Soccer and the Two Mannys, Chapter One

 

Two people named Manny have indelibly shaped my relationship to soccer specifically and sports in general. One is Emanuel F. Tramontana, now the Mathematics Department Chair at the Pingry School in New Jersey and the other is Enmanuel F. Padron, my step-son. Each has also indelibly shaped my life.

The day I entered The Pingry School for Boys, formerly of Hillside, New Jersey, I got to know Emanuel F. Tramontana, "Manny." He was my math teacher and it was not pretty. Manny was also one of two junior varsity soccer coaches. The other was the late Frank Romano. He was a nice man with a winning smile. He could fashion a withering gaze and could be scary as he ambled the halls, so he was known as "The Shark" by many students. The Shark was big and broad chested. Manny was a rail. They weren't funny like Jackie Gleason and Art Carney.

I hesitate to address the role of Manny Tramontana in my life because he is still alive and probably capable of filing suit for libel. So I'll attempt to stick to my feelings without going to such inflammatory terms as "abuse." However, I will say that Manny Tramontana nearly ruined my high school years single-handedly. In my mind's eye, his face greets me as if it were yesterday, though he started teaching me thirty five years ago in 1973. I should put "teaching" in quotation marks, because for me, his class was the Spanish Inquisition and he, Torquemada. Fortunately, I was his second fiddle in the humiliation business. The first was Stanley Mantel, a pitiable thin broken kid with bug eyes. Still, I can hear Manny yelling "Browwwwwwn! as loud as screeching tires. It seemed I couldn't do anything without being run down by that car. Thirty five years of psychotherapy have not erased those wounds.

Manny Tramontana is tall and wiry, intimidating, and, in retrospect, he had the most contemptuous, hateful sneer I have ever seen on the face of a human being. I never saw him smile, except in joke sessions with his academic colleagues. I still thank God for Stanley Mantel, a gumby-like sad sack. Stanley got it far worse than me. Still, it seems that without Stanley and me to pick on, Manny would have no way to survive the world, which probably had dealt him a bad hand. We all heard things but were never sure. One thing is for sure, he needed me; he needed someone to taunt and bully in order to exorcise his own terror--literally to rip it from his gut and paint it on our faces.

The worst was on the soccer field. This was the epoch in which teachers, with few exceptions, coached the teams. So the hand I was dealt on the field consisted of Manny and the Shark. They owned the Junior Varsity, along with their pet players. Miller Bugliari owned the Varsity, and they took no prisoners.

The first day of practice in September 1973 was cold. Manny, The Shark, and their minions stood in a circle near the sidelines. I lofted a good one and, like a mortar, it landed right in the middle of that circle, destroying in one nice explosion all of their coffee and doughnuts. "Browwwwwwn!" reverberated throughout much of Central Jersey and I spent the next two years on the bench except for the last four minutes of rainy games we were either winning by 100 or losing by a 100. My parents came to every game and spent a lot of time looking at the back of my jersey.

It was sad. I was a good soccer player in seventh, eighth, and ninth grade--"Junior High School"--under coach Barracaro. I scored goals like water from the faucet when I played every spring in Edison intramural soccer. So "playing" at Pingry was like watching the sport on television or looking at the dioramas in the Museum of Natural History, from the outside-in. But watch I did, and I learned that game in my head like a good hand of cards.

The only time I got to play was during practice scrimmages. I wasn't Ronaldinho but I was always first when we ran laps around the field. I had a pretty good foot, and did my job as right fullback alright. The thing was, what with all the splinters in my butt and "Browwwwwn!" in my ear I never felt good on the field and math class. I was an outsider.

Still, I can't blame feeling bad about myself all on Manny. That had a lot to do with being beaten up everyday from first grade in 1963 through eighth grade in 1972 by the neighborhood kids on Clive Hills Road in Edison. I was the last to get picked in all of our team sports, often left alone in the middle of some dirt field as teams formed on either side of me. Occasionally a sympathetic voice would ring out: "O.K., we'll take him. He only sucks at sports because he never went to Greylock summer camp. Of course, the physical beatings were outmatched by the verbal brutality of mean kids' mouths. I knew myself as "four-eyes," "brillo-head," "metal-mouth," and "class-A cock:: Ah, music to the ears; we lived on a street of poets. The only time I didn't get beaten up was when I was with Tommy Taylor, who was big, tough, and the son of carpenter who lived on the next street. We were all upper-middle class and all the kids were scared of working class folks, Italians, and Blacks back then.

