My life changed forever on a sunny spring morning in Brooklyn. As I parked my car on a tree-lined street in the Bedford-Sergeant section, I had no idea what was awaiting me.
What cop does when he begins a tour of duty?
I joined the New York Police Department as a police trainee about a year and a half out of high school. I graduated from Erasmus Hall High School in Brooklyn, and was appointed a police officer on my twenty-first birthday.
Fast forward to the morning of April 4, 1974. My assignment since 1972 was the undercover unit of the Narcotics Division, Brooklyn South. Although this was not a routine drug buy because of its size–a half kilo of cocaine at $13,500–I thought it would go smoothly as I had already made almost two hundred buys and I felt my backup team and the men I worked with were the best. Besides, I was invincible–and twenty-four years old.
I pulled my car into a spot around the corner from the location, an apartment house. The weather was springlike, warm, sunny, and calm. I was armed with a.22 Magnum Derringer loaded with two-shot longs. As I made my way down the street I knew there was a two-man team photographing me from a van somewhere near the entranceway to the building. The tape was running and caught all the sounds–my footsteps, my breathing, kids playing jump rope. Another team or two was riding around in cars covering me as best they could while maintaining a safe distance so as not to be spotted by lookouts. I was alone, just me, the tape, a triple beam-balance scale, and my balls. I entered the lobby, rang, was buzzed in.
I whispered into a small mike taped to my chest as I approached the elevator: "Today's date is April 4, 1974, 11:30 a.m." A pause: "April 4, 11:30 a.m."
Later, when we listened to the tape, we heard all sorts of eerie noises, footsteps, motors, doors slamming from the elevator, clothing rubbing against the mike. As I stepped out onto the third floor, I began walking a long hallway, tiled floors, cement painted walls. I spotted the door leading to the stairwell, which was slightly open. I looked closer and saw a foot, a leather boot, between the door and the brick. Suddenly the door flew open. Out jumped a man in a black patent leather jacket, collar up, wielding a.357 Magnum Western Ruger, six-inch barrel revolver, with a blue ski mask wrapped around his hands. We were two or three feet apart, he in a semi-combat stance, both hands gripping the revolver pointed at my face: "Gimme the money."
I put my hands in the air and tried to stay calm. "All right. OK. Take it easy." I threw the money down.
"All of it," he growled.
"OK, take it easy. Don't panic."
"Way to go, motherfucker."
Boom. Blast. Deafening, reverberating sounds and flame. Smoke, red and yellow, flew at my face. There was a large smoke ring forming around him, growing larger, like the old Camel sign on Broadway and 44th Street. I saw myself standing as a rookie in my new blue uniform. I smelled my fresh new leather gun belt. I saw myself as a boy playing. I jumped, leapt on top of him, and went unconscious. Next thing I remember, I was on all fours. I jumped up, looking for him, and ran away howling, heaving blood and spit and grunting down the long hall as I pulled out my gun. There he is. He turned to fire at me before dashing into the stairwell. I regrouped somehow, saw my shoe and heels lying down the hall. I thought, How'd they come off my shoes? Blood came shooting into my throat, salty and choking me. I thought, I'm shot bad. There's a pain in my right chest. I know I'm shot bad. Fear, anger, hurt, and embarrassment all engulfed my mind. I gotta get outta here. I started toward that stairwell. My legs stiffened as I ran down the metal steps. I knew he could be close by but I was too wounded to care. I was on autopilot, half conscious, in shock, with my gun leading the way. My youth, my life, were like the large drops of blood filling my shoes, leaving a trail on the landings and steps. My past was leaking out of me, the years I spent growing up as a kid in an Italian family, all the Christmases at Grandma's house, fun, family, love, playing in the snow with my brother, sleds, years upstate in the apple orchards of the Hudson Valley, rock 'n' roll shows at the Brooklyn Fox, girlfriends, my mom and dad–all pouring out of me in a stream of blood, my promising career issuing in a pool of blood.
Everything turned white, all bright white light, and I was floating. The legs that ran three miles a day were carrying a dead man. When I reached the end of my journey from the third floor out onto the street I fired two shots like a robot walking. Several narcs finally approached me.
Mike Falco, a backup officer shouted, "Angie, Baby, you all right? Ya shot? Oh, shit, take it easy, take it easy, Babe. Lie down, Ang. I'm gonna lay you down." He spoke to me as if I was a person he loved dearly.
I had sustained chest and back wounds, burns to my face, muzzle-flash gunpowder, and loss of hearing. I am now a single dad with a fifteen-year-old daughter. I'm still a wayfarer seeking my dreams.
I never did find out what happened to Mike Falco after he left the job. I miss him. I want to ask him how he is. I have spent thirty-six years trying to regroup. Everything changed. Maybe someday I'll make sense of it.