How I Survived My Encounter With The Cuban Police
At roughly the same time another cop cut another notch in our nation’s handle and tossed another body onto the pile of dead Americans killed by the police on the streets of America, our Havana Air flight from Cuba returned us to Miami. On a junket organized by the California Automobile Museum, we were in Cuba to learn about the Cuban car culture, meet Havana car clubs and share our love of classic American cars with like-minded Cubans.
Some weeks earlier, I mentioned the trip to a car gal and she launched a conversation that exposed a mindset many Americans still cling to today: “Cuba is a Communist Dictatorship whose people are unemployed, oppressed, starving to death and routinely murdered in the streets. I can’t imagine why any real American would spend a single fucking dime to support that evil terrorist Fidel Castro.”
Her comments fueled thought of my own ideas of Cuban and American freedom. After some thought, I contacted a filmmaker friend in Los Angeles to see if he wanted to help me make a documentary about the American Cars and their Cuban owners while at the same time consider ideas we grew up with about Cuban life and see for ourselves what it looked like today. Our tour operator told me if we wanted to create a production film we would need permission from the Cubans (unlikely) but what we did after the daily events of the tour was up to us.
Our digs were inside the posh Hotel Naciònal — in its heyday during 50's and still today Havana’s most exclusive hotel — once housing its own Casino and home away from home to The Mafia, Frank Sinatra and countless prominent Americans. The Tour’s reception party was in the former casino, now The Grand Ballroom; I could almost hear the croupier spinning the roulette wheel and clinking glasses echoing across the ultra-high ceilings that are a staple of Cuban Architecture in Havana. After a full day of Havana that included the rustic New District and Mojìtos at lunch in an open roofed print shop turned restaurant (and perhaps the only place left on the planet void of a single American corporate logo), we walked out of Hotel Naciònal into the night with our gear.
The Caribbean night greeted us warmly as we left the hotel and negotiated the action that swarmed the entryway. Directly in front of us, a Pontiac Star Chief Convertible unloaded a group of smiling faces. As we introduced ourselves to Jorge, the owner of this red and white jewel, we settled in, donning smiles of our own. Stepping back in time, we cruised the length of the Aveneda Malecòn, the warm mist of the Atlantic kissing us as it crashed onto the seawall and spilled carefree onto the asphalt.
The streets of Havana teemed with relics of the halcyon days of the American automobile, some carrying tourists in the open air and some carrying pigs, chickens and children out together on a late night cruise. We took to the inner streets, away from the tourist fringe and into the heart of darkened Havana. Greek, Roman and European Architecture, replete with twenty foot ceilings stacked three high, adorned with grand columns and the squalor of poverty towered over us. After some time, we stopped at a busy intersection complete with park and statue to hear Jorge tell us of his Indian Chief.
We wrapped up the interview and my friend went to across the street to capture a time sequence at a the busy intersection while Jorge and I talked about the different parts his car was lacking and how tough it was to find them. After fifteen minutes my friend came back across the street and we continued our conversation as we began to pack up and filming gear to head back to the hotel.
It was nearing 1:30 A.M. but the streets of this Cuban neighborhood were still very much alive, teeming with both young and old beside the warm Atlantic. I’ve been on the streets of Tokyo, Taipei, Guadalajara, Mexico City, and dozens of American cities late at night; only in Tokyo did I have a similar sense of well being without any fear of being jacked up. Unlike Tokyo, the Cubans in Havana walking by talked to us, flashing smiles, holding us in their eyes as they passed.
It was at this point the Cuban Police rolled up. Looking at the car — a nearly laughable little car with a goofy blue light stuck to the roof like an over sized gumdrop—I considered the contrast it made to the Police Cruisers cars we see patrolling our streets. Unlike the prototypical American Police Cruiser — A Crown Vic with Vader-like occupants lurking behind blackened windows with radios, computers, shotguns, assault rifles, cages and other accoutrements whose design reeks of fear and authority — this car is what you might expect Barney Fife to be tooling around in sixty years ago. Nonetheless I felt little comfort by the innocuousness of the little hooptie.
With a deep breath I mustered the friendliest smile I had as Jorge moved closer to his car and further from us. I tried to project an air of cooperation as I flashed on the words our tour guide offered on our first day; “Don’t take pictures of the Police or the Army. They have zero tolerance for that stuff and will take your cameras or worse. And remember, there is no American Embassy here and if you get run up you are on your own.”
The last thing on earth I wanted to be was that guy.
The Cuban Officer, perhaps 25 or 26, exited the drivers side of the almost silly little car while his partner remained inside. Approaching us, I noticed his person was void of the hardware we see festooning officers stateside. No bullet proof vest, no earpiece, no baton or cuffs or taser or anything other than his service weapon. Perhaps a by-product of a country where violent crime is in essence nonexistent, he seemed more like a rent-a-cop you see at the concert or outside the corner cannabis dispensary.
None of my (many) police encounters prepared me for what happened next.
He approached me with “Buenas Noches”, smiling while extending his hand to shake mine.
Matter of factly, he asked us where we were from and what we were doing out on the streets of Havana so late. In reasonable Spanish I explained we were “just taking some pictures of your beautiful city at night”, rather than a couple of clandestine filmmakers shooting a documentary about cars and freedom. Without anything that could be confused with an attitude, he inspected our gear and asked me a few obligatory questions. After a moment of consideration he reminded me that we needed permission from the Ministry of Information to film and returned to the drivers seat of his car.
Just before driving off he suggested we call it a night which we did, the shards of our blown minds scattered along the sidewalk among the footsteps of the Cuban people.
As Jorge drove us back to the Hotel Naciònal, a delicious tropical breeze swirled about the open cockpit and I couldn’t help but feel envious of his Cuban brand of freedom. But I also felt heart-sick knowing the evening breeze also carried the seeds of change from America as we melt the embargo’s chains and lick our collective lips, just as we did generations ago, at the promise Cuba offers.
PostScript: Cuba is the only country to actually build Bentham’s Panopticon. Together with the CIA, the United States’ tech companies have built for us a spectacular modern-day Panopticon all our own. Shadowy spooks and blue-jeaned hipsters sit side by side; co-conspirators on the edge of the seat as they leer; tracking our whereabouts, coldly sifting, building watchlists, compiling dossiers — intending we know not what.