Still, Manny was to me like the gratuitous but heavy gravy on an inedible roast. Just insult to injury. But how could anyone be so mean? He must have had some license from a Pingry secret society to destroy at least two kids a year and get away with it. Every day after school he must have logged his successes in tormenting those two poor kids in a little notebook, just in case one day he couldn't come up with something original; so he would consult his book for what had worked before. "Brown loved this before so he's going to love it again."

At the end of my sophmore year at Pingry, just about everyone but me went on to the varsity for their junior year. Apparently, Manny loved me so much that he kept me on the JV my junior year. Otherwise he'd have to find some other young mark to pick on. Imagine my humiliation when I had to sit on the bench junior year also and watch sophmores start and play the game I loved. My only redoubt was Mr. Weyler, the gentleman swim coach, who was able to coax me out of my post traumatic stress syndrome from fall soccer and put me in the 100 breaststroke in the winter. So when my mother came to watch every swim meet she actually got to see me compete. I excelled at breaststroke and freestyle, and even swam 200 yard medleys. Individual activities would dominate my attention up through the present: swimming, martial arts, cycling, and Yoga.

I remember feeling a bit sad that Frank Romano The Shark had died and feeling pretty amazed to hear that Manny Tramontana had been promoted to the head of the Mathematics Department. I didn't know what to do. Anyway, I was already well enough through Oberlin College and Yale Graduate school that I could hide the Manny syndrome under the tattered rug of my much enhanced self-worth. The funny thing is that in those thirty five years of therapy I could never talk about Manny Tramontana because I would get this choking feeling in my throat and nothing would come out. I'm  now 57 and, here, in this blog, is the first time I'm able to do it. I hope Manny Tramonatana doesn't go out bitter, lonely, and broke.

 

Look for a succeeding chapter entitled, "Soccer and The Two Mannys: Enmanuel Padron."

Manny became a Team Leader this Season: A Letter from Coach Joe

Manny,
I have to admit, at our first practice I thought I had a trouble maker on my team. I thought I had a kid who was talented but didn't want to listen to the coach. Then something happened: I talked to you and you listened and you acted like a real ballplayer.

Manny, there's a lot of ways to measure success. I watched you become a team leader this season. We both knew you could hit and field and pitch. I heard you talk to some of your teammates with encouraging words. I watched you coach third base and take charge. I watched you do so many little things that it takes to become a real ball player and not just someone who plays ball. You were a complete success this year. You played exceptionally well and you were an exceptional teammate!

I am very proud to have coached you this year. I know our last game did not go the way you wanted it to. I think you put a little too much pressure on yourself. You're very good, but not perfect. Certainly, you still have a little ways to go in being a team leader. Wearing a catcher's mitt in practice probably wasn't a good example to set. But I know teenagers who wouldn't have been able to do what you did this year in terms of helping your teammates and taking charge on the field.

Thanks for a great season!

I'll see you at the picnic when I get to give you your trophy!

Coach Joe

I Wished I Lived on a Nude Beach

I wish I lived on a nude beach.

A long time ago my favorite nude beaches were in Southampton, Martha’s Vineyard, and Corfu. Southampton, unfortunately, has turned into a crass playground of the arrivistes.

My favorite beach in the world and all my life is Gayhead Beach at the far western end of the island of Martha's Vineyard. It is known for its regal cliffs made of many layers of different colored clay.

Bathing in the clay was otherworldly.

Soon it was outlawed.

It was a memorable peak experience which can never be repeated, because since then, Martha's Vineyard, though it was always home to Jackie O and other famous people, became the St. Barts or Monaco of the U.S. celebrity set.

Way back then it was much more peaceful. In the 1950s great but down to earth artists used to have all night dance parties on their decks in Chilmark. It was cool and really peaceful. In the 1980s I could still ride my bike from Oak Bluffs to Gayhead, 20 miles uphill, and not see a car the whole way..

Still, Edgartown was for the preppies, Yale Men, and CEOs who cut loose by shedding their business suits for pink or lime great sport jackets and plaid pants. Hooah!

Gayhead was settled by Aquinnah Indians of the Wampanaug nation who still live there, and Gayhead was their town. Real "wampum," for money, and in the form of purple shells, could still be found, and you could still eat Sunday morning brunch at the "Aquinnah Shop" without having to wait on line.

One of my best friends had an eighteenth century farmhouse down in the woods in Gayhead and I was there every summer. The clapboard house with hardwood floors was surrounded by the majestic piled stone walls photographed by Aaron Siskind in the 1950s. I took my bicycle on the ferry and rode up island or else camp in the woods.

There were two movie theaters and two fine restaurants. In funky Oak Bluffs, there was an historical African American community, as well as, a jewel of a Methodist "campground" and tabernacle, around which dozens of tiny gingerbread houses painted all pastel colors sat.

