As I left work on a cold winters day, retreating to the comforts of home life, I had a feeling that something wasn’t right.
The closer that I got to my final destination the more uncomfortable I felt.
Being an individual of perpetual high spirits, the level of discomfort that lay about me like a wreath was totally out of character.
The hawk (as the winter is known in Chicago) had begun in earnest. In other words, it was colder than a well diggers ass! Although it was only November the artic cold that usually comes down from Canada in late December or early January decided to make an early migration south.
I as usual was wearing enough clothing for an Alaskan safari.
The darkness was rapidly approaching as I began the final leg of my journey home.
My daily ritual of going to work and returning home seemed to be a bit strange the entire time that I went from one leg of my journey to the next.
As I entered the bowels of the ghetto more commonly known as the projects, or for the purpose of political correctness, a low-income environment, I noticed from a distance what appeared to be a large crowd. The closer I got, the larger the crowd grew.
What was reminiscent of the Red Sea being parted by Moses, the crowd (upon noticing my arrival) began to clear a path without uttering a single word.
As I curiously navigated my way through the throngs of onlookers, the silhouette of a prone body began to take shape.
My emotions began to take charge as the ominous glow of fresh blood flowed from a massive chest wound.
I slowly began to feel exactly the way that I did when I was informed that my 16 year-old uncle had been murdered by a single gunshot wound to the face.
I finally moved closer and standing less than 2 feet away, the realization that the prone figure I was staring at was my younger brother was the embodiment of surrealism.
This was truly a shocking experience that I would not wish on my worst enemy.
On that fateful day of November 7, 1983, the brother of his girlfriend had murdered him in cold blood by stabbing him in the chest.
The uncontrolled display of emotions that seemed to overwhelm me went unabated both before and after the arrival of the ambulance, which took forever.
I truly felt as if I was having a terrible dream that seemed to last an eternity.
According to several of the eye witnesses the events of this tragedy unfolded as follows:
Pete (my brother) had gotten into an argument over money; this in itself was surprising because he was not one to argue unless he had no other choice.
He left the scene looking for others and myself who would act as a buffer between him and the remainder of his girl friends family to prevent them from ganging up on him.
Unable to find any of his relatives or close friends, he returned to the scene of the stabbing ready to go one on one only to be ambushed by a knife-wielding adversary who proceeded to stab him in the chest.
The stabbing occurred in the home of his girlfriend who had large front windows which made the viewing of this murder possible by the onlookers who had gathered to witness what they thought would be a typical neighborhood fight.
The stab wound was so massive that it was highly unlikely that anyone could have survived it, especially a man who weighed less than 130 lbs.
When I arrived on the scene and saw the end result of a violent confrontation, I was shocked to see that the human body could contain so much blood.
The criminal who murdered my brother was so low-down and dirty that in an attempt to avoid responsibility for his murder, he had dragged the body outside and laid him on the sidewalk making no attempt to save his life, thereby allowing him to literally bleed to death.
Now it was my responsibility to go and relay this awful news to my grandmother whom I had looked upon as being my mother. She was the one who had shown me that someone could be loved, even those who were rejected by their biological parents.
The task of breaking this awful news to my grandmother ranks among one of the most difficult things that I have ever attempted.
Once the ambulance arrived and departed with my brothers’ remains, I went up to my grandmother’s apartment still in a state of shock and feeling like a military colonel who has to deliver the news of a war casualty to the spouse of a newlywed.
What was surprising to me was that she was looking out of the window the whole time, but being 4 stories up and with poor vision, she could not fully understand what was going on below.
Once I entered the apartment, she began to speak in her one- third northern and two-thirds southern accent by saying, “who done got killed now”?
As I looked into her eyes I could tell that she knew something was terribly wrong.
I searched my mind for words that would lessen the impact of this tragic news, but I continuously came up short. Several minutes seemed like several hours.
To break the awkward silence that was tearing me apart, I had to leave the apartment without saying a single word and navigate my way through a slowly dwindling crowd seeking the first available pay phone.
This unorthodox approach to informing someone of a tragedy is clearly the action of a 23-year old who is very hurt, very angry, and very confused at the death of his 22-year-old brother.
Once I located a pay phone I called my aunt Phyllis because I knew that she had the intestinal fortitude to handle this scenario better than I could have imagined.
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