Crime

UPDATE: Someone Stole My CAT…

Stealing — Image by Ryan McGuire from Pixabay

…Catalytic converter, that is. And I wasn’t alone. According to neighbors, at least two other cars on the block were also hit on the same night. Have you ever driven a car without a catalytic converter? Sounds like a herd of elephants running alongside your car.

UPDATE: Am I just the luckiest guy alive, or what? When I first contacted the auto repair business about the delivery time for a new catalytic converter, I was told it would be four to six months. It seems I wasn’t the only unlucky person to end up in catalytic hell. Well, in a matter of days of turning in my car and picking up the rental, the call came. My car was going to be ready because they had found an aftermarket converter. I was there quicker than the time it took to saw off my CAT and immediately took it to a muffler shop to have them install a CAT shield. Yes, the universe came together. Shout out to my insurance company, the Auto Club; the repair shop, Crash Champions; and the muffler shop, High Flow Muffler.

Whoever said that misery loves company doesn’t know my misery or that of my neighbors. It is a pain of inconvenience; I am pissed and feel violated. I’m not alone, and I don’t mean just my neighbors. State Farm Insurance company reported in a newsletter last October that “auto claims data reveals continued surge in catalytic converter theft.” According to CARFAX, which provides vehicle data to individuals and businesses, the U.S. Department of Justice recently announced “that a combination of federal, state, and local law enforcement agencies took coordinated action against a “national network” of people” who were involved in thefts worth tens of millions of dollars. Well, you can add my CAT to the pile of money. Yes, I reported it to my insurance company and the police, but all that does is add me to the statistics, and there is no pleasure in that.

One of my neighbors whose CAT was stolen lamented, “Hell, we could have just given them the money” and not suffered all this hassle. Funny, I don’t feel that way. I feel like an organized ring of thieves violated my space and time; if anything, they owe me compensation and an apology.

I’ve been robbed twice before in my life (not counting when I was roughed up in St. Mary’s Park for my raffle money when I was twelve years old). It was a burglary of the house in Washington, D.C. I was living with two other people. Long story, they didn’t steal much except some gas cards and expired credit cards (they did miss the pound of cocaine in a picnic basket. Come on, I’m just kidding). Strangers, we assume, broke into the house through a window under the front porch, busted the basement door to the kitchen, and ransacked the house in search of whatever. That’s right, not once but two times. Aside from the psychological pain and the inconvenience of repairs and police reports and not sleeping well for a few nights, the more incredible feeling was violation and questions about why. Could the thieves have just knocked on the front door and asked, “Listen, we’re thinking of burglarizing your house tomorrow, and we’ll probably do some damage in the process, which will cost you a shitload of money and inconvenience? Say, you give us the cash value now and save yourself the misery.” Now, that’s forward-thinking.

You ever hear the old saying, “A neo-conservative is a liberal who has been mugged by reality?” Supposedly said by Irving Kristol, who has been described as the “godfather of neo-conservatism.” Well, I’m not changing political parties or philosophies any time soon, but I am always intrigued by the human condition. Why do humans continue to F- over their fellow humans, pummeling them monetarily with everything from billion-dollar Wall Street Ponzi schemes to cybercrimes to stealing catalytic converters?

Now, I know it sounds like a naive question but don’t tell me you’ve never once thought about it. Or that you weren’t taught the seventh commandment, “Thou shall not steal.” Or if you as parents haven’t taught your children not to steal. Okay, maybe, in the back of your mind, you might have added a couple of exceptions to the rule. You know something about who will ever know if you keep it to a small amount. You steal it from a friend, or maybe you steal from your multinational corporate employer (hell, they got plenty of money). Okay, you didn’t report that thousand-dollar Superbowl bet you won (the government has plenty of your cash already). I mean, is it thievery?

Author and University Professor Sheila Kohler wrote an article for Psychology Today, “Why Do People Steal?” with the sub-heading “Some people feel it’s their right to steal.” In the article, Kohler uses some examples of stealing that seem rational. The adult casually takes a “box of Kleenex from a hotel room, and some might even purloin a towel or a bathrobe, thinking most probably: I’m paying enough for this hotel room.” What kind of parents did they have? Or the people who sometimes steal because they are hungry and their children are hungry, and the world is cruel, and you have to do what you have to do to survive.

Kohler even quotes Socrates, “that no one knowingly commits an evil action, evil is turned into good in the mind.” According to her analogy, thieves convince themselves that they have a right to the object they desire, “He needs it more than the other does. It is rightfully his.” Well, I tell you what, I need that catalytic converter more than the thieves do. I’m facing the prospect of having no car for four to six months and juggling the use of my wife’s car. Doesn’t sound like a fair deal to me.

The idea that someone else or even you or I am entitled to something that doesn’t rightfully belong to any of us doesn’t seem like a nice thing to think. Throughout human history, we (as human beings) just have looked for any excuse to take what we covet because we believe it’s ours and F- the other person. Maybe, that’s the problem. It’s the rationale behind wars, Imperialism, colonialism, genocide, Ponzi schemes, petty thefts, and stealing my damn catalytic converter.

Next time, knock on my door and ask me for the cash. I’ll be waiting.

Someone Stole My CAT…

Next time, knock on my door and ask me for the cash. I’ll be waiting.

