The End of Training and The End of a Life
Although I had been working on my own for several months now, on Sunday, July 9, 1972, I was promoted to a GS-13, FPL (Full Performance Level) ATCS (Air Traffic Control Specialist). As a new journeyman I was now making a little less than $19,000 per year—quite a jump from the measly $7K that I was earning when I was first hired, and four times my salary as an Air Force Staff Sergeant and a shoe salesman. A few days later I began my transition from crew seven to crew four.
My new supervisor was an affable gentleman named Robert (Bob) Wold. He was a large man in his early fifties—probably six-and-a-half feet tall—and without a doubt tipped the scales at well over two-hundred and fifty pounds. A healthy head of snow-white hair sat over a fair, freckled, and red-cheeked face—and although he strained to be soft-spoken, his deep baritone voice, scorched dry by the twenty to thirty unfiltered cigarettes he inhaled each day, tended to boom over the constant chatter of the eighteen to twenty controllers in our area. Like Tom Moore, he’d been a long-time controller at the old San Antonio Center before being transferred and promoted to the newly-built Houston ARTCC. Unlike Tom, he had a reputation for being fair, level-headed, and extremely competent when working the radar position to meet his monthly position currency requirements.
My first full day as a member of crew four happened to fall on a 2PM to 10PM shift, and our first hour was set aside for a weekly team briefing. Bob took the first few minutes to introduce me to the rest of the crewmembers before he got around to briefing us on ATC matters. Because of the way our staffing schedule ran I had worked a day or two a week with most of the guys on this crew, but since I’d been in training during that time with Hillary, no one had bothered to get to know me very well. Now it seemed everyone wanted to know all about me—where I’d been stationed in the Air Force, if I was married, had any kids—but mostly, did I like to fish or water ski. Since most of them lived in Conroe, about twelve miles north of the Center on Interstate 45, and had lake homes, fishing and boating were big weekend activities.
I told them that because I was still working on earning my commercial pilot license, my weekend days were usually spent at David Wayne Hooks Airport. Also, during this time of our lives Kaz and I were still childless so when I was not busy flying, we spent our time together going to movies and restaurants, and shopping for new furniture. We had recently moved from our apartment in Spring Branch after buying a small home much closer to the center, but well south of Conroe. So now, instead of a forty-minute commute to work from Houston’s west side, I drove a leisurely twelve minutes to get to work.
After the team briefing broke up, and some of the controllers hurried to the cafeteria to refill their coffee cups, I strolled slowly into the control room to get my sector assignment for the evening. My old crew was not on duty, so I took my time unraveling my headset and checking the schedule on the supervisors’ desk while waiting for my new crew mates to arrive.
As I stood there, I thought of what Kaz might be doing back at our new house. The last time I worked an evening shift I had gotten home at half-past eleven to find the entire front room’s furniture rearranged. She’d even moved our recently purchased piano from one side of the room to the other. I fondly recalled that when I opened the door that night and took a few steps in, I instantly thought I’d walked into the wrong house.
Reminiscing deeper, my mind raced back to the day we had decided that it was time to move out of our apartment and into a house. Now that I was earning more money, we could easily afford a house payment, and with the GI Bill we didn’t have to worry about a hefty down payment. Further, I was getting awful tired of serving as assistant manager for the apartment complex—a position which, when we first moved in, was very desirable considering the fact that it knocked fifty percent off our monthly rent. The reduced rent was nice but getting calls from helpless tenants at all hours asking to have their sinks unstopped, doors unlocked, and heaters or air conditioners reset quickly got old.
As things turned out, we ended up not using the GI Bill to buy our little three-bedroom ranch when another source of financing was unexpectedly made available. That source had come to us as the result of a tragic and horrific event.
My quickly-darkening thoughts were thankfully interrupted when Bob called my name and motioned me to relieve the radar controller working the Daisetta Arrival radar sector. I pushed all non-ATC thoughts from my mind, plugged my headset into the radio plug, and prepared myself to receive the relief briefing.
***
In early February of 1970, my brother Ricky called me to proudly announce that he had just gotten married.