Was it all a dream? Because now I’m not rich enough to stay there.

A Brief Alternative Biographical Narrative

 

David H. Brown draws his daily inspiration from the Atlantic Ocean. He consists of approximately 60% water, 17% protein, 17% fat, and 6% other elements. He believes that if you have not read Dirty Havana Trilogy by Pedro Juan Gutiérrez, Love Thy Neighbor: A Story of War by Peter Maass, and Drama of the Gifted Child by Alice Miller, you can't be sure where you stand on most things. He earned his Ph.D. in American Studies at Yale University in 1989. In 1997, the delightful corporation called Emory University decided it didn't want him any more. He landed on his feet and eventually found retail again, a great but hitherto unfathomed inheritance of his Jewish ancestors from the Old Country.
 

In 2000 David became an asentado of orisha Obatalá-Ayáguna Leyibó in Havana, Cuba and began developing his ashé as a botaniquero and orisha artist. He is the author of two works of art history and cultural anthropology: Santería Enthroned: Art, Ritual, and Innovation in an Afro-Cuban Religion and “The Light Inside”: Abakuá Society Arts and Cuban Cultural History (2003). He is the owner of www.folkcuba.com. A forteen-year old named Enmanuel Padrón is the light of his life; plus he’s a ferocious high school basketball player.

Why you have to pray to Oluó Popó / El porque de rogarle a Oluó Popó

Porque hay que rogarle a San Lázaro cuando se va a trasladar de un lugar a otro.

Patakin

San Lázaro viva en la tierra Lucumi, pero la gente lo detestaba por la pestilencia de sus llagas y por el temor al contagio, y por ese motivo lo botaron de esa tierra. Cuando Oluó Popó iba por el camino se encontró con su hermano pequeño Shangó; quién lo saludó y le preguntó que cosa le sucedía, pues lo veía muy serio y preocupado; Oluó Popó le contó lo que la gente de su tierra le había hecho y Shangó entonces le dijo: “mira yo acabo de ganar una guerra y tengo un lugar para que reines y ese lugar es la tierra arará, que es una tierra pequeña y está dividida por un río de la tierra Lucumí.”

Oluó Popó aceptó y fueron para allá. Cuando llegaron Shangó le dijo a la gente: este hombre es quien los va a gobernar, quiéranlo mucho. Shangó antes de marcharse de allí le dijo a Oluó Popó, “esa gente que te botó, te van a necesitar, pero antes de ir hazte de rogar bastante.” Tiempo después se desató una gran epidemia en la tierra Lucumí y se estaba muriendo mucha gente y como no sabían que cosa hacer, estaban desesperados; pero en eso pasó Shangó y les dijo, “el único que los puede salvar es ese hombre leproso que ustedes botaron, tienen que buscarlo.” Enseguida fueron a la tierra Arará y le pidieron a Oluó Popó que los salvara, pero este se negó. Entonces todos se arrodillaron y empezaron a dar palmadas en el suelo rogándole a Oluó Popó que los salvara y le decían que no se levantarían de allí hasta que no los perdonara y fuera con ellos. Después de muchos ruegos y suplicas Oluó Popó se decidió a ir y curo a todos los enfermos; y así fue como Oluó Popó salvo de la epidemia a su tierra.

Why you have to pray (sing) to San Lázaro when you are going to move him from one place to another.

Patakin

San Lázaro lives in the Lucumí country but the people detested him because of the pestilence of his body sores and because of their fear of contagion they kicked him out of their territory. When Oluó Popó went on the road he met his younger brother Shangó, who greeted him and asked him what had happened, because Shangó saw him very grave and worried. Oluó Popó related what the people of his country had done to him and Shangó replied, “look, a just won a war and I have a place where you can reign and this place is the Arará country. It’s a small territory and it’s separated from the Lucumí country by a river.

Oluó Popó accepted and went on his way there. When he arrived Shangó told the people, “this man is going to govern you. You must love him.” Before leaving, Shangó told Oluó Popó, “the people who kicked you out are going to need you, but before going back there make sure you pray well. A while later a great epidemic spread through the Lucumí country and many people were dying, and as they didn’t know what to do they were desperate. While they were in this state Shangó passed through and told them, “the only one who can save you is that leper who you threw out. You have to call him back.” Immediately they went to the Arará country and begged Oluó Popó to save them, but he denied their pleas. Therefore they got on their knees and began to pound the ground with their palms, praying to Oluó Popó that he save them, and that they would not get up until he forgave them and went with them. After so much supplication and prayer Oluó Popó decided to go and cure all of the sick; and thusly it was that Oluó saved them from the epidemic in their country.

