Nightmare on Crotona Avenue

Chapter 5

I was thirteen when my father was killed, a sensitive age for a young boy with thoughts and intents and hormones changing, and now I had my ambivalence toward my father’s death to contend with as well. All the bad thoughts I had toward him flooded my mind. All the times I had wished him dead came back for awhile to taunt me, because now he was dead.

At first I felt great guilt at my thoughts prior to his death. But soon, in realizing I didn’t have to deal with him anymore, overwhelming relief washed over my guilt, and I felt absolutely no sadness. I felt my family’s anguish had ended with my father’s life, and my hardened thoughts tried to blot him out of my mind. My daily wish for his demise had finally come true. I thought then that the torment and hell would be over.

Later, I realized that the scars only covered my own internal injuries that would continue to haunt me. I grew to realize that the psychological wounds and my father’s death were pivotal points that led me down a path of destruction that would twist my direction and change my life.

The next few years passed in a haze of struggles that my mother, brothers, and I constantly faced in our lives, trying to keep things afloat. The year after I turned sixteen, something good happened for once; 1980 turned out to be our lucky year. My mother’s sister had lived in a beautiful area called East Fordham Road in the Bronx for a long time, and her landlord promised her that the next available apartment in his building would have our name on it. With our aunt’s influence, it was the right price at the right time, and Mom had saved up enough from my father’s Social Security checks to make the numbers work. For the first time, we looked forward to moving to the good side of town.

Date: 2015-01-11; view: 659