A Boy with A Gun in His Right Pocket

Image by Vinson Tan ( 楊祖武 ) from Pixabay

He’s got a gun in his right pocket

	or is he just glad to see his mom & pop he’s six years old & he already knows that it’s all just cops & robbers cowboys & Indians crips & bloods rivalries where red is just a color on grey sidewalks & body outlines are the graffiti of the day

Gun — Image by Victoria_Watercolor from Pixabay

He’s got a gun in his right pocket

	older than his age heavier than his soul longer than he’s been alive trained since he could see you tube & that time his mom & pop took him down to the corner bodega to sit in the street bleachers to watch the shootout between the latin kings & the black guerrillas as they battled over the rights to rob the bodega owned by refugees from north korea on the first of the month before welfare cashing time when the benjamins are lined up single file ready for their cue

He's got a gun in his right pocket

	& he knows how to use it since all those instructions were injected into his soul through his eyes & ears by cereal boxes & fighting videos & music videos & episodes of star wars & dungeons & dragons flooding the unsocial social media where the tick-tock-time is running out before you’re dead

Gun — Image by Michal Jarmoluk from Pixabay

He’s only six years old with a gun in his right pocket 

         ready for his close-up the one where he holds that big ass cannon with both hands legs spread wide for balance his right eye focused down the barrel aiming for the heart of a people who are too busy working five jobs for rent money for the golden home in the sky that will never come while they drown in their own misery

He's a six year old boy with a gun in both his hands

laughs as he pulls the trigger pressing harder than the wishes he wished at his sixth birthday party when he blew away those candles & this time he blows away his teacher back again the wall motherfucker because well he saw it on that new damn streaming service that his big brother siphoned off their next door neighbor who siphoned it off from the neighbor across the street ain’t technology grand

and now the blood smears the blackboard wall & the cries of despair are not heard because no one believes this is real.

Purse Snatch

The following short story is based on actual events. The story was submitted to my Short Story class, English 405, in the Fall of 2021 at California State University, Long Beach. It has been edited for clarity.

The complete version of this fictionalize account can be found at Chacho and the Five Dollar Bag (Part 1) and Chacho and the Five Dollar Bag (Part 2).

1968 — Image by Free-Photos from Pixabay

It seemed simple enough. Be the lookout for Carlito at the corner of 142nd and Willis Avenue. Hector’s Barber Shop is two doors down, where Hector himself would give me a razor cut every two weeks on any Saturday. Sitting in that chair as if I was on a throne listening to Doble-OOO radio station and traditional Puerto Rican music and Spanish-language chatter oozing out like milk from momma’s breast. Next door is Sammy’s Pizza, where, on a good day, Sammy would give us small paper cups of water for free instead of filled with the Italian Ice they were meant for. He knew why we wanted them: to drop clean water through an eyedropper into a bottle cap filled with a small blob of cotton and a five-dollar bag of smack in the belief that we could purify the death created in the name of the father, the son, and the holy ghost.

At least the water is clean. We would buy a slice for fifty cents to say thanks. “Bless you” is all Sammy would say as if it was his last goodbye. Just in case the water drops into the bottle cap full of smack and a small blob of cotton heated over an open flame turned out to be the final act in our dangerous and tragic play titled The End.

It’s winter. I’m cold and shivering. Seven o’clock in the evening, and people are shuffling home from bus stops and train stations and dead-end jobs that paid the rent for rundown apartments in rundown apartment buildings where they have to step over the deadbeat bodies of junkies during the dope epidemic of 1968. Hands in my coat pocket wrapped around my works (eyedropper- check, bottle cap-check, needle safely sheathed, so we don’t stab ourselves-check, a recycled blob of cotton that will not purify anything-check) bundled together with a brown rubber band in a decaying brown bag. A matchbook with 4–5 matches left with the hidden message written across the inside cover “Use wisely, sucker. This is all that is left.”

I’m standing guard looking up and down Willis Avenue and 142nd Street and up to the 14th floor across the street to make sure my fiancé, Chicky, is not looking out the window where she could see me and wonder, ‘Why is that fool standing out on that corner in this cold weather without a hat on and probably doesn’t have any gloves on?” Yeah, that’s not what she’s thinking! I’m sure she’s probably thinking “he’s looking for dope again. I’m done with him.” And she be right. She and I should be done with me because I can’t believe I’m standing on the corner of Willis Avenue and 142nd Street in this damn cold ass weather on the lookout for la Jara as Carlito stalks an elderly woman up 142nd Street toward Willis Avenue while eyeing her black purse with the determination of a beast stalking its prey.

All we need is ten bucks to split two five-dollar bags of dope, smack, skag, and the white horse. Carlito told me that he’s done this before. “Plenty of times. I grab the purse and run. They ain’t going to stop me. If I have to, I push them down. Not hard. I ain’t no animal.” Yeah, but I’ve never done this before. I don’t want to do this now or ever. But the call of the main vein, the road to a good feeling, is just too strong. Stronger than the guilt I would feel if Carlito had to push some old lady down on the ground because she refused to let go of the goddamn purse. Let it go, damn it.

Suddenly, I hear a shout and a scream shooting up 142nd Street, landing in front of me, shutting out the Willis Avenue noise of buses, cabs, and folks just trying to get home before the threatened snow piles up on the streets. They don’t have any boots because they just got here from Puerto Rico or República Dominicana and they ain’t got no snow down there.

Damn Carlito, why you have to push that woman down? She’s screaming madness in Spanish, and I can’t quite make out what the fuck she’s saying as I scope Carlito running up 142nd street towards Willis Avenue. I pray (not really pray) that he’s got that woman’s purse when I see this guy in a doorway of a rundown apartment building on 142nd street. He’s just standing there, hands in his coat pocket, looking down the street. He’s gotta see Carlito running and hear that old lady screaming mad as hell shit in Spanish. I may not speak Spanish, but I know enough that she’s talking stuff like, “Stop him, please!” and “He robbed me!” Damn it, shut up, I scream to myself. I’m freaking out looking for a way outta here. I scramble to run down Willis toward 149th Street and home but I realize I’m not running. Why ain’t I running? Suddenly, out of the corner of my eye, I see the guy in the doorway step down and lunge at Carlito. I figured he was trying to grab him, but his arm was swinging like he missed, and Carlito let out a scream stronger than the woman’s, “Motherfucker, why you stab me?” Carlito is running but tripping, holding his left arm. Now, the guy in the doorway is joined by other men from down the street running after Carlito.

