They brought me home from the hospital in a laundry basket. I mean,you canât make that up. My parents were only eighteen when they had me, a figure that becomes increasingly more daunting into my own adulthood. Teenagers barely know themselves; how could they be mentally and emotionally equipped enough to raise a child? It almost seems like a flaw in design on Godâs part to allow children to conceive children. More than likely, this reality is merely genetic resonance from prehistoric times when the average lifespan of homo sapiens fell short of thirty years, positioning fifteen-year-olds as middle aged. In village-oriented societies, communities have dealt with this paradox by embracing a philosophy that defines the youth as procreators and the elders as nurturers and educators.
I didnât grow up in a small village, but it is this brand of child raising that in many ways saved my life and defined who I am today. As the story goes, my family met with a ânice Jewish doctorâ and his wife in the months prior to my birth and signed preliminary paperwork that should have led to my adoption. The brick homes in the oak tree lined, suburban West Hartford neighborhood, where they lived, were oversized and ornate. No doubt I would have been bestowed with silver spoon privileges if this alternate reality had come into fruition; however, it was a far cry from the experiences I eventually endured across town in the South End.
Not everyone in my family believed that this agreement to relinquish this new baby over to adoption was set in stone.
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My great-grandmother Anna May, a small fireball of a woman, was quoted many times as saying, âThat baby ainât going nowhere. Once Ponny sees it, she will never let it go.â
Ponny is what they called my mother growing up, short for her longer nickname, âDonna Wonna Ponna.â
Anna Mayâs oldest of five children, my maternal grandmother Irene, would often joke with my mother suggesting, âCross your legs for one more week!â in hopes that my birth would fall on her birthday, instead of the predicted date of Veteranâs Day.
Hardly the words one would expect to hear from a family preparing to part ways with an incoming child.
As if my grandmother was a psychic, I was born on the 18th of November 1977, exactly forty-six years after her own arrival to this planet. Rumor had it, I was the only baby smiling in the infirmary that morning. For some reason, one of the nurses decided to break protocol, and asked my mother, a scared young girl who barely weighed a hundred pounds prior to her pregnancy, if she wanted to see me before I joined my new family.
As I placed my head on her chest, tears began to stream down her cheeks, and to the surprise of many in the room, she proclaimed, âI canât do it! I canât give him up!â and the adoption papers were ripped up on the spot.
No one was more surprised than my father, a Cuban immigrant who fled the island with his family during Castroâs revolution, and out of all possible places in the world, ended up in Connecticut. He met my mother in a Hartford nightclub, where she worked as a coat check girl, and they had only been seeing each other for a few months when they found out the news of my conception.
He didnât take Momâs announcement very well, storming out of the hospital declaring, âI want nothing to do with this baby!â
It is this dramatic moment that dictated I was to bear my maternal grandfatherâs name and not my fatherâs. When my Aunt Dee Dee walked into the room to check on my mother later that day, she was shocked to find me sleeping in the bassinet next to her.
âI have some news for the family,â Mom said upon seeing her older sister. âIâm not giving up this baby.â
Dee Dee didnât skip a beat, replying, âGreat, letâs name him!â
They sat there for the next couple of hours considering options beyond visiting hours. Each time one of the nurses knocked on the door, Dee hid in the closet until the coast was clear, and then sat back down with us. The conclusion of this conversation solidified the name that would be placed on my birth certificate. Michael Ray Winick, son of Donna Lynn Winick of Hartford, CT, and Rafael Aloma of Havana, Cuba, was born just before 10:25 a.m., at Hartford Hospital. The middle name Ray, which is what they called my father in those days, would end up being the only thing he ever gave me.
My arrival home from the hospital was ushered in by a bone chilling, New England morning, which left the ground and trees glimmering with ice. âThe Hens,â as they later became known, swooped out to the car to assure that the baby, bundled in towels and blankets in a laundry basket, found safe passage from the cold in an expedient fashion. Whenever this story was told, Mom would be quick to point out that no one took the time to help this brand-new mother, still sore from C-section stitches, to climb out of the bucket seats of the vehicle and make her way across the treacherous walkway. These accusations from Mom always sounded a little embellished to me, although whatever happened to her that day was traumatizing, nonetheless. Perhaps this memory always stood out in her mind because it was the exact moment that she realized she was no longer Ponny, the baby of the family, and was instead faced with the unsettling reality of being a single, teenage mother. Lucky for us both, she was going to have a lot of help.
