CHAPTER ONE
THE WINDOW INCIDENT


I saw the shape of the gun under the towel on top of the refrigerator. I knew what they were planning to do; they were gonna kill me and take the remainder of the ten thousand dollars. Somehow their senses told them that I was carrying a great deal of money even though I made no indication as to where it was hidden. They just knew. I was not supposed to leave the apartment alive. This had been their plan all along and that was what the gun was for. A key was needed to get out of the front door, and of course they had the key. Many times I told them that I wanted to leave, but they just sat there at the kitchen table doing the devil’s business, pretending not to hear me. The sound of silence is what really got to me, and now I was getting nervous. If they had just asked me for the money, I might have had a chance to react. And yes, I would have fought both of them. The only thing that stopped me was the fact that they had that shiny black weapon, and I had never really seen a gun up close and personal before. I was trapped for sure, but I could not panic. What could I do to save myself? I had to think of something. There were still a lot of people who loved me and depended on me and would have missed me if I had died that night. It was January 29th, my birthday. No one wants to die on his or her birthday. I just made a bad decision coming there; like making the wrong turn on a highway. But still I didn’t want to die because of it, not like that. Jumping out the window seemed to be my only option. I was once a gymnast, so I was sure that I could maneuver my body and land on my feet. It was only the third floor. If there was a fire and I had jumped from the third floor, what is the worst that could happen? I’d probably just break a leg or two. I could live with that. Hell, it’s better than dying. I was sure that I could make it. Anyway, I had to make it. I really wished that I had never come there. I should have gone back to Ernie’s house.


Again, I saw the shape of the gun under the towel on top of the refrigerator. My plan was to dive through the window before the shooter got a chance to fire. And then I planned to “haul ass.” Suddenly everything started happening so fast. I kept my eyes on the towel. He slowly moved towards the refrigerator, revealed the weapon, grabbed it, and aimed it at my head. “Just shoot him, so we can get out of here,” his cousin said, nonchalantly. Terrified, I dove through the window with visions of Superman. The glass shattered from the force of my body weight, and I could hear and see the pane, flying apart in a million pieces. In the movies it takes a long time for a person to reach the ground after such a feat, but I got there in a matter of seconds with no time to land upright. All I recall is hitting my face on the cold concrete and seeing the color red flash before my eyes. This was the most physical pain that I had ever experienced in my entire life. More pain than the day I cracked my backbone in the high school gym; more pain than the appendicitis attack I had when I was a teen and was rushed to the hospital and immediately onto the operating table; more pain than the time, at the age of seven, when I fell off the top of the bunk bed, hit my head on the radiator and had to get twelve stitches. Those were all experiences of some of the normal pain that one might go through in life. This was somehow different, more horrifying and more intense. My only saving grace was that the pain only lasted for maybe five minutes. Five minutes of excruciating pain, and then it was over. Those minutes seemed like an eternity, but from then on, I could not feel a thing; I had gone into shock. There is but so much pain that the human mind can endure, and I had reached my limit on that chilly night up in Harlem. From then on I couldn’t feel anything. As if in a dream sequence, I looked up at the glassless window, and there they were looking down at me with amazement. Then someone spoke.

“Damn, the nigger jumped out the window. Let’s get the fuck out of here.”

I then looked around me and saw that I was in a back yard that was enclosed on all sides by a metal fence. Still fearing for my life, I climbed to the top but did not have the strength to get over.

“Help”, I yelled, hoping that someone would hear me and come to my aid.

“What is wrong?” said a voice from an unknown direction.

“These guys are trying to kill me, and I can’t get over the fence.”

“If someone was trying to kill me”, said another foreign voice,” I would do anything to survive.”

This was all the inspiration that I needed. Those words had the same effect that spinach has on Popeye. I found the strength. Not only did I make it over the fence, but also I ran a full two blocks in the middle of 125th Street until I reached the subway station at St Nicholas Avenue. Where were the police when you needed them? (I thought as I ran through the snow, leaving a trail of thick red liquid.) My face was bleeding like crazy, and I knew that I was losing a great deal of blood. I descended the stairs where one would catch the A Train and made my way to the token booth. The attendant seemed startled as I slowly came toward her Plexiglas booth. I wanted to speak, but I was just too weak. I wiped a big handful of blood from my face and touched the window with my right hand, smearing the glass as I sank to the hard subway floor.

The area around my eyes had swollen up so much that I could not see a thing. My body became paralyzed as I had lost the ability to move even slightly. I could, however, hear hundreds of different voices and sensed a major crowd of people gathering around me. I started drifting in and out of consciousness and lost all sense of time. It seemed like only a few minutes before the medics arrived, but it was probably longer: perhaps a half hour: perhaps more. I really couldn’t be sure.

Totally helpless, I felt two sets of muscular hands as I was slowly hoisted onto a stretcher and quickly shoved into an ambulance. The door slammed. As we sped off to the hospital, I heard the driver make a strange comment on his dispatch radio. He indicated that he was en route to Harlem Hospital with a patient that could possibly die “before we reach our destination”. With my eyes tightly shut, I imagined that there was a person in worse shape, lying on another stretcher alongside of mine. My state of denial was brief, for I knew in my heart that this was not so. The medic was obviously talking about me. Upon hearing those words, a tear ran down my left cheek as I passed out, very unsure of my fate.

When I awoke I was in the Harlem Hospital Trauma Ward. Well they got that shit right! I had been through a whole lot of trauma, so I was definitely in the right place. My injuries had included a bi-lateral fracture of the jaw, a broken nose, and a shattered left cheekbone. They had pulled out all my front teeth, both upper and lower because they were all loose from the fall; cut a hole in my throat to let air in (called a tracheotomy); wired my mouth shut and replaced my left cheekbone with a metal plate. I felt like Frankenstein, but I was glad to be alive. Due to all the swelling, my head had grown to the size of a basketball. After the Trauma Ward I was transferred to the Intensive Care Unit, which again is what I was in great need of.

And so, there I lay in a hospital bed, still unable to move and unable to talk. The wiring of my jaw was extremely tight. Somehow I now knew that I was not going to die, but I also knew that it was going to take a long time for my body to heal from this ordeal. I couldn’t believe that I allowed myself to get into this mess just when things had been going so good. All I could do now was think. And that is what I did. My thoughts were racing in that nut factory I call my mind. Slowly I took several deep breaths and after a few minutes was able to calm down somewhat. I began to reflect on how I had gotten there. Not so much to Harlem Hospital, but to this point in my life. And you may be wondering too, considering my background. But then again, you know nothing about my background. Well, since you’ve come this far, maybe you are curious enough to go a little further. If you are, I would like to tell you about me.