Amateur Knight: A Mission Statement

This is Alvin Rivera and his sister, little Debbie.

He looked like Dondi, a canceled comic strip character in The Daily News. It was the same newspaper where Alvin was put on a list of children taken away before their time. I was at my drawing table when I saw flashes of violent lights and heard the thunder of Judgment Day noisemakers called guns. In the courtyard underneath my bedroom window, two girls screamed Alvin was shot. I put on my vest and bolted down the stairs and up the block where the cops parted the crowd like The Red Sea by Moses on the ABC Easter movie of the week. I made my way through a people at a standstill until a cop stopped me. I looked into his eyes and he let me pass. I stood in the middle of this unreal scene and saw Alvin brought down the stairs of a building where I played when I was a child. His hand fell from the gurney and almost touched concrete. The sight made me feel like my eardrums had burst from an explosion. I recovered quickly from the shock when I turned and saw his mother and brother walking with blank looks on their faces. I opened the backdoor of a squad car as a cop asked what I was doing. After seeing me blue as he was, he drove them to Lincoln Hospital. It was the beginning of endless awfulness where no one saw anything in the city of illegal guns and roses. That night was the jaw of the beast that lead down the hill and across dark waters to Riker’s Island Prison where snitching earns the death penalty.

On kitchen wall, Jesus and the Apostles break bread on the face of a clock. Every night, we run of time; lucky to get a last meal before knocking on Heaven’s Door. I stared at the funeral parlor from the living room of my mother’s apartment. I brooded on becoming a shadow government of one like The Bat Man. But it doesn’t work well in my soul where conscience is a sword that cuts both ways. I felt guilty of criminal negligence like Spider Man who wanted to make money in show business that cost him his uncle’s life.

After swimming laps to wash away bad memories only to recover more like inedible fish caught in a net, I came out of cold waters at the recreational center’s pool in Saint’s Mary’s Park and dried up. Walking through the woods, I saw a glint of metal. It was battleship gray. It was a pen found in my childhood once upon a time.

Excalibur, you found me.

I can use this to draw out poisons and make vaccines. I can form a cocoon of words and, at long last, release spirit into sunlight. I can create a lightning storm to stimulate the war of ideas. I can use this to draw bodies on the streets and get others help me to make a point. When the rains wash away the chalk outlines of children of all ages in The South Bronx of America, I’ll bring the stars down to Earth. Here is the home place of Gouverneur Morris, a Founding Father who came up with the words We, The People. As I use Word, Media Player activates at random a mosaic of Star Wars tunes. At this moment, it plays the part that urges me to let go and use The Force. Wow. This old Win98 is my R2D2 turning me into a traitor and a member of The Rebel Alliance. I foresee The Empire State striking back.

Enter now The Darth Vader Marching Theme.

Writing this is the most wonderful of solitary confinement. I’m humbled to be able to demonstrate the courage of my convictions by capturing celebrated Americans like Supreme Court Justice Sonia Sotomayor on a police line-up for this in- your- face tour book on the South Bronx. This mission impossible was homework given to me at NYU. It was long overdue because of head injuries at the hands of a neo-nazi.

 I took my findings to the president of the borough who didn’t do anything but help himself to my ideas and research gathered at the Bronx Historical Society. He made himself look like a visionary or a George Clooney. I have a Ken Burns on the brain mentality or like Walter Cronkite once said, get the story right. I stood on the Bronx Walk of Fame and stared at the stars. I realize one thing’s for sure in this unfair world.

This has Oscar written all over it.

And that’s how I turned a frown upside down by using a pen. With it, I can jump several feet into the air, somersault and cut down ignorance. Oh yeah.

How you like me now.

Most of all, I want to write thanks to Carmen, who worked in a pen and pencil factory.

My mom drew me my first smile.

R298, transfer Word Doc into the flash drive. I only have minutes to keep my computer appointment at the public library to input vital information that’ll make a dream come true. I have to make a sequel happen in American lives and everyone else on Earth.

Food for thought is on its way.