Bronx Boy — A Novel (Part Twelve): ‘Midnight’

Demonstrators at the July 1964 Harlem Riots in Upper Manhattan (Photo: Wikipedia)

“¡Coño, carajo! Come mierda!” Papi shouted at the wall. Sonny labeled his father’s favorite swear words “The Unholy Trinity.” They stood for “fuck,” “prick,” and “eat shit,” with multiple permutations in between; what the well-versed street brawler on the paradisaical Isle of Enchantment commonly referred to as their “first line of offense.”

       More pertinently, Papi was upset. Of that Sonny was more than aware. Upset? Heck, he was livid and red-faced with rage. Especially after he heard about his eldest offspring Sonny’s head-on collision with and near devouring by the Beast of the Basement.

       “I’m gonna call on the cops, tell ‘em about that freaking mutt,” Papi growled  between clenched teeth. “That dog is a menace! It got to go!” Papi swore up, down and sideways, divine retribution filling the sticky air. He rained down a flurry of recriminations against Benny the superintendent and on his snot-nosed, know-it-all junior edition of himself, el hijo Benjamin.   

       “Papi, no!” cried Mami loudly. “¡No hace esso! ¡Calmate, por favor! Or you gonna get in trouble!”

       “Trouble? What trouble I gonna get? I not the one in trouble, is that freaking dog and his freaking owner! They the ones in big trouble, ‘cause they gonna be dealing with the cops!”

       It was obvious to anyone within earshot of Papi’s vociferous, invective-filled tirade that he was swearing a blood oath – in view of his own streetwise backdrop, not something to be taken lightly.

       “Don’t swear, Juan José,” Mami shouted from across the room. “Don’t do that! ‘Cause when you swear, you gotta keep your word. And those are no kinda words for you to keep!”

       Mami knew that her husband was hot-headed by nature. That Papi’s first instinct was to bring matters to a boil before they had a chance to simmer. If she could only turn down the heat inside Papi’s cranium, that would be considered a major accomplishment. Still, Mami felt there was a natural enmity between her husband and the surly superintendent. She called it “mutual male rivalry” or “macho posturing.” Either way, Mami’s instincts told her they were in for a very rough ride.

But in Papi’s mind, he wasn’t going to be the one to set things straight. Nope. Not him, no way, no how. Papi may have been loud, but he was no fool. That task belonged to the formidable presence of Police Office Jameson Emile Brown, the local cop on the beat assigned to the Soundview district of the South-Central Bronx unit. Officer Brown, a no-nonsense, by-the-book veteran of the urban street scene, had a checkered background and enviable reputation to match. Varied would be a more appropriate description.

       The kids in the street, however, had a better term for him: they called him “Midnight.”

       Yes, Officer Brown had a reputation alright, one that was based exclusively on his serious, strictly business, take-no-crap manner and dark complexion. It was so dark that, at night, the only visible aspect of his persona were his brilliantly shiny white teeth, hence the descriptive epithet of “Midnight.” That’s saying whether or not Officer Brown bothered to smile at all at the infinite number of perpetrators apprehended while he was on patrol.

Black New York City police officer making phone call, ca. 1960s (Photo: Superstock)

       Most times, Police Officer Brown kept strictly to himself, his manner stern and off-putting, but polite and attentive to those in need. Generally speaking, Brown was all business when the situation called for it, but managed to “loosen up” with the locals, as the term was used back then, when there was trouble. And there was plenty of it to go around. In sum, Brown did not have at his disposal that stereotypical television good cop/bad cop disposition, but rather a battle-hardened sheen used to the big city blight of such places as Chicago and Detroit.   

       “Midnight,” as he was known on the street, grew up in Crown Heights, Brooklyn, but managed with his family’s help to make it past high school, graduating with honors from Brooklyn Tech in Fort Greene and on to Brooklyn College in the Flatbush section of the borough. Through a close family friend, Brown landed a job as a dispatcher with the then-prominent Mayflower Trucking Company. Trained at their Indianapolis headquarters, Brown rose steadily in the ranks. On one of his frequent forays into New York City, Brown fell in love with the upper Manhattan area and instantly asked for a transfer – the scuttlebutt being that he had caught the eye of an attractive young lady named Keisha, who was of mixed West African and West Indian blood. Not wanting to lose such a reliable employee (while, at the same time, offering to pay for his relocation), the Mayflower bosses consented to the transfer.

       Within a few years of the move, Brown’s ambition had expanded beyond trucking to the local police force (thanks to word of mouth and his wife Keisha’s political connections). Remarkably, in a short time Brown found himself pounding the beat along Amsterdam Avenue and West 155^th Street in Harlem, the very spot he had grown to admire. Not that policing was in his blood by birth. But Officer Brown seemed to recall hearing about relatives who once served on the force with distinction. How could Brown lose, especially with a family background such as his?

       Indeed, more kind words would follow from another of his wife’s influential connections, those of a smartly dressed, silver-tongued politician of the Harlem district named Adam Clayton Powell Jr., who became instrumental in enticing Police Officer Brown to assist with the Soundview district.

A good thing, too, for during the sweltering summer of 1964, in mid-July, one of the trigger-happy police officers had gotten into a tussle with a Black teenager from the South Bronx, who by sheer coincidence and misfortune had ventured to the environs of Harlem to visit friends. Mutual slurs and curse words, thrown back and forth and at several participants, led to the teenager’s death, which then turned into a week-long riot that spread quickly to become heated demonstrations from Harlem and the Bronx, all the way down to Bedford-Stuyvesant in Brooklyn.           

