Called "The Great
Sofa," there's nothing sleepy about Havana's Malecon

They call it ''The Great Sofa'' because hundreds of Cubans sit here day and night, year-round. The fabled Malecon seawall, a concrete promenade separating a jammed six-lane boulevard and an often-angry Atlantic, is always crowded--but never with the same crowd.

''It's like New York,'' said Fernando Roldan, a 37-year-old masseur who was guzzling rum as he lounged on the seawall after midnight one weekend. ''It never sleeps.''

A typical dawn finds fishermen on the low wall over the waves, casting into inky blue water glistening with runoff from a refinery that billows black smoke in the distance.

Children heading to school walk atop the wall, casting shadows as long as the adults on the adjacent sidewalk. A woman faces the ocean and crosses herself, mouthing a prayer before hurrying on to work, while a brigade of street sweepers fans out--sometimes steering their wooden brooms around chatty drunks still going from the night before.

U.S. military engineers first began building the Malecon in 1901, paving over scrub brush while American forces still occupied Cuba following the Spanish-American War. Today, it stretches four miles from Old Havana west, past the office of the American mission and the black flags Cuba flies outside its windows, and on to the Almendares River.

In the late morning one Friday, Luis Alvarez, a 25-year-old culinary student in a red baseball cap faded almost colorless by the sun, sat staring into the waves lapping rocks carpeted with algae. Occasionally he sprang to his feet and paced the wall, throwing bits of bread--a lopsided roll he gets daily with his ration card--into the surf.

Most fishermen use makeshift poles, but Alvarez had nothing but a spool of fishing line and a naked hook. He said men in wet suits and scuba masks obtain permits to ply the waters away from shore hunting for marlin, sometimes spooking smaller tiger fish back into the rocks where they might be hooked using the bread crumbs.

''It takes hours,'' he said.

Alvarez said he hoped to catch at least two fish because it was his father's birthday. One he could cook, he explained, and the second would fetch enough money for a bottle of rum to go with dinner.

''I haven't cooked fish in a long time. I always sell whatever I catch,'' he said.

A few hours later, a carpentry apprentice named Jose Antonio looked at the same crystal blue surf and dreamed of a makeshift raft to take him to Florida, 90 miles north.

''Tourists come and see beaches, perfect old Havana. They don't see that it is a lie,'' said the 30-year-old, who wouldn't give his last name. ''The people of Cuba suffer.''

Jose Antonio said he has been passed over for government work because he is black, even though Cuban law prohibits racial discrimination. He said he would be willing to leave behind his wife and two small children just to try to make it to U.S. soil.

''I want to be free,'' he said.

Farther to the west, fruit seller Alfredo Crespo set his 6-month-old daughter Claudia's stroller on the Malecon's wall. The little girl gazed at the ocean, her large brown eyes wide with wonder.

''This is better than any park,'' Crespo said.

Running the length of the Malecon, the low wall over the waves features the perfect dimensions for sitting--2 feet wide by 2-1/2 feet tall. Men walking on or alongside it often shed their shirts, wearing them over their heads and necks to provide some relief from the blistering sun. Muscle-bound teenagers sometimes do sit-ups on it, while couples jog by.

Musicians with trombones, trumpets, and violins play all day, hoping for tips from passing tourists. Far more common, however, are those who strum guitars and sing or recite poetry for pocket change--like Ulises Alfonso, a 37-year-old judo instructor.

''The traffic in the background, the women walking. It's like a game of ping pong,'' he said watching ''Coco Taxis,'' or motorcycles enclosed under egg-shaped yellow roofs, dart around the Studebakers and other American classics on Malecon's boulevard.

Men here spend hours yelling out compliments, or ''piropos,'' to women who walk by.

''You can't just say 'hey, beautiful.' A Cuban woman won't pay you any attention,'' Alfonso said. ''You have to work--otherwise they won't look at you.''

Alfonso tossed out phrases about mermaids walking on land. Passing women paid him little mind.

''See?'' he asked. ''It's not easy.''

Not far away, a youngster with a backpack sidled up to an American. ''Where you from?'' he asked in English. Without breaking stride, he then offered stolen cigars, marijuana and sex with women for money.

Once exceedingly common, solicitation on the Malecon by hustlers known as ''jineteros,'' or jockeys, has declined sharply as increased tourism and subsidies from Venezuela and China have helped Cuba recover from years of near economic ruin following the Soviet Union's collapse in 1991, and the island's subsequent loss of billions of dollars in preferential trade and aid.

By dusk families can be found swimming among the rocks below the Malecon. Youngsters scamper up the wall to fling themselves into the waves.

During summer blackouts thousands flood the seawall after dark and stay all night. They suck down beers and gulp rum straight from the bottle, enjoying a breeze from the ocean that the stilled fans and silent air conditioners in their homes cannot provide.

If the wind is blowing too hard, however, large waves drive loiters and swimmers away, crashing over the wall and littering the far-right lane of traffic with seaweed and driftwood.

Most common at any hour on the Malecon are couples on dates who come to be seen, make out, and enjoy free views of the ocean.

''There are other malecons, but I don't think there is another in the world like this,'' said Alejandro Tejada, a 21-year-old student who was locked in a late-night embrace with his girlfriend of five months, Cosete.

After 11 p.m. a section across from the luxurious Hotel Nacional fills with gay men, including Cubans and foreign tourists.

The Malecon is considered a public space where loitering is legal. Still, many who come for the gay scene say the police harass them, even handing out fines.

''The police are antigay. They hate us,'' said Lorenzo Rodriguez, a drag queen in white lace and a long brown wig.

Jose Manuel, a health worker and former soldier who fought in Angola when Cuba joined that country's war for independence in the 1980s, said he is a secretly gay member of a club for communist veterans. The 46-year-old didn't want his full name published because he said his secret could cost him his party affiliation, maybe even his job.

''I'm not political,'' he said. ''But I've got to keep my status.''

Jose Manuel said he doesn't like spending nights at the Malecon, but comes several times a month because he has nowhere else to go to pick up men.

''There are no gay discos,'' he said. ''Even if there were, Cubans couldn't afford them. They would only be for tourists.'' (Will Weissert, AP)