Carlito ain’t waiting for the light to change as he races across Willis Avenue dodging cars and people toward the projects. To this day, I don’t know why I joined the procession of chasers across the Avenue as they were screaming, “Stop that Motherfucker!” I know where Carlito lives, and when I catch up with them, I tell the men that I saw him cut behind the 242 building to run up 141st. They turn the corner and haul ass while I pretend to look exhausted and when they’re out of sight, I run into 242, take the elevator up the 12th floor, and knock on 12B. I see blood on the door.

Carlito’s mother can be heard screaming from inside. His sister opens the door, and she’s crying. I push my way in, rapping some shit about, “I saw some guys try to rob Carlito, and they chased him to the building, but I told them that he ran up 141st street,” and I wanted to make sure that Carlito was okay. I probably didn’t do a good job convincing them because Momma was looking at this black purse on the floor in front of Carlito, screaming at him, asking what did he do now and who did he rob? The whole scene went downhill from there.

Momma is still screaming. Sister is still crying. Carlito has his coat and his shirt off, holding a towel against his left arm, blood dripping down onto the black purse on the floor that he had taken from the old woman. It was open, and I could see that there was a bible inside. Carlito was huffing and puffing. He looked at me and then looked down at the purse with the Bible book peeking through the unzippered opening and back to me, and I’m like, What the fuck? His mother is on the phone calling someone to come over and take Carlito to the hospital, and I grab the purse swearing I’m going to return it to its rightfull owner and Carlito should be ashamed of himself but no one cares because they’re too busy screaming at each other in Spanish and English with a little Spanglish thrown in.

I step out into the hallway, find the stairs, and slowly make my way down 12 floors, hoping not to run into those guys chasing Carlito, my girlfriend, anyone from her family, or anyone who knew her. When I get to the first floor, I turn to look into the purse. The Bible falls out and down on the ground, opening up as it hits the dull gray concrete. An envelope scatters across the floor, and damn if there ain’t money flying out of it. I stoop down and grab the bills and count them. 1-2-3-4-5. There they are, five five-dollar bills. All that drama for twenty-five bucks. Oh well, I guess I’ll be getting high tonight.

I go out the back into the playground, where I walk across the project complex to St. Ann’s Avenue, Third Avenue to Westchester Avenue, and take the number 26 bus to 156th and Westchester and home.

My nose is now running, my body aching and shivering from more than the winter cold. I’m not high and will get high until maybe the next day. Carlito is the one that had the connection. I’m going to be left with keeping the twenty-five bucks warm in my pocket instead of the dope in my veins.

But, I learned two lessons: one, I’m a terrible lookout that is never going to be good at committing a crime, and two, from now until the day I die, I will respect all old ladies that I see walking down the streets with their bibles and purses and ask that they forgive me even as they look at me and wonder, “What’s wrong, boy?” Nothing, I’ll tell them, I just need your forgiveness forever.

Sh!t On My Mind

Election day in California has come and gone, and it’s time to get back to the vital matter at hand, summer. You know, trips to the beach, the desert, camping, mountains, blockbuster movies, and don’t forget, predictions of doom for the midterms in November. Hell, I can make vacay and doomsay at the same time. In between house and summer break stuff, I’ve been sorting through a bunch of sh!t on my mind. For example, who won the Heard-Depp defamation trial? And why should I care?

The Economy

The good news: the unemployment rate is now 3.6% from a high of 14.7% two years ago. Do you remember when everyone was so happy to get those Pandemic checks and small business grants and rent moratoriums? Now, economists and critics swear that all this has helped lead us into the inflation crisis we’re facing. Putting too much money into people’s pockets and the economy spells trouble like gas and food prices: Doom and gloom. Yet, I have seen more people in stores and restaurants in a long time. I was just wondering what all of this means.

I read that Democrats all over the country because they favor social justice approaches to, well, justice. The prevailing narrative is that all this has led to an increase in crime. So, the pandemic and the crazy that followed have nothing to do with it. The solution is more police and locking people up (any people, it seems) and throwing away the key.

For example in New York City.

“For the month of April 2022, New York City saw a 38% decrease in homicides (31 v. 50) and a 29.1% drop in shooting incidents (105 v. 148) compared to April 2021. Overall index crime increased by 34.2% in April 2022, compared to the same period a year ago (9,463 v. 7,051) – a total driven by a 43.5% increase in grand larceny (3,867 v. 2,694) and a 41.5% increase in robbery (1,261 v. 891). Burglaries also increased by 39.4% (1,209 v. 867) in April 2022 compared to last year.”
https://www1.nyc.gov/site/nypd/news/p00044/nypd-citywide-crime-statistics-april-2022

But then, you come across stuff like the following. I guess one’s perception of crime depends on where one lives and not just what one feels.

“According to polls from Axios/SurveyMonkey and The Economist/YouGov, around 9 in 10 Americans feel very or somewhat safe in the communities where they live. At the same time, Gallup polling shows the gap in perception of growing crime in the U.S. versus crime in one’s own neighborhood has never been wider.”
https://www.consumeraffairs.com/homeowners/safest-states-in-the-us.html

Here’s their list:

New Jersey is the safest state, according to our scoring system. It separated itself from other leading states with a significantly higher score for law enforcement officers per capita.
Eight of the 10 safest states are in the Northeastern region of the U.S. (as defined by the Census Bureau), including the top six states on our list. The list also includes one state from the Midwest and one from the South. No states from the West made the top 10.
Maine had the best score of all 50 states for violent crime per capita. Massachusetts had the best score for property crime per capita. New Jersey had the best score for law enforcement officers per capita, and Ohio had the highest score for estimated public safety budget per law enforcement employee.

In the Meantime

“Mass shootings have been on the rise in recent years. In 2021, almost 700 such incidents occurred, a jump from the 611 in 2020 and 417 in 2019. Before that, incidents had not topped 400 annually since the Gun Violence Archive started tracking in 2014.”
https://www.washingtonpost.com/nation/2022/06/02/mass-shootings-in-2022/

I guess I’m not doing enough prayers. Well, that’s probably because I don’t believe in prayers, only laws, and their enforcement. But, no laws are going to stop the madness of anger, violence worship, and “I just don’t give a sh!t” attitudes.