“What?” I asked, shocked at the news. “What do you mean, you got married?”
“Yup, we did it yesterday. We went to the courthouse and got it done. Cool, huh?” he said, happily.
“Tell me you’re joking,” I said, not believing for a second what he’d just told me. It had to be a joke because to my knowledge he didn’t have a girlfriend.
“No, really. I’m a married man!”
“Bullshit! You broke up with…whatever her name was, a couple of months ago, and you told me you weren’t seeing anyone.”
“Ah…you may be my smart and rich older brother, but I don’t tell you everything, you know.”
“Stop calling me that! You’re such a bullshitter! No way you’re married. Who’d have your ugly ass anyway?”
“Hey honey…” he said, his voice slightly muffled as he covered the receiver. “My brother says no one would marry me ‘cause I’m too ugly. That ain’t the truth, is it?”
“No…” I heard a faraway female voice say. “You’re my handsome man!”
“See?” he said loudly. “I’m her handsome man. So, what do you know?” he asked, laughing.
I chuckled but really didn’t know what to say. Ricky had dated very few girls, and those that he had dated seemed to just be along for a very short ride. Kaz and I had often discussed how Ricky didn’t seem to have much luck with the girls—often being dumped after just a few dates. We thought that maybe he just came on too strong—desperate really—to those girls who finally accepted his offer to go to the movies or go out to eat. It was always the same: after a couple of dates, and after he showered them with unexpected gifts and badgered them with countless phone calls, the girl would suddenly be busy, or wouldn’t answer the phone, or…use just about any excuse she could think of to never see him again.
“OK, so you say you’re married…all right I’ll play your game. What’s her name?”
“Sylvia Reyes! Oh, I mean, Sylvia DeLeon!”
“Sylvia? You never mentioned anyone named Sylvia. When did you guys meet?”
“Oh, maybe a couple of months ago.”
“A couple of months!! That’s it? And, you married her? Are you kidding me?”
“Not kidding. We knew right away that we wanted to get married! But her mother didn’t want us to.”
“Well…no, I guess not!”
“Actually, it worked out good because she was thinking of leaving home anyway. Her parents were giving her a lot of crap. So, I told her that she could just come live with me.”
“So, because she and her parents were having trouble, you married her?”
“Well…no. I mean we love each other, and all that. But it’ll be OK.”
“So now you guys are living in that little apartment you have?” I asked incredulously.
“Hey, it’s big enough for the two of us. We don’t need much.”
***
Ricky graduated from high school in May of 1969, while I was at the Aeronautical Academy in Oklahoma City. Lucky for him and unlike me, my parents let him attend his graduation and actually receive his diploma. Because he’d been held back a year in elementary school due to illness, he was just a couple of months shy of his nineteenth birthday when he graduated. After about six months of jumping from one minimum wage job to another, he landed a fairly good job with a company named Merchants Fast Freight as a dock worker. In short, he was part of a crew who loaded freight onto large tractor trailers from a loading dock. It was hard work, but it paid well and had great benefits. Because he was a new hire, he was assigned to work the four to midnight shift.
My brother had always been a big boy. While I tipped the scales at a little over six pounds at birth, Ricky rumbled in on July 7th, 1950, at a thundering eight pounds, six ounces, complete with a full head of wavy black hair. Because my mom had requested to have her tubes tied after losing yet another baby after my birth, she was shocked when she became pregnant seven years later. So shocked in fact that when she stopped menstruating and began to develop a noticeable bump in her belly in late 1949, she truly believed it was a cancerous stomach tumor. A quick trip to her doctor confirmed that she was indeed pregnant and not on the way to her death bed.
Even so, she remained in complete denial for several months—telling anyone who would listen that the doctor misdiagnosed her condition and so she would soon be dead. My dad’s refusal to allow her to seek a second opinion, saying that they’d already spent enough money on the first diagnosis, sent her into a deep depression and she spent a couple of months crying and staring out the window awaiting her eventual demise. I recall her putting me on her lap, and between sobs telling me that when she died it would become my responsibility to make sure my dad didn’t drink himself to death. Even at the clueless age of eight I knew that no one, short of God, could accomplish that enormous task.
