(The above photo was taken down in homeboy Phil's basement. Pictured here is Butchie, Ray-Green-Eyes (RIP), Louie, Raymond (Ray's cousin), and Big Joey. )
In 1973 I wasnt doing much of anything. I was a high school drop out and a chronic party animal. I was hanging out everyday with homeboy Ernie. He was my best friend on the planet. Our bond was deeper than any sea. He was divinely meant to be my friend. He was born on October 26th, 1956 at St. Vincent's Hospital, and I was born the next day October 27th, 1956 at St. Vincent's Hopsital. There is a very high probability that we both might have been in the same freaking nursery, maybe beds away from each other. His birthday made for what we called The Birthday Trinity, because my mother was born on October 28th, making for three consecutive birthdays in a row! And, we celebrated that fact every year, mom included.
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(Pictured above is: Ernie, Me and Ali- Bushwick Legends)
Me and Ernie used to hang out all day long, he dropped out of high school too, so I wasn't alone. But, after months of doing nothing all day long and living like this everyday, he got really tired of this lifestyle. One day while we sat in the Enrico Fermi schoolyard, which we both graduated from, he turned to me and said, 'Ace I'm fucking tired of this shit bro. We gotta do something man.' I nodded my head in understanding. He was right, life sucked for us. He then said, 'I'm gonna join the Job Corps bro, fuck this.' I was shocked. Job Corps? But, Ernie was dead serious. He went on, 'We should join up, I can get trained as an auto mechanic and you can go after auto body. We can come back and open a shop.' I thought about it. I said, 'No way bro! They'll send us to another fucking country!' He said, 'No they won't bro. All the Job Corp stations are here in America. Shit, we can go to Hawaii.'
I trusted Ernie with my life. When he got robbed in his teens and stabbed in the leg for his brand new leather jacket, I was at his bedside every fucking day helping him get around. When he was able to ambulate a little with his big ass cast, he used me as his human crutch to get out of his house so he could still hang out on Stanhope. Ernie was my heart, and I was his too. We were inseperable. Whenever you saw me, you saw him and vice versa. The fact that his mother left St. Vincent's with Ernie as a newborn, and my mother leaving the same hospital with me, and then us still winding up living within 200 yards of each other was uncanny! It took a few days of Ernie relentlessly trying to get me to go with him, but I had reservations. Finally, Ernie said, 'Yo Ace, Im going. I looked it all up. I'm getting out of here man.' The way he said it, with all the despair and stress, I finally felt him and agreed to go. I said, 'Okay bro, lets go to fucking Hawaii.' We shook on it.
The next day we signed up for Job Corps. They processed our applications and approved us as qualifying candidates after the battery of aptitude tests. We finally closed the deal. The next day Ernie and I went back to the recruiting office for our plane tickets. The recruiter congratulated us as we walked out the door. We stood outside the office ripping open our envelopes. I said, 'Yeah bro! We're going to fucking Hawaii!' He opened his envelope before I got mine open and scanned his ticket to confirm our destination. As he read the ticket Ernie wasn't smiling. I opened up mines, and read my ticket. I was shocked! My ticket said: Departure-New York and Destination-Salt Lake City Utah! Utah? UTAH? The Mormon State? The dryest state in America? No partying? Ernie said, 'What The Fuck!' At the end of the day, it was gonna be Utah, there was no changing destinations, they sent you where the openings were.