The Unhoused

Drive or walk down any major street or freeway in southern California, and their presence is ubiquitous, tents of the unhoused.

“In the United States, there are over half a million people experiencing homelessness. These individuals live in a temporary shelter or transitional housing or sleep in a place not meant for habitation (like an abandoned building). The top four causes of homelessness, in order, are lack of affordable housing, unemployment, poverty, and low wages.”
https://worldpopulationreview.com/state-rankings/homeless-population-by-state

According to the World Population Review website, these some of the breakdown of their statistics:

The average life expectancy of a homeless person is just 50 years.
39.8% of homeless persons are African-Americans
61% of homeless persons are men and boys
20% of homeless persons are kids
42% of street children identify as LGBT
New York City has one-fifth of all US sheltered homeless
The homeless problem is on a downward trend- Where is this happening?
Permanent housing interventions have grown by 450% in 5 years.

Music

Did you know that the top artist and song right now is Harry Styles, “As It Was,” according to Billboard Magazine? Number two is Doja Cat, “Woman.” And number three is Lizzo, “About Damn Time.” I am so out of touch. Read more of the list HERE.

Fashion

You may not remember, but in another dimension, I was once Executive Producer of Fashion Police with Joan and Melissa Rivers on E! (No, really). According to Refinery29.com, these fashion trends are defining 2022

Sweats 2.0
The Pointelle Lounge Crop Pants
Victor Glemaud Chain Link Wide-Leg Cropped Pants
Donni Eco-Fleece Roll Pant
Skims Cozy Knit Pant

Curious

What are we calling the generation after Gen Z? Well, apparently, Gen Alpha.

“Comparing Generation Alpha versus Generation Z statistics — much like the groups’ members themselves — are still developing. However, if current trends hold, Generation Alpha kids will be more racially and ethnically diverse than their Generation Z counterparts. Members of Generation Alpha will also be more likely to go to college, more likely to grow up in a single-parent household and more likely to be surrounded by college-educated adults.”
https://www.aecf.org/blog/what-is-generation-alpha

Still Curious

I’ve been told that the Republican Party is looking after us better than the Democratic Party because…….I’ll have to get back to you on that.

Conspiracy Theories

When did conspiracy theories go from “Who Killed JFK?” to the Democrats are a bunch of child-eating pedos?

English as my major

Lifelong Learning — Image by Gerd Altmann from Pixabay

I’m so naive. I didn’t realize that when I decided to major in English to study Creative Writing that it meant that I would be studying mostly white men and some white women, with James Baldwin thrown in as the token. I must be in the wrong decade.

I only have four semesters left to graduate at seventy-five years old with a Bachelor of Arts in English- Creative Writing. Do you think I will be too old to pursue a Master of Fine Arts in Creative Writing at that age?

Crime

I want to feel safe
                                                         From Them. 
             The criminals 
                   Who rob us 
                   Who steal from us
                   Who steal cars from us      
                   Who take our children from us
                   Who rape us 
                   Who shoot us
                   Who murder us.
                                                         Them.

I want to feel safe
                                                         From Them. 
            The criminals
                    That take bribes
                    That cheat on us
                    That steal our tax dollars 
                    That corrupt our government 
                    That keep us poor
                    That steal money 
                               from shareholders and employees. 
                    That don’t pay taxes
                    That break pensions 
                    That bribe politicians
                    That pollute the air  the water  the land
                    That break laws
                               or change laws they don’t like. 
                                                          Them.

I want to feel safe
                                                          From Them.
            The criminals
                     That storm the Constitution
                     That mock justice
                     That are the front line of blind justice 
                               blind rage in their eyes
                     That see with both eyes open
                               see who they want to see
                     That stop and frisk everyone
                               well, not everyone
	             That beat you like a drum
                     Shoot first and ask questions later 
                               maybe. 
                                                         Them.

I want to feel safe
                                                         From Them. 
             The criminals 
                      You know who I mean 
               Arrest them
                       No bail
                       No trial
                       No prison neccessary.
Then, I will feel safe
                maybe 
                                                        From Them.

Chacho and The Five-Dollar Bag, Part 2

The following short story was written as part of an assignment for English 405 at CSULB. It is the first draft. A final version is due in December.

Read Part One Here: Chacho and The Five-Dollar Bag

Part Two

He can hear Kiki’s mother screaming behind the door. His sister Gina opens it, and she’s crying. Chacho pushes his way in, rapping some shit about, “I saw some guys try to rob Kiki, and they chased him into the building, but I told them that he ran down 141st street.” He prayed that Kiki had not given them another story.

Momma is still screaming. Sister is still crying. Kiki has his snatch and run uniform off, holding a towel against his left arm full of blood dripping down onto the black case that he had taken from the old woman on the floor. It was slightly open, and Chacho, huffing and puffing out of breath, could see the corner of a bible inside. Kiki looked at him and then at the black case with the bible book peeking through the unzippered opening and back to Chacho. What the fuck? He mouthed.

There’s so much chaos that Kiki’s mother and sister don’t see the black case on the floor. His mother is on the phone calling someone to come over and take Kiki to the hospital. Chacho slowly bends down and picks up the case, catching Kiki’s eye, who’s mouthing to Chacho to take that shit outa here. Chacho backs out of apartment 12B, talking about how he’s going to find those ladrones de mierda, fucking thieves, who tried to rip off Kiki. No one hears him or cares.

Chacho steps out into the hallway, finds the stairs, and slowly makes his way down twelve floors hoping not to run into those guys who were chasing Kiki or anyone from his family or anyone who knows them. When he gets to the first-floor landing, he stops and opens the black case. Inside a pocket, Chacho can see money sticking out. His eyes bulge in surprise, then he freaks, thinking about taking money from an old woman. But Chacho’s nose is now running full drip of snots, his body shivering from more than the winter cold. All that really matters now is stopping the shaking.

