Hey namesake, you screwed me over.
He no longer writes on Sundays. But standing before his plaque in his hometown of Quemado, a friend reminds me that stories—like unlicensed jeeps and African snails—keep going. Sometimes, they even screw us over. But it’s a good thing they do.
Sunday, 7:30 a.m. — The phone breaks the morning silence. On the other end of the line, the voice of a friend traveling from Matanzas to Sagua la Grande: “I’m standing in front of the plaque commemorating Enrique Núñez Rodríguez,” located in the park of his hometown of Quemado de Güines. He says this knowing what it means to me.
Enrique, the journalist, the writer, the humorist, and the radio and television scriptwriter. The man whose Sunday columns in Juventud Rebelde were a must-read ritual. I treasured them, until time and my moves made them disappear. Now, standing before the call of his plaque in Quemado de Güines, the memory returns.
Sometime in the 90s, during Culture Week in Colón—I don’t remember the exact year, but I do remember driving Mauricio’s four-door jeep, now deceased—a correspondent for Juventud Rebelde without a driver’s license—to cover the event. Enrique was the guest of honor. Every day I thought, «I’m interviewing him today.» Every day, professional fear paralyzed me.
At the municipal library, he broke the ice. He approached him directly: «Do you work at Juventud Rebelde?» «No,» I replied. «It’s just that I always see you in your jeep,» I explained. Then, with that characteristic mix of irony and solemnity, he blurted out: «I write for Juventud Rebelde.» And I, imprudently, said: «All of Cuba knows that… And I probably have more of your articles filed away than you do.»
He smiled. «Don’t doubt it,» he said.
A lost article. Upon returning to Matanzas, I wrote an article that was published in the newspaper Girón: «Namesake, You Screwed Me
Over.» Luckily (or unluckily), Enrique read it. I feared his scathing criticism, but he only adopted the title as a greeting: the other times we saw each other, he would reply: «Namesake, I screwed you over.» It was his signature of complicity.
Today, that article is also lost. It doesn’t matter. The true value wasn’t in the paper, but in those few seconds when Enrique, with just four words, turned my clumsiness into an eternal joke.
He no longer writes on Sundays. But standing before his plaque in his hometown of Quemado, a friend reminds me that stories—like unlicensed jeeps and African snails—continue on their way. Sometimes, they even mess with us. But how wonderful that they do.
Written by Enrique Tirse.
