Eye See Vision

 Opening

I closed my eyes and took a deep breath. I jumped off a bridge and landed on top of a slow moving freight train leaving The South Bronx. The boy I was wanted freedom.

I leaped the Grand Canyon wide spaces of the cargo cars. I ran and leaped from car to car. I leaned forward as if I were on a surfboard when the train rose above the trees.

Freedom was the song running through my hair.

And only the sun was brighter than my joy.

What happened next was unbelievable

Almost Heaven. West Virginia.

While I coughed blood in a hospital of strangers, I journey the better angel of my nature, to the boy I was who wanted to travel Bronx, Baseball and Beyond.

Life

To Be Continued

Homelessness Made Easy For Dummies

by Daniel Angel Aponte

of Public School 161

Copyrighted 2018

Is that God, wondered the boy I was while being potty trained in front of an eye on a TV set. It was the time of the first space age president who said we go to the moon not because it’s easy but because it’s difficult.

I wanted to know more about God when I took a screwdriver to the back of the TV that revealed The Wizard Of Oz. 

I saw a beautiful city made from glass tubes that glowed with the color of golden amber.

How does it all work? Who dreamed this? I wanted to be part of this amazing invention.

I crawled into a TV set discarded in a backyard and looked out to a neighborhood of burnt out buildings. The small screen called Television was a vast wasteland believed the first president of The Federal Communication Committee.

 I saw a cowboy from Death Valley Days ride out into The South Bronx as President Ronald Reagan who promised to rebuild a town for the working poor and those that looked for work. In a heat wave, I walked for hours to prevent homelessness from visiting my disabled mother. A borrowed Android accompanied me to record my journey for whomever it may concern in the future. Moving forward, I went back in memories.

On the street was a Newsweek magazine with my birthday. On the cover was a picture of a boy with eyes closed in dream mode. It’s what I have in the way of a baby picture of myself. With another discarded item on Global Warming, I found art later used in a collage for a page on Facebook I would call Homelessness Made Easy For Dummies

I popped out of a dumpster across my second home called Public School 161.

I had the wood to build my time machine for the science fair.

I also built a shoeshine box to set shop between a newsstand and The White House, an Italian American supermarket on Prospect Street.

I made money to buy wires and mini light bulbs to be put together with a soldering pen.

I was 7 years old with dreams of being a scientist.

At the age of 5, I invented a space ship made from a paper cup before creating a sleek ship made from construction paper and copper fasteners.

Creativity is a great mystery

Copyrighted 2018 by Daniel Angel Aponte

All Human Rights Reserved

I need to air this out.

A few hours ago, I returned a DVD to the public library.

Dehydrated, I went over to the fountain for 5 seconds before coming back to the counter for a receipt to prove I returned the DVD.

I threw in the garbage, said an African-American employee. I only went for a few seconds for water, I said.

The employee was reluctant to look in the trash bin on a slow day at The Woodstock library in the South Bronx.

I lost my cool when I asked if he threw it in the garbage because he thinks he's a black man who thinks he's better than a Puerto Rican.

There was an uproar from a black assistant head librarian. Sir that's a racist thing you said. You have to leave, he said.

I told him he got it all wrong. I tensed up when it seemed he was going to manhandle me.

I turned around and walked out of the library with him following.

Outside, I became a lawyer until he admitted his fellow African-American was new and didn't adhere to protocol.

I said his fellow employee's attitude was racist to me. Did he think I was an illegal alien?

I precieved a black man contemptuous of my human rights and an attempt at intimidation.

My life matters not if I don't stand up for my rights. Are you banning from this library for life, I asked. He said no.

I'm sorry for this mess. I should had said nothing but instead write a letter to the HR of the New York Public Library.

There is an African-American female librarian who is mild mannered and extremely great to get help securing materials from the library.

Never did I have a problem with her courtesy and professionalism.

She would ask me if I need a receipt while I'm sipping water in a heatwave.

Racism isn't a white thing. New York at the very worse is the city of rainbow racism.

Obama became President and it seems the oppressed have become oppressors and have you noticed the lack of Hispanic representation in Black Panther, a movie that broke box office records but didn't liberate black folks from poverty and abuse of human rights.

Sir, you said a racist thing. You have to leave the library. I'll leave if you can tell me what book you read last.

How about a news item on the son of a high ranking African-American law enforcer that beat an old man of other race?

Did you really think Jesus, a Jew, came to just save white folks from racism?

This is a letter in progress.

When I rewrite under the spell of laws and protocols, it will be sent to the president of the NYPL.

Now isn't this better than shooting up a library?

You better believe it is.