BY ANDRES VIGLUCCI

 He holds what to American ears may sound like a modest job, cashier at the gate
 of a park for foreign tourists in the Cuban resort of Varadero. The flashes Americans
 have seen on TV are of an intensely unhappy, even pugnacious man, his eyes reduced
 to slits, his close-cropped head hunkered down between his shoulders.

 Little is known on this side of the Florida Straits about the man now occupying
 center stage in the custody melodrama that grips the nation. Juan Miguel Gonzalez
 has given few interviews, and he hasn't slept in his family's small but tidy house in the
 Cuban town of Cardenas for months.

 By the accounts of those who know him best, his friends and relatives in Cuba,
 the 31-year-old Gonzalez is just what he publicly claims to be: a good father and
 a good Communist, a man devoted to his son, Elian, and to his ideology.

 Said a co-worker, Fidel Ramirez: ``All of us here have been witnesses to the love
 that boy has for his father, and the father for the boy.''

 To this portrait, his Miami relatives -- who are enmeshed in a bitter four-month
 battle over the boy with Gonzalez -- add some dark strokes.

 Early in the drama, the Miami relatives praised Juan Miguel's qualities as family
 man. Later, they claimed he struck the boy's mother and secretly wished to come
 to the United States, contentions that U.S. immigration authorities say they have
 been unable to substantiate. On Thursday night, speaking at the Miami family's
 behest, a psychologist who has evaluated Elian alleged the boy is afraid of his
 father because Gonzalez has been verbally abusive on several occasions.

 At the center of the relatives' argument for custody of Elian is a complaint that
 Juan Miguel cannot express his ``true wishes'' for his son because of pressure
 from the Cuban government. Certainly, Gonzalez has in recent weeks been seen
 publicly only under tightly controlled circumstances, surrounded by Cuban
 officials. NBC News has reported that, until his arrival Thursday in Washington,
 D.C., he had been living in a government guest house in a section of Havana that
 is home for foreign diplomats. While here, he will stay at the suburban house of
 Cuba's top U.S. envoy.

 But it is clear also that Gonzalez and his side of the family long ago made a
 decision to throw their lot in with Fidel Castro, and have done relatively well by it.
 For Juan Miguel Gonzalez, membership in the Communist Party has meant a
 steady job with access to tips in foreign currency, and -- a rare luxury in Cuba -- a
 good house with air conditioning where Elian has his own room.

 ``An excellent worker and true revolutionary,'' one co-worker, Pablo Hernandez,
 said recently. ``He feels for his country like his life.''

 Formally, his ex-wife, Elisabeth Brotons, had custody of their only son, Elian --
 born to them after seven painful miscarriages. Informally, neighbors and friends
 say, Elian spent at least as much time at his father's house as at her apartment.

 So close was Gonzalez to his son that he drove him to school in his 1956 Nash
 Rambler, treated him to lunch, took him for father-and-son haircuts, and brought
 him to work on school holidays.

 ``When Elian was born he was a miracle to us,'' Gonzalez told an officer with the
 U.S. Immigration and Naturalization Service during a December interview in
 Havana. ``Elian is my life. He is my first son. Wherever I went, he went with me. I
 taught him how to swim, how to do karate. He has a parrot here, dogs, a bicycle
 and all kinds of toys.''

 DIVIDED FAMILY

 Like many Cuban families, Juan Miguel's was divided by the Revolution.

 He is the son of a retired policeman, Juan Gonzalez, 53; his parents live next
 door. Of the elder Gonzalez's eight brothers and sisters, five left Cuba for Miami,
 including Lazaro and Delfin Gonzalez, who have led the public fight to keep Elian
 here.

 Juan Miguel and his parents, he has said, have resisted repeated entreaties from
 his Miami relatives to join them in exile.

