the school or the sport activities. I spent this time as if it were the last days of my life and they almost were. Afterwards, I became another person. At three o ' clock in the morning we saw the route 114 Yutong bus, manufactured in China. The driver was kind enough to stop. We boarded while saying that the last one to step in must pay. Who would have thought that such an expression was going to cause so much impact to the man behind the steering wheel, his conductor— with a bag tied around his waist for collecting pesetas( twenty cent coins) and one-peso( CUP) coins— and the policeman appointed to enforce law and order on that bus? My brother took three convertible Cuban pesos( CUC) out of his pocket. This bothered them more and then began the nuts and bolts. One of the group finally paid with a five-peso bill, but the conductor asked us for another. Why, if the bus fare was only 40 cents? Another argument broke out and I will never forget the words of officer Bandera: " Jabao *, I ' m going to give you what you deserve. Be quiet." The conductor gave the change back, but required us to step off at the next stop. It is full dawn and there is a good stretch from Aldabó to Martí. As we refused, the driver grabbed a piece of pipe and the conductor, a machete. The policeman realized that his uniform will not stop our desire to be fairly treated and ran to the back. He didn’ t give a chance even to touch his hair. I looked forward and saw my brother biting the driver ' s hand to force him to drop the pipe and one of my friends threatening with a bottle to keep away the man with the machete.
The black wasps were already on us. " Three apiece." The blows weren’ t enough. They sprayed our eyes and handcuffed us. We were thrown on the street and they kicked us until a voice said, " Enough!" It was more than enough; I could barely see with my left eye, though it was better not to see that scene. My brother had to pay the driver an extremely ridiculous amount of a few cents a month for the slight injury he caused by biting the driver’ s finger. After hearing it, the driver laughed and immediately became annoyed. He claimed that he had found out we were excellent students and workers with good social behavior and no criminal records. We weren’ t carrying cutting weapons; instead, he and his conductor were carrying them and they argued it was so for protecting themselves from the violence prevailing on the streets. The driver even stated that we had been subjected to enough punishment with three months of pre-trail detention at Valle Grande Penitentiary. When his turn came, the conductor said something similar. However, the presiding judge made deaf ears and menacingly lectured all the presents with mechanical words to secure the intended purpose. The sentences were five years for my brother, three for me and two for our friend who had wielded a bottle. The City of Havana’ s TV channel( CHTV) partially broadcasted the trial with its typical manipulation on the day after the sentences. The Yutong buses were ready to ride and to render their bad service to the people. The message was quite clear: our trial had been exemplary.
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