The building my mother has been living in since the final days of Watergate is under new management. To pave the way for the Hasidim, the sellers offered me 5000 dollars to, in the words of a Puerto Rican female employee, “move mommy back to Puerto Rico.” That amount of money can’t move anyone to The Ortiz Funeral Home across the street. Not that I’m asking for more to bury us all. When I was a kid, I defended my mother from purse-snatchers in Spanish Harlem. I didn’t think about it and felt no fear but fury. But this situation with landlords required calm Jedi thoughts.  I have to make people think

Very easy considering I suffered head injuries at school that resulted in memory loss.

Win98 was helping to fuse the wreckage of my life together again when someone in the basement kept turning off the electricity to our apartment. I lost my mind again with the loss of my work, an idea to draw people together. Then the kitchen sink pipe burst 3 days before Thanksgiving. The Salvadorian superintendent was a no-show as always. It was time for Danny-On-The-Spot.  I used metallic tape to seal the pipe and bric-a-brac to hold it up tight.

Thankfully, I made turkey dinner with all the fixings for my mother.

Finally, another employee, a Dominican, told her she had to move to the other side of the building where the old time residents were being concentrated without leases. He wanted to work with his crew on renovating apartments and charge higher rent to new tenants. As an incentive to move out, he told us to leave our furniture behind because he was giving us bunk beds. My mouth dropped and my heart almost stopped.

The last time I heard that was in Germany after the night of breaking glass.

A few days ago, the Dominicans tried to storm into our old apartment but were held back by a city housing inspector who warned them not interfere with an investigation.

Two days later, the mailbox was ripped off the wall.

Two days later it was cemented over.

 A female postal employee said all of my mother’s mail was being returned to sender and a female cop at the 41 Precinct on Longwood Avenue advised me to call 311. At least whoever did the mean spirited felony didn’t tried to burn us down like previous landlords of Italians that got caught in the act of soaking the roof with gasoline, a final solution to fixing the problems of the building. Largely, the nature of the beast in business (now eating away at the skies over ice caps) was just hungry for insurance money. Another Happy Land of 86 charred Hispanics was avoided by the intervention of Blue Angels.

When jobs became scarce, The Dominican government deported Haitians, including a woman on her knees crying out her baby was born in Santo Domingo. I’m sure there is good in people of all nations but troubled economies breeds shades of Nazism. Behold a group of anxious Greeks parading the swastika and shouting for Jews to get out of their country. It’s déjà vu all over again to quote a former coach of The New York Yankees.

By the persistence of memories, I saw myself carry Anne Frank as the growing shadows of burnt-out buildings and bullies fell over us in The South Bronx of America. I wondered why the adults were blind to this wasteland right across the dark river to Riker’s Island Prison so far removed from the Ultra Bright smiles of The Brady Bunch?

And then came a cowboy from Death Valley Days to save the day as President Reagan.

 In the middle of remembering childhood after WWII, Sofia Loren turned the round table on Charlie Rose with a question. The Great Interviewer paused and then with measured dignity quietly replied,” I’ve been poor”.  Less is more in writing about your life.

I have to sell a short story about evolution to pay rent on Planet Earth.

Chapter 1: It was a dark and stormy night.

I saw a movie called The Debt.

It was about Israeli agents’ relentless efforts to bring a war criminal to justice. “You know why it was easy to kill your people? Because there wasn’t one of them willing to give up life to save the others,” the captured Nazi smirked. That unhinged me. I’m not Jesus but I can play the part of the thief who was nailed next to a good Jewish lawyer. 

You can’t blame people around the world for being afraid of dying for other people.

I’m not much scared of the bad guys as I am of God.

Say hello to my little pen.

Pandora’s Bronx: A Recollection of the Wonder Years

Cyber Journal for Future Historians By Daniel Angel Aponte

The Blue Danube composed by Johan Strauss as featured in the film 2001: A Space Odyssey directed by Stanley Kubrick who was raised in our town near The Bronx Zoo of tigers and lions and bears oh my!

Monkeys too!

In the last millennium, I was at my drawing table when sudden flashes of light flooded my eyes and thunder filled my ears. What was that, I wondered apprehensively.

They shot Alvin, two girls screamed under my window.

I bolted down the stairs and up the block where cops were parting the crowd like Moses parted The Red Sea. I looked into the eyes of a cop who stopped me from entering the crime scene. He let me pass when he saw how blue I was. Then I saw Alvin’s hand fall from the gurney and I knew my little brother was gone. My sense of humor that entertained him so much was killed when a drug dealer had used him as a shield against bullets fired by rivals. My blood ran cold on the streets of The South Bronx of America.

I went into shock for seconds that seemed like an eternity of silence.

Then I heard people screaming for Jesus and God in the same breath. This is what was left out from The Daily News list of children killed by illegal handguns.

