Herald Staff Report

 HAVANA -- In Havana, they are waiting, wearily, for the boy whose face is
 depicted on billboards this week as one of a trio of Cuban heroes, along with
 Jose Marti and Ernesto Che Guevara.

 The waiting causes people to wonder how Elian will be taken from the arms of
 his Miami relatives and if some kind of Bruce Willis operation will have to be
 mounted from Black Hawk helicopters because, as one man put it, ``that is
 the way the U.S. government does it in the movies.''

 Speculation about this is loud, vociferous and often argued out on street corners.

 As the days go by and it seems to become clearer that ``Our Boy'' -- as some
 posters refer to Elian -- will be coming home, many Cubans also ask much more
 discreetly if Fidel Castro will allow the 6-year-old to be quietly reunited with his
 father. Or will Elian be paraded down the Malecon, Havana citizens wonder, to
 stick a defiant finger in the air as he is marched past the U.S. Interests Section?

 MASSIVE GRANDSTAND

 ``What about the grandstand?'' a retired teacher asked, referring to the massive
 steel and concrete structure being erected by swarms of workers on the
 oceanfront boulevard directly in front of the U.S. diplomatic mission. ``Why are
 they building that if they are not going to put [Elian] up there in front of the
 masses?''

 The teacher, like many Cubans, says she is sure that Cuba's government will not
 let that happen and that Elian will be quietly and humanely reunited with his papi.
 There may be a parade, and speeches commemorating the moment may be
 made from the grandstand, but the child will not be there.

 ``No, please, not that,'' she pleaded. ``Give his life back to him.''

 But other Cubans -- who have had their outrage over the Elian issue turned into
 mush by the weeks of nonstop speeches by Fidel and party loyalists on Havana's
 two TV stations -- are more jaded.

 The child's future is chiseled in stone, they say.

 He is one of the martyrs.

 FOREGONE CONCLUSION

 The government cannot just hand out hundreds of thousands of T-shirts with
 Elian's face on them to the legions who have marched down the Malecon, then
 allow the boy to be just a boy again. The whole country cannot be aroused as
 province after province stages patriotic gatherings, only to have the focus of that
 fervor just disappear.

 ``This is like your Barney show,'' a Havana bookseller said after an evening
 watching the smiling faces of an all-child troupe entertain thousands of people
 with songs and dances about Elian at a rally in the central Cuban city of Sagua la
 Grande.

 ``The boy is a celebrity,'' he said. ``He is going to be written into Cuban history.
 He is going to have to live up to the image of himself with Fidel's arm around him
 -- when that happens -- forever.''

 STEADY DIET SEEN

 A man watching one of several cranes swing a girder into place for the grandstand
 in Havana said he expects television and newspapers to continue to spoon-feed
 Elian to Cuba's citizens, perhaps for weeks, even after the child comes home.

 ``Look at the investment the government is making,'' he said. ``It costs money to
 build that structure. It will become a monument, just like the Maine [the moldering
 monument to the survivors of the explosion that destroyed the USS Maine in 1898
 is only yards away on the Malecon]. The party is going to be telling us that this is
 one of the triumphs of the revolution.''

 As for the plight of the U.S. government as it tries to figure out how to extract
 Elian from Miami, an 18-year-old University of Havana student said, ``All of us are
 curious about that, because it shouldn't really be a big deal.

 ``Cubans don't understand why the most powerful nation in the world can use its
 muscle in Kosovo and Iraq, but it can't subdue the Miami Cubans,'' he said,
 laughing. ``Fidel is always reminding us of that.''

                     Copyright 2000 Miami Herald