“How would you like 5000 dollars to take your mommy back to
Puerto Rico,” said a troll of a woman with a plastic smile. She first made that
offer to my mother who waited for me to come home to approve her signing a
contract to give up her apartment she has lived in since the 1970s. The sum was
a lot to a shut-in senior citizen who told me with the eyes of a kid on
Christmas morning to take the money to move us to an apartment with better
service in The South Bronx. 5000 dollars can’t even move my mother across the
street to the Ortiz Funeral Home. The new landlords’ representatives than began
a covert campaign of harassment. Why not? My mother pays close to 500 dollars
in rent.
Today, apartments in the building goes for 2,800 dollars
paid for by the city to house homeless families. The quality of life went down
with graffiti appearing on walls like mold and garbage items such as soiled
sanitary napkins that trailed down the steps like the aftermath of landmines.
And noise levels went up to disrupt dreamtime.
Then they made us another offer. Without a new lease, they
wanted us to move to the other side of the building where they had concentrated
most of the old timers that were convinced to give up their apartments. I must
have looked retarded to one representative because he practically ordered me
leave our furniture behind. With the eyes of a Doberman Pincher, he said he was
giving us free bunk beds and wooden tables. The last time I heard an offer like
that was in the days leading to The Holocaust as directed by Steven Spielberg.
And across the dark river, there is Riker’s Island Prison, a place of many free
bunk beds. He then sweetens the pot by offering two months of free rent. I was
on the verge of being able to play one of the Indians that sold Manhattan for
24 dollars and for some blankets. What I needed was a lease for the old
apartment to establish identity for the city to help me back on my feet. If I
don’t produce residency I don’t exist.
I’ve being in limbo for a while that feels like an eternity
and here comes the holidays.
The pipes broke three days before Thanksgiving and I had to
jerry rigged it to fix turkey dinner like a pilgrim with the accent on grim.
After banging on the door, they came in and ripped the bathtub out of the floor
with the promise of reinstalling it in one day. Instead they gave us the keys
to the apartment they wanted us to move in. It went on for a week in the winter
crossing the courtyard to bath only to find lack of hot water on certain cold
nights. Then our mailbox was vandalized and the super didn’t inform us nor did
he intend to make repairs. I had to make a report of the destruction of federal
property to the 41 Precinct on Longwood Avenue. Again we were offered keys to
the other apartment after a US Post Office employee complained that all of our
mail was being send back to sender including health care notifications for my
mother. I went to Housing Court and was given a computer print out of the
company giving us hell in Fort Apache.
It’s called Paradise Management.
This is the good and evil in a musical: the son of Tony and
Maria vs. corporate gang-bangers in The South Bronx of America. This is the
sequel to West Side Story.
Enjoy your popcorn while we suffer for you like the
criminals nailed next to a good Jewish lawyer. And Golden Oscar goes to in The
City of Angels…
