![]() We imagine places we’ve never been through popular films. We walked down the stairs and back onto South Beach’s Ocean Drive, a narrow boulevard lined with palm trees and parking meters that runs between Miami’s Art Deco district and Atlantic shoreline. I can’t believe this is all,” Carlos said through his thick, Cuban accent. Couples promised themselves to each other ‘‘4eva’’ and one visitor had written ‘‘PACINO ES DIOS.’’ All over the wall outside the apartment people had left their signatures in red, blue and black Sharpie ink. We weren’t the first to make the pilgrimage. There was no official plaque and the door was sealed with two two-by-fours to keep sightseers out. I also wanted to know how he felt about the movie considering its parallels with his own life. We reached the top of the three-story staircase. I invited Carlos because of his personal interest in the film, and because I wanted to see him. ![]() I had traveled to Miami from my home in Sarasota in search of the iconic film site. Carlos and I have remained close ever since. So I did and ended up staying with his mother for about a month. We became fast friends, and he encouraged me to visit Havana. Carlos is athletic and has thick, arched eyebrows that give him a look of constant excitement. I first met Carlos when he was in hiding on a small island in the Bahamas a few years ago. He is 27 now, living in Miami after a five-year emigration ordeal that included an escape from a Greek mob boss in Nassau and a $7,000 boat ride from Bimini to a posh port and U.S. Little did he know then that a decade later he would follow in Montana’s proverbial footsteps. Carlos first saw the movie in black and white on a bootlegged VHS in Havana when he was 15 years old. When I think of Miami I think of Scarface when I see Scarface, I think of Miami. I’d seen the cult classic film many times over the years, and I could not think of the city or the movie without merging the two together. “That’s right, you little cock-a-roaches,” one of them responded.Ĭarlos and I ran up the stairs. They gleefully did their best Pacino impressions-‘‘Say hello to my little friend!” Then a group of men and women walked down the stairs from the building’s left side. We were looking for the location where Tony Montana escaped death by chainsaw and shot a man in the street in Brian De Palma’s 1983 gangster epic Scarface, but we saw no sign of the film. Carlos and I were not interested in greasy food and overpriced alcohol. ![]() Nice Guy blared on the speakers overhead. Tourists sat in red vinyl booths with aquarium-sized frozen cocktails before them while A lice Cooper’s No More Mr. I stood in front of Johnny Rockets, a 50s-themed burger franchise, on 728 Ocean Drive in Miami’s South Beach with my friend, Carlos Enrique de Castro. It was hard to believe this was the right place.
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