[6] NOBODY’S HERO Querido Dios Dear God Sin Tu amor Without Your love No puedo vivir I can’t live La realidad The reality Es Que estoy solo Is that I’m alone Por dentro aqui Inside of this place Tu eres mi angel You are my angel Mi inspiracion My inspiration Sin Tu luz Without Your light Yo me muero I die Por dentro aqui Inside of this place Como los angeles Like the angels Que Tu tiene por tu ser You have by your side Yo quiero estar contigo otra vez I want to be with you again Ven Conmigo otra vez Come with me again Quiero volar otra vez I want to fly again Manda me un mensagero Send me a messenger Who says God doesn’t have a sense of humor? He sends me Felix Romero. In Latin Felix means peace. In life he’s been a manic friend, delusional teacher and artistic guru. He goes before me on this journey en la AmeRica. “I was one of those crazy runners for the mob. When I was a youngster they use to call me Loco because I was fast and a good fighter. I was known as a spider man because I could climb up the side of a building. The cats in the mob loved me because I could escape anybody by jumping roofs or climbing down the side of the building. They would put the numbers slips on me. I would go over the roofs and drop off the numbers and money. So the mob would protect me – numbers crews protected me from anything unpleasant. I had liberties to do things and I got away with them. I grew up with a lot of diversification since age five; exposed to so many people. I never thought there were any limits nor did I ever think that what we were doing was Puerto Rican Art or Latino art or Hispanic arts. What I was doing was just art. It was a manifestation of whatever I was about. I experience the same thing in my own time. For twenty years I carry part of the street sign I rip from the corner of Tilden Street right before I go to College in 1975 and a poem I publish in 1976. My talismen against the biscuit heads I will meet along the way. I know it’s time to come home and examine my life when some zombie robs my apartment and takes them along with my other stuff. I take it in stride. I figure God is sending me a message P.R. call Home … P.R. Call Home … P.R. Call Home. I call Felix. Johnny Boy is back in town A creeper in bruised lives A trader in sultry secrets He has absolutely no right to know A metropolitan skyjacker Taking hostage the stray adventurer He preys on stories A modern vampire of emotions Johnny Boy has arrived Brought by powers unseen To change the course A necessary evil In a dirty little town Of ruined directions Skyscrapers amuse him Pits invite the taste of his special Manipulations Have you seen him El Loco Cantinero Of hyperventilated thoughts Have you seen him He arrived naked at the party Trying to check his clothes And announcing to all I CAME TO DANCE He seduces The confused poet The isolated lover The struggling woman The ambitious teacher To tell him their stories Johnny Boy dismisses boundaries And uses the tragedy of a comedian To ejaculate his venom He performs on stage Free of charge Sparks fly from his steel tipped heart Creating icons Of indignity Of impulse Have you met him His eyes tongue a red haze Of silver spikes and black velvet fury A Catholic boy on a rampage through hell A new age saint with a customized Rosario Who sweats benedictions as he rides her On an elevator rooftop With a pen strapped to his back Each thrust setting off a bullet Up between her legs Through her stomach Past her heart Coming out her lips into his A wild shot of cold hearted lust As soot falls on them Like soft black petals Raining on both the living and the dead A rogue dusky Decadancing on the edge of razors He stalks runners with his boy Yo Yo Montalvo And tries ways to avoid their own stalkers Night bombers in silk shirts And Four hundred dollar shoes Searching for keys broken off Long ago in forgotten locks Searching for The Great Game While compromising every truth Along the way Searching for A Way In He's been speeding so long Marking time Paying cops Burying partners Tricking queens Cruising shadows Wacking even priests In dreams reality cuts loose Avenues slice into boulevards D-D-D-D-D-Dodge City He jumps into his third world club car Reeking of polo and reefer An artillery strapped on every Extremity He's headed for a Sell - A - Bray - Tion Yo Yo is spinning Dead eyes crazy glued on everything A plastic mask for a face Fifth in one hand and Eight Ball in the other A new kind of pool game Without a clue On guard From what Himself He supposes Yo, let's go visit the savages In Brooklyn But they never get past the border Johnny goes for a hit Takes a drink Forgets to steer And Rams the highway divider The savages aren't In Brooklyn They're trapped They're in the car They're on the mainland They're here They're Ussssssssssssssssssssssss Now I ask you Have you met him Have you met him Have you met him I have He calls collect From way Inside Being Puerto Rican isn't an issue until I reach Amherst College in ‘75. Before that it just is something that is. As the rest of my extended family develops into first and second generation Latinos in