She finally began to accept the obvious when one day she felt the baby move. At first, she assumed that the culprit was a pocket of gas working its way around the tumor, but when my brother delivered a forceful kick, she began to suspect that maybe the growth in her belly could maybe be a viable human being instead of a lifeless cancerous mass. Her last hint was when she felt that first spasm of what would turn out to be a long and violent labor in the maternity ward.
I was left home alone for a couple of days after my father drove my screaming mother to the hospital, but since I was on summer vacation from school I didn’t mind too much. I basically knew how to fend for myself—scouring the cabinets for tins of Vienna sausages and potted meat to put on slightly stale white bread. And when I decided that I should treat myself to dessert I made a trip to Henry’s store next door to buy cookies and a small bottle of milk. Since I had no money, I just asked Henry to put it on my parents’ tab.
About a week or so later, my father drove my mother home with my brother still wrapped in blankets with “Hermann Memorial Hospital” proudly emblazoned on their borders. She asked me to take a peek at my new brother and as I bent over the small bassinet, I saw a dark-skinned lump of a child, wildly kicking, flailing, and gurgling contentedly. As I drew close to get a better look, Richard Marcus DeLeon, delivered a healthy right cross to my nose accompanied by a ripping and very wet sounding fart. That event would mark the beginning of our slightly contentious and mostly distant sibling relationship.
Having been an only child for almost eight years, it was difficult for me to understand, and to have to learn to share what little I had. No amount of complaining to my parents, or Jerry—my make-believe and invisible friend—could change the fact that the few precious toys which I had considered mine were now community property. As the years went by, I was forced to accept that when Ricky wanted something, it was my duty to give it to him. My immature mind could also not comprehend why Ricky was casually allowed to commit the very same transgressions for which I had been severely punished for in the past. The eight-year age difference didn’t help, and as things worked out, the older I got, the further we grew away from each other.
It would not be until many years later that our relationship would begin to be more like what it should’ve been all along. By then, I was a twice married adult.
***
After getting off the phone with my brother, I quickly filled Kaz in.
“Why he get married? Is girl pregnant?” she asked innocently.
“No, I don’t think so. They haven’t known each other that long!”
“Oh…then I don’t understand.”
“Me neither. But I’m wondering if my parents know. I’d better call them now.”
It turned out that Ricky had already called them and let them know. The only reason that they hadn’t called me back was because after his call they were busy getting into a huge argument centering on whose fault it was that he had gone and gotten married.
“Mom, do you know this girl?”
“Me? No, I don’t think so. Well…I mean, yes I met her once, but I don’t know her.”
“Do you know how old she is?”
“Ricky said she was a year younger than him, so she must be eighteen or so.”
“All right, I’ll call him back and get a few more details.”
“Ok, mijito. I just don’t know why he would do this without telling us.”
“Well Mom, you of all people shouldn’t be surprised. He’s always done anything he wanted and always got away with it.”
After a few minutes I called Ricky back and we had a longer and more fruitful conversation. He had first seen Sylvia one day while shopping at a Foley’s Department store. She was working in the cosmetics department and her specialty was piercing ears.
After overcoming an initial wave of fear and shyness, he walked up to her and asked her if she wanted to have lunch. To his surprise, she accepted, and they had their first “date” eating at the Foley’s cafeteria. The rest, as they say, was history.
A week later, we all got together at our parents’ home for a family dinner. Thankfully, my mother didn’t cook because my father decided to make a trip to Lockwood Boulevard in the old Crisol neighborhood and bring home a load of barbecue with all the fixings.
Sylvia turned out to be pretty much what I had expected: eighteen, Mexican-American, dark olive skin, black hair, full lips, and large expressive dark brown eyes. About five-foot-five, she was a tad heavy in the hips but carried herself well enough. Naturally attractive, she would’ve looked better without the heavy Foley’s cosmetics counter make-over, but I assumed her intention was to impress.
