SCHOOL

At the age of six I started going to school. It was Rural School 91 in Perronales County, where we lived, an area of sparsely populated plains and hills. A main road, not much more than a dirt esplanade, crossed the whole district and led to the town of Holguín, about four or five miles away. Perronales lay between Holguín and Gibara, a seaport I had yet to visit. The school was far from home and I had to get there on horseback. The first time, my mother took me. The school was a large building, a structure of palm fronds with a thatched roof, just like the bohío where we lived. Our teacher lived in Holguín, and had to come by bus, or guagua as we say in Cuba, and then walk for several miles. At the nearest crossing of the Lirio River, one of the older students would be on his horse waiting for her and would bring her to school. She was a woman blessed with innate wisdom and sincerity. She had a gift (I don’t know if teachers today still have it) that enabled her to communicate with all of her students, and teach them every subject from the first to the sixth grade. Classes lasted more than six hours, and on weekends there was a sort of literary evening that we called “El Beso a la Patria” [Kiss to the Homeland]. After pledging allegiance to the flag, each student had to recite a poem learned by heart for the occasion. I was very eager to recite my poem, though I always made mistakes. Once when I was reciting Jose Martí’s poem “The Two Princes,” instead of the line “In and out wanders a sad dog,” I said, “In and out wanders a mangy mutt.” The whole class exploded in laughter. Now, this is a solemn poem about the burial of two young princes, and to say such a thing as “a mangy mutt” was totally undignified. My subconscious no doubt played a trick on me, and I confused Martí’s dog with Vigilante, the egg thief, our own mangy mutt.

Of course, I fell in love with some of my classmates. I remember one, Guillermo, who was violent, handsome, arrogant, and a little crazy. He sat behind me and used to poke me with his pencil. We were never involved erotically; it was only a matter of glances and horseplay, the typical pre-adolescent romps that mask desire, infatuation, and sometimes even love. But, in practice, it only got as far as a display of genitals, as if by chance, while urinating. The most daring boy, Darío, was already twelve. When riding home from school on his horse, he would expose his penis—which, by the way, was pretty amazing—and would show it off to anyone who wanted to behold such a wonder.

Although I had no sexual encounters with those boys, their friendship at least taught me that my solitary masturbation was not unique and would not kill me. All of the boys were constantly talking about their last “jerk-off,” and they were in excellent health.

My sexual activity was all with animals. First there were the hens, then the goats and the sows, and after I had grown up some more, the mares. To fuck a mare was generally a collective operation. All of us boys would get up on a rock to be at the right height for the animal, and we would savor that pleasure: it was a warm hole and, to us, without end.

I don’t know whether the main pleasure was having sex with the mare or the real excitement was watching the other boys. The fact is that, one by one, all the schoolboys, some of my cousins, and even some of those young men who bathed nude in the river copulated with the mare.

My first sexual intercourse (though incomplete) with a person was not with any of those boys but with Dulce María, my cousin, the one who also ate dirt like me. I should make it clear right away that to eat dirt is not a metaphor, or a sensational act. All the country kids did it. It has nothing to do with magic realism, or anything of the sort. One had to eat something, dirt was the only thing we had plenty of, and perhaps that was why we ate it. . . . My cousin and I played doctor behind the bed and, because of some strange medical procedure I can’t remember, we always ended up naked and embracing each other. Though we played this game for months, there was never any penetration or consummation. We seemed to have our backward spots and were not consistently precocious.

The consummated act, in this case mutual penetration, was performed with my cousin Orlando. I was about eight years old, and he was twelve. Orlando’s penis was a source of fascination for me, and he took pleasure in showing it to me whenever he had the chance. It was somewhat large and dark, and once erect, its foreskin would slide back and reveal a pink glans that demanded, with little jerks, to be caressed. One day, up on a plum tree, Orlando was showing me his beautiful glans, when his hat landed on the ground. (Out in the country we all wore hats.) I grabbed his hat and ran off to hide behind a bush in a secluded place. Right away he understood exactly what I wanted; we dropped our pants and began to masturbate. What happened then was that he stuck his penis into me and later, at his request, I stuck mine into him while flies and other insects kept buzzing around us, apparently wanting to participate in the feast.

When it was all over, I felt completely guilty but not entirely satisfied. I could not help but feel very much afraid. It seemed to me that we had done something terrible, that in some way I had condemned myself for the rest of my life. Orlando lay down on the grass to rest, and in a few minutes we were romping around again. “Now there is definitely no way out for me!” I thought, or believe I thought, when I crouched and felt Orlando grabbing me from behind. While he was sticking it into me, I was thinking of my mother, and of all the things that during all those years she never did with a man, which I was doing right there in the bushes within earshot of her voice, already calling me for dinner. In a rush I separated from Orlando and ran home. Of course, neither of us had ejaculated. I really think I only satisfied my curiosity.