Like many Cubans who grow up in tightknit barrios or small towns, El Rumbero refused to be called by any other name. Before 1965 when revolutionary activists shut down the small bars and dance halls where local entrepreneurs and free-lance prostitutes continued to work and, according to Berta’s informants, thrive, El Rumbero had played drums in a small tavern virtually every night of the week. With tips and the food the owner-bartender served him, he supplemented the income he earned as a state worker on the local, nationalized sugar plantation, El Pilón. Then his eighties and “¡todavía soltero! [still a bachelor]” he told me with a wry smile, El Rumbero had returned to self-employment full-time, repairing bicycles since 1993.