Havana Lunar by Robert Arellano

República Dominicana: greener on the way to the land of the greenback, bluer to Curaçao. Emilio rolled another joint and I didn’t feel at all seasick.
    Ten miles out Emilio cut the engines. At sunset the sky and sea were blinding blue-bright, but the island was its own source of light. This was not just the sun shining off the leaves. This was the purple heart of the island itself. This was earth, sand, and mineral shining. With distended gaze drinking in the big picture, I thought I saw a gentle ripple in the terrestrial ridge. I couldn’t be sure my eyes weren’t playing tricks. “Son los mogotes de Viñales,” Emilio said. “Either that or it’s the rocks in your head.”
    Toward nightfall I nodded off to the gentle samba of the water, but just after dark something roared overhead and wrested me back to reality. An airplane had buzzed close above our boat, flying much lower than would be possible on land. The small dual-engine was less than a hundred feet from star-board when I was shocked to see something as big as a man drop from inside the black mouth on the side of the fuselage. Emilio gunned the engine, wheeling hand over hand to roll the rudder.
    â€œÂ¡Carajo! What was that?” I shouted over the engine. The airplane climbed, pulled west.
    â€œWhat do you think?”
    â€œHermanos al Rescate?”
    â€œNo way, primo. That’s the best Cesna there is. Los gusanos fly shitty little single-props.”
    Emilio pulled the cutter up alongside the float. I saw it was not a man, but a small burlap raft shrink-wrapped in plastic. My cousin hooked and hoisted it onto the deck, and I saw through the clear plastic: a man-sized bushel of marijuana. Emilio plunged his knife into the parcel and the vacuum seal popped to release a great gush of fragrance. Golden-haired buds coated over with crystals gave the flowerlets the look of shaggy confections, sugared like churros. I held a cured branch as thick and long as my arm. Emilio had to say only one word to enlighten me: “Colombians.”
    â€œWhere do you get the money to pay for it?”
    â€œI don’t. They drop it free of charge. My socio on this detail is trustworthy, and he’s got a friend who sells in Havana at a great profit.”
    We found a live crab in the folds of the burlap. “He’s still crawling. He must have gotten in there wherever this bushel was wrapped.”
    â€œMaybe it was deliberate, Escobar’s way of telling us it’s fresh.” Emilio threw the creature back into the sea. “Maybe he’ll find himself a nice cangreja Cubana.”
    Back on land, Emilio filled two Tropicola bottles for my car from coast guard pumps. “I can help you out, you know, if you’d like to get some dolares.”
    â€œWhat would I need to do?”
    â€œDrop something off with a friend in Havana. My socio and I need to find another reliable driver. Lately, there have been three or four deliveries a week.”
    â€œNo, gracias.”
    â€œI wouldn’t offer if I didn’t think you’d be perfect with your state Lada and your medical card. Just once or twice. It’s an easy two hundred dollars a run.”
    â€œIf they caught me, they wouldn’t just put me in jail. They’d take away my doctor’s license.”
    â€œWhen you get out, you could make more as a taxista.”
    â€œThat’s the joke these days.”
    â€œIt’s no joke.”
    Near midnight we were back in the Lada on the narrow, winding road into the mountains. Something ahead was holding up traffic. Around the curve we saw Manolito’s mule and our stinkpotted tio loco strapped in the saddle, draped like a blanket over the animal’s neck, hands clasped behind her ears, snoring but somehow hanging on. A line of buses and taxis, their lights blazing and horns blaring, couldn’t pass the struggling beast.
    Lada and mule made it back to Abuelo’s vega