MIRACLES FROM THE STREETS OF NYC!

April 18, 2021

MIRACLES FROM THE STREETS OF NYC!

A TRUE STORY BASED ON REAL EVENTS

A FEW BLOCKS AWAY FROM MY OLD HIGHSCHOOL

My brother Chris and I were always friendly with everyone, regardless of nationality, race, faith or cred, and at a time when racial tensions in NYC in the 80's and 90's were at an all-time high.

At age twelve, fairly new to the Belmont section of the Bronx and a native of Queen's, everything seemed so different, the vibe, the culture, that I felt a bit like a foreigner in my own home town city.

At the time, my mother was divorced from my estranged father.

A FEW BLOCKS FROM MY APARTMENT

I remember, as a young kid, looking up at the street sign as we were unpacking. I had an all-knowing feeling that my dad lived on or shared the same street name. Not knowing where exactly he was, I knew he had to be nearby... I just knew it in my bones, without any proof.

With a neighborhood kid I befriended, we set off looking for my dad... and searched at a nearby park.

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However, it was a place for white folks... we weren't white enough. Lucky for us, we could see the entire park from where we were standing on the street pavement. Later, we went to another park where people of color were welcomed. My father was there with his new family, but I didn't feel welcomed and I didn't want to interrupt their time together.

My friend could see the pain and sorrow in my eyes. My face told it all. But instead, I brushed it off like it meant nothing.

I spent most of the summer vacation getting to know many of the kids in the area.

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One afternoon, hot and thirsty had overridden our sense of safety. A group of us entered a recreational park meant for whites only, to drink some water. Instead, we were chased, and bullets whizzed past our direction from behind back alleys and roof tops.

We decided we needed to split apart. When I emerged from my hiding place, I saw a crowd, and instantly heard a voice that sounded like it came from everywhere. Immediately, I asked around, who were the nearest, if they had spoken, and had they heard anyone talk to me, but no one did.

As I was about to leave and head back home, this mysterious voice spoke even louder and more urgently and requested that I go to the crowd... now!

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It was like a lamb going into a lion's territory and rewarded with a beating, which I was lucky enough to find refuge. I was now trapped with my brother and our friends at a nearby restaurant.

Up until that day, I had never heard of the "N" and "S" words used so much.

We were verbally threatened repeatedly (the crowd chanted "traitors get it too!") and told that we should pay with our lives, all for hanging outside our race,

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and no matter what we said, we were met with indifference by some of the made guys and wise guys, whose lunch was interrupted.

I noticed a lot of these guys wore wedding rings and that they were old enough to have kids my age... they asked if I was a paisan of course I said yes...

At the time I hardly knew anything of the culture, but what little I knew I began to act like I was one of them and even then they simply would not help us.

After the crowd began to form outside, a few nooses we're thrown over tree branches, and at some point hung from the second floor of apartment windows while my black friends were hiding under a table. "No, no, not again!" they uttered over and over.

Decades earlier, their uncle was stringed up and hanged by the neck in the same park we were just chased from.

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I had it in my mind to escape by donning an apron and taking out the garbage through the back. Some of us in our group were unwilling to leave our friends behind and refused.

There were many kids waiting in the back alley who did not know what we even looked like. I figured I could pass as white. I might as well try, but something inside gave me a slight pause, so I thought I’d better stay too, knowing full well we most likely would not make it out alive. My pleading didn’t change anyone’s mind.

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After my brother had a talk with the manager, finally, he shouted, "These are not the kids you’re looking for. They just moved here. You got the wrong kids!" However, the crowd seemed to gain ground and grow bigger and even more enraged. The pressure from the weight of the crowd broke the locks free off its foundation, or someone may have jammed it out with a hammer, in addition decided to cut the phone lines.

However, I’m sure the police were called beforehand, but it did not really matter at all. In those days, police would respond to calls hours later...

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The manager and waiters held back the door the best they could... and from out of nowhere, a little old Jewish woman appeared. She was wrinkled in the face with crumpled clothes, but what she did, everyone had failed to do.

I saw black teenagers and grown black men some the toughest you'd come across with the look of defeat and horror.... about face.

I doubt the crowd knew of their presence... their attempts to save us were noble... but the situation overwhelming.

But this little old lady rather then doing the same began to talk sense to the angry vengeful.

Perhaps she knew she had certain privileges others were not afforded or the hate she saw in Nazi Germany motivated her and she refused to stay silence... maybe her decision was both.

Her words softened their stance, but of course, like all good agitators, they won back the crowd and told the old woman one of the ropes would be for her if she did not shut up and go home.

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Now, I don’t blame her for leaving, or anyone else for that matter, but what she gave us was time to think of another plan. Truthfully, I had none. I was tapped out.