Jekua Jei Oyá Yansán Iyá ni Mí: How Hilario Dávila Made Osha in Cuba I

Hilario Dávila didn't know much about Oyá for nine years. That is how much time passed between the day Orunmila marked the owner of his head as Obatalá and later when he they made kariocha to him. Orunmila had told him that he was a romantic and that he would always have trouble brought on by women.
Hilario Dávila knew that Oyá was omnipresent in the world, like the wind, storms, change, the determination of warriors, and their impassive silence in the face of death. Hilario Dávila had no idea what Oyá had in store for him.

Almost every day they said to him, "oh, your mother is going to be Oshún"; "oh, your mother is going to be Yemayá." They never thought of Oyá and neither did Hilario Dávila, except in passing. He knew that she was supposed to stand at the gate of the cemetery and receive the corpse from the death cart of Babalú-Ayé.
Hilario Dávila's madrina, Odomiguale (ibae) was a daughter of Yemayá and she was always a bit scared of Oyá.

Many years ago, when I was young, I asked a lot of questions. I was known for that. I never understood why Yemayá and Oyá didn't get along. But the babalawos never gave me an answer. So one day I went outside and I talked to the sun. I asked the sun why Yemayá and Oyá didn't get along. And he asked me to look at the sea and observe what happens when the wind passes over it. Along come storms.

Odomiguale taught Hilario Dávila that the orishas were powers of the cosmos manifested in nature. Later Hilario Dávila would learn that the wind can just as quickly decide to stop. And when Oyá decides to stop, just standing there arms akimbo with that look your grandmother used to shoot at you, she can just make people stop dead in their tracks, perk up, and listen to save their lives.
Orunmila had told Hilario Dávila that he had to make osha. But he had so many things to learn and write and finish and do that he just couldn't wrap his mind around it. Indeed, one day a white haired babalawo told him that, as a child of Obatalá with the odu that came out in his awofaka, there might be many times when he'd have so many things in his head that he just wouldn't know what to do.
Hilario Dávila's godfather was going to lead him down the garden path. It also happened that his godfather lived the odu Otura Sá. Little by little Hilario Dávila got a taste of Otura Sá, but he still didn't know that Otura Sá is the path of delinquency. Otura Sá plays fast and loose with the truth; Otura Sá doesn't fulfill what he promises and he's careless with everything he has. Otura Sá is an Ifá of witchcraft. Because of his ambitious self-interest, Otura Sá even tries to make Babá Eyiogbe, who is the highest, second to himself. Otura Sá abuses his friends and betrays them. Babalawos say that Otura Sá is the Prince of the Delinquents. He has many enemies, but his worst enemy is in his own house.

Oyá is a principal resource and savior of Otura Sá. He dreams of her and, though there is "something grand" in the sky, he does not see it because of his earthly ambition and vida despreocupada. Effectively, he remains blind to the "grand thing" that is bigger than himself. "Only through me," she might say, "you can see the truth"; but Oyá is not easy. She shows the truth to those who demonstrate to her that they want to see it.

When Hilario Dávila worked in construction during college summers, the union linemen always told him, "Hilario is really intelligent, but boy is he dumb." Later, what with Isaac Delgado's incessant timba in the air, the lights, action, and girls on the Malecón , the emotional heat of the pueblo, and the magnetism of the santo, Hilario Dávila was irretrievably "caught up" in the island, as Prisma magazine described him in a profile article. Eduardo Desnoes put it best: Cuba made me so.

Still, Hilario Dávila had his doubts about making osha in the house of Otura Sá. It was a mess. Otura Sá couldn't seem to hold onto money and he was always looking for ways to get it, whether begged, borrowed, or stolen. Otura Sá had adopted all of Odomiguale's children and they had only one son together. All the sons made Ifá and the only daughter made Obatalá. Otura Sá always stole toys from his adopted son Beto and gave them as presents to his first and only born son, Augustin. Beto Osa Kana (ibae) had to find his own way because Otura Sá was his constant frustration. Miguel Angel Oyekun Biroso (ibae) drowned in the ocean in Panama. Gacho became a walking skeleton and beggar. The daughter of Obatalá went crazy. The only son-by-blood became a drunken monster and turned the house into a cave. He became obese, ambled like a gorilla, spent years in Mazorra, the nut house by the airport, chopped up an old lady with a machetazo, and sold his father's Ifá books for a liter of chispa de tren, a toxic rum made from gasoline. Whether by ego, denial, or genuine concern, Otura Sá never stopped trying to cure the monster, who had become a lost cause. Tragically, he was never to recognize the enemy in his own house. Odomiguale, the woman who found life's answers by talking to the sun, suffered every day for more than forty years. Eventually, after too many golpes, she just stopped eating, died, and returned to the sea, where Hilario Dávila goes to ask for her bendicion. Like a broken record, it was said that many of their misfortunes were caused by the powerful babalawo and brujo Oshé Yekú, a godchild of Bernardo Rojas Irete Untedí who, they believed, had done witchcraft to them thirty eight years earlier over a painful shift in alliances prior to Otura Sá's initiation.

