Things I Did On My Spaceship
an excerpt

“Holy shit, man. You’d better sit down, eh?”
Bronzed arms slip in under mine and I collapse gratefully into them. They belong, I suppose, to the cafe’s owner, who grunts heavily and heaves me into a chair by the bar. I roll my head over to try and look at him. He’s short but well-muscled, with a curt goatee. He talks to me in heavily-accented English.
“What the fuck, eh? How’d you get here? The yanks have closed down the fucking airport.”
I wave my hands at him stupidly.
“Hey, you hit your head? Come on, stay awake, man. Hey. You know where you are?”
“Santiago de Cuba.”
“Fucking right. Okay? You know where you are, fat fucking lot of good that’ll do you too. Hey, you hold on, alright? I’ll get you some water.”
“Water, yes. Thank you.”
He disappears with a rustle of a cheap bead curtain, and I let my head sink to my chest again. I may be asleep, I think I hear the hee-haw of a fire engine in the streets outside.
“Hey, drink this.”
He holds a bottle to my lips. I grab it and suck the liquid greedily between my teeth. Then, I choke.
“Hey, don’t spit it out you fucking idiot. That’s my best fucking beer.”
“Beer! Why beer?”
“Yeah yeah, sorry. I couldn’t get any water, fucking NGOs raised the prices this week. I forgot. But beer is still cheap. Hey, drink up. That’s good fucking beer. Best you’ll get anywhere.”
“Don’t you have tap water?”
“Are you fucking kidding me? Don’t you know anything about this country? We haven’t had water for months.”
“No water.”
“No water. Just beer. Now drink your fucking beer before I get thirsty myself.”
So I do. It’s good beer. Like delicate Launbrau, a gentleman’s beer. Weak beer is a good source of water, I decide. My benefactor pours some more beer onto a dishcloth and starts cleaning my forehead with it.
“Hold still. You don’t clean this and you’ll get cholera or some shit like that. Got to keep clean in a tropical climate, you know?”
I grunt my thanks, and when he stops to wet the cloth again I take another long gulp of the beer, which is warm.
“You’re not a yank, are you? You British?”
“German. Can I have some more?”
“Yeah, you can have some more, man. There’s enough beer for everybody, hey? It’s a fucking joke. Can’t get a piece of meat to save my life but I can take a bath in beer if I want to. So how’d you get here, then? You don’t look like a rent-a-cop.”
“I was shipwrecked. In my skiff.” I’ve used this excuse before. It helps that Santiago de Cuba is almost all coastline.
“And I’m the Archduke Ferdinand, you can tell by my big fucking nose. You know what, man? I don’t care. I don’t fucking care, hey. Fucking rent-a-cops don’t get beat up and left behind? They get fucking grade A medical attention, you know. Hey, maybe you can too, hey?”
My host coughs politely for a moment, and makes an effort to speak more slowly.
“That’s the thing, man. If you’re not military, and you’re not a fucking rent-a-cop, then you’re basically okay. You’re okay by me because nobody gives two shits about you, and that makes you a bit like me. What’s your name?”
I could lie about it but there is no point. “Bruno. Just Bruno.”
“Nice to meet you, Bruno. I’m Carlos - not just Carlos. Carlos de Lucia. You got beat up pretty bad, hey? But it could be worse, you know?”
“I saw. At the fountain outside.”
“Yeah. Someone will go get her pretty soon. This shit happens every day, you know? They do it so we know whose boss. No, I mean, they do it so we know that whoever is boss, it isn’t us. It’s fucking ridiculous.”
Carlos has decided that I’ve been beat up by militia, I think. There doesn’t seem to be a point to tell him otherwise. Also, it does seem plausible.
“We could probably risk a run to the corner clinic, I think. It’s not as fancy as your tourist hospitals, but it’s free, you know?”
Looking at things doesn’t make me ill anymore, and I’m beginning to feel the pleasant rising numb of the beer. So I say “I think I’ll be okay.”
“Ha, you wouldn’t say that if you were where I’m standing, man. I can see a bit of your skull. You’re gonna need stitches, lots of stitches. Finish your beer.”
I stare hard at him to see if he’s joking. I realise just how young he is - probably barely older than twenty, Cuban youthfulness notwithsdanding. I wonder how long he has been running this cafe on his own. He has young eyes, still able to take in horror with a measure of humour. And he’s also not joking.
“Shit.” I say.
“You said it, man. But you’re lucky, you know? You’re the first customer I’ve had in months, and I’m bored out of my fucking mind here. You need a hand getting up?”
“I…don’t think so.”
“You need a hand getting up. Here grab onto my arm.”
The sun is just starting to sink over the facades outside, giving the white cobblestones the look of marmalade. There pop-caps of gunfire is a long, long way away. With Carlos, I walk back into the city.