Quiet at first, once she warmed to the group, she carried on a bit too much about how she was glad to be out of her house and on her own. Her sisters were greedy, her mom was oppressive, and her dad was a lout. That pretty much summed it up family-wise. She never mentioned if she even loved Ricky. We all parted amicably, but on the way home, both Kaz and I came away with the sense that Sylvia might be using Ricky as a means of escape. I hoped that not to be the case, but I just couldn’t shake the feeling.
***
In early June, a month before Ricky’s twenty-first birthday, he called me. “Hey big brother! How’re you doing?”
“Fine Rick. Just getting ready to go to work. How about you? How’s Sylvia?”
“Oh, we’re OK…you know…married life sometimes sucks.”
“Tell me about it. Everything OK?”
“Well yeah, but you know she just wants this and that all the time. And I keep trying to tell her I don’t make the kind of money my rich brother does. Seems like that’s all we ever fight about—money.”
“Stop that! I don’t make that much. And besides, you don’t want or need the stress that goes along with being a controller.”
“Yeah, I guess that’s true. Anyway, hey, I’m calling to ask you a favor.”
“Sure, what’s up?”
“Well, you know that little car you sold me a couple of months ago?”
“Of course, my little red Toyota Sports 800.”
“Yeah. Well, since Sylvia’s working at Foleys, she drives it all the time and I’ve been getting rides to and from work from a guy who lives close to us and works my shift.”
“Yeah?”
“Anyway, he’s quitting next week and that means I’ll be out of a ride. So, I checked with the credit union at my work and I can qualify for a loan to get a second vehicle, but it has to be a car.”
“OK, so what’s the problem?”
“Well, I don’t want to get a car. I want a motorcycle. For a motorcycle loan, they require a co-signer for the loan ‘cause I’m not twenty-one.”
“You’re thinking of getting a motorcycle? You don’t even have a license, do you?”
“No, but I’ll get one after I get the motorcycle. I just need to practice on it to pass the test.”
“Wait, wait. Instead of getting a car loan you want to get a loan for a motorcycle? Without a license?”
“Yeah, so I already checked and picked out what I want, and the dealer doesn’t care about me not having a license or me not being twenty-one. But the credit union won’t approve a loan until I’m twenty-one. So, I’m calling to ask if you’ll co-sign the loan for me.”
“OK Rick, wait just a minute. Have you asked dad about this?”
“Well…yeah.”
“You talked to him about getting a bike or about co-signing for a loan?”
“Both.”
“And what did he say?”
“He won’t co-sign. He says I shouldn’t have a bike because I’m too crazy and bound to kill myself. He’s never liked the way I drive.”
“So, because he won’t sign you thought to ask me?”
“Yup.”
“Can’t do it Rick. Sorry. First off, I don’t think co-signing a loan for anyone is good business. Too risky. But now you’re asking me to override Dad and go against his wishes.”
“No! I mean…you know. He just doesn’t trust me. No one does.”
“OK, listen. I trust you just fine. It’s just that I won’t go over his head when he’s already refused to co-sign for you. I just won’t do it. Sorry. I will help you out by lending you some money, but I won’t co-sign.”
“Fine, just forget it!” he responded angrily. “I’ll just ride the bus for the next few weeks and wait until next month when I turn twenty-one and do this by myself!”
“Look Rick! Don’t get all pissed about this. It’s just not a good idea all the way around. Won’t you just consider getting a car instead?”
“Nope! My mind’s made up! Thanks for nothing!” The phone clicked off loudly and I was left staring at the receiver.
On July 8, 1971, Ricky pulled up to our apartment in a brand-new Honda six-cylinder cruiser. He was wearing red-white and blue leathers and an American flag helmet. I had to admit that the bike was certainly a fine piece of machinery, but I couldn’t get over the lump of dread weighing heavily in the pit of my stomach. He offered to take me on a short ride and I hesitatingly accepted.