For all these reasons and more--were more required?--many people told Hilario Dávila not to make osha in the house of Otura Sá. But Hilario Dávila was a cabezón. Besides, it couldn't be all that bad. Many of his brothers and sisters in osha were the cream of Havana professional society: they were successful doctors, lawyers, filmmakers, journalists, painters, and intellectuals. His Oyubona of Ifá, Beto Osa Kana, was the King of Cayo Hueso and Vedado. Otura Sá even read Ifá first for Noriega in Panama and then for Hugo Chavez in Venezuela, although after Augustin destroyed an entire hotel lobby in Caracas they were all kicked out of the country. In a twist of fate, everything he prophesied to Chávez turned out to be wrong and only a last minute intervention by a political godfather higher up the state food chain saved him from Fidel's wrath.

After nine years of waiting, when Hilario Dávila told Otura Sá and Odomiguale that he was ready to make osha, they were very excited and almost started dancing. Otura Sá was pretty relieved because he just got through dispatching another godchild, the painter, from the house. They never really got along anyway because the painter had so much success and money, which he flaunted, and Otura Sá had it on good authority, or, at least, embraced a story that seemed to work for him: the painter was a homosexual. Babalawos, of course, can't make Ifá to gay people. Now he could relax knowing that he could later make Ifá to Hilario Dávila, which would be a pretty big coup in Havana, since Hilario Dávila would be his first Ifá godchild from the Yuma and he'd be able to visit the United States.


Hilario Dávila had to supply every last item for his osha, down to the plastic pails, palm oil, and powder paint, since his madrina had nothing in the house except one old frying pan, because the monster would sell it for alcohol. Hilario Dávila's two conditions to his godparents were that they rent a house to make his osha because the itá of his awofaka warned him against being around drunks or violence. Hilario Dávila couldn't bear the thought of making osha in the house where the monster prowled. His second condition was that he would bring his Oyubona from the Yuma, Ocan Oñí. It was pretty atrevido for the future iyawó to be setting conditions. Still, Odomiguale signed off on the plan. She met with Hilario Dávila and Ocan Oñí just before dusk as the warm western sun poured through the floor to ceiling high shutters. Ocan Oñí would take care of the room and she would give her ashé to Hilario Dávila. Sounded pretty good. Hilario Dávila put $1100. on the floor in front of Yemayá, asked for her blessing, and then Otura Sá asked Odomiguale for some of it. Odomiguale snapped it up, stuck it in her apron, and shot back, "I might be old but I'm not stupid." She gave him just enough to take Hilario Dávila over to rent the house on Calle Salud, between Oquendo and Marqués González. Everybody loved this house, because it had a huge sala for drummings, a spacious cuarto de santo, an outdoor kitchen. The beautiful mulata María Oshún lived there with her daughter and her father, Lázaro, a babalawo. Far enough away from the precinct of the monster, the house seemed ideal. Wouldn't you know that the babalawo was a violent drunk who regularly raised escándolos and beat his family.

The next day Hilario Dávila, Ocan Oñí, and Tony Irosun Sá, Hilario's good friend, went to the beach at Mariel to collect otá for the santo, a beach known for it's beautiful stones. The wind was alive and the water was bracing. Medium white stones for Obatalá and smaller yellowish stones for Oshún. There was not a black stone to be found in all of Mariel for Shangó and Yemayá and, as luck would have it, Hilario Dávila had brought black otá from botanica El Congo Real in New York City. What to do about Oyá. "Do you want brown stones for Oyá," Ocan Oñí asked, "or do you like these unusual otá?" They were gray with white stripes. They had a presence. Something about them said Oyá and Obatalá together. Hilario Dávila liked them.


The tied up bags of stones filled half of the backseat of Tony Irosun Sá's twenty year old Russian Moskvich whose secrets only the babalawo knew. Tony took them to Ocan Oñí's apartment and left them to sort the stones out by divination. Only those otá appropriate to Hilario Dávila's santo could be used. Irosun Sá, ever the politically-savvy babalawo knew that he couldn't be seen to have any meddling hand in the preparations for the ceremonies, or he might raise envy and distrust among the in-group of the house. It was controversial enough that Hilario Dávila had introduced Ocan Oñí into the game, since he was a relatively unknown quantity to Odomiguale and Otura Sá. Anyone present who was not screened through repeat invitations to work could mean conflict of method, misinterpretation, or criticism of errors made in the ceremonies. Everybody knew stories like that of Oshé Yekú and Otura Sá.

