My mother screamed on an airplane when I opened the shutter to see clouds and bodies of water. She sunk her nails into my arm in a panic as she had done before when I told her of my desire to join The Air Force after her husband passed away at Sloan-Kettering Cancer Institute. She screamed again in a car shaped like Dumbo The Flying Elephant at Disney World that my uncle had persuaded her to take a ride.
Children laughed and she screamed while her nails drew blood
from my arm. Japanese tourists took pictures of her terror stricken face as my
uncle’s jaw dropped in dismay. When a golden ball emerged from a 3D movie
called Captain EO, the audience oooh and aaaaa in wonder before turning to the
direction of my mother’s scream. After my uncle removed her visors, she kept
her eyes closed for the entire movie.
Your mother is retarded, her husband said like a doctor with
a battle weary bedside manner. I was a ten-year old who was expected to
understand how a man could go from calling a woman pretty to calling her pretty
stupid.
Once upon a time, my 6th grade English teacher
believed I would write the next great American Novel in a far away future where
science fiction becomes fact. Just write what you know, she encouraged as I
looked out to the burnt out buildings of The South Bronx.
I know television.
I crawled into a TV set abandoned in a backyard of wild
grass.
I looked out and finally saw the burnt out buildings. That
was the day I decided to become a mild mannered reporter. Like a war
correspondent, I positioned myself in front of a supermarket and ambushed
customers. “You think The Yankees are going to win this year?” the boy I was
asked with microphone held up to the adults with smiles that left the borders
of their faces and The Bronx. “For CBS
News, I’m Danny Aponte”
The sad part was I’ve never been to Yankee Stadium 20 blocks
or so from where I lived. It was neglect due to my mother’s husband who took
his mistress to Puerto Rico for a 3-week vacation every summer. That resulted
in my poor suffering mother allowing me to go pass Star Trek to hear HERE’S
JOHNNY!!!
“ A Puerto Rican, a Jew and a black man,” I said to the
other kids ala The Great Karnak with a sealed envelope held to my turban.
For the punch line, you have to wait for me to get published
“We don’t publish stories about minorities, snarled a woman
from her phone at a major league publishing company. She hung up after coldly
asking is there anything else.
Cool.
Get your story right, said Walter Cronkite
This is just the first draft, Uncle Walt
And I think I got it right.
To whom it may concern a thousand years in the future, I
hope you and your family called humanity are alive on a planet free from evil.
If not, please let me know.
I could use a good laugh.
I
Lost My Marbles Comic Books
Presents
Baked Alaska:
The Lighter Side Of Solar Flares
Produced By
Hobo With
A Library Card: The Movie
Written &
Directed By A Brain Damaged Puerto Rican From The South Bronx
Who Dreams Of
Getting Revenge By Living Well
“And The Oscar goes to…”
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