Pulling back into the parking lot, I breathed a sigh of relief because the fifteen-minute drive had been terrifying. Exceeding ninety miles per hour on Interstate 10, I couldn’t wait to get off the bike. As we roared off earlier, I was almost thrown off the passenger seat when Ricky tried to do a wheelie with the more than eight-hundred-pound bike. He leaned the bike sharply, cutting in and out of traffic barely missing front and rear bumpers, and finally cutting across four lanes of traffic to exit the freeway.
I asked him if this was the way he planned to drive to and from work. He laughed and said he was only trying to scare me. He knew how to drive safely, he said. I insisted that he apply for his license as soon as possible, and he assured me he would.
My last view of him was as he roared away, waving to me with his left hand. The back of his leather jacket said, “Born to Ride”.
***
November 30, 1971, 12:30AM. I worked a four to midnight shift and got home around twelve-thirty. Kaz was already in bed, but as per her recent habit, she was still awake, her head buried in the “Getting Your American Citizenship” booklet she’d purchased. After I washed up and dressed in my PJs, I dropped into bed, dead tired.
“How was work?” Kaz asked softly, putting the book down.
“Oh my God, it was so busy.”
“You did OK, right?”
“Oh yeah, I did fine. Piece of cake.”
“OK, good. Goodnight.” She reached for the bedside lamp and turned it off.
“Goodnight.” I rolled over and fell instantly asleep.
At 2:30AM, we were awakened by the shrill sound of the phone ringing.
“Hello…” I struggled to mouth the word.
“Hi Frank?”
“Yes?”
“Hey, this is Sylvia. I’m sorry to call so late, but I was wondering if you’d heard from Ricky?”
“Ricky? No, no I haven’t. Isn’t he home?” I glanced at the clock, struggling to remember that he got off at midnight and should’ve been home over an hour ago.
“No, he isn’t. I’m a little worried.”
“You mean you don’t know where he is? He didn’t call or anything before he got off work?”
“No.”
“Well, maybe he went out with some guys for a beer or something.”
“No, he never does that.”
“Oh, OK.” I thought for a couple of seconds, then dared to ask.
“Did you guys have a fight? I mean like an argument or something like that before he went to work?”
“Well…” A long pause. “Well, yeah. We kinda had a little argument. You know. But I thought we’d try to work it out when he got home tonight. But I just haven’t heard anything. I’m just worried.”
I sat up slowly in bed, hoping that Kaz was still sleeping. “Look, here’s what probably happened. He’s still pissed, and he decided to make you worry by maybe going out with a couple of guys for a couple of hours. I’m sure he’ll be home before you know it. Besides, there’s not much I can do anyway. I don’t know who he hangs out with so I wouldn’t know who to call. So, my advice is, just go back to bed and he’ll be home before you know it.”
“OK, I guess you’re right. Sorry to bother you.”
“No problem. If he’s not home in let’s say a couple of hours call me back. I’ll get dressed and come over. We’ll figure something out. OK?”
“OK, thanks. Bye.”
“Bye.”
Kaz softly asked, “Is Ricky not home?”
“No, but you know how they always fight. They got into an argument before he went to work, and I’ll bet he’s still pissed. He’s probably going to spend the night with a friend and come home when it’s light. He’s just trying to scare her.”
“I hope so.”
“I’m sure. Let’s go back to sleep.”
“OK, goodnight.”
November 30, 1971, 6:47AM.
I heard the phone ringing, but it was so far away. Ring, ring, ring. Then an elbow in my back. “Honey, get the phone!” Kaz’s voice.
“Huh? Oh, yeah.” As I rolled to my left I reached for the phone and looked at the clock.
As I brought the receiver towards me, and before I could say a word…a loud and lingering scream cut the air.
“HE’S DEAD! OH MY GOD FRANK, RICKY’S DEAD!”
***
At the end of his shift, and after a brief conversation with one of his co-workers, Ricky mounted his powerful new Honda cruiser and left work at 12:10AM. He turned left onto Elysian Street and pointed the bike southbound towards his little apartment on Winkler Avenue, about nine miles away. A mile or so down the road he’d cross Lorraine Street and quickly merge left onto Hardy Avenue—and with little or no traffic, or law enforcement to slow him down, should make it home in less than ten minutes.