Rock the boat or make waves. The first storm signal brewed when Hilario Dávila and Ocan Oñí proudly brought the selected otá to Odomiguale. Her permissive one-point plan for Ocan Oñí to "do the room" and for her to "deliver the ashé" hadn't lasted the night. Perhaps she was right. "You have to select the otá on the floor right in front of my Yemayá! How else is she going to know what's happening?" Hilario Dávila and Ocan Oñí, like well-behaved sailors, professed nothing but fair intentions to the wrathful sea. In compromise, Odomiguale permitted them to interrogate each bundle of selected otá before Yemayá. Oyá was the sole orisha who gave ocana to her otá, but she came around when offered epó. The wind had made waves over the already agitated ocean. "You have to interpret that ocana," Odomiguale said darkly.

Tony Irosun Sá was a credentialed merchant marine and ship's captain by vocation. Supertankers and sea-mining ships were his stock-in-trade. He'd braved unspeakable storms, but Yemaya-Achabá was a formidable squall. His role in the stone scandal was more serious. Hilario Dávila and Ocan Oñí were just santeros. Irosun Sá was a babalawo, the godson of Osa Kana and the Ifá-grandson of Otura Sá. Shouldn't he know better than to meddle? Was he trying to control the santo and steal Hilario Dávila as his own ward? The child of Irosun Sá knows that he is set upon by enemies from all sides and must seek his tranquility. A consummate diplomat, Irosun Sá assured Odomiguale that she had replaced the mother he had lost early on in his life. It was far beyond him to meddle where he did not belong.



Hilario Dávila and Ocan Oñí spent the afternoon pacing the ornate tile floor in the house of santo on Calle Salud waiting for Otura Sá to begin the ebo de entrada. Finally, Orunmila was ready to clean Hilario Dávila and open the way before Hilario Dávila would "go to the river" to be bathed by Oshún on the eve of the santo. Summoned from the kitchen to the igbodún, Hilario Dávila felt real trepidation for the first time. Hilario Dávila gingerly stuck his head through the door way. There was Otura Sá on the mat with the round tablero de Ifa between his legs. And there was the monster sitting quietly on a stool next to his father. Hilario Dávila fairly jumped back. "I can't go into the room. Coño, padrino, you know why we rented this house." Hilario Dávila just couldn't. Otura Sá, trying to take control, assured Hilario Dávila that the monster was tranquilo. But Hilario Dávila just couldn't. They backed away from the door into the pasillo. Always the supportive one, Ocan Oñí said that he didn't have to go in if he didn't want to. He didn't. Otura Sá promptly got up from the mat, shook his head, and left. Me piro. Que Antonio Irosun Sá lo haga (I'm gone; let Tony do it). Eleguá saw everything right there in the door way. As he would later say it best in Oshé Bara, the drunk thinks one thing and the bartender thinks another. More to the point, a difficult child is like a thorny forest.
The sun was already beginning to drop. Oshún was waiting at the river and there was so much to do to prepare the igbodún for the santo. Oshún Ibú-Ikolé is renowned for her uncanny ability to make and mend connections. Ocan Oñí fairly flew the five blocks to the house of Otura Sá. After a tense hour a creaky blue Lada pulled up carrying Odomiguale, Otura Sá, and Ocan Oñí. Oshún had restarted the santo. Emerging triumphantly from the back seat, Ocan Oñí escorted Hilario Dávila's padrinos into the house; "God, do I have a fuckload of ashé." Hilario Dávila couldn't disagree.


Otura Sá sat back down on the mat to perform the ebó de entrada. He'd relented before Ocan Oñí's diplomatic entreaties, explaining laconically, me incomodé. He probably also realized that it wasn't worth losing a series of opportunities over a small flap if it could be fixed. At the end of the ceremony, Otura Sá had Hilario Dávila holding a huge, nearly unmanageable load of birds. Tony Irosun Sá and Ocan Oñí had never seen so many big birds for a sign that had come with iré. Funny that all of these lovely birds would end up in cages at Otura Sá's house, ready to be used for another person's ceremony over the weekend, instead of being set free as was the custom.
It was way after dark when they took Hilario Dávila to the river in Reparto Mañana in Guanabacoa and then he spent his first night on an old mat in the house of santo. Early the next morning at sunrise Hilario Dávila, to his delight, Lazaro the babalawo offered him coffee. Lazaro loved coffee, especially, as Hilario Dávila would find out later, when his rent-out kitchen was liberally stocked with the iyawó's provisions for the week.

