Joe Barnes' home is a 9X12 room on a quiet tree-lined street near Downtown Brooklyn. He borrowed $10,000 from the Irish Mob in "Hell's Kitchen," a lot of money in 1961. The first payment is well over due and now they want it all back. That's why he's hiding out across the river with no plans of going back to Manhattan. Joe is biding his time while he waits for a good tip on a fast horse at the Trotters. He still has all of the money he borrowed and believes he has hidden it well. Below, in a two room, first floor flat, 14 year old Diego lives with Ana, his handicapped mother. Money is hard to come by. A welfare check barely puts food on the table, so the boy hustles the streets to buy milk, bread, or anything else they need. He befriends Bill Jackson, an elderly black southerner from the Carolinas who lives one block over on Bergen Street with Beulah, his warm hearted, matronly wife. Though not on welfare, they scrape by on the little they get from Social Security, and lately, they have come up short for the electric bill. "And old Geezer the cat needs to eat, too. Momma been feedin' him scraps, but thems cats got to have their meat." Diego shows the older man how to fish for spare change in the subway gratings of the Lexington Avenue line. To earn more money, they deliver groceries in a modified baby carriage, but the venture fails from the start. "So you think this business went on belly up like a shot up gator?" said Bill. "Now, don't go selling your cow to buy a mule." 'Though streetwise and school-smart, nothing prepares Diego for what lay ahead when the Irish mob finally finds Joe Barnes. The once, quiet building is thrown into turmoil as it becomes witness to intimidation and murder. And the cops are of no help, either. One of their own wants that money, and he's willing to kill for it.
About the Author: I was eight months old when my mother, due to extreme poverty after World War 11 was forced to place my older brother and I into a Catholic institution. Three years later we were moved to the first of two foster homes. Those were not the best years of our lives. Discipline was harsh, while nurturing and affection, unfortunately, was absent. My brother was ten and I was eight when my father remarried and was finally allowed custody and brought us home. Our world changed totally, from the monotony of suburban consistency, to the variety of city life. I was 16 in 1961, the year of Diego's story. Living there at that time helped me describe growing up in a New York City neighborhood like Boerum Hill. I remember the wonderful mix of people, not only immigrants from foreign countries, but also the poor from our southern states and from the Protectorate of Puerto Rico. It mattered not, the prejudices and differences of our parents, we as children cared less where your roots were from as long as you lived in our neighborhood and could play stick ball. I stayed in Brooklyn, worked, and eventually retired from the Department of Sanitation. I then bought a New York City Taxi Cab, enduring traffic and congestion for three hectic years before finally selling the medallion in 1994. Immediately after that, I travelled west in a 30 foot RV to escape city life and to see the states. It was a wonderful experience, but after 2 1/2 years on the road, at the age of 51, I needed something more meaningful and fulfilling for myself. I found that in writing, and like a lot of writers, I began with poems. Eventually, I wrote my first novel "Yesterday in the Caverns Dark; of Fire, Spirits and Men." (One man's odyssey during the Paleolithic era) I enjoyed writing Diego's Brooklyn, because the character represents the child of my youth, an unsuspecting trusting boy with simple dreams and a warm smile for those around him. He could have been a friend, a neighbor, the kid down the block, or perhaps, in some ways, he was me. Put together the everyday mingling of the well to do with the average Joe, the corner grocery store owner, the poor, and let's not forget the criminally insane, and you have the actors and makings for a play about life in Brooklyn, a play I was more than happy to be a part of. ---Adrian Del Valle