The Hens were a coalition of women made up of my aunts, my grandmother, and my great-grandmother who, as Dee Dee jokingly describes it, âclucked around meâ as a child. Life was never dull in the company of these spirited ladies. On weekends and holidays, we would usually head out to my Aunt Nancyâs house in the country, where a proper feast would always be served and stories about the decades that preceded my existence would inevitably arise. The dinner conversations would often culminate into a steady murmur of multilayered chatter and laughter that seemed unending, as each patientlyâor impatientlyâawaited their turn to interject. In these moments, I would play with my toys and wonder if they were actually listening to each other, or just engaging in some form of collective synchronized therapy.
Their pasts were riddled with anguish, with my great-grandmother and her children surviving The Great Depression and an abusive alcoholic husband/father. As small children, Mom and Dee Dee found themselves refugees of a failed marriage, at a time when divorce was uncommon and frowned upon, something which took a toll on my motherâs psyche especially. Way before my arrival on the scene, this group of tight knit females had formed a support system, rooted in a family mantra which allowed them to encourage each other to âLaugh through life.â
My grandfather Lester was the closest thing that I ever had to a father. I was always looking forward to the next time he would pick me up in his prized, white Cadillac Seville with the navy-blue canvas top. He kept it pristinely waxed, and the plush interior with polished wood grain veneer presented a level of luxury that I hadnât experienced at home. I was fascinated by the power antenna that automatically ascended whenever the car started, and the cassette player that flipped over on its own when the A-side of the tape ended. But at the end of the day it was the cellular car phone that impressed me the most. This was the eighties. Most of us were still using rotary landlines, and my grandfather was doing business deals while driving around town, like he was James Bond or something. The smoke from his L&M cigarettes lingered in the air endlessly on those drives, seemingly dancing in synchrony with the heavy horn compositions of Art Blakey, Glenn Miller, and Dizzy Gillespie. When Louis Armstrong or Sinatra came on, he would often recite the lyrics one bar ahead with a subtle smirk, before glancing over in my direction to let me know that particular song was one of his favorites, and he knew it well.
Our daily itinerary usually began with a stop at the Town and Country Diner, where a parade of admirers would drop by our table to give their regards, before someone inevitably made a remark about his grandsonâs non-kosher breakfast choices. Grandpa was always quick to make it clear that I was allowed to eat whatever I wanted. He was the oldest son of Jewish-Ukrainian immigrants, but his life decisions had created a division in his familyâs orthodox lineage years earlier. When World War II ended, he returned from the Solomon Islands a hero and a parade was organized in Downtown Hartford to honor him. His gentle demeanor made it almost impossible for me to believe he was once a ruthless soldier, but I had seen the box full of medals which he kept in a safe, next to his old 22 caliber pistol, and a frontpage Hartford Courant article clipping with the disturbing headline, âWinick Kills the Japs.â As a civilian after the war, he took over the family construction business, which bore our name, andenjoyed a solid run as one of the cityâs most sought after bachelors. The women loved him because he resembled Clark Gable from Gone with the Wind, and the men were drawn to his charisma. He was living a life that made him the envy of all his friends and he showed no signs of slowing down into his thirties. In the end, though, it was a long legged, blonde beauty pageant winner who passed by him one day on a parade float that caught his eye and changed his life forever.
......
We lived in a two-family house that my grandmother bought for all of us, next to the bank at the bottom of the hill on White Street. Mom and I were on the ground level, with Dee Dee and my grandmother living on the level above us. Those early years represent some of my happiest memories from childhood, seamlessly bouncing back and forth between floors at will without any cares or worries. As far as I was concerned, I was the man of the house and the king of my castle, and I was perfectly happy keeping it that way.
One evening the doorbell rang unexpectedly after dark, prompting me to go investigate in my zip-up, footie pajamas, to figure out exactly who it was that dared to disturb us. In the doorway stood a man with dark hair and a thin moustache, wearing a black leather jacket. He was smiling at me as if he knew me, and I froze at the sight of him. At that time in Hartford, there were only approximately five hundred Cubans in the entire city and my story had become the talk of the diaspora. Juan had my fatherâscousins introduce Mom to him at a dance club one night. The last time she had heard from Ray I was still an infant, and rumor had it he moved to New Jersey and got married. Perhaps his cousins were looking to assure that I was raised by someone who understood our unique heritage, or maybe Mom just had a thing for Latino men. Whatever the case was, their tumultuous relationship would end up having a profound effect on my upbringing and help mold me into the resilient person that I am today.