He falls back onto the wall of the first-floor hallway, and his mind races with calculations. Chacho counts it…twenty-five dollars. That’s five five-dollar bags. That’s at least two, maybe three days of getting high.

As he stands in the hallway to his building’s back door, Chacho thinks that, in the future, he will respect all old ladies walking down the streets with their bibles and purses from now until his death. Chacho will ask that they forgive him even as they look at him and wonder, “¿Qué te pasa, chico?” What’s wrong, boy?. “Nada, I just need your forgiveness forever.”

Chacho turns and hustles out the back of the building into the playground, where he walks across Willis Avenue looking over his shoulder for la jara or the guys still looking for Kiki. He passes Sammy’s and scopes the clock inside. It’s eight o’clock, and he really needs to get high soon. Determined but still shaking, he heads to Westchester Avenue, the number 26 bus to 156th and the man with the best dope in the Bronx.

Chacho has heard of El Gato. Big-time drug dealer. What the fuck was he doing up in here? The trashed-up and boarded-up tenement building on 156th Street is littered with dead syringes, yellowed newspapers, beer bottles, discarded glassine bags, and the lingering smell of too much dope, too much alcohol, and too much death. Chacho struggles up the darkness-covered stairs to the third floor, hoping he doesn’t step on no shit and no dead junkie who gave his life for a high that he will never repeat.

When Chacho left the Seminary, his friends, including Kiki, told him that his student deferment was dead. Nothing was going to save him from the draft. It was only a matter of time before Chacho got the call: next stop, Vietnam. Crazy advice followed.

Carlos told him, “If you shootin’ junk, they won’t take you.”

Herman’s idea was even crazier, “Bro, when they call you down, go high. Punch some holes in ya veins, and they won’t draft ya.”

Kiki had the plan all worked out.

“Chacho, it’s real simple. All you gotta do is get strung out. Ride the white horse into the main vein direct to your brain all the way to the draft board.”

Chacho is in a deep hole. This is not what my mother and father had prayed for me.

El Gato lies on a cot in front of an open oven door, trying to stay warm. His hands are smeared with too much pain, blood, and dirt. It’s hard to believe this broken-down-looking man has got the best dope in the Bronx. At least, that’s what Kiki told him.

“He’s a little messed up now,” Kiki told Chacho, “But, he still got good connections.”

A trail of dead food, half-empty beer cans, old smelly rags spill out behind Chacho as he moves a battered stuffed chair closer to the man. El Gato fumbles with a grease-stained brown shopping bag next to him. Out comes a smaller brown bag also marked with blood and dirt.

“I just wanna skin-pop. I don’t mainline,” Chacho says nervously.

El Gato digs into the paper bag for the improvised tools whose only job is to plunge heroin into one’s central vein, where it will crawl up the arm through the body into the brain. He pulls out an eyedropper. A small needle with a red cap is supposed to protect someone from being pricked. That’s funny, Chacho laughs inside. He’s getting ready to shove heroin…or what El Gato claims is heroin…into his body, and they’re worried about their fingers being pricked.

Up until that moment in that jive-ass shooting gallery, Chacho had been snorting or popping, injecting under his skin. It takes a little longer to catch the rush, but he had been assured by the best street dope experts that he wouldn’t get hooked. They were lying. El Gato wonders what the point is.

“Man, if you main, ya don’t have to use as much. Ya get high faster.”

There is always a ritual when preparing for death. First, don’t worry about sterile. Ignore the dirt on the floor. Ignore the old blood dripping down walls that haven’t been washed since the building began or the smell of old piss and dying garbage all around you. “Man, did someone die up in here?” This is not Good Housekeeping certified.

The old junkie has an old bottle full of water.

“I cleaned the bottle, man, before I put water in it,” he assures Chacho, who knows he’s lying, but he doesn’t care.

El Gato takes the rusting bottle cap off and sets it down on a broken-down coffee table next to him. If that table could only talk, Chacho knows it would warn him, “Don’t take this ride on the mainline home.”

The stench from El Gato, the crying voices from elsewhere in the shooting gallery where the same ritual is happening. All of it is starting to choke Chacho’s mind. He just wants to get high and get out of there, down those dark steps, and rush into the street, praying that he has some coins for the bus ride home.

There’s a small ball of cotton stuck to the inside of the cap like it’s permanently engraved there.

“Gimme the bag,” the old junkie snorts.

There’s one five-dollar bag of heroin. Chacho is holding on to the other bags. A five-dollar bag is best for only one person, but El Gato has the works, the tools for the injection.

“Yeah, since we be sharing one bag, you gotta main, or you ain’t gonna get high.”

Chacho is convinced. See how easy it is. Why be in that cesspool shooting gallery if he ain’t going to get high.

Practice makes perfect as El Gato wraps the belt around Chacho’s upper arm, looking for the central vein crying for the high. The muddy water sucks up through the thin needle from the bottle cap through that week’s old cotton ball up into the eyedropper back down through the needle into his bulging vein. His blood percolates back up and down with a rush of warmth.

Chacho knows the heroin is authentic, imported from some foreign country, smuggled across thousands of miles hidden in suitcase bottoms to apartments where naked women mix it with baby milk powder (or worse) into glassine bags into the hands of Paco down the block onto pissed on steps leftover from the last fool who overdosed crying for his mommy into an overused rusting bottle cap with water that ain’t clean through a dirty needle into the main vein. For Chacho, this will not end with a trip home.

Chacho slides down the overstuffed chair until he’s now half sitting in the chair and the floor and his legs are splayed in two different directions. El Gato jumps up from his cot. He’s wearing an army jacket over a full-length wool coat. A scarf wrapped so many times around his neck that it must feel like it’s choking him. Chacho’s eyes are rolling back in his head. El Gato is screaming, slapping Chacho across the face. One cheek, then another.