I remember some guy saying to me, "What did you and your friends do?" I thought to myself, as if we were the cause. Instead, wisely, I gave the best answer I could. Similar remarks like this went on for a period of time.

Under these circumstances, the worst thing an adult can say to a child as was told to me, quote, "Well kid, let this be a lesson today; you're going to die!"

My first reaction and thoughts were that I didn't think I would have time to learn this lesson, plus I was too busy trying to get myself out of the terrible jam to begin with.

As you can imagine, finding yourself in a life or death situation, in my case, only made my need to reunite with my father more difficult to accept my doomed fate.

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It felt like my whole world was coming to an end. Some patrons even angrily said to me, "Don't ever bring those N words around here or to our park anymore!"

I didn't understand why there was so much hostility, but in my desperation, I blurted out, "I just moved here. I was just only looking for my dad!" I was supposed to finish it off with, "one or two months ago and now I’ll never see him." but never finished my train of thought. With that one statement, three or four wise guys or made guys stepped up, and loudly said, "that’s it!" and hit their fists on the table, confronting the crowd of about seventy to one hundred angry white folks looking for retribution. With the help of these tough guys, one by one, the ropes came down, and our lives were saved.

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That day, we didn’t get the angels we wanted; we got the angels we needed. I didn’t know it then, but it was our introduction to "The Life"

Ironically, it was these wise guys and made guys who created the decree of racial separation in the first place. Anyone white caught hanging or befriending a person of color would get it all the same. A beating or death was what you could expect, and now they had just broken their own rules! To save a bunch of minority kids they didn't know... when does that ever really happen?

In the following weeks, feeling depressed and suicidal shortly after the ordeal, I asked a friend to borrow a gun with the intent of shooting anyone visiting the white only park. After all, I thought to myself, it was the place that took my friend's uncle’s life.

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When I made my entrance, I briskly walked to the center with my head held down, and pushed my jacket away from my waist. As I looked around to see who would be my first target, much to my surprise, everyone was of color.

I was confused and perplexed and thought I must have the wrong park, so I made a quick exit...

I was told by a friend after the incident that many of the post-civil rights organizers in the area had felt NEXT could be their children hanging from a noose, so they led a sit-down protest. "So now anyone can visit."

I was surprised to hear the news and very embarrassed how I handled the situation. The thought of doing it in a positive way never came to mind.

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In the following years, I suffered from post traumatic stress in more ways than one, and whenever I experienced a flashback episode, my brain would immediately block the terrible memories right afterwards.

When I look back on those days, in particular to my impoverished and hard childhood, I made up my mind to never let my surroundings dictate my future, I refused to be a victim, as so often seen with black and latino kids and eventually sought therapy.

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Twenty plus years later, I reunite with my father, and I recount the traumatic event. He was amazed, but I ended up even more. You see, while I didn't have any proof, just a gut feeling, we had indeed lived on the same street in a different neighborhood, give or take fifteen or twenty-block difference, and what's more amazing, it was the only time he had ever been to that very park... where people of color were allowed.

I thought to myself, of all the days of the week, why that day? Had he not visited the friendlier park, my brother and I and our friends might not be here today.

For a long time as a child, I placed the saving of our lives completely in the hands of the local mobsters, which was a big mistake.

My role was the reluctant hero, but the true heroes, were the group of guys who made an attempt to save us. The restaurant manager, the waiters, post-civil rights organizers, and the little old Jewish woman who put her life on the line, who we never saw again, and last but not least, my dad and the unseen mysterious voice above my shoulders that seemed to be everywhere.

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Over the following years, I have concluded it was truly the hand of a higher power.

In an ironic twist, these heavy weights & wise guys who played their part in our survival, years earlier, the crew had murdered my uncle.

I don't know what fate or life is trying to teach or tell me...perhaps maybe forgiveness.

In my life, I have written several books, searched over seventeen million times and founded a number of entertainment groups and film and recording studios.

In addition, I have written many wonderful songs.

I’m also a former 2020 candidate for President... one that you never heard of.

All that I've done and what I've accomplished would not be possible if any of these pieces of grace and stroke of luck or coincidences hadn’t come together the way they had... that fateful day.

You might be hearing this story from prison or, worse, buried six feet under. Instead, I am an example of a true walking miracle.

Never stop believing in yourself and in the good of others, because, in the end, politics aside, all we have is each other to count on.

MIRACLES FROM THE STREETS OF NYC

PART 2 - Personal Essay: A Drug Dealers Tails

PART 3 - My Experience with Acting Auditions

PART 4 - Teen Hunger and Starvation

PART 5 - Second Chances and Lost Lives

At this moment I am raising funds for my next film project, based on my life, if your interested in partnering contact me using the following social media links or email me directly.

In addition part of my proceeds to all my books are donated to preventing hate, hunger, gang violence, to a number of charities.