It was Juan and his family who first introduced me to Arroz con Pollo, Picadillo, Ropa Vieja, and all the delights of Cuban cuisine, heavily spiced in sofrito and adobo. Over time, he began taking on more of a fatherly role with me, teaching me characteristics which he attributed to being a man, such as looking people in the eye when talking to them.
âIf somebody tries to bully you, punch him in the nose,â he would tell me. âI guarantee you they wonât try it again next time they see you.â
I began emulating him, cutting my hair the same way, and walking with a slight intentional limp like he did. My grandfather taught me how to be a gentleman. Juan taught me how to be street smart.
Music played a huge part in our daily household experience. On a whim, the eclectic playlist would switch from Smokey Robinson, to Prince, to Afro-Cuban, and even a new sound that was emerging in the streets, which people were calling ârap.â My very first recollection of this style of music was in the backseat of Juanâs white Fiat convertible, which we called âAmyâ for some reason. It was dark out, and I was observing the way that the streetlights passed us in rhythmic syncopation, while Juan searched through the radio to find something new to listen to. He mustâve stumbled upon one of the college stations, because they were the only oneâs playing this genre in those days. The mainstream hadnât caught on yet. As Whodiniâs The Freaks Come Out began bumping through the speakers, our heads started bobbing in synchrony. I wasnât sure who these âfreaks'' were and why they only came âout at night,â but I liked them.
By the summer, Hartford, which sits a little more than a hundred miles northeast of New York City, had become completely infiltrated by hip hop culture. In the parks, homies with large portable radios were blasting Newcleusâs Jam On It on a steady rotation, and some of my friendsâ older brothers had begun adding The Fat Boys and Run DMC to their cassette tape collections. Graffiti murals were beginning to pop up on the sides of buildings to the dismay of the older folks, but we thought they were cool.
One night after hanging out at the carnival, Mom, Juan, and I found a large crowd cheering on a crew of breakers, who were putting on a performance in the parking lot. We watched on in amazement as these guys twisted and contorted in ways we had never seen before, doing âWindmills,â âThe Worm,â and even spinning on their heads. I didnât know such things were even possible, but I was completely hooked. Later that week, Juan bought me my first boombox and some Puma and Adidas sweatsuits. After school my friends and I would put cardboard out on the sidewalk, and practice our pop n locks, while playing back songs which we recorded from the radio airwaves the night before. Hip hop had become the embodiment of the urban youth of my generation, and we showed our allegiance by wearing fat laces on our shoes and beatboxing with our friends in school lunchrooms.
......
âMichael, have you ever seen this before?â Juan asked, loading a pea onto his spoon and launching it towards me across the kitchen table.
I found this hilarious and spent the next several minutes attempting to replicate the assault. Once I perfected it, a small war broke out, with peas flying back and forth, until Mom, who was centered between us, attempted to quell the battle before it got out of hand.
âAll right, stop!â she demanded.
Her cry for peace caused us both to freeze momentarily, with our spoons still loaded and poised to strike. In defiance, Juan released the tiny catapult, antagonizing me to counterattack. When Mom responded with a slice of ham slapped on top of Juanâs head, an all-out food fight commenced with the rest of the pink, salty meat, along with the vegetables, and mac and cheese, finding its way onto every inch of the floor, walls, counters, and even the ceiling. The incident lasted three minutes tops; the laughs continued over the next hour as we cleaned up the mess, and the memory would stay ingrained in my mind for a lifetime.
During these early years together, we functioned like any other normal, happy family. My grandmother would host regular dinner parties with Juanâs parents in attendance, where a mixed ethnicity potluck would result in strange cuisine combinations, like meatloaf, rice and beans, mashed potatoes, and maduros. We even adopted a puppy, a black Doberman named Damien, who grew up to become my protector. During our visits to the playground, he would follow me from the slide to the swings, then over to the seesaw, and back to the slide again, monitoring the behavior of the other humans in attendance to assure they werenât up to any funny business. Perhaps it wasnât outside of the home that Damien should have been most concerned.
