Terms and how they are used mean something to most people. But the term "post-traumatic stress disorder," or PTSD, did not exist when Sonny was a boy. He was barely seventeen when he concluded high school. With final exams over, Sonny enjoyed counting down the days until summer vacation would begin.
"One more week to go, thank God," he said to his brother Juanito. College courses were on the horizon, but before that the search for a summer job. These challenges were nothing compared to what his family would go through.
At this point, the brothers were into watching TV or reading the newspaper, a typical nightly routine. Papi had come home early from work that day and was taking a shower. There was no CNN at the time, no MSNBC and no FOX News, either. There were television broadcasters, some good ones, in fact - mostly male dominated ones and hardnosed, hard news reporters. The same with the cops. Tough, uncompromising, serious, and, in many cases, corrupt. Not all, but many.
That weeknight, Sonny woke up again with a start. This was becoming a regular routine around their apartment, a pattern that Sonny determined he had no means of controlling.
"Oh, no! Here we go again."
It was after midnight, incredibly hot and humid. Incredibly as well that housing project windows did not support the installation of an air conditioner. Hard to imagine living through one of those blistering New York summer heat waves without one. There was nothing more powerful than a living room fan, turned up to "high," that might relieve the stifling heat and humidity. Or people's hair-trigger tempers.
Papi was yelling out the window again.
"Hey, what you doing there?"
Who was he yelling at now, and that ungodly hour?
The noise above Papi's head had roused him from his sleep. In true Third Law of Motion-fashion, Papi's yelling had roused Sonny from his sleep. The next thing Sonny knew, he heard someone running from the rooftop and slamming the door to the fourteenth floor entrance-way where they lived. Furious footsteps followed that led down to the corridor, with another door slamming shut with a th wack. The echo reverberated in their ears.
"I must have dreamed that," Sonny said aloud, shaking his head to himself. But all turned quiet after that brief outburst. Again, a typical late-night occurrence. Nothing overly unusual about it. He ignored the noise and went back to sleep.
Later the next morning, after breakfast, Sonny and Juanito were getting ready to leave for school.
"Three more days to go," Sonny told Mami. As Mami opened the door and kissed them goodbye, Sonny looked down at the floor. It wasn't what you would call a habit, just the normal body motion of your normal, everyday teenager. But today it was different. Sonny noticed a trail of what looked like dried blood, leading from the corridor and onto the stairwell. Walking slowly down the corridor, Sonny peered into the stairwell. Not out of fear. Just your average, normal, everyday curiosity. He saw that the blood trail went directly up the steps to the roof.
Sonny and the family lived on the fourteenth floor, the last stop on the housing projects express. The door to the roof was never locked. Heck, it should have been. For safety's sake, one would think. Why, any idiot could go up there, if they chose to, whether they lived in Sonny's building or not. It was frightening how little security they had. Nobody cared, really. Not the housing workers, not the local police, not anybody. Even if there were some kind of lock, somebody would find a way to pick it and gain access to the rooftop. A discomforting thought. Sonny swallowed hard to keep his throat from drying up.
The brothers walked down the hall. They rang the button for the elevator. "Please let this damn thing come up fast," Sonny thought to himself. As they waited, Juanito went up to the doorway entrance. He stared at the trail of blood but said nothing. Sonny shivered as the elevator finally arrived. They went in and pressed the ground floor button. Neither brother looked at the other, nor did they mention what they had seen. They tried to forget about the blood on the floor. It was easy to forget stuff like that, especially when you were young. As you get older, though, things tend to get stuck in your mind. That's life in the projects.
The rest of the day was uneventful. High school was drawing to a close. Neither brother was planning to attend their high school's prom. Neither one had dates, nor were they dating anyone in particular at the time. They were too busy preparing for what would be their last free summer in a long, long time. The college life beckoned and the constant study and testing were already looming before them. No time for frivolous pursuits like dating. Not yet, anyway.
Sonny wanted to get away from all the fuss, to relax, to enjoy what spare time had been allotted to him before settling into that stressful, daily college routine.