A little after 6AM, later that morning, a middle-aged black man, walking north to the bus stop at the corner of Elysian and Lorraine, looked to his left into the large open field between Elysian and Hardy Avenue, and spotted an odd and misplaced shiny piece of chrome, glistening brightly through the weeds in the early morning dawning sunshine. His curiosity got the better of him, and since he was a few minutes early anyway, decided to turn off the sidewalk and walk into the knee-high weeds to inspect the mysterious object that he was sure hadn’t been there the day before.
As he walked slowly through the dew-laden foliage he noticed that the closer he got, the more the shimmering piece of metal seemed to resemble some kind of fender. But, he thought, what would a chrome fender be doing out here in the middle of this field? Moreover, his confusion was heightened when he spotted a small tree lying prone on the ground about ten feet in front of him—its slender trunk sheared off about a foot off the ground.
His preoccupation with the tree and the gleaming chrome object was suddenly interrupted as a splash of bright colors caught his eye just off to his left. He turned his head quickly and squinted trying to make sense of what it was that had caught his attention. As his mind struggled to comprehend the horrific carnage that his eyes were seeing, a strong odor of raw gasoline overwhelmed his senses and he fought to suppress a rapidly rising wave of nausea.
Questions and the Aftermath
Sylvia’s phone call early that morning was confusing and unsettling, and because of her hysterical mental state she was only able to answer a few of my many questions. What she was able to tell me clearly was that she had just received a call from someone at the Houston Police Department informing her that they had received information of the discovery of a body with her husband’s driver’s license and other identifying documents. She had also been told that there was a wrecked motorcycle near the body.
The officer also informed her that officers at the scene had found papers stored in the saddle bags of the motorcycle containing a home address and this phone number. He had been asked by the officers at the scene to call that number to determine if a certain Richard M. DeLeon was presently at home and if he owned a motorcycle.
“Well Sylvia,” I said, trying to sound as calm as I could. “It doesn’t mean that that’s Ricky, right? I mean, he could’ve lent the bike to one of his friends, don’t you think?’
“Nooooo!” she screamed back at me. “The policeman told me that the person was wearing a red, white and blue leather jacket, and that that the helmet, or what was left of it, was in the design of the American flag. OH MY GOD!!” And she broke down into a series of screams and sobs.
“Sylvia, Sylvia…listen to me. Did the officer give you a phone number for you to call back?”
“NO!! I just hung up right away and called your mom!!”
“Oh God! You called my mom already?”
“Yes! But I had to hang up because I think she fainted. I heard the phone hit the floor and she wouldn’t answer me anymore. So, then I called you!”
“Oh Jesus!” I gasped. “OK, let me make a few phone calls. I need to get in touch with the police department and get to the bottom of this. They shouldn’t have called you requesting information on somebody they found hurt. I’ll call you back as soon as I get some more information.” The phone went dead before I was able to finish the sentence.
I turned and saw Kaz wearing a look of terror—her hands on each side of her face. “Is your bro…Ricky, dead?”
“Lord, I don’t know for sure. I’ve got to call mom first and see if she’s OK. Sylvia said she thought she fainted.”
“Oh no…”
I dialed mom’s number, but the line was busy. “Well, she’s not answering. I’m gonna try to call the police department.”
“OK,” Kaz said. “Want me to get you something?”
“No…well, yes. Do you know where the phone book is? I need to find the number for the cops.”
“Sure, I get it for you.” She jumped out of bed and ran into the kitchen. Just then, the phone rang. It was mom.
She was almost as hysterical as Sylvia, and my main concern was her present welfare.
“Mom! First of all, we don’t know that it’s Ricky that’s been hurt, OK? I need to call the police to get more information. But for now, I need to know if you’re OK! Sylvia thought you may have fainted.”
Between sobs and praying to Jesus, she told me that when she heard Sylvia telling her Ricky was dead, she’d dropped the phone. From then on, she’d been trying to call me. “I know mom, I was on the phone with Sylvia when you were probably trying to call. Are you sure you’re OK?”
