He found himself in a hallway outside a large room, where three Chinese musicians were playing marvelously atonal music, or what he’d thought was atonal music, until he figured out they were tuning their instruments. [...\
Lost in the Russian steppes, where his Waffen regiment was pulverized and scattered and he became an animal, eating raw horseflesh and sleeping in the snow, he’d seen no sliver of home, only a landscape blanketed in whiteness and death. He’d won a “frozen meat” medal, but he’d as soon eat actual fr…
It was Sosa Blanco’s idea that every native must have his hands waxed with paraffin. If the wax showed traces of nitrate, that person had fired a gun. They didn’t bother arresting people. They shot them on the spot, or worse. On the roadside between Preston and Mayarí, Sosa Blanco burned five peopl…
I ordered lobster. The lobster they brought me was pregnant, and when I cut into it an orange liquid oozed out—the eggs. I didn’t think I could eat it, but Daddy said I should think of a pregnant lobster as a delicacy. That anything unseemly could be made tolerable if you told yourself it was a spe…
As Del was getting up from the table he said, “Don’t you think it’s funny that we teach them agriculture, and none of them own any land?”
That’s when Daddy blew up.
“You got a problem with how things are run around here, then get off your ass and do something about it!” He slammed his fist on…
