Rehumanized

Toen ik vandaag na de bib ging met Maggi stootte ik op een aantal Paul Simon cd's die ik nog niet in mijn collectie had...
Nu ik net die cd's ging beluisteren kwam ik bij een verhaaltje van Paul Simon terecht waarop hij een hele cd heeft gebaseerd.

The Story Of The Capeman

comes from a sensational 1959 news story in New York City. Late on the nigth of August 30 that year, a teenage gang from the upper West Side called the Vampires went searching for the Norsemen, an Irish gang from Hell's Kitchen. They came upon a group of teenagers who weren't affiliated with any gang, but happened to be in the wrong place at the wrong time. During the rumble, 16-year old Salvador Agron stabbed to death two of these bystanders and fled. He was described by the other kids in the park as a tall Puerto Rican kid, wearing a black cape with a red lining---hence the name "The Capeman". His associate, Tony Hernandez, who allegedly wielded an umbrella during the fight, became known as "The umbrella man".

When Agron was arrested a few days later, he apparantly showed no remorse. "I don't care if I burn", he said. "My mother could watch me". To many New Yorkers, Agron became a symbol of evil, a symbol of a society falling apart, and he was sentenced to die in the electric chair. At 16, he became the youngest person ever sentenced to death in New York state.

Agron's sentence was commuted by Governor Rockefeller after prominent citizens, including Eleanor Roosevelt, made a plea for clemency on Agron's part. The cited the poverty of his existence --not just the dire economic straits of his family, but also emotional immpoverishment.

Salvador Agron was born on April 24, 1943 in Mayagüez, Puerto Rico, and grew up with his sister Aurea in the local poorhouse known as Asilo de Pobres, where his mother worked for eight dollars a week. He developed a reputation there for throwing temper tantrums and wetting his bed. By the time he left Puerto Rico he had the equivalent of one year of schooling.

When Sal's mother mother remarried, the family moved to New York City where Sal had an equally difficult time at school and was taunted by the other children. He was eventually sent to an institution for disturbed boys, and later to Wiltwyck reformatory. He later spoke of hearing voices and seeing demons in his room.

Run out of Brooklyn by an Italian gang called the Sand Street Angels, Sal moved to Manhattan where his sister was living, and fell in with the Vampires on the upper West Side. The Mexican dagger he used to kill his two victims had been borrowed from another boy.

Salvador Agron ended up serving 20 years in prison and was released in 1979. He was described as a model prisoner: he learned to write poetry, became something of a polical activist and never again committed a violent act.

He was what the system would describe as "rehabilitated", or what he described as "rehumanized", but nonetheless remained identified in the public imagination as "The Capeman". He died in the Bronx on April 22, 1986 of natural causes. He was 43 years old.

-- Paul Simon --