“Si, mijito. Please ask God not to let it be my Ricky. Please, please pray to Jesus. I know He wouldn’t take my son away from me.”
“Sure mom, but for now please just try to calm yourself a little bit. I’m calling the police right now.”
“OK, mijito. Ay Dios mío!”
“I love you, mom. And, as soon as I know anything, I’ll let you know.”
Within a few minutes I had called the Houston Police Department and verified that it had indeed been Ricky whose body they’d found. I didn’t have the heart to call my mother back. I just needed some time to gather myself.
***
Over the next thirty-six hours I had gathered all the information that I needed. Although Sylvia had been re-contacted by the medical examiner and asked to go to the morgue to identify Ricky, I asked to accompany her. Since she was legally Ricky’s next of kin, she was escorted into the room where his body lay. As she entered the room, I was approached by one of the medical examiner’s assistants.
“I understand he’s your brother,” the young red-haired man in a crisp white lab coat whispered as he softly shook my hand.
“Yes,” I answered, trying to control my emotions. “It was just us two.”
“My sincere condolences on your loss.” He said, quietly. “If you want to go in to view the body, I can escort you in.”
Before I had a chance to answer, he quickly said, “But really, you don’t want to see your brother in that condition. It’s bad enough that his wife has to make the ID.”
“Oh?”
“Look, we were required to do an autopsy due to the circumstances, and although I just assisted, Doctor Cullen said that he’d never seen such damage to a body.”
“Oh God.”
“Look, it might help if I tell you, he never knew what hit him. He must’ve been going over a hundred miles an hour when he lost control of his bike—and quite frankly, it was over for him in half a second. His chest and stomach contacted the handlebars while at the same time his head hit a metal sign pole. Besides a fractured skull, his entire mid-section was instantly crushed.”
“Lord. How could he lose control? Wasn’t he going straight on the street?”
“He was in the center lane of Elysian—it’s a three-lane one-way street. Just as he crossed Lorraine Street, Elysian makes a sharp left curve to rejoin Hardy Avenue. He was just going too fast to make the curve and it looks like after he applied the brake the bike just slid full speed and straight into the curb. When the bike’s front wheel hit the curb, the front section of the bike folded up as his body went forward. At that point his head contacted a “No Parking” sign and his helmet failed. He and the bike tumbled into a vacant lot and he came to rest after about three hundred feet.”
I felt woozy and thought I might want to throw up.
“I’m sorry…here, let me get you a chair,” he said, as he gently guided me to a small metal chair in the darkened waiting room. “There you go. Want some water?”
“No, I think I’m OK. It’s just…a bit much to hear right now.”
“I’m sorry. I just thought someone should know how he died. We normally don’t tell the wife or mother details, and later on they usually call to ask if their loved one suffered, or things like that. Someone from the family should know so they can share what they feel they need to at a later date. Helps with closure.”
“I understand.”
I heard a loud scream coming from the closed door with the sign that said, “Viewing Room”, and knew Sylvia had just seen my brother.
***
My brother was buried at Forest Park Cemetery, on the second of December 1971. The burial service was held at Iglesia Bethel, in the Magnolia Gardens neighborhood of Houston, where Ricky’s casket remained closed.
My parents were devastated, but I was especially concerned with my mother’s mental state. She was inconsolable and told anyone who would listen that Ricky had already appeared to her several times and told her that he was now living in Heaven and walking with Jesus. “He told me he would be there waiting for me. So, I know I will be dying very soon and joining my son.” She would then swoon and go to her knees. In my grief, I was worried sick about her and the condition she was in.
Sylvia, on the other hand—after an initial show of bitter grief at the funeral—perked up remarkably. Within a couple of days of the burial she called me, telling me she wanted to meet and discuss the intricacies of the life insurance policy they’d taken out on each other’s lives after they were married.
“Basically, I need to know what this ‘double-indemnity’ clause is,” she asked me, over a cup of coffee at our apartment.
After reading over the document I said, “Well, the policy is written for thirty thousand dollars, but the double indemnity clause means that if death occurs due to an accident, the payout doubles.”
