Act 1: Scene 2
End of summer 1989 –
August was not what I assumed it was going to be
I don’t know what happened.
Then again, no one ever assumes that “this would be them,” or that the worst case would be the best case, and in my case to say the least, the worst was the best case scenario. I say this was the best case for me because had it not been for this moment; I might have not have been around to be this, your modest and humble narrator. I might not have survived or been around to tell a story about another tragic and somewhat eventful teenage life.
I found myself in the back of a squad car with handcuffs on my wrists. But please, allow me to explain.
I was sick to say the least. The junk in my veins was beginning to grow more important and so, the rules and the regulations of my habit were more concerning and certainly I realized why my habit was becoming more demanding.
I was beaten up after a round of questioning, which I assume did not go as either the detectives or as I had planned.
I was hit with a book across my head. I was kicked around and beaten up but more; this was done mildly enough to not leave marks or bruises.
However, I was handcuffed to the desk for my first good head strike. So, when I fell, my wrist and arm kept me connected to the old metal desk.
“No . . .” said the detective.
“You’re a tough guy. Remember?”
My answers and my wiseass comments were a mistake.
The scenario was very apropos of what one would assume.
They played all the old tricks on me.
They showed me evidence in a small plastic baggie which the detective handled with white rubber gloves.
I was sitting at the side of a desk in a detective’s office.
They used every silly tactic in the book.
I was told that my fingerprints were found at different crime scenes all over town.
But this was all a game.
I knew this was a lie because I had never had my fingerprints taken or documented before.
I came close.
I had interactions with law enforcement.
But I always managed to get away.
I had my juvenile run-ins and I had bouts that were threatened with juvenile courts and also, there was a possible case for me to become what we called a P.I.N.S which stood for Person In Need of Supervision.
I was given a quick tour of juvie, of juvenile hall, and had I been younger during this trip in August of 89; perhaps I’d have gone a different way.
But I was about to turn 17, which meant that I was to be tried for my crimes and that either way; I would be tried as an adult.
No one ever forgets their first real trip into the holding cells. And I would love to explain that I was one and done after this.
I would love to say that I chose the better path and I went to bible school after this.
But no.
The Lord and I were not on speaking terms at the time.
However, this is only act 1, scene 2.
Some of my other scenes were more dramatic. Some were more tragic.
Some of my other scenes were more desperate and some had more of a violent stir to them.
But this scene?
This scene was a big scene.
I was brought in and processed. However, the local officers and detective made sure to leave me with some valuable parting gifts.
They put the lights on me. They questioned me.
And yes, the kicked the shit out of me.
I gave them nothing. Seriously.
Nothing at all.
I was proud of that.
Or more fairly, I gave them a name that was commonly used in the neighborhood.
I gave them houses and break-ins and simple little dime-store robberies.
I gave them things I knew about and at the same time; I gave them a name to which I knew they had heard before.
I also knew enough of what to say and what not to say because the crimes I gave up were crimes that were mine.
“Everyone knows about these things,” I said.
“This is life in a Long Island town. Everybody talks.”
They wanted a name. So, I gave the a good one.
This was a fictional name.
This was a made up name and perhaps yes, somewhere, someone had that very same name.
And perhaps this person was met with questioning and greeted by Nassau County detectives and maybe even someone from the drug enforcement agency came to visit this person.
Who knows?
And for now and as always, I never use real names or accurate ones.
Never . . .
So, to protect myself and those who are less-than innocent, I will make up another name for this entry.
For now, I will use another name to give a face to a name of a person who never existed.
“It was him,” I said.
“That’s who.”
“Jonathan Falcon Linderquist”
I sold this better than any actor who ever crossed a stage to win an Oscar for best actor.
LINDERQUIST!!
He’s the one who has been bringing the drugs into our town. He is the one who has been asking to hire kids to break into cars and rob their car stereos.
Linderquist. It was him.
“All him!”
He carries guns with him
He drives a white conversion van
(I regret what I am about top report but honesty comes first and due to the racial ignorance which I was told and taught to live by; the older generation of local crooks always told us younger kids to explain ‘we got it from four niggers in a white van’ and yes, this was a common claim to local arresting oficers)
John Linderquist
He can get anything.
Anything at all. Anything you want.
Linderquist has it!
Linderquist drives back and forth to East New York Brooklyn all the time.
He’s the one who came around and sold packages of angel dust known as Crazy Eddie from 116th Street in Harlem.
He came around and sold them to little kids.
These packets were supposedly found by the cops in a place we called Spino park.
So, everything I said tied together and looped my story with Linderquist perfectly
That’s what I heard.
He breaks into houses.
That’s what I heard.
I heard it that way, is what I said.
And of course, I heard it that way.
I am not the only one who used this name. I am not the only one who blamed Linderquist and, to add some dramatics to the story during my line of questioning; I whipped up some tears to sell myself.
I explained that I was afraid.
However, the lead detective explained that I should be more afraid of him and what he would do.
According to the detective, I should be more afraid of the beatings and the “Big Bubba” or the phantom names connected to the perversions of forced orally sexual favors in jail and let us not forget to include the asshole gestures of gang rapes in the shower rooms.
I began to pant, as if the panic was too great and the threat of one death or another was a real choice.
Okay, I told them.
I’ll tell you.
“His name . . .”
His name . . . is . . .”
“His name is John Linderquist.”
The lead detective jumped back with an angry and hateful expression on his face. Evil, he was. Angry enough to cut his teeth and bite down into the sun.
“I know that name,” he said.
And then he left the room with a serious intention.
It was not long after this to which I come back to the full circle or the beginning and the start of my previous narration.
I was in a squad car with a quiet but somewhat kind officer.
“Just keep your mouth shut,” he told me.
“Don’t talk to anyone.”
He told me “I know who you are. And your name has been thrown around in that detective’s office more times than I stop for coffee each night.”
“Those kids you hang around are not your friends.”
“I knew it was you at the park that night.”
“I knew it was you who broke into the deli and took the register.”
“I knew it was you who broke into the houses by the school.”
I did not respond to this.
The cop advised me to look at myself in the mirror.
And he was right
I weighed about 80lbs.
My skin was green.
I had a small habit, or a chippie, is what we called it.
I had black rings underneath my eyes.
I had no friends.
I had no life.
I was a high school drop out.
I was part of an epidemic and a social virus that was infecting my little town.
“You’re gonna end up dead.”
The cop explained, “and maybe you don’t care. Maybe I’m just a cop to you. But I have a family. I have a kid brother too and it would kill me if he was like you are.”
This was very real.
Too real.
Perhaps this is why I stayed quiet.
I’d have been fine to die.
To be honest, everyone told me that I was goig to die anyway.
Some people told me that I should die or that I should do the world a favor and just get it over with.
My own Father told me he wished for this
He told me yes, this would hurt him.
But at least he could move on and heal.
Seeing me kill myself every day was harder to him than if I actually died.
I never wanted this kind of life.
But this . . ,
This was the life I had at the time.
But what else could I do?
How else was I going to get better.
Or worse, how else could I escape . . .
. . . or end this scene?\
