It was a cold, hard winter in Bedford Stuy, 1970s. The chill crept under the thin layers of his thrift store clothes, slithered down his back whenever the train passed. In this moment he was semi-grateful for his overtly large, tattered coat because he could wraps his hands inside the extra length from the sleeves. The thought of gloves was long-gone—he still felt the electrifying sensations of pain from getting beaten by his stepfather when he told him that he had lost their only pair. So, his coarse and tired hands only left the sleeves when he held out a copy of the paper to sell to the subway riders. Feeling the pat of a cold quarter falling into his hands from selling one paper was a relief. His daily earnings from this job totaled to about two or three dollars, but that did not suffice. Lonely were the nights at the bodega, where he went after his day job. He watched the people pass by the window, having somewhere to go, as he swept the floors. Every now and then, the owners, out of pity, gave him a gallon of milk and a carton of eggs to take home. But the food didn’t last long; after all, he had four brothers and a sister to take care of.
Being a vegetarian—but not by choice, ensued in dizzy spells and many nights of an empty stomach. It was rare that they ate meat, but when his stepfather was lucky enough to get a bag of leftover scraps from the butcher shop, dinner was a piece of chicken soaked in vinegar and slapped onto their plates. Liver was considered a “treat” to the family because it was the only meat they could afford. He hated the taste of liver, but he swallowed it up anyway; any grimace or sign of an unpleasant state would ensue in a beating.
One day, water didn’t spill out when the faucet was turned on. The power was shut down. Water and electricity were two luxuries that this low-income family could not afford, and the landlord had no intention of spending more money to fix the place. He saw six months of this life before the family was forced out and settled into an abandoned building. Just 15 years old at the time, he recalls a vivid memory: Heroine addicts were passed out on the hallway floor with the needles taped to their arms. Blank stares. Crusting faces. The walls permanently carried the stench of marijuana and alcohol.
D.N. didn’t simply know a life of pain and mistrust—he was immersed in it. His life seems to have but cut right out of the pages from a Dickens novel, and a turning point arises in his adolescent years, at the ripe age of 17. D.N. heard a bold thud and instinctively turned around. His stepfather hit his three-year-old brother with his cane. “What are you doing to him?” D.N. bellowed, as he ragingly ran to the scene. His stepfather raised the cane to attack him, but because of brittle bones and blackened lungs from chain smoking, he was overcome by his stepson, who forcefully grabbed the cane. “Don’t you ever threaten me, my brother, or my mother ever again or I’ll kill you.” He looked the coward straight in the eye, the same coward who beat his wife when she was pregnant with twins, causing her to lose one of them. These words made of acid sunk into his skin and changed him. He never beat any of his children or his wife ever again, but the verbal abuse and screaming continued. Every night, D.N. slept with a bat by his side, out of fear that he hurt them. Two years later, the bat was put away when his stepfather died.
D.N. was inspired to change his environment for the better, one criminal at a time. A significant chunk of his life was spent as a policeman, hunting the streets for the abusers and drug addicts from his childhood that were never locked up. After several years, he became a porter, and his job was to clean buildings, work in service elevators, and move around heavy boxes. His career path took another turn when he heard his co-workers speaking of night classes to become a resident manager. D.N., who was used to working long, tedious hours did not stop and soon saved up enough money to take up these classes.
His time and effort paid off—now, people know D.N. as a well-respected, highly dependable resident manager of a beautiful building on the upper east side of Manhattan. He has his own private office with his name gracing the front door and his university diploma in a frame. D.N. doesn’t have to pay for his apartment because it was given to him for free by the building owners. Inside the apartment he and his wife raised four lovely children, one of which has a child of her own. From someone who had to sleep with a bat beside him, to a dignified resident manager, this man has seen the breadth of a life filled with obstacles. Instead of being kicked, he’s now greatly admired. As I sit here in his office, I gather first-hand, unedited testimony from the residents: “Mr. N, thank you again. You really helped us.” He wasn’t the first to say that. And he certainly wont be the last.