“That’s what my father told me too. But I didn’t believe him because he’s not too smart.”
“Well, he was right.”
“So then, I’m gonna get sixty thousand dollars instead of thirty?”
“I would verify that with the insurance agent you bought the policy from, but usually that’s what it means.”
“Oh! Then I can do whatever I want with the money?”
“I would assume so. But you’ll have to pay the Crespo Funeral Home what it cost for the funeral, don’t you? I’m assuming they extended their services pending the insurance payout. Did they ask you about life insurance?”
“Yes, and they wanted a copy of the policy.”
“OK, so after those expenses, what’s left is yours.”
“Oh, good.”
***
Over the next few weeks Sylvia stayed in close contact with me asking advice on several issues concerning the insurance payout. I thought her behavior was coarse and insulting but tried to give her the best advice I could. For example, I suggested that maybe she should take the majority of the payout and invest it for the future—going so far as to make inquiries for her of several investment counselors in the area.
Mostly, she sidestepped my advice and instead peppered me with questions about what kind of car she should buy. I told her the little Toyota I’d sold to them was still pretty good transportation, and she was quick to tell me she was planning to get rid of the car because it was too small and didn’t have enough power. I offered to buy it back, but she insisted she was going to give it to one of her brothers instead. I suggested that a little Volkswagen Beetle might serve her needs at this time—plus it was inexpensive to buy and operate and should last her a long time. She huffed and said she had some other cars in mind.
Within two months she purchased a brand new 1971 Mercury Cougar and furnished her apartment with new furniture. She invited Kaz and me to dinner one evening to show off her new purchases, and we were more shocked than impressed when we walked into the little apartment on Winkler Avenue. The whole one-bedroom apartment was no bigger than five-hundred square feet, but into that space she had managed to stuff an inordinate amount of gaudy oversized furniture.
In the front room, not bigger than twelve by fifteen feet she had managed to shoe-horn in a gaudy purple faux leather couch and a humungous oval coffee table whose thick glass top was supported by a heavy, shiny gold-tone Arabian-themed metal base. One had to sit sideways on the couch because of the lack of legroom between the couch and table.
Almost completely covering the entire wall behind the couch, from the ceiling down to the backrest hung a giant brass-framed painting of a squirming Elvis Presley brush-painted on thick black velvet. I was sure when the two gaudy black and pearl five-foot-tall floor lamps, wedged into the two available corners of the living room were turned off for night, Elvis and his white suit and silver guitar would glow on in lifelike iridescence.
The bedroom was equally terrifying: a California king-sized bed—complete with canopy and footboard—was jammed into the tiny room, leaving scant room to even walk around between it and the wall. If one left the bathroom door open it would be most convenient to just roll off one side of the bed and sit up on the commode.
“So, what do you guys think? I got this stuff at Finger’s Furniture Center last week.”
Luckily, Kaz managed to summon a few Oh’s and Ah’s, because all I could come up with was, “Interesting…I mean it’s nice.”
After we left, I complained to Kaz that the way things were going Sylvia would probably burn through the insurance money in less than a year.
“Yeah,” she said. “I wish there was something we could do to help her not spend money like that.” As we pulled into the parking area of our apartment and walked up the squeaky stairs to our door, an idea popped into my head.
“You know, since she won’t take any advice on investing the money in stocks or bonds, maybe I can suggest a more personal way for her to invest.”
“How?” Kaz asked quizzically.
***
It took a bit of convincing, but with the help of a real estate attorney, a title company, and a little arm-twisting, I convinced Sylvia that if she invested twenty thousand dollars of my brother’s insurance money into a twenty-thee-hundred-foot, three bedroom house, in a cozy little neighborhood just south of the Intercontinental Airport (now George Bush International), she would be guaranteed a steady monthly income for twenty years. And who better to make sure that the investment was not only safe, but would be sure to grow in value? None other than her brother-in-law and his wife?
So, in early 1972, Kaz and I moved into that little home secure in the thought that at least one-third of my brother’s insurance proceeds would not just disappear.
To be continued…