Author's note: Special thanks to Atlanta Babe who reviewed and made some valuable suggestions and Jago Ji who, is a kick-ass Beta. This story fermented for a long time before it was ready to release.

Chapter 1

June 1980 – Mariel Harbor, Cuba

It was another long day, bobbing in the sailboat anchored in this dreary harbor, waiting for something to happen. This morning, like most of the nine days we've been anchored here, my cousin and I dove off the bow of the 42' sloop, and raced around the improvised course we'd made up just before diving. Twice around the blue sailboat, once around the old Trawler, swimming tight under the anchor lines, then around the marker buoy at the harbor entrance and back. Maybe two miles total distance. It was our exercise and main way to fend off boredom. My cousin was 22, and just out of the US Army. To say he was in much better shape than I was, well, what would you expect? He'd win every time, but I was getting closer each day. Some days he'd challenge me to sit-ups or push-ups. Basically anything to burn off some energy. I'm 16, and sitting with nothing to do isn't something I'm good at. Neither is my grandfather.

My grandfather was born and grew up less than 30 miles from here, and I knew he was aching to get off this boat and go visit his hometown. "Town" – when he left over 40 years ago, the roads were dirt and although it was less than 50 miles from the bustle of Havana, it was mainly a small farming community which he couldn't wait to leave. Best we knew it was still a small farming community, with none of his relatives still there. They had either died or moved to Havana. But the roads were now paved!

As soon as he finished his schooling at 17 he joined many other Cubans who were sure they could find their fortunes in the United States. What Abuelo Ernesto Sanchez found was hard work building the Tamiami Trail through the thick of the everglades, and a lovely wife, Talise, the older daughter of one of the Trail Indians who made up the bulk of the construction crew. Within a year, my mother was born, whom my grandfather insisted on naming Maria Theresa after his own mother. Two years later, Ernesto was a widower, Talise dying in childbirth. He stayed on in the Village with Talise's family who helped him raise Maria, until he met and married Arcelia Reyes, the sister of a friend who had come with him from Cuba. They moved to Homestead and added to their family, but Ernesto made sure Maria knew and spent time with her mother's family.

Some days we tried to fish, to supplement the meager supplies we brought for the trip. We weren't too thrilled about eating the fish pulled from Mariel Bay. The Bay was dominated by the dirty military compound and dilapidated industrial docks, and now hundreds of small to medium size private boats were anchored all over, dumping garbage overboard. Who knew what kinds of poisons might be ingested by the fish? We had been warned to bring enough food and supplies to last for two weeks, since there was no guarantee how prolonged the processing might be. We were here to get Ernesto's nephew's family. Castro had announced that he would allow some Cubans to leave, if their relatives came to Mariel by boat to get them. We were there to get my grandfather's sister's son and his two children, one a girl two years younger than me. So far we'd been waiting for nine days for word to pick them up at Pier C. None of us were allowed to leave the confines of the bay, so no side trips to Las Terrazas, or anywhere else. No sight-seeing or even jogging along the perimeter roads.

It had sounded like a grand adventure when he first asked me to come along. Almost anything new sounds like a grand adventure to a 16-year old boy, fresh out of a New Jersey Juvenile Detention center for car theft. Which is why I was in Florida to begin with. After I was released from my year in Juvie, life at home was miserable, for me and everyone else. My parents decided I needed some good old-fashioned Cuban discipline, so they sent me to live with my father's parents, Raul and Rosa Mañoso, and far away from my neighborhood gang. Luckily, Abuelo Ernesto convinced Abuelo Raul to let me spend time with him and Abuela Arcelia. This meant I also spent time with Abuela Talise's family in the Miccosukee Village. William, whose grandmother was Abuela Talise's sister, decided that I needed a friend, so took me under his wing despite the age difference. We spent a lot of time sailing with Abuelo Ernesto, hanging out at the beaches in Miami, and exploring the everglades. Abuelo Raul thought highly of William. And thinking that he was a good influence on me, encouraged our time together.