 In a December phone conversation with his uncle Lazaro's daughter, Marisleysis
 -- presumably recorded in Cuba and transcribed and published in the Communist
 Party daily Granma -- Juan Miguel is quoted as saying:

 ``Cousin, we are the same blood and I love you all with all my soul, but that is my
 son and I am never going over there, because the way you think is not my way. I
 feel happy here . . .

 ``I am never leaving this place. If I wanted to go for money and possibilities, I
 would have been there long ago.''

 15-DAY VISIT

 In spite of the yawning political gulf between the two, though, both sides of the
 family got along well, so long as they avoided the subject of politics. In 1998, in
 fact, Lazaro Gonzalez and members of his family made a 15-day visit to his
 nephew Juan Miguel, who reminded Marisleysis that he slept in his car or on a
 sofa so his uncle could have his bed. That was the only time the Miami relatives
 saw Elian, until the ill-fated voyage that claimed his mother's life and brought the
 boy here.

 ``They took a liking to Elian because he's such a nice boy, well behaved and well
 mannered; since he's such a lovable boy, they immediately liked him,'' Juan
 Miguel told the INS official in Havana.

 By early December, so angry had Juan Miguel become at his uncle's refusal to
 send Elian home to him that he told his cousin that he felt ``like wringing his neck
 over the phone.''

 Said Ramirez, Juan Miguel's co-worker at the manicured Parque Josone: ``They
 picked the wrong father for this problem.''

 ANGER, CONTEMPT

 Gruff and unpolished, Gonzalez has made no secret of his anger or his contempt
 for Miami's Cuban exiles, perhaps most famously displayed in a U.S. TV interview
 earlier this year. He lashed out at his relatives and their exile supporters and
 spoke of sometimes wanting to come to Miami with a gun to shoot those
 responsible for keeping his son from him. Foreign journalists who interviewed him
 in Cuba have been taken aback by his casual use of vulgar language.

 Yet that image is at odds with the descriptions of friends and relatives, who say
 he remained friendly with his ex-wife even after they split up for good, in 1996 or
 1997.

 Juan Miguel and Elisabeth met in junior high and were together, by his estimate,
 a total of 15 years. They were married in 1985, then divorced in 1991, a decision
 prompted, according to relatives, by Elisabeth's miscarriages and her resulting
 depression.

 But as Gonzalez told the INS, they decided to try one more time for a child after
 their divorce. According to Granma, they went for ``genetic counseling services'' at
 a specialized obstetrics hospital in Havana, faithfully following their doctors'
 complicated instructions. It was then Elian was born.

 REMAINED FRIENDS

 The two remained friends, visiting each other and effectively sharing custody of
 Elian, according to neighbors.

 ``Every weekend he was here to take the boy. Days during the week he was here
 to take the boy. At parties, he was here to see the boy,'' said Alba Rodriguez
 Garcia, who works at a drug store below Elisabeth's apartment.

 Gonzalez even spoke well of her new boyfriend, Lazaro Munero, who was to lead
 the trip to the United States that killed them both.

 ``Even her present boyfriend would come here and talk to me and eat here. My
 parents also liked him a lot. I liked him also because he never mistreated my son,
 whom he loved very much and I appreciated that from him,'' Gonzalez told the
 INS.

 Yet those kind words contradict later assertions by the Cuban side of the family,
 some of whose members alleged Munero abused Elisabeth and had little regard
 for Elian, allegations echoed by the Cuban government in a long broadside
 published in Granma.

 If anything, the custody battle has brought Juan Miguel closer to the Cuban
 government. Upon arriving Thursday in Washington, D.C., Gonzalez spoke
 warmly of Ricardo Alarcon, president of Cuba's rubber-stamp National Assembly,
 as ``a friend or brother, giving me advice and support through these days of pain
 and uncertainty.''

 Accompanied by his new wife and their 6-month old boy, Juan Miguel Gonzalez
 said he had come to claim what was rightfully his:

 ``We are Elian's true family and we love him very much.''

 This report was supplemented by reporting in Cuba by Herald staff writer Frances
 Robles.

                     Copyright 2000 Miami Herald