Fortunately for Hilario Dávila, Ocan Oñí brought in his trusted second, Raquel Obákedún, an elder santera from Guanabacoa, to attend to the iyawó for the week. Obákedún was an angel from heaven. Immediately Obákedún reorganized the iyawó's wicker basket of white clothes, selecting just two or three sets of whites and sending the rest home. In her experience, the initiation of a Yuma always meant that just about everything was open to pilfering, as if the room were a department store on a prizewinning free shopping day. Funny how even Otura Sá liberated spaghetti and sauce from the kitchen as take out for the insatiable monster at home. During the Middle Day of the santo, when everyone comes to celebrate the new iyawó, most of the fresh meat from the animals magically disappeared from the kitchen so that Hilario Dávila's long-lost family could be fed.
Hilario Dávila spent a long time sitting in a stiff chair facing the wall by the front door of the house. He was supposed to be quiet. It seemed like hours. Then Otura Sá and Odomiguale made a grand entrance and showed everyone the present they had brought for the santo, six big terracotta bowls for the osains, because the ones in the house were old and moldy. Then, for some reason, Otura Sá started pestering Ocan Oñí to reimburse him for the six fula that he spent on the bowls. Obatalá was going to be made, but somehow the six fula became a major drama of the santo, which would reach it's climax during the matanza.

For Hilario Dávila, the santo went on a long time, blindfolded as he was. Fortunately, the Obá was an affable, gentle man named "El Curro," Pablo Fresneda and his presence, along with Ocan Oñí, Obákedún, and Tony Irosun Sá, gave Hilario Dávila confidence.

Being blindfolded while people are doing all kinds of things to you is not easy and it was really hard for Hilario Dávila to remember everything that happened. He got all wet, heard lots of voices, and felt his head stinging. The rest was pretty much a blur, except when it was time for the ceremony that the babalawos always told him was an important moment in the santo: the "presentation of the razor" to the iyawó's head.

Since this was a house of Ifá, it is Orunmila who opens the iyawó's way to the osha. The babalawo is his first and most important godparent, which is symbolized by his Eshú, with the green and yellow beads incrusted in the little cement head and the "hand of Orula," received by the iyawó prior to the santo. The presentation of the razor symbolizes the transfer of the iyawó's head from the babalawo to the madrina of santo, who puts her ashé on his head during the kariocha.

The people seemed to stop what they were doing and the Obá asked for the babalawo to come and present the razor. Nothing seemed to happen. They called him again. This went on for a long time. Then Hilario Dávila heard someone say, "he's not here. I guess we'll just keep doing what we were doing." So much for tradition thought Hilario Dávila in the haze of the moment.



After a really long time of beautiful hypnotic chanting, they started putting all this stuff on Hilario Dávila's head and a lot of people whispered really sweet things in his ear. Then Hilario Dávila felt like he was floating and a big bell started clanging in front of him. All kinds of bodies were around him and it was pretty hot. For a while he didn't know where he was and he felt like his body was moving on its own. Suddenly the singing stopped and they told Hilario Dávila that he could open his eyes. Sitting on the wood mortar he could see the throne of beautiful white cloth decorated with four colorful paños. They told Hilario Dávila that this was "his new house." They helped him up from the mortar and walked him over to his house and turned him around so he could see everyone smiling at him. It was a relief and a revelation but it had all taken so long and since he had gone away for a little while, Hilario Dávila was now back and couldn't stand up very well.
Otura Sá was the first person to come up to him. To Hilario Dávila, he seemed really short and he had a half-burned cigarette hanging out of his mouth with the ashes falling on the mat. "I need you to give me six dollars." Hilario Dávila had no idea what he was talking about. Otura Sá came back looking a bit crestfallen and he told the new iyawó that, because Obatalá had come during the santo, he wasn't going to pass to Ifá. Otura Sá then brightened up and told Hilario Dávila that they would, however, wash his hands in añá so he could become a drummer and sooner or later he would need to receive Odudúwa from the babalawos because he had made Obatalá. Otura Sá then walked away and made that unmistakable gesture of dusting off his hands--well, so much for making Ifá to Hilario Dávila--and left the room.