After school, some days, Juan would pick me up and bring me back to the car dealership where he worked. Whenever we walked in, he would proudly introduce me to the other salesmen as his son, to which I happily played the part. Normally, I would settle in at his desk and not pay much attention to what the adults in the room were doing, but this day I noticed something peculiar. They were putting small piles of white powder on the glass surface of a picture frame and sniffing it up their nasal passages. My young mind attempted to rationalize this. It must be medicine for their noses, I thought. As Juan joined in with his buddies, something in my gut told me something wasnât right about this.
Playing with G.I. Joes had become my favorite pastime, and one morning an epic battle between Snake Eyes and Storm Shadow had made its way across the hallway from my bedroom into my motherâs. I kept a strong arsenal of sound effects on deck for such occasions, belting out a barrage of smacks, bangs, and zaps that couldâve rivaled any kung fu flick, when my figures ventured beyond the skirt of Momâs bed. Below the dusty box spring, my soldiers and I stumbled upon a strange world, where the terrain was made up of large Ziplock bags filled with the same white stuff which the men at the dealership were sniffing. I didnât know exactly what it was, but I had seen enough to know that it wasnât something safe for kids to be around.
As Juan ventured deeper into the distribution of Americaâs favorite party drug, our wholesome family environment began to deteriorate. Yelling and screaming had replaced the laughter we once shared and, though I hadnât seen it with my own eyes, I was beginning to hear whispers amongst family members that he might be putting his hands on my mother. I would often wake up at night hearing loud bangs and crashes in the other room. One evening in particular, I awoke to the sound of a commotion coming from their bedroom. I decided at that moment Iâd had enough and was going to put an end to this once and for all. I slipped out of bed, a determined young boy wearing Snoopy pajamas, and crept across the hall. They were too busy arguing to notice I had entered the room. When I saw Juan begin to raise his hand, I jumped on his back from behind. Punching him in the head with closed fists was something I never expected to be doing, but the feeling of retribution was satisfying.
âStop hurting my Mommy!â I called out. But I was only received with giggles.
I couldnât understand why Mom defended him and assured me that everything was all right, when I could plainly see that it wasnât.
Weeks later, Dee Dee came home from work late one night to find Mom calling her from the window. She was bleeding from one ear and noticeably shaken. This was not the first time my aunt had seen her sister in this situation, unfortunately, and she had grown tired of Mom not just ending things with Juan once and for all.
âDonna, youâre welcome to come upstairs with us if you want. Iâm going to leave that up to you,â she stated with remarkable calm. âBut Michael is coming with me.â
When Dee Dee arrived at the door moments later, Mom handed me over, bundled in a blanket, and closed the door quietly behind her. The next day my grandfather showed up at our apartment and pulled out his old 22 caliber pistol on Juan when he answered the door.
âIf you ever lay your hands on my daughter again, Iâll kill you,â he announced with the cold stare of a reformed killer. And with that, Juan quickly gathered his belongings and disappeared.
The next few months at home were peaceful, as Mom and I resumed our lives on our own. The vacant seat at the kitchen table did not create any sadness; there was only relief. We were actually beginning to feel a sense of normalcy, until one night Juan resurfaced at a bar in downtown Hartford, which Mom used to frequent. By this time the cocaine had turned him into a monster, and he was only a shell of the human being that he once was. He wanted Mom back and when she refused, the man who I once looked at like a father battered my mother senseless before leaving her to die in a cemetery under a highway bypass. She hid under a car until she was sure he was gone, and then made her way through the worst part of town, until finding a payphone. When my grandmother arrived, her daughterâs face was black and blue, swollen, and dripping with blood. This disturbing image, that no parent should ever have to see, prompted her to call a friend of hers who was one of the higher-ups in the Hartford branch of the Italian Mafia. He also knew Mom well and became infuriated when he heard the report from my grandmother.
When Juan ran into this gangster on Asylum Avenue later that night, he tried to run, but his escape attempt failed. His assailant was an oversized behemoth of a man, with fists the size of grapefruits. After knocking Juanâs thin frame over with ease, he climbed on top of him and began pounding his face until it resembled ground beef.
He spoke and struck him in intervals. If you ever...â BANG! âGo near her again...â BANG!! âIf you happen to find yourself on the same side of the street as her...â BANG! âIf you even breathe her name...â BANG, BANG, BANG, BANG!!! âSo help me God, youâre a dead man!â
