriousness.

“Because if you pay attention to those things, you can predict the weather. And predicting the weather can be very important in life.”

I nodded and trailed my fingers in the water. Abuelo ran his hand over the stubble of his beard, making a rasping sound. I liked that sound,
the sound of a man. The back of his hands were furred with curly black hair speckled with gray and riddled with flat, white scars. But his fingernails were invariably clipped and filed. And impeccably clean.

Abuelo was always trying to teach me things, practical things, like how to tie different kinds of knots and how to sharpen the blade of a knife. We rarely engaged in idle conversation. It was as if he was trying to impart everything he knew to me before time ran out, before it was too late.

“Do you see those clouds, Frankie?” I looked up to see purple striated clouds in the gloaming.

“Look at how they're formed, how they move. Different shapes mean different things. I'm going to teach you about them, and I want you to pay close attention. And more importantly, I want you to remember what I have to say.”

Abuelo looked at me, and I nodded to let him know I was listening. We sat in silence for a moment. I wasn't sure whether the conversation was over. I hoped it wasn't.

Abuelo coughed. “You'd be surprised what you can tell by watching the clouds.”

“Like what?” I wanted Grandpa to keep talking. He looked at me and laughed at my earnestness.

“Like whether you and Gilbert will be playing baseball together tomorrow,” he said.

I smiled. Grandpa always brought the conversation down to my level. It was one of his talents.

“Look. Do you see the boat drifting?”

I looked at the movement of the boat in relation to the shore. “The boat is moving with the current,” said Abuelo. “You must know the direction of the current, how strong it is and how fast it is.”

“Why?”

“Because the current will take you where
it
wants to go. If you want to go in the same direction, it's your friend. But if you don't, you must work very hard to defeat it. Nature is very powerful, Frankie.
Never forget that. But if you pay attention and know what you're doing, you can use the clouds, the wind, and the currents to your advantage.”

I thought for a moment, feeling the breeze on my face. “What about the stars, Grandpa, what do they tell you?”

“The stars are very special, Frankie. You have to know the stars like the back of your hand. If you know the stars, you can tell direction, you will know where to go. In the olden days, men crossed the oceans by reading the stars. That's how Christopher Columbus found Cuba.”

“Oh,” I said, mightily impressed by the power of the stars.

“Do you remember what Columbus called Cuba?”

I thought for a moment, making sure I got the words right. “He said it was the most beautiful land that human eyes had ever seen.”

My grandfather nodded, proud of me for remembering. “That's right, my boy.”

We sat quietly for a while, and I knew Abuelo was hoping I had taken in what he had said. The water was very still, the way it sometimes got once the sun went down. A dragonfly skated by, its long, slender body barely creasing the water. In the fading light it took on a peacock sheen.

We looked up at the twilight sky suddenly darkened by a flock of wild ducks. They honked plaintively. My grandfather raised a finger skyward.

“Look, Frankie, do you see that constellation? That's Orion, the great hunter of Greek mythology. It is said that Zeus placed him among the stars. If you look carefully, you can see his bow.”

I looked where my grandfather was pointing. I felt very grown up gazing at the stars that way. The boat rocked slightly, underscoring my excitement.