Once upon a time, I held a gun to protect myself from a gang after I had beaten one of their own in a fistfight. Danny, this is not who you are, Alvin said. He’s right. I didn’t want to end up like the criminal in the last scene in Angels With Dirty Faces. I used to be a U.S Marshall when I was a kid with The Lone Ranger Silver six shooters. Still I was aiming to break the law that states there are no second acts in American lives

I found a way to bring people of all colors to a police line-up in black and white. Mark this as Exhibit A at The Bronx County Courthouse gallery. I was going to take as many of you as I can with me. I was going to frame you as a family. Still am. Another idea was to turn people into artists with chalk to create the outlines of bodies on hard streets. After the rains washes them away, I wanted them to help me draw stars and the names of celebrities that grew up in our town. It would’ve created a path to Yankee Stadium for a homecoming game. But it was The Magnificent Seven meets High Noon: they wanted someone to clean up the town like Hercules did with the Aegean Stables and most didn’t wanted to get involved. Were people afraid of The Empire State striking back? I understand. It’s scary to hear I wanted to put on line-up former South Bronx boy NYPD Commissioner Howard Safir to bring a balance to The Police Force. Who am I?

I’m not Spider Man breaking his butt on Broadway or movies. It’s been real.

In yet another draft of the good, the bad and the ugly, I’m a mild-mannered eyewitness to creative vision akin to a red sun that went super nova eons ago.

You’re seeing the light of ancient history travel to new millenniums.

People cry out for heroes to fix everything?

Picture yourself.This is for you Alvin and others like you

“That’s corny,” said a little kid named Anthony who was watching me work on a public library computer. “What did you say,” I said close to the spirit of Clint Eastwood on a bad hair day. “Nothing,” he said with a cough that concerned me. “No. Really. Which of my designs is corny to you,” I asked, silently admitting to losing focus and objectivity.

This mild-mannered graphic journalist can use some help to sharpen vision.

“Corny. Corny. Corny. And that’s really corny,” he said reminding me of a famous take-no-prisoners editor-in-chief of The Daily Planet. “I don’t like Bat Man. I like Super Man,” Anthony fearlessly concluded when I asked who was his favorite super hero.

And then there was a little girl named Angela.

She was too polite to say THAT’S CORNY!!! Instead, she suggested moving my artwork around to create a pattern of visual language understandable to all colors on Earth. Say what? I think the Chinese have a name for art direction like that and it’s not corny. Shang Chi? No. Wait. That means the evolution of a human spirit. Anyway, Angela’s uncle was Officer Jesse Nazario who worked at the precinct on Story Ave in The South Bronx. Brothers-in-blue and family held his memorial at the church next to the library where her older cousin is head librarian. How poetic I’m blogging an exceptional story about family from the library of my childhood. How mysterious life is.

Before I gave Anthony my last minutes of computer time to play his games, I suggested he pick up a pen and draw so he can teach what’s corny or what’s not.

After all, teachers are still learning.

I’m still learning.

Bronx, Baseball & Beyond copyrighted by Daniel Angel Aponte

http://southbronxtourdeforce.blogspot.com/

Chapter One: It Was A Dark And Stormy Night

Once upon a time, I made a wish to live life like a Great American Novel, one that would read like the science fiction of a comic book.
Just write what you know, advised Ms Raeside, my beloved sixth grade English teacher who was amazed with my 11th grade reading level. TV was my first drug of choice and a gateway to my second drug, Saint Joseph’s Orange Favored Aspirin For Children. I popped them like M&Ms in the mistaken belief I could achieve invulnerability like The Man of Steel.

Later, in an angry effort to escape unfairness, I picked up a Blue Gem razor blade. By chance, I caught my eyes looking at me from the bathroom mirror. Curiosity got the better angel of me. After all, if I killed myself I’ll never know how the story ends. Will Good win over Evil?

Chapter One: It was a dark and stormy night.

“You know they have mental problems. But can you see what it’s doing to you?” so went a PSA on mental health in America as seen on TV in my childhood. In the kingdom of the mentally blind, I was wide-eyed and scared for my life when my mother’s husband tried to drown me in my bathwater where I pretended to be The Prince of Atlantis, a character from a Marvel comic book called Namor The Submariner. I could hold my breath pass a normal time limit but of course not indefinitely. After thrashing about, I played dead. He ran off with a scream like the spitting image of his son who would, years later, try to kill me out of envy like Cain did Abel. I got up from the waters and hid under my bed where I had read The Diary of Anne Frank.

Later on, I took a deep breath and jumped off a bridge with a view of The East River. I experienced the power of freedom on a freight train as it picked up speed and elevated above the trees. I saw a red sun in the background of an unblemished sky and the silhouette of skyscrapers. I saw the diamond fields of Randall’s Island and Queens. I saw an eagle tangled in string over the iron bars of the bridge the train was crossing over. As the winds made it flap its wings furiously like fighting to escape, I stared at the sun aligning with train tracks as if it were opening an entrance into a new universe. I took one last look before turning to the woods to bring the broken eagle home over my shoulders.

I fixed its wings and took it for a test run down the hills of Saint Mary’s Park, the former estate of a Founding Father who came up with the words We, The People. It caught the wind with a snap and took off over the trees. I let go of the string to see it fly free for a moment in time forever. That day, a child learned the meaning of self-sacrifice. By writing this, I’ve become the willing prisoner of a wish made at P.S 161.

So this is how this story ends.
And the end is a new beginning at the public library, my childhood Fortress of Solitude. It’s where I’m working on homework to come up with a tour book for my hometown. This should be like turning coal into diamonds. Know the past. Find your future.