“Get up, dude. Get up. Ya’ can’t die here.”

El Gato grabs Chacho’s feet while yelling out to other people elsewhere in the apartment. Two dope fiends rush in.

“Help me get this motherfucka’ outa here. He dies here, and we’re all fucked.”

But first, business is business.

“Check his pockets. See if got any more dope or money.”

They ransack Chacho’s motionless body, pulling at his pockets, finding the other bags and a black case they open, seeing a bible inside.

El Gato is pissed.

“Motherfucka’ was holding out on me.”

Junkie number one grabs one arm, and Junkie number two grabs the other arm. All three carry an already or soon to be deadweight Chacho out the apartment door and turn left onto the stairs up to the roof.

“Let’s dump him on the roof,” El Gato says thoughtfully, “Man ain’t gonna be dead in my pad.”

And that’s it. Pedro, aka Chacho, is dying alone on the roof of a five-story shabby-ass tenement building full of shooting gallery apartments where heavenly music crashes with the sounds of sirens and people screaming outside. This is not how the day was supposed to end, as Chacho swears to the night sky that he can’t die. He’s got things to do. There’s that job he has to get. The one that Carmen demanded he gets during their last argument so they can get married. She wants a big wedding and a white wedding dress and a honeymoon in old San Juan. But he can’t get a job because he’s a junkie, and mom and pop tell him that he’s got to move out. “I no want a junkie livin’ here,” tears washing over her brown face.

Carmen will not be getting her wedding, and his parents won’t have to worry anymore about kicking him out.

Chacho wonders if people can see their soul falling, life’s breath oozing out as he goes from looking up at the sky to looking down on his body. How is that even possible is his last fading thought.

Feature Image by RenoBeranger from Pixabay

Chacho and The Five-Dollar Bag

The following short story was written as part of an assignment for English 405 at CSULB. It is a first draft. A final version is due in December.

Part One

Pedro was pissed when he found out what his nickname meant. The nickname that Kiki, his best friend from childhood, gave him. He started calling Pedro Chacho when Kiki got back from ‘Nam. At first, Pedro ignored it. He figured it was no big deal. Then, his brother, Tony, told him that Chacho was slang for Muchacho, as in small boy. Now, all his friends called him Chacho. Pedro protested to Kiki.

“I ain’t no boy. I’m eighteen years old.”

“Bro, it’s just a nickname. Everyone in ‘Nam had a nickname,” Kiki calmly explained.

“Yeah, what did they call you?”

“Kiki.”

“But, Kiki is your name.”

Chacho stands at 142nd Street and Willis Avenue, watching the sunset between the project buildings. Dark, ominous clouds take its place. Snow is coming to the South Bronx.

He’s freezing his ass off, his cold brown hands shoved deep into his peacoat, a thin alpaca shirt under his coat, no hat. Even his busted ass Keds are no protection for the crosswinds winding their way through the canyons of the Jefferson projects. All he can fume about is the damn nickname.

Kiki said the plan was simple. All Chacho had to do was to be the lookout at the corner. And Chacho believed him. He and the rest of the boys always believed and trusted Kiki who was two years older than the rest of the group. That made him the leader in his mind. And that was okay with everyone, including Chacho, Carlos, Herman, Junior, Guy. They all looked up to Kiki because he wasn’t scared of anyone, anytime, anywhere. But Chacho was scared now.

“My mom’s bedroom window is like right there…on the eighteenth floor,” he protested, “She could look out and see me.”

“What she going to see from that far? Man, you just look like a bug,” Kiki tried to convince him. “Just look cool and watch for the man. If you see him, ya holla.”

Hector’s Barber Shop is two doors down, where Hector himself would give Chacho a razor cut every time he came home from school. Sitting in the barber’s chair as if he was on a throne listening to Doble-OOO radio. Traditional Puerto Rican music oozing out like milk from a momma’s breast. Spanish and Spanglish chatter reminding him where he comes from and where he is at.

He missed it the last four years while he was away at the Seminary. Yet, he felt more distant every visit when he came home for Christmas, Easter, and summer. Now that Chacho was back in the neighborhood, he was trying hard to blend back in. The old crowd was no longer the fourteen-year-olds he left behind. They were now young men, like him, with their own dreams and nightmares. Carlos got drafted and was in ‘Nam. Herman got a job down on Delancey Street with a baby on the way. Last he saw Junior, he was running from la Jara (the police) across Willis Avenue screaming some crazy shit about Yo momma ain’t got no draws. And Guy, the word was he had graduated to a big-time dope dealer in Manhattan. They don’t got time for Chacho. Only Kiki does.

Directly behind him is Sammy’s Pizza, where, on a good day, Sammy would give Kiki and Chacho small paper cups of clean water for free. Sammy knew why they wanted the water. It was used in a ritual where water would drop into a bottle cap full of smack along with a small blob of cotton and heated over an open flame. The water would help purify the death that they tried so hard to bring upon themselves in the name of the father, the son, and the holy ghost. Bless you is all Sammy would say as if it was the last goodbye to Chacho and Kiki. The final act in a dangerous and tragic play called The End.

Chacho is still skin popping. Kiki is mainlining. Bragging how the dope in ‘Nam is the shit.

“Higher than those B-52s dropping their loads. My homeboy told me, some of the brothers be doped up while they dropped their bomb loads on the Cong’s ass.”

Sammy’s clock says it’s five o’clock. Chacho had hocked his watch last week, a gift from his girlfriend Carmen. She noticed it was gone when they went to church to talk to Father Kelly about their planned wedding.

“I lost it in the subway. The strap was loose, and I think it just…,” he tried to tell her, his voice trailing off.

He knew she knew he was lying. It wasn’t the first time that he was nodding in her face. Carmen started crying and ran home. Chacho stood in front of Saint Anselm’s Church wishing he could run after her. But, as high as he was, the only place he was running to was face down on the sidewalk.

