Havana Nights

The steamy Havana night air became heavy through the broken-up streets of the old city where ancient Detroit monsters were on display like dinosaurs from some prehistoric era, forgotten, given up to the boundaries of time. Another empty night crawl for two wayward visitors on temporary visas, caught between drifting indifferent currents, lost on their tattered barstools in the Tropicana. Their eyes wander the room, locking in on each other. Sitting together they easily recounted their sad stories, not for the first time. He was running from a conventional life; she had blown through her third marriage. Two misbegotten tales, evenly hatched, flavored by the taste of 80 proof Cuban rum. Two strangers, looking for a sign to escape from another slow Havana night as they checked into one of the hotels just for tourists. They got a room on the fourth floor engulfed by a king size bed, neither thinking about the décor. Two lovers grounded in the moment without suitcases to be unpacked, locked in the heated embrace of unencumbered sex. Both equally relieved in the knowledge there wasn’t going to be the need for any long goodbyes or regrets in the morning. Their night of frenzied love making completed without the need to look postcard fresh in the morning. By noontime they were standing at the front desk; just another American couple paying for their one night stay in Havana in dollars. The streets outside overflowed with the sounds of truck horns and the patched together relics of another time. They knew it was best to quickly separate before the hour stretched deep into the afternoon and then into another Havana night.