In the park scenes, Máximo tells jokes about Cubans and Castro.

In one, a politician
resurrected in the future discovers that Cubans continue to be hopeful that Castro will fall. In
another, Fidel Castro attempts to leave Cuba on a raft. A third features Castro asking a young
boy what he would like to be when he grows up; the boy responds, “a tourist” (20).

Not wanting tourists to gawk at him, Máximo had not wanted to play dominoes in the park, but
Raúl convinced him. One day, as they are playing, a young woman walks by and stares at the
men. Raúl reminisces about beautiful Cuban women and looks at Máximo for confirmation,
but Raúl looks away. His wife died the previous year, and he had been having nightmares that
she was trying to tell him something.

Máximo and Raúl had been neighbors in pre-revolutionary Havana. When Máximo was 36
years old, he left Cuba, thinking he would return in a few years. Too old for manual labor and
unable to use his Cuban university credentials, he went into food service with his wife, Rosa.