The streetlights are on, and headlights are streaking up and down Willis Avenue. It’s rush hour. That’s a good thing. A lot of distractions. Around him, people are shuffling home from bus stops and train stations and dead-end jobs that pay the high rent in rundown apartment buildings where they have to step over the deadbeat bodies of junkies during the dope epidemic of 1968. No one is going to pay any attention to a purse snatch. People gots to get home.

Chacho is standing guard looking up and down Willis Avenue and then 142nd Street and across the street up to the 18th floor to make sure his moms ain’t looking out the window wondering, ‘Why is that fool standing out on that corner in this cold weather without a hat and gloves?”

Yeah, that’s not what she’s thinking! “He lookin’ for la droga again. Soy done con el.”

And she be right. Mom should be done with Chacho because he can’t believe he’s standing with the hawk kicking his ass on the lookout for la jara.

Meanwhile, Kiki walks behind an elderly woman up 142nd Street toward Willis Avenue, eyeing her black purse with the determination of a beast stalking its prey. Kiki is wearing what he liked to call his snatch and run uniform. Black leather jacket with some African print Dashiki thrown over it, black pants, black sweater, black socks, black and white Chuck Taylor Cons (the best for running, he bragged to Chacho). Kiki told Chacho that the clothes sent a message to old people, don’t fuck with me. I’m dangerous.

All they need is ten bucks for two five-dollar bags of dope. Kiki has done this before, he says. “Plenty of times. I grab the purse and run. They ain’t going to stop me. If I have to, I push them down. Not hard. I ain’t no animal.”

Chacho’s never done this before. And he doesn’t want to do this now or ever. A year ago, he was upstate in a seminary studying to be a priest until he met Carmen during a holiday visit home. He was shaking. From fear. From the cold. From the creeping jones that was making its way up from his feet to his nose. The priesthood wasn’t for him. He told his father that. But his father didn’t want to understand.

“Hijo, why’d you leave? We all prayed for you to serve the church.”

“Pop, the Irish and Italian boys always wanted to fight me because I was Puerto Rican. I was alone in the Seminary,” Chacho tried to explain.

“There is pain everywhere. Maybe God was testing your faith.”

For Chacho, there was too much pain and too much testing of his faith. What he didn’t tell his father was the number of times the kids had called him Spic. His father hated that word. His children were forbidden to ever use it.

Chacho had made up his mind that he was leaving after the last fight. He got his ass kicked by some Italian from Arthur Avenue who was twice his size. Father Burke accused Chacho of starting it. The other white boys just nodded. No one came to his defense. Fuck ’em.

In the end, there were just too many rules and too many daily prayers. Worse, Chacho told Kiki, there would be no sex as a priest. Kiki thought that was the best reason to leave Saint Thomas’s Junior Seminary.

Now he was a junkie “aiding and abetting” a strong-arm robbery of an old woman. Damn, I hope my mom doesn’t find out. But the road to a good high is just too strong. More potent than any guilt he would feel if Kiki in his snatch and run uniform had to push some old lady down on the ground because she refused to let go of the goddamn purse.

Suddenly, Chacho hears a scream shooting up 142nd Street, shutting out the Willis Avenue noise of buses, cabs, folks just trying to get home before the threatened snow piles up on the streets. They don’t have any boots on because they just got here from Puerto Rico or Santo Domingo, and they have no snow down there.

Chacho looks down the block, and an old woman is hanging on to something, struggling with Kiki. She’s screaming madness in Spanish, and Chacho can’t quite make out what she’s saying as Kiki pushes her down and starts running up 142nd street towards Willis Avenue.

Chacho prays that he’s got that woman’s purse when out of the corner of his right eye, he sees some bro’ in a doorway of a rundown apartment building on 142nd street. He’s just standing there, hands in his coat pocket, looking down the street. The man gotta see Kiki running and hear that old lady screaming mad as hell, “Por favor, stop him, please!”

Damn it, shut up. Chacho is freaking out looking for a way outta there. His heart is racing. Run mofo across Willis Avenue and home.

“¡Me robó!”

Then, the man in the doorway steps down and lunges at Kiki. Chacho figures he’s trying to grab him, but Kiki lets out a scream stronger than the woman’s, “Motherfucker, why you stab me?”

Kiki is running, tripping, holding his left arm. The guy in the doorway is joined by other men from down the block running after Kiki. He ain’t waiting for the light to change as he scrambles across Willis Avenue dodging cars and people towards his and Chacho’s building.

There’s a procession of chasers after Kiki as they cross the Avenue screaming “¡Ese hijo de gran puta! That motherfucker!”

Chacho is faster so he pulls up alongside the lead guy, the one who stabbed Kiki, and yells that he knows who that guy is and the building he lives in.

“He’s at 242. I’ll run around 240 and cut him off in case he tries running up 141st Street.”

They turn the corner and haul ass while Chacho pretends to look exhausted and when they’re out of sight, he runs into 240 and takes the elevator up the 12th floor, and knocks on 12B. There’s blood on the door.

Feature Image by RenoBeranger from Pixabay

Next Week: Part Two

That Purse Snatch in 1968

The following narrative was published in Medium earlier this year. We are republishing it in advance of a submission to my Short Story class based on this piece.

It seemed simple enough. I would be a lookout at the corner of 142nd and Willis Avenue. Hector’s Barber Shop was two doors down, where Hector himself would give me a razor cut every two weeks on any Saturday. Sitting in that chair as if I was on a throne listening to Doble-OOO radio station and traditional Puerto Rican music and Spanish-language chatter oozing out like milk from momma’s breast. Next door was Sammy’s Pizza, where, on a good day, Sammy would give us small paper cups of water for free instead of filled with the Italian Ice they were meant for. He knew why we wanted them: to drop clean water through an eyedropper into a bottle cap filled with a small blob of cotton and a five-dollar bag of smack in the belief that we could purify the death created in the name of the father, the son, and the holy ghost. At least the water is clean. We would buy a slice for fifty cents when we could to say thanks. Bless you is all Sammy would say as if it was the last goodbye to us. Just in case, the water drops into the bottle cap full of smack, and a small blob of cotton heated over an open flame turned out to be the final act in our dangerous and tragic play — the End.

