My pal Danny Appolinar was a fellow singer/pianist working clubs in the sixties. He told a marvelous story on himself: he was booked in a hotel in San Juan, the Dorado Beach, for the summer, and while there he struck up a romance with a good-looking busboy, Carlos, a kid of eighteen with great appeal. They had a hot thing going all season, walks on the beach by moonlight, staff meals together in the hotel kitchen…and hours in bed together. When the summer ended, and Danny had to leave, go back to Manhattan, the kid was all broken up, disconsolate. “But Danny, what will I do without you? You are my sun, my moon, my planets–every night for three months you hold me in your arms, how can I live alone now?” A very Latin temperament, Danny told me. “Carlos, my life is in Manhattan -I wish I could bring you home with me but that’s not possible,” he said. “But I will always remember you -I’ll think of you every night–” Carlos had a request: “You will say a prayer for me? When you speak to the heavens, you will not forget me? Will you give me something I can remember you by -no, no, I don’t want money, give me something personal, something of yours only.” Well, Danny had thirty copies of a record he’d made -an LP- and he took out his pen and signed one to Carlos, with a passionate inscription: “To Carlos, who has been more than my life, more than my passion, my obsession, whom I shall never forget, who has meant the entire universe to me (and who has the most beautiful you-know-what in the world). With all my love, forever, Danny.”  And he got on the plane.                                      And six months later, he saw the exact album in the dollar bin at the 69 cent shop.

The young Latina was nervous. She’d never been called on to give testimony.  She sat in the witness box before us, thirty members of a Grand Jury, and answered the questions fired at her by the assistant District Attorney. He was young, maybe thirty-three, impatient, eager for us to arraign the alleged perp, a young black guy. “What time of day was this?” he wanted to know. “It jes’ before nine,” she said,  “jes’ before I have to  close up. I already pull down the blind–” “Speak up, please,” said the DA. “Who else was on duty that evening?” “Nobody, jes’ me.” “Tell the jury what happened please, in your own words.” And who else’s words would she use? I wondered, sitting in the third row.  She shifted uncomfortably on her chair. “So I alone in the store,” she began, shyly, “an’ thees boy come in and I tell him, We close now, but he say I je’ want one cup of Leopard Spot Caramel, so I let him in, and suddenly he pull out this knife, an’ he grab me an’ he put the blade up to my neck an’ he say, ‘Go to the register and get the cash’ an’ if you scream I swear to God I kill you.'” The girl caught her breath, swallowed, intensely upset, as if maybe she was going to cry. “And then?” “Well, an’ then, like he say, I go to the register and give him the money -we have a special bell under the counter for the police, but I’m  too afraid to do anything.” There was silence in the room as she collected herself. We were all totally enthralled. The DA waited her out; he knew she would continue when she could. “So I geev him the money, there was three hundred ‘n eighteen dollars, and he come right up close to me with the knife an he say, Where the toilet, an I think he need the bathroom, for himself, you know? but he lead me in there, an’ he say, I want you should stay in here and count to one hundred and you don’ make a sound, you quiet, like a mouse, you get it? An’ I nod to him, and he take me in there and ooh, he make sure I see that knife, an he tell me again Don’ you cry or make any kinda sound or I come back and cut you good, girl, an’ I say No sir, no sir, I be quiet. Because, you know, I’m scared outta my mind, I keep thinking, If he cut me, who’s gonna know? Nobody around, nobody but me…I could bleed to death on the bat’room floor…” And finally this poor girl broke and put her hands to her eyes to rub away the tears. We squirmed in our seats with identification, each of us wondering what we might have done in her situation. “And so he left?” the DA asked her. She nodded. A moment went by, the DA waiting to see if she had any further comment. Finally, he said, “Anything else you remember about him?” She looked at him with her little down-turned, trembling mouth and she said “Well…he was very good-looking.”