And the blood on the floor? What was that all about? Did it have anything to do with the noise Papi heard the other night? All the yelling and shouting? And the footsteps overhead? Sonny tried to forget about all that. Heck, it was easy to do. At that time, anyway.
The day after they came home from school, Sonny and Juanito were in the living room watching television. Back to their usual routine, they thought. Mami was preparing dinner, as usual. Papi was in the bathroom, taking his nightly shower - as usual. It was seven o'clock at night, the sky was still bright. Another warm, warm day, not nearly so humid as in previous days but hot enough to fry your head.
While sitting on the "couch," which happened to be your average Danish modern lawn version of a beat-up, foam-layered sofa, Sonny heard a commotion outside their door. The rustling of feet and some loud grumbling.
In the next instant, it sounded as if someone had brushed up against their door. Brushed up? It was as if they were trying to force the door open. Whoa, that's not good. Thud! Another thud! The bumping noise continued. Thud, thud, thud! What a racket!
"What the hell is that?" Sonny shouted to himself. He got up and peered through the peephole. All he saw were two huge figures blocking his view. One of the figure's frames filled Sonny's viewing area. "Get the fuck away from the door!" Sonny shouted through the peephole. Not the smartest thing to say when you have no idea what's causing so much noise. But it was all Sonny could do from panicking. He leaned into the door with his shoulder. "Get away," he repeated to nobody in particular. "Get away!" But his shouting did not frighten the intruder in the least. Instead, the huge figure started pounding on their door. Thump, thump, thump, thump. Another sound to add to the percussive thuds.
"Go get dad," Sonny shouted to his brother, who scurried off to the bathroom. Sonny was scared. He did not scare easily, but this time it was different. He was worried. This had never happened before, where someone tried to break into their apartment at the dinner hour. Certainly not in broad summer daylight.
In a flash, Papi appeared in his jockey shorts and T-shirt. He was still wet from his interrupted shower. And in a foul mood.
"What's goin' on?" Papi roared, startled by the pounding.
"There's someone trying to get in," Sonny replied, trying to stay calm.
Thump, thump, thump.
"Open the door." Thump, thump, thump. "Police," came the response from outside the hallway.
"Police? Holy shit!" Sonny whispered aloud. All he did was curse at the guy. He wasn't going to get arrested for that, now, was he? A million bad thoughts quickly raced through Sonny's head, none of them adding up to anything that would answer what all the shouting and thumping were about.
"What you do?" Papi demanded, looking straight at Sonny.
"Nothing, Papi. Nothing. We were just watching TV."
Papi gave Sonny a stern "no confidence" look before turning the door's lock open. In a matter of seconds, two enormous detectives, both wearing stylish gray outfits, white shirts, and narrow ties (in summer?), walked in.
"Good evening," said one of the detectives. Papi stared at the mammoth-sized detective and nodded politely. "May we come in?" Their seeming calm and studied reaction to all the banging and thumping unnerved Sonny. But Papi was nonplussed. Apparently, he had been through something similar in the past. "His past maybe," thought Sonny to himself. "Not mine!"
"There's been a murder in your building," the other detective said nonplussed. Papi instructed the detectives to sit in the living room. One detective sat on the stool where their untuned baby grand piano stood, while the other detective huddled near the doorway.
Sonny tried to lay low in the kitchen, unsure of where to hide or what to do. He remained in the half-space between the entranceway and the living room, waiting for the bad news to hit His fear was that he was going to be arrested for cursing at the gigantic police officer or for obstructing the investigation of a crime.
"What the hell are these guys doing here?" Sonny repeated under his breath, to no one in particular. "I didn't do anything. Juanito didn't do anything. And, as far as I know, Papi didn't do anything, either." He waited in the kitchen while the two detectives settled into their routine. Sonny tried not to worry himself sick, but he couldn't help it. The guilt feelings took over, just when they were least needed.
"I'm Detective Phillips, this is Detective Stevens. We have some questions we'd like to ask you folks." Deadpan. Matter of fact. That's how detectives spoke. Just like they did on Hawaii Five-O and countless other police shows, the detectives paused for effect as they took out their notepads.