Later, Hilario Dávila chewed and chewed a series of square coconut pieces each seasoned with little grains of African pepper as sets of orishas was fed in the matanza. Just as cool water balanced hot blood, cool coconut balanced hot pepper. In theory. Hilario Dávila was always told that the room "heated up" during the matanza de santo; the air could be so electric that people would be montado por el santo. He was surprised when it heated up in a way he hadn't predicted, but, in retrospect, it was inevitable that things would come to a head.
Otura Sá had brought his inexperienced godson Cesar with him to help with the matanza, instead of using his experienced Ifá-grandson, Tony Irosun Sá, because the house had already branded him a traitor. Cesar strutted about confidently with his big knife strapped to his calf like a scuba-diver and demonstrated with gusto how effortlessly he could flop over and hold the chivito of Eleguá. It was also Cesar's job to pull the animals from their pens in the kitchen. Unfortunately, as it turned out, Cesar was either distracted by his self-importance or hadn't studied closely enough the sex traits of animals. When it came time to feed Oyá her auré, Cesar brought out an aunkó instead. Otura Sá was evidently a bit distracted himself. Not long into the eyebale, Ocan Oñí and others remarked that Oyá was receiving the wrong offering. Otura Sá took note, had Oyá washed, and then he re-fed Oyá her auré and Obatalá his.



Now Otura Sá had a little problem on his hands. With one aunkó wasted, he would be one short when it came to feeding Oshún and Agayú--as each required its own four-legged offering of aunkó. Likely, given his money worries, the need to cover his embarrassment, and because Otura Sá is despreocupado, he tried an utterly pathetic and transparent sleight of hand. Otura Sá pushed Oyá and Obatalá back against the wall and pulled out Oshún and Agayú, who eat together, making sure that the spent lerí auré lined up right in front of Oshún--presenting a little make-believe that she had already received her offering. Hilario Dávila saw all this but remained speechless.

And everyone saw it; but for a moment, no one said anything. Otura Sá proceeded as if nothing had happened. Ocan Oñí pretty much had enough. He later told Hilario Dávila that he left the room to consult with the elder santera Raquel Obákedún. She probably had forty years in osha and had worked at a thousand santos. But she earlier split to the living room because a younger santera disrespected her in front of everyone. Ocan Oñí vetted his position with her: he was the Oyubona and had responsibility for the quality of the ceremony and the life of the iyawó, not least because Odomiguale was seventy years old and was oblivious to the proceedings. She sat in her chair of honor in the corner of the igbodún. Hilario Dávila saw Ocan Oñí, the santero of eight years, reenter the room to confront a babalawo of thirty-eight years in Ifá.

Oshún can be diplomatic and she can be fierce. Gently, Ocan Oñí explained to Otura Sá that the lost aunkó created a problem for Hilario Dávila's sister-in-Ocha, Gisella, who was receiving Agayú during the ceremony. Ocan Oñí then explained that because there remained only one aunkó, and neither Oshún nor Agayú had been fed, one or the other would not be able to speak in the itá on Monday. Coño, padrino, ya tú sabes, analiza, Oshún lleva su propio chivo y para hablar tiene que comer. Still, the problem was even bigger, reminding the very babalawo who performed the ebó de entrada of the odú's signal warning: hay muchos vicios pero una sola virtud. Correctness was paramount and at the heart of this santo.

Hilario Dávila saw that Otura Sá was disarmed, but, like a bruised fighting rooster, was still poised to raise his spur. For a minute the room was frozen in time. No one moved. Then Ocan Oñí broke the spell. Oshún was no longer the diplomat, but the candela brava. Ocan Oñí swooped down and slid the lerí auré across the floor and out the door like a ski-ball leaving a thick trail of ejé. To Hilario Dávila, the already diminutive Otura Sá got a bit smaller.

People got together in the middle of the room. They decided that Tony Irosun Sá would go out and buy another aunkó. Hilario Dávila had no money and he knew that Ocan Oñí was the only soul in the room and probably in all of Cayo Hueso at the moment capable of paying for an aunkó on the spot. Tony Irosun Sá took the seventeen fula and was back before Otura Sá could say chivo capón.

When Oyá's auré was opened and presented to her, all could that see she had been pregnant with ibeyi. Hilario Dávila watched with wonder the still-breathing placenta on a large plate and two chivitos cuddling each other inside. He thought: luck. Otura Sá tried to get his six dollars from Ocan Oñí again. By this time, Ocan Oñí really had Otura Sá's number. He calmly replied, "padrino, I'm sure you realize that you actually owe me eleven dollars if you subtract the cost of the bowls from the seventeen I spent on the aunkó." No luck. Otura Sá never raised the subject again.
See Part II:

http://meandmannyphdbaseball.blogspot.com/2008/07/jekua-jei-oy-yansn-ni-iy-m-how-to-make.html