The Persistence Of Memory
I suffered a concussion when my head was forced into a brick
wall that exploded with graffiti.
Undercover cops came from behind and assaulted me as I walked home after
I.S 155 activities that were designed to build character or good citizenship in
students.
” F**k! It’s not him!” one of them shouted as my bus pass
and other ID drifted to concrete like yesterday’s newspapers.
A vein of blood trailed down my forehead, as I stood mute in
the middle of the entrance of my home building. All I could do was watch them
run red-faced to their unmarked car. One of them stopped and looked back as if
he wanted to say, “I’m sorry, kid”. Then they were gone. I sat at the edge of my
bed with ice pressed to a growing head bump.
I almost forgot my
homework on The Underground Railroad.
Years later, holiday vacation from NYU and homework to
create a tour book for the South Bronx began by guns pulled out by cops behind
squad cars. They yelled at me to drop a shoulder bag and lift my arms up. I was
smashed against the back of a car and violently patted down by a white cop
while others looked through personal items.
When he hit my crotch, I pushed him several feet with one
hand. I turned and stared into the barrel of a gun held by a black cop whose
nostrils flared like a bull about to charge and gore. There was an unearthly
cold light of a stare from my mother’s other son, who, minutes before, had
tried to kill me with Colt 45 malt liquor beer. Had the heavy bottle connected
with my face, eyes would’ve been wrenched out of sockets, nose and teeth
shattered in a gruesome death. Possessed
by the demon Schizophrenia inflamed by Crack, he had ran with an awful shriek
to a coffee and donut shop on Prospect Avenue where he panicked police officers
to believe I had a gun.
The way they roughed me up was nothing compared to my
mother’s husband who belted me across my face and back when I was a boy.
Torture started at the age of five when he yanked off my red towel used as a
cape and dragged me to the bathroom. He slapped me once to wipe the look of
bewilderment off my face. Then he lost control of his hand and blinded me with
one rapid slap after the other. He hit so hard I didn’t feel anything. The
beating stopped when an electrical current bolted up my spine and blood burst
out of my nose. It’s been written that childhood is the kingdom of forever.
It’s agonizing to go back in time to see the child I was fall to tiled floor
like a marionette with cut strings.
I don’t remember death only night terrors of being pulled
out of bed to be belted.
His son learned his father’s behavior so well he put me in a
chokehold out of jealousies and later attempted mindless murder again that
caused lacerations on my neck.
It’s hard to live in the real world that made me the captain
of the USS Escapism.
Reality happened again when his father tried to drown me in
the bathtub where I pretended to be Namor, the prince of Atlantis, a mutant
from Marvel Comic Books.
Once upon a time, I felt the mystery of life when I went
deep into the waters of Orchard Beach, the French Riviera of the Bronx. Unlike
other kids, I could hold my breath longer and swam far for freedom like Cubans.
Without my glasses, I saw people as points of colors on sands of time and
myself washed up on the shores of a future free from abuse, free to evolve into
someone who wanted to go where common sense was religion.
The oceans were near to flying in the heavens and second to
the mystery of the human brain that could eventually figure out how to walk on
water. Even though my mother is Catholic, I was never one of those kids that
prayed to a crucified Jew who suffered after giving people Universal Health
Care. I wanted to take The Son of God to the hospital and get Tetanus shots
like me after I had stepped on a rusty nail that was hidden like a snake in the
grass in Saint Mary’s Park where I romped in my Lone Ranger cowboy hat and
silver cap guns, gifts from a merchant marine uncle who lived for the open
seas.
This how my holiday vacation from school ended and homework
resumed: red-faced cops handcuffed my mother’s and her husband’s son and took
him to Lincoln Hospital.
I forgive them for they know not what they had done to me.
Merry Christmas, baby Jesus, and peace on Earth for children
of all ages.
Amen.