"Did any of you hear anything unusual last night, any kind of noise or disturbance or other?"
"Last night?" repeated Papi to himself. "Yeah, I heard a lotta noise, you know, above my head, over the bedroom."
"Can you describe the noise?" Detective Stevens inquired.
"It was like somethin' large was movin' up there, you know? On the roof. Like somebody puttin' somethin' heavy away an' makin' a lot of noise wid it, you know? Like bangin' or movin' aroun'."
As Papi described what he had heard, Detective Stevens started scribbling feverishly in his notepad, taking Papi's words down in some kind of inelegant shorthand. Papi stared at the detective's notepad. He didn't like the fact that every one of his words was being transcribed for future reference. At the same time, Detective Phillips pulled out a billfold (as large as the police official's giant hand) and showed Papi a photograph. A Polaroid-type snapshot, so it appeared to Sonny.
"Do any of you know this girl?"
Girl? What girl? Sonny was baffled. He hadn't seen any girl around their floor. Not that he recalled. The detective first showed Papi the photo. Papi glanced at it brusquely and handed it back to the detective. The detective then gave it to Sonny. It was a Polaroid snapshot, alright, of a young black girl, about eighteen or nineteen years of age, possibly younger. Slim build, short hair. Her face was smashed in and her nose and lips were cut and bloodied. Her eyes shut, bloodied and drooping, her mouth agape with dried blood along one side. Who could have done such a thing?
More questions were asked, more mumbled responses were given. After much hesitation, Sonny decided to speak up. Raising his hand as if he were back in his high school classroom, Sonny cleared his throat with effort. Time to fess up. Although he had nothing to fess up about. Ah, well, what the hell.
"Um, I remember seeing this girl," Sonny volunteered at last. "I, uh, I thought he was a boy. He, I mean she, used to sit by our door while talking to the neighbor across the way."
"You mean, outside your door?" Detective Phillips repeated.
"Yes, I mean, yes, sir. Right outside this door."
"Can you show us, please?" Detective Stevens piped in. "Where exactly?"
Brushing past the gigantic detective, Sonny went to the door and opened it. There were several plainclothes policemen in the hallway, still investigating and lurking about the hallway, asking everyone on the floor if they had seen or heard anything.
"There, that's where she sat," pointing to the spot on the floor adjacent to their doorway. Detective Stevens stepped out into the hallway, looked up and down and both ways, scribbled some notes in his writing pad, then stepped back inside their apartment. Papi offered the detectives additional information.
"Yeah, I heard somebody runnin' from the roof over to the hallway." Sonny also confirmed this, adding, "I heard it too, we all heard it, the footsteps, you know, and then the door slamming shut."
"The door? Which door?" Detective Stevens asked, showing interest for once. His deadpan delivery finally gave way to intensity.
"Maybe the... the next door neighbor's door, I think, you know, the lady who lives in front of us," Sonny responded, nervously.
The two detectives looked blankly at one another. Separately and together, they peered at Sonny and his dad, then scribbled additional notes in their pads. What the two detectives said next made Sonny's blood turn cold.
"We found a refrigerator on the roof," Detective Phillips remarked, then cleared his throat. "The girl's body had been stuffed inside. We believe, that is we speculate, that the girl was killed in the apartment, and later the perpetrator dragged her body up to the roof." That would explain the trail of blood. What Detective Phillips described next made absolutely no sense to either Papi or to Sonny. "From all appearances, we believe the, um, perpetrator took the refrigerator from this apartment," pointing to the one across from theirs, "up to the roof and put the body inside it. He thought that by doing this he could hide her body there so nobody would find it."
Their conversation stayed at a matter-of-fact level. Their voices never rose above a normal conversational tone. To Sonny's eyes, the two detectives did not look or sound anything like the Sergeant Joe Friday-type on the TV series Dragnet. "Just the facts, ma'am, just the facts." Nope, no resemblance. The two detectives had longish hair, but neatly coiffed and trimmed. They were formal and polite - more so than one would expect, considering how rude Sonny had been to them. Of course, Sonny had no idea who the men were or what the hell was going on. Anytime anybody bangs loudly and repeatedly on your door, especially in the Projects - and at the dinner hour - was not a good time. A telltale sign that "something was not right."