the City without having to define themelves in a fishbowl, I’m away in the boonies taking part in the dumbest social experiment I ever experience. It creates an identity crisis for me. Who are we? These professors and books they tell me to read keep on stating I'm The Other. The Other what? Are these fools insulting me here? Sounds like a hustle to me! Damn, these people are weird. My experiences at Amherst College jar me to say the least. It’s so bizarre up in Massachusetts. People are doing the strangest things. Like the time in my junior year a brother burns a cross on campus with the help of a tenured black studies professor as some sort of a revolutionary statement. More like self hate. But I’ll tell you that story at some other time. I take a break from the place after my sophomore year and immerse myself in the Puerto Rican cultural renaissance going on in the city. Important lessons materialize during that time out from college that I can fall back on as I go out in the United States to collect my material. There’s a deep awareness of the past in the present as we emerge in the city. For example, when Puerto Ricans invade Central Park in record numbers during the San Juan Bautista festival I can sense something different happening for Us in the U.S.. We have strength and presence in numbers. As a memento, my friend Isa Diaz and I end up in the center page photos of The Daily News. Not bad for a couple of aspiring young Latino dancers barely 18 yet. It’s my first taste of being part of that Our Latin Thing. And I’m part of it all with my best friend, partner, future lover and present guardian angel – Our Girl Isa from Havana. She introduces me to Felix Romero, “C’mon Louie. There’s this crazy theater group in the Bronx we’d be perfect for. You kind of remind me of the director. They’re rehearsing in the basement of St. Ann’s Church on 138th. C’mon, let’s gooooooo!” It’s the start of a beautiful friendship. I look around And she’s standing there Draped in white Like days in east Tangier Her name is Isa A girl with real red hair I move on forward Jumping right on in On a Cabride to Venus Agitated Completely in a flair Sidewinding laugh drops Fractured ego framed Nothing comes together For no reason Yeah I move on forward Jumping right on in On a Cabride to Venus Romeo Romeo Romeo Romeo Where for art you now Winsdhield wipers are Slick with atomic love Brightly sticking to My space ride rodeo Isa Staraholic In a white robe Isa passes away from cancer in 1984 while I’m working in Ohio, That sucks God. The cancer takes her in three months. I refuse to believe the news from Felix and look for her to come around the corner or call on the phone for the longest time, “Any day now. Any day now. Any day now?” Finally I dream with my Grandmother dressed like a devotional Virgen talking to me but I can only feel the warmth of her presence. No words come out of her moving mouth. She turns, points and Isa is in her arms, “It’s All Right.” The dream ends with a quick image of my daughters eyes opening at birth. I wake up in a cold sweat but calm down shortly after. Everything is All Right. Kisses Many kisses Un carino profundo Que corre entres mis venas I’ll always love you For all the doors You open in my life After that summer Thank you forever Mi carino Do I do All Right Are you saving The last dance dance for me We’ll have such a groove Picture that I do Baby Every day Every spin on the dance floor Every show Every paint stroke Line I write and Inspiration I miss you something awful But you helped me find My voice And With that you live Forever with me I go full circle from The Bronx in 1975 and come back back home in 1999 after a series of stops throughout the United States. The adventures include Amherst graduation, the Loisaida arts scene 1977, writer/editor for Latin New York magazine, reporter/writer for local CBS News stations in Hartford and New York, Bar Band Rock and Roll Bands in the Midwest and Public Television producer in Ohio. Marry, divorce, take a turn with Salsa Bands in the Southwest, morning news writer for a Ted Baxter like anchor, writer for The State Senate in Albany and recording for Blue Lunch Records in upstate New York. Of course, I spend those obligatory times in jail for fighting, run guns into Mexico during the early stages of the Ciappas uprising in exchange for cocaine with some crazy Marialitos Cubans, collect for a neighborhood bookie, loose my friends to AIDS, witness the birth of my daughter (who turns out to be me in high heels). I run a Telemundo TV Station out west for a goofy white American businessman, marry a one legged former call girl whose a dead shot, host a couple of FM radio shows, land in a top ten team twice at the National Slam Poetry Competitions 1998/1999 and finally return to New York as El Extreme - that Nuyorican poet celebrating his tribe at the local slams. The only thing that saves me in times of trouble or confusion is that I always have my pen and the Holy Trinity -- Family, The Bronx and Ricans -- no matter how strange the situation is. |
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