Herman Badillo, Bronx Borough President (left, with microphone) speaking to constituents

       To calm the situation down in his district, the Bronx Borough President at the time, Puerto Rican-born Representative Herman Badillo, called on Police Commissioner Michael J. Murphy, who referred Mr. Badillo to a friend and fellow Democrat, Congressman Adam Clayton Powell Jr., to send over policemen with Black and/or Hispanic credentials (the shooter, in the incident described above, happened to have been a white police officer).

       Without hesitation, Congressman Powell rang up Captain Ryan, the ranking individual in charge of Police Officer Brown’s Harlem district, to head up a team of mixed-race officers that would be charged with calming the Soundview district down.

       “I hear tell your Officer Brown has a ‘way’ with the folks in our neighborhood,” Powell commented to Captain Ryan on the phone. “We need more officers such as him to, um, lighten the load our brothers in the South Bronx have been forced to carry of late.”

       “I appreciate that, Congressman,” Captain Ryan responded warily. He knew full well the impact Powell’s verbal acuity could have on one’s frame of mind. “I don’t know if I can spare him…”  

       “These are troubling times,” interrupted Powell, trying to sound as respectful as he could, under the circumstances, in persuading a skeptical Captain Ryan to approve Officer Jameson Emile Brown and others’ transfer to the Soundview Station House. “We are burdened beyond measure,” Powell went on, “by what is going on in our streets. And, as you are well aware, Captain Ryan, you yourself have praised Officer Brown to High Heaven. That’s the sort of ‘can-do’ spirit our brother in arms, Mr. Badillo – and I, of course – are looking for.”

       Pause for effect, Powell told himself.  

       “This transfer, along with a few others,” Powell added under his breath, “will go a long way toward alleviating the situation we have been handed. We trust you will understand the necessity for swift action in this regard. May I count on your cooperation?”

       There were but a handful of individuals who could resist such florid oratory.

       “I will do my best, sir.” And, indeed, a frustrated and flustered Captain Ryan complied with Mr. Adam Clayton Powell Jr.’s request to transfer Officer Jameson Emile Brown, in addition to several other of his fellow officers, from the Harlem beat to the Soundview area in the South-Central Bronx.

At the time, police officers of color were not exactly the norm. Rare birds indeed, not likely to be found near the sensitive core of the Big Apple, they were not so rare as to be undetectable. It helped to have people in key places, to pull what few strings were accessible to them back then and fill whatever spots needed filling. This was a matter of course and of routine.

       When word of the successful transfer reached Herman Badillo’s office, he had one of his aides place a call to Mr. Powell to thank him, as part of the routine, for his efforts. It was the least that Badillo could do under the circumstances, but it was never enough to suit the cagey Mr. Powell, who had needs of his own. And a respectable position in the community to uphold.

Congressman Adam Clayton Powell Jr., (right) in Harlem, ca. 1960s

       “Please put the Borough Representative on the line, if you would be…so…kind,” Mr. Powell requested of the aide in his lugubrious, overly gracious manner. The aide did as he was told. How could he not?

       “Excuse the interruption, sir, but Mr. Powell would like to speak with you directly.”

       Badillo looked up from his desk. “What does he want?”

       “It’s about the transfer.”

       Badillo thought for a moment. “Okay. Put him through.”

       The aide forwarded the call to Badillo’s office. Badillo closed the door before picking up the receiver.

       “Adam, how are you? How’s the family?”

       “All well and good, señor! And yours?” Powell answered loudly, as was his wont.

       “They’re well, thank you. What can I do for you?”

       “Just calling in a favor, my friend.”

       “A favor?”

       “Exactly. I scratched your back, now you can scratch mine!”

       “How’s that work, Adam?” Badillo was not puzzled at all by Mr. Powell’s request. Knowing the Congressman as he did and well aware of Powell’s propensity for getting what he wanted when he wanted it, Badillo had anticipated his call. Still, he liked to play dumb, part of the game that politicians were prone to play to test one another’s patience and resolve.

       “My district is now short a few cops on the beat. After all, I gave up my best and brightest to serve your constituents’ needs. I believe that now you need to serve mine.”

       “Is that a fact?” At this point, Badillo knew he was being stroked by Powell’s bow on the fiddle of political life. The devil himself would have kowtowed to this master musician! A manipulator par excellence.

       “You owe me, Hermie baby! Oh, yeah! Big time!” Chuckling under his breath, Powell waited for Badillo’s response – the kind he anticipated would be forthcoming, regardless of his jocular mood.

       “Alright. You got it, Adam. I’ll speak to the Captain of the Riverdale Station and have them arrange a tradeoff. That should even the score.”

       “Hah! You’re a man after my own Black heart!” Powell shouted triumphantly into the receiver.

       “And you can kiss my Puerto Rican behind while you’re at it!” came Badillo’s expected response.

       Powell was not in the least offended by Badillo’s comeback. They were both old pros at screwing each other behind their respective backs. “My people will call your people to set it up. Muchas gracias, a-mi-go!” Powell chuckled some more and hung up.

(To be continued…)

Copyright © 2024 by Josmar F. Lopes