The detectives divulged some more facts, none of which added up or made any sense. Not to Sonny, anyway. The boy Sonny and Juanito had seen, practically every day, week after week, month after month, turned out to be no boy at all but a girl. A young black girl. This surprised them. Sonny and Juanito would catch this person talking to an older lady across from their door, exactly as Sonny had explained. Never in the brothers' minds could they have imagined this "boy" turned girl, as she was now being described, would become the victim of a brutal homicide. Hell, they didn't even know she was a girl to begin with.
Detective Phillips pulled out another snapshot. It might have been from a mugshot or a blowup from a police lineup of some sort, a full front and profile of a young black man, about Sonny's age, maybe nineteen or twenty, maybe younger. Short Afro haircut, T-shirt, medium-dark skin, stubbles of hair on his lip and chin. The detective passed the photo around to the family. Papi looked at it and shook his head. Sonny saw it too, but drew a blank. So many young black guys in the neighborhood, some of them involved with gangs or drugs. Crack cocaine had started to become popular, at least that's what Sonny had heard from his pals. Most were working stiffs, or had moms and dads who worked all day, as Papi and Mami did, leaving their sons and daughters basically to fend for themselves during their absence.
After they had finished writing up their notes, both Detectives Phillips and Stevens nodded politely and thanked Papi for his help.
"We'll be in touch with you if we have any more questions," Detective Stevens added. "Let us know if you hear of anything else that might help. Goodnight."
Papi closed the door behind them and paused for a minute or two to listen to what the policemen and detectives were saying to each other. He placed his ear against the door, listening to who-knows-what was going on. Sonny took advantage of the moment to chime in his thoughts.
"We need to move, Papi" Sonny whispered to him. "We need to move. Now, this minute."
Papi stared vacantly at his son. "I'm gonna take my shower," he fired back. "Is late." He had had it for the night.
It took a couple of more weeks for the blood stains to begin to fade from the fourteenth-floor hallway floor. The major reason being there wasn't much foot traffic in either direction, which complicated matters for Papi, Mami, and the boys. They had to stare at the dried blood stains for weeks on end. A month later, the stains were nearly gone - nearly, yet not completely. Sonny could still make out a thin, dim trail of blood, leading from the next-door neighbor's door all the way down to the hall, past the elevator, and up the narrow staircase to the roof.
A month later, the Delacruz family was on its way to midtown Manhattan. They were leaving the Bronx River Housing Projects for good, after eight years. Eight harrowing years of struggle, headaches, noise, loud music, hip-hop, other Latinos, drugs, crime, assaults. It was hard for Sonny to believe their good fortune. Still, he felt no need to pinch himself.
"That's for sissies and faggots," Sonny thought to himself. And he was neither. The day they left the Housing Projects for good, Sonny refused to look back over his shoulder. Mami was teary-eyed, of course, letting sentiment and nostalgia get in the way of bitter reality. Papi remained stoic, as was his nature. Juanito had been quiet too, his usual demeanor when they went for long drives.
But Sonny was nonplussed, numbed and mystified by what happened in the years the family had spent at the Bronx Rover Houses. He knew his brother was in a kind of a state of shock. Or maybe denial, whichever feelings best fit the occasion. As for Sonny, he didn't care where they were going. He didn't care how long it would take for the family to get there. Hell, for all he knew it could have been to the Adirondacks and back - anywhere, anyplace, as long as it wasn't the Bronx River Housing Projects. Sonny had had his fill of that awful place.
Just then, his eyes widened. His heart starting racing. His pulse rose and quickened. Beads of sweat started to form on his forehead. Suddenly, Sonny remembered something. Something he had overlooked.
"Oh, shit!" Sonny muttered aloud. "It's him!"
Copyright © 2023 by Josmar F. Lopes