This day was ending differently from the others. Tonight, after dark, a Cuban military skiff pulled up behind us, and told us to be a Pier C at 6:00 a.m. tomorrow to get our passengers.

As we helped them aboard in the early morning darkness, I realized that my cousins did not appear to be in good health. Conchita was 14, but could pass for much older, and was sick. Her father and brother both appeared to be very weak. William helped Conchita get settled on one of seats by the transom, the others opting to go into the cabin. Before we could get organized to cast off, the soldiers forced about 50 more people onto our boat. We could comfortably and safely carry 12 to 16 passengers, but now we were closer to 60, dangerously overloaded. Not only were we returning to Florida with Conchita, her brother and father, but the dozens of others Castro wanted to get out of Cuba. Rumors were that Castro was emptying his jails and mental hospitals onto these boats, filling them beyond safe capacity. Most of these other folks looked suspicious to me, but then I was a gang member at 14, so everyone looked suspicious to me.

At the last minute one more passenger was shoved on board; Conchita saw him and started trembling and crying. William held her and tried to comfort her. Apparently this person upset her terribly; she stretched over the transom and started heaving. And stayed that way for much of the 13-hour trip back to Key West, where all "Merilitos" were taken to be processed.

By now it was mid-afternoon. What had started as a typical Caribbean spring day with transparent blue skies and light winds was building into a potential squall. Winds had picked up and clouds were building northwest of us. We would be sailing at night into the storm, crossing the Florida Straits with their strong currents flowing into the Gulf Stream, arriving in Key West around midnight, if we stayed on course. The crowding meant passengers were sitting wherever they could find a space. It made tending the sails a bit difficult, moving around and over people. Most had never been on a sailboat, and more than a few got sea-sick. Using buckets to scoop water to wash down the decks had been assigned to some of the teenaged passengers, so that Ernesto, William and I could concentrate on keeping on course. The hardest part was trimming the sails to keep the boat from heeling too severely in the building winds, which upset the passengers sitting along the rails, especially when the waves splashed up high enough to drench them.

During my turn at the helm, I had an opportunity to study the passengers. I was particularly interested in the differences. One fact that got me in trouble in Newark, NJ, where I was raised, was that I looked different from most of the Cuban-Americans in the neighborhood. My skin was darker and I wore my thick black hair long, when the other boys my age had the lighter Castilian-Spanish complexions and short hair that was the norm then. I was bullied and at an early age had to learn to fight to defend myself. My skin color was the same as my mother's, who was half-Native American, and my hair was long because it was a Native tradition that she insisted on keeping. I looked more like Celia, my older sister, than my other sisters did. Celia and I shared darker complexions and the delicate, symmetrical features that often earned me taunts of being a "girl," reason enough to fight. I observed that a large percentage of the passengers were of mixed race – including my cousin Conchita and her brother. Abuelo Ernesto told me that the "modern" Cuban society didn't segregate as they had when he was young and when the Castilian-Cubans only married among themselves. Now the younger generations are more "mulatto." The time I've spent with William and my Miccosukee family has made me reassess my heritage, and to be proud of it. I've learned that being different isn't bad, it makes you uniquely you, and I'm learning to appreciate that.

As darkness fell so did the winds and a light rain, which was welcomed although slightly chilly. William had retrieved a rain poncho, blanket and some crackers from the cabin for Conchita, and the cooling rain seemed to help her feel better. I admired William and marveled at his generous and protective instincts. I didn't yet realize that I, too, was a beneficiary of those instincts. Sitting between us, Conchita told us the story of the person who had upset her so.

His name was Alvar Montoya, and he was a little older than William. He was a small time crook and drug dealer in Havana, where she was raised. He hung around the schoolyards selling drugs and recruiting "helpers." He had a car, a rarity among most Cubans, an old rebuilt Chevy. A couple of months ago he invited her to go for a ride. Being young and naïve, she got in the car and went with him. Before he returned her to the schoolyard, he raped her. Now she's afraid she's pregnant.

I looked up to see Montoya smirking at Conchita. I formed an instant and intense dislike for the man. I had no way of knowing that I would hear his name and see him again in later years.