A Wake Up Call In The Bronx
By Solomon Rothman

On this warm Summer’s morning, my Mother’s distant voice rode the waves of my fragile sleep. Squinting into the dark, the morning tip-toed by my room and out the door. Back to the monsters that trapped me with no exits. The brew of roasted beans signaled in my other world with different monsters.

A heavy growl rumbled through the early morning, becoming, part of the darkness, and vibrated through my skin. It was my stepfather, Harold, coughing up my nightmares with his alcohol sludge that had been cooked in his throat during the night. The dark shadows were too afraid to make a sound. I pressed hard against the mattress, my heart deep into the bed, keeping it from betraying me. Harold, like a heavy storm thundered by me and out the front door.

One eye squeezed open and a few inches above me two brown eyes, intently stared into mine. Spotty anxiously waited for a sign. Her quivering body rushed at me, and assaulted me with her soft, furry muzzle and lashing tongue. It was too much for me and I threw the blanket over my head. Spotty darted around, sniffing for an opening. She poked her head under the cover. Her cold wet nose found my ear and I cringed with laughing tickles.

Every inch of the white porcelain toilet was black with roaches. Grabbing a rolled up newspaper, I swatted at the creeping little bastards. They scurried in all directions and into invisible cracks in the walls. Some crunched under my slippers like empty peanut shells. No matter how painful my cramps, I refused to sit on the bowl until everyone of them was gone. Lifting up the seat, I searched all the crevasses and under the toilet lip, anywhere they could hide. And even though I knew they were gone, I could still feel their crawling legs on my skin.

Pressing down on my bowels, sent a chill that traveled up my skin and focused at the top of my scalp. With a blurred gaze, I watched the tiles rise off the floor, my feet puncturing and sliding through them, plunging me deeper, until I felt I was drowning in the still pool of the rising tiles.

Above the ally between two buildings, a sliver of sky began to glow. It’s light searched through the kitchen. The life of the kitchen gradually emerged from the deep shadows. The kitchen was warm with the aroma of coffee. When I opened the refrigerator, a cool mix of smells hit my senses, with foods laced with the odor of garlic. I reached in for a fresh bottle of milk and shook-in the island of cream at the top of the bottle’s narrow neck. I tugged at the pleated paper cap that hugged tightly to the top of the bottle like a taut drum I could feel it pull apart in a rapid stutter. Under the cover, pressed snugly below the thick lip of the bottle, was a flat inner cap of cardboard, with a little half-moon tab you had to dig out with your finger nail. Pinching it tightly, I pulled the tab, and out it came with a hollow pop.
One third sugar, one third milk and one third coffee in a cup; globs of butter on soft swirling white tufts of dough inside a hard crispy roll. Dunked into the coffee, leaving rings of sweet floating grease.

Rich echoes of a violin interrupted my breakfast. It was just a year and a half after Word War II and standing down in the middle of the back ally was a young veteran. He was a tall and handsome man with a two-week-old beard and ropes of greasy black hair touching his shoulders. He was wearing a long, oversized khaki army coat cinched around his waist, looking more like a cossack dressed for a Russian Winter than for a hot Summer day. He was playing classical music. Beautiful music. Either he was a brilliant violinist, or it was the rich hollow echoing in the ally that made it sound so good-- taking me out of myself and into that moment. People from surrounding buildings wrapped coins in torn pieces of paper and threw them down to him, hitting the ground with a dull jingle. Once in awhile he’d nod his head in appreciation, and continue to play.

There was a rumor going around about a man who lived on my floor, right next door to me. They said he was a misshapen monster and referred to him as “That Disgusting Freak.” I never saw him myself, so I believed he wasn’t real – until that morning. When I stepped out into the hall, there he was, walking behind his wife, his head bent , making himself as small as possible. He was trying to hide from intruding eyes, eyes that reflected his own disgust in what they saw.

At first I didn’t know what to do. By the time I decided to run back to my room, it was too late. Afraid I’d be discovered, I stood motionless, trying to be part of the hall. He suddenly stopped walking towards the stairs and turned in my direction. He stood above me and began to grow. He lifted his head and straightened himself into a massive overhanging cliff. His eyes were cold and unnatural, as if they were painted eyes, unblinking, staring down into mine. What once was his face had become like melted wax. One eye was almost fused closed, with hanging skin and only a hole where his left ear should have been. The stringy twisted flesh – purple-blue, red and pink scars – covered his entire face like overlapping layers of transparent maps. They traveled up his forehead past his hair line and halfway up his scalp, with little patches of hair desperately sprouting through his scars. When he realized I was only a little boy, his hard look softened and pilled back, releasing me.

I found myself in my sister’s room with no memory of how I got there. From her third floor window, I watched the Melted Man and his wife get into a cab and drive off towards the Boulevard.

TO BE CONTINUED: The balance of this story is written in language and situations not recommended for children.

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© 2003 Sol Rothman