It was winter, and I was cold and shivering. Seven o’clock in the evening, and people were shuffling home from bus stops and train stations and dead-end jobs that paid the rent in rundown apartment buildings where they had to step over the deadbeat bodies of junkies during the dope epidemic of 1968. Hands in my coat pocket wrapped around my works (eyedropper- check, bottle cap-check, needle safely sheathed, so we don’t stab ourselves-check, a recycled blob of cotton that will not purify anything-check) bundled together with a brown rubber band in a decaying brown bag. A matchbook with 4–5 matches left with the hidden message written across the inside cover “Use wisely sucker. This is all that is left.”

I’m standing guard looking up and down Willis Avenue and 142nd Street and across the street up to the 14th floor to make sure my fiancé, Chicky, is not looking out the window where she could see me and wonder, ‘Why is that fool standing out on that corner in this cold weather without a hat on and probably doesn’t have any gloves on?” Yeah, that’s not what she’s thinking! But I know she’s thinking “he’s looking for dope again. I’m done with him.” And she be right. She and I should be done with me because I can’t believe I’m standing on the corner of Willis Avenue and 142nd Street in this damn cold ass weather on the lookout for La Hara as Carlito stalks an elderly woman up 142nd Street toward Willis Avenue while eyeing her black purse with the determination of a beast stalking its prey. All we need is ten bucks to split two five-dollar bags of dope, smack, skag, the white horse. Carlito has done this before, he says. “Plenty of times. I grab the purse and run. They ain’t going to stop me. If I have to, I push them down. Not hard. I ain’t no animal.” I’ve never done this before. I don’t want to do this now or ever. But the call of the main vein, the road to a good feeling, is just too strong. Stronger than the guilt that I would feel if Carlito had to push some old lady down on the ground because she refused to let go of the goddamn purse. Let it go, damn it.

Suddenly, I hear a shout and a scream shooting up 142nd Street, landing in front of me, shutting out the Willis Avenue noise of buses, cabs, folks just trying to get home before threatened snow piles up on the streets. They don’t have any boots because they just got here from Puerto Rico or Santo Domingo and they ain’t got no snow down there.

Damn Carlito, why you have to push that woman down? She’s screaming madness in Spanish, and I can’t quite make out what the fuck she’s saying as I scope Carlito running up 142nd street towards Willis Avenue. I pray (not really pray) that he’s got that woman’s purse when I see this guy in a doorway of a rundown apartment building on 142nd street. He’s just standing there, hands in his coat pocket, looking down the street. He’s gotta see Carlito running and hear that old lady screaming mad as hell shit in Spanish, “¡Detenlo, por favor!” (“Stop him, please!”) Damn it, shut up. I’m freaking out looking for a way outta here. Run mofo down Willis toward 149th Street and home. “¡Me robó!” (“He robbed me!”) Why ain’t you running? Suddenly, out of the corner of my eye, I see the guy in the doorway step down and lunge at Carlito. I figured he was trying to grab him, but his arm was swinging like he missed, and Carlito let out a scream stronger than the woman’s, “Mother Fucker, why you stab me?”

Carlito is running but tripping, holding his left arm. Now, the guy in the doorway is joined by other men from down the street running after Carlito. He ain’t waiting for the light to change as he scrambles across Willis Avenue dodging cars and people towards the projects. To this day, I don’t know why I joined the procession of chasers across the Avenue as they’re screaming “¡Detén a ese hijo de puta!” (“Stop that Motherfucker!”). I know where Carlito lives, and I tell the men when I catch up with them that I saw him cut behind the 242 building to run down 141st. They turn the corner and haul ass while I pretend to look exhausted and when they’re out of sight, I run into 242 and take the elevator up the 12th floor and knock on 12B, and I see blood on the door.

Carlito’s mother can be heard screaming behind the door. Carlito’s sister opens the door, and she’s crying. I push my way in, rapping some shit about, “I saw some guys try to rob Carlito, and they chased him to the building, but I told them that he ran down 141st street,” and I wanted to make sure that Carlito was okay. Momma is still screaming. Sister is still crying. Carlito has his coat off, his shirt off, holding a towel against his left arm full of blood dripping down his arm onto the black case on the floor that he had taken from the old woman. It was open, and I could see that there was a bible inside. Carlito was huffing and puffing. He looked at me and then looked at the zippered black case with the Bible book peeking through the unzippered opening and back to me, and I’m like, What the fuck? His mother is on the phone calling someone to come over and take Carlito to the hospital, and I back out through apartment 12B talking about how I’m going to see if I can find a cop so I can give them a description of those Ladrones de mierda (Fucking thieves) who tried to rip off Carlito of that zippered black case with the bible inside that he had found in the street and was trying to find the owner when a bunch of junkies tried to rob him.

I stepped out into the hallway, found the stairs, and slowly made my way down 12 floors hoping not to run into those guys who were chasing Carlito or my girlfriend or anyone from her family or anyone that knew her. When I got to the first floor, I turned to go out the back way that would take me into the playground where I would walk across the project complex to St. Ann’s Avenue and then Third Avenue where I would walk to Westchester Avenue to take the number 26 bus to 156th and Westchester and home.

My nose was now running, shivering from more than the winter cold. I was not high and would not get high until maybe the next day. But, I learned two lessons: one, I’m a terrible lookout that is never going to be good at committing a crime, and two, from now until the day I die, I will respect all old ladies that I see walking down the streets with their bibles and purses and ask that they forgive me even as they look at me and wonder, “¿Qué te pasa, chico?” (“What’s wrong, boy?”) is wrong with you, Nada, solo necesito tu perdón para siempre. Nothing, I just need your forgiveness forever.

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