Gregory Pereira - That Magic Feeling

 

My mother was a big Beatles fan. She loved the Beatles. And I ended up loving the Beatles, because my mother loved the Beatles. She would buy all these different beautiful records and we would have posters on the wall, Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band, all you need is love. I felt that sensation of happiness. I remember my mother and I just dancing and dancing to these Beatles songs, and I felt filled with love. And for me, that was a great sense of family. 

 

Within a few years, shortly thereafter, it seemed like my community in the South Bronx was hit with a tidal wave of heroin. And in that devastation, people were caught up. And my mother was one of the ones caught up in this typhoon tidal wave of heroin. She lost her ability to parent. My father there had moved to the West Coast.

 

And in my search for family, because was left to my own devices, 10 years old, 11 years old, pain attracts pain. I gravitated to that street life. And at that time, they were indoctrinating young kids into the gangs. I remember my father talking about being in a gang when he was younger. My mother started dating somebody who was in the Hell's Angels. So, that life was there for me to embrace. 

 

I remember wearing cut off sleeves, jeans, MC boots, chains, patches, colors. And people would die for these colors. I found a brotherhood. I looked for older men to mentor me to be my brothers. And I found guys like Apache, Wild Child, Crazy Mike, Crazy Phil. These guys became my protectors and my brothers, and they showed me the ropes. 

 

I remember us just hanging out, wearing bandanas, putting them on, standing in the park. You had to look like a warrior. You had to look like the Terminator. [audience laughter] No feeling until we got drunk. [audience laughter] That lasted for quite a number of years. 

 

Well, my mother and my grandfather, they didn't want me in this lifestyle any longer and they sent me to live in the West Coast with my father. In California, I went to East Los Angeles. It was like the frying pans of the fire. [audience laughter] Because gangs were generational over there. There was great grandfathers, grandfathers, fathers, brothers, sisters, mothers, cousins. And I had to be accepted and I had to do what they did. 

 

They used to wear these shiny shoes called Imperials, iron your khakis, iron your T-shirt, or put your T-shirt over your arm and another bandana. [audience laughter] And you always kept it low and you kept your eyes sharp. You were both predator and prey. And you looked fierce. You had to. Otherwise, you were a victim. My father said, “No, back to New York, you go.” So, back to New York I went. My mother and my stepfather, both intoxicated, forgot which airport I was going to land at. I had to find my way back into the city and back into pain, because pain attracts pain. The gang in life one more time, back with the cutoff sleeves, the long T-shirt, and the headband. 

 

I did that for some time. I felt a brotherhood, but then I felt a betrayal, like I've never known before. They left me for dead. There was a Beatles song when I was growing up that reminded me of family. It was a line inside that Beatles song, that magic feeling. And I had that with my mother. I had that with the gang life, the culture. I had that for a little while. But that magic feeling was no longer there and nowhere to go. 

 

Alcohol and drugs became my new friends. And that lasted for quite some time. But what happened was I ended up finally, I guess, through the big guy upstairs, changed my life. I hit bottom, and it turned some stuff around for me and I ended up. I ended up even going back to school. I ended up with two different degrees. And with that, I taught gang awareness and prevention, substance abuse prevention, HIV prevention. 

 

I was transformed, but didn't have that sense of family. I had some stuff, but not family. But in my office one day, there was this girl who came in. She was smiling, she was beaming, she lit up a room. [audience laughter] When she came, that smile was there. When she was leaving, my head bobbed left and right with her. [audience laughter] She used to come into my office to borrow a stapler, tape and folders. I would see her walk out, and I could look at her desk and she had a stapler, tape, and folders. [audience laughter]

 

So, from our talking, we got to walk. She was very athletic, and she used to love to walk. So, I used to walk her home or close to home. So, we started walking for about two, three weeks we were walking, and she would always tell me after about two miles, 

“Okay, I'm going to leave you here.” And I was like, “Maybe she's doing me the favor.” She has a lot more to go. But after two more times like this, I got very curious like, “Why isn't she allowing me to walk her home?” 

 

Well, the following day, we must have had this psychic connection. It was the heart of February, was freezing out and there was sun glaring on the snow that was still on the floor. I was breathing smoke out of my nose and I had these sunglasses on. She stops and she says, “Listen, I got to tell you something. I got to show you something.” And she whips out these two pictures and. These two pictures, and I'm cold, I'm trembling and I'm counting heads, “Two, four, five, seven, seven heads.” And she says, “These are my children.” I said, “Man, she couldn't put them one picture.” [audience laughter] 

 

And she said, “Are you okay with that?” Now, I had a son of my own. I wasn't a good parent. I don't know, do this. I'm still finding my way. Anyway, we left, and I figured out why she didn't allow me to walk home. She was really trying to protect her children from whom they meet. 

 

Well, we talked the next day at work, and I was contemplating and I asked my friend Ronald, “What do you think?” And he says, “Well, she's very pretty. Do you think you can handle it? Check yourself.” And I said, “Okay.” I get this phone call from her, and I'm home ironing clothes. I got used to ironing my stuff. And I'm thinking about, I can't do this. It was nice knowing her. But when we talked in the background, there was such laughter, laughter I've never heard before. I remember dancing with my mother, and that was the last time we ever danced in 1967. We never danced again. And that magic feeling was dead. 

 

I heard all that beautiful laughter in the background. I said, “Wow, maybe there's something there for me too.” And she says, “Are we still going out on a date?” I was very thrilled because of the laughter in the background. Anyway, we go on a date and she says, “I'm going to set up a time for you to meet my children.” “Okay. Well, we'll work that out. Okay.” 

 

So, the kids had another way of meeting me, because at my job, one of my co-workers came, ghost face and scared and said, “Listen, there's some thugs outside waiting for you.” [audience laughter] And I said, “Who?” And I confront stuff. So, I went outside, and there was these two young men across the street in the park, one with his hat cocked to the side. He was about 18 years old. 

 

The other one had a headband down low with a pit bull stare. And the older one called me over. And when he called me over, so I said, “What's up?” And he says, “What's your intention for our mother?” [audience laughter] I said, “Your mother? Who's your mother?” [audience laughter] I didn't recognize him from the picture. And they said that they wanted to check me out. 

 

After a small conversation, the older one, he was a seasoned veteran for being 17, he was a seasoned-- And I knew that life. He called the younger one over, and the younger one did that bop towards him, eyeballing me. And the older one told the younger one something. And the younger one, as they were walking away, the younger one glared back at me and he smiled. He winked his eye like everything's all right. And that magic feeling started to emerge, because they became my angels with dirty faces. That's how I felt growing up. And that was my modern family. So, we've been together now 19 years.