Uppercut Avenue (opening)
BY COPPER SMITH I MARCH 17, 2010
When people hear the half-black, half-Italian New York FBI agent thing, the movie screens of their minds fill up with dazzling drama that oversells things a bit. They picture my upbringing in the seventies unfolding something like this: tragic mulatto raised on the mean streets of East Harlem or Bensonhurst Brooklyn, dodging bullets on the corner of Crip street and La Cosa Nostra avenue. The truth was more mundane, almost boring.
I grew up in New Rochelle, at least ninety minutes away from anyplace you could score some weed or get shot in the leg for looking at somebody the wrong way. Daddy was a tailor, crawled his way out of the lower east side with hard work and a hatred of the old world. Mama was a schoolteacher from Detroit, first in her family to go to college. Scrambling off to the big bad apple and marrying an eye-talian may have raised a few eyebrows in the Johnston clan, but she got away from the slums and that was all that mattered. She had limped out of an early life of struggle and pain and landed in a quiet New Rochelle neighborhood with two boys, a loving husband and a job her father would have killed for. I was the friendly one – the non-troublemaker. The one she wanted to be a shoe salesman. All told we grew up happy, without strife, without drama.
Except for the night I shot my uncle in the stomach with a Glock 17.
The week began with my father taking me aside to show me something, something locked away in the living room cabinet that was there to protect the family and I was never ever supposed to touch. I was a twelve-year-old boy; I couldn't wait to touch it. The next morning an empty house and a cleverly bent paper clip gave me the chance to shine. I scooped up that Glock — cold and heavier than I expected — and instantly, I was Baretta. I was Shaft. I was Starsky and Hutch. And four days later I was somehow even more...
My uncle Dominick was a bad guy, a bum. A walking reminder of everything my father had escaped from the lower east side – sleazy, dangerous, low class, stupid. He would drop by from time to time to ask for money or mooch a free meal, then it was back to the shadows, and whatever it was he did there. Then there was the night he stumbled in plastered and louder than usual. My dad was out of town and from the bedroom I heard the angry crashes of an aluminum bat against walls, against furniture, against glass. I heard Mama crying. Through the cracked open doorway I could see her, begging for the nightmare to end. But uncle Dominick — bat on his shoulder, grin on his face – was kind of enjoying this role.
"They're gonna' break my legs for Crissakes! Just give me fifty bucks and I'm on my way!"
More crying. More begging.
"You want me to tear this house apart? 'Cause I will!"
Another swing. The mirror tumbled to the floor with a crash that I swear I can still hear today. He grabbed her by the hair, yanked her head back. A week earlier I wouldn't have known what to do. On this day, I went to the living room cabinet, hoping somebody would give me a reason to stop before I got there. No one did. The crashes, the screams continued, threatening to intensify.
I'm not sure what I thought would happen when I swung that door open. I didn't expect the scream, though. And I figured it would stop uncle Dominick — or at least cool him down. But even with a Glock in his face, the bat stayed in his hands, rested on his shoulder. His head turned, but slowly. He seemed more annoyed than frightened.
And why should he be scared of this skinny twelve-year-old with a shaky gun in his hands? He'd been shot before: once in the ribs by the jealous husband of a girl he met in a Greenwich Village glass shop. Once in the calf by the Indian or maybe Pakistanian owner of a store he tried to knock over.
"Give me that thing, you little half-moulie prick!"
He was demanding, not begging. His eyes narrowed a little, but showed no fear. This was not how things went on TV.
"I said, give me that gun!"
More crying from Mama. She was squealing to the heavens now, beyond frightened. To her the worse had already happened.
Uncle Dominick stepped toward me, raised his bat.
"Is this really how you want this story to end?" he asked. He was laughing a little. Laughing at me.
KAPOW!
Everything after that was kind of a blur, but I remember screeching, profanity-laced shouting, a siren, then the soft landing of silence that made sleeping difficult that night.
Dad returned home just after that streak of chaos had cleared, came into my room and hugged me. I wasn't sure if he was congratulating me or comforting me. Maybe he wasn't sure either. Uncle Donnie spent eleven silent days in the hospital, refusing to speak to anyone — even the police. He never stopped by the house again.
It wasn't a beautiful night. For starters I don't ever want to hear my mama scream like that again, but still...
After all the madness had ended, things wound up alright again. And they didn't get that way by me ducking for cover and hoping for the best. I learned a lot about myself that night, I learned who I was.
I learned I wasn't meant to sell shoes.
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