April 28, 2008--Case Closed
The last I left you, Virgilio Cintron was allegedly dead and his two best friends had him strapped into a computer chair on wheels and were pushing him through the streets of Manhattan's Hell’s Kitchen to the neighborhood Pay-O-Matic check-cashing store where they attempted to cash poor Virgilio's $355 Social Security check.
But their plans were thwarted and they were arrested and brought up on charges of larceny and forgery. The scheme failed because right next to the Pay-O-Matic is a coffee shop and at the counter was a detective having a cup of coffee. Through the window, he later testified, he saw James O’Hare and David Daloia dragging the chair through the streets with Mr. Cintron already showing signs of rigor mortis—he was flopping around in the chair and his feet, in the words of the detective, were “bouncing off the edge of the sidewalk.” The detective recalled thinking to himself, “Well, this is a dead guy,” and so he got up off the stool at the counter and proceeded to arrest O’Hare and Daloia.
Open and shut, right? Not exactly since everything in the Big Apple is more complicated than it seems. In this case—when in fact, beyond a reasonable doubt, did Virgilio Cintron die? Before his friends put him in the chair? While pushing him through the streets? Before getting to the check-cashing store? Or after they slipped the endorsed check to the clerk? If the latter, they walk. If any other time, the judge who tried the case would have to find them guilty.
According to the NY Times, which has been covering every aspect of this case—they have done so I suspect because it is a metaphor for what remains of the forgotten side of the otherwise glittering life that is coming to dominate this once down-and-out neighborhood where West Side Story was set—looking as best she could at all the facts, Judge Evelyn Laporte ruled that O’Hare and Daloia were not guilty because the medical examiner could not determine the exact time of death. All he could swear to was that Cintron was dead for less than 24 hours. Thus, case dismissed. (See linked article.)
How sad, one could understandably feel, that to survive in this town with real estate and other prices still soaring, how sad that a couple of guys have to resort to this kind of hustle in order to just get by.
Well, it appears, when Mr. Cintron was alive the three friends did all they could, including pooling their resources, to make it. They cared for each other and when Cintron sank deeper and deeper into the final stages of Parkinson’s, as he weakened and couldn’t fend for himself, O’Hare and Daloia shared their food with him and nursed him through his last days.
As someone said, “They grew old together. The friendship doesn’t end if one of them is needy.” That’s the real metaphor.
But their plans were thwarted and they were arrested and brought up on charges of larceny and forgery. The scheme failed because right next to the Pay-O-Matic is a coffee shop and at the counter was a detective having a cup of coffee. Through the window, he later testified, he saw James O’Hare and David Daloia dragging the chair through the streets with Mr. Cintron already showing signs of rigor mortis—he was flopping around in the chair and his feet, in the words of the detective, were “bouncing off the edge of the sidewalk.” The detective recalled thinking to himself, “Well, this is a dead guy,” and so he got up off the stool at the counter and proceeded to arrest O’Hare and Daloia.
Open and shut, right? Not exactly since everything in the Big Apple is more complicated than it seems. In this case—when in fact, beyond a reasonable doubt, did Virgilio Cintron die? Before his friends put him in the chair? While pushing him through the streets? Before getting to the check-cashing store? Or after they slipped the endorsed check to the clerk? If the latter, they walk. If any other time, the judge who tried the case would have to find them guilty.
According to the NY Times, which has been covering every aspect of this case—they have done so I suspect because it is a metaphor for what remains of the forgotten side of the otherwise glittering life that is coming to dominate this once down-and-out neighborhood where West Side Story was set—looking as best she could at all the facts, Judge Evelyn Laporte ruled that O’Hare and Daloia were not guilty because the medical examiner could not determine the exact time of death. All he could swear to was that Cintron was dead for less than 24 hours. Thus, case dismissed. (See linked article.)
How sad, one could understandably feel, that to survive in this town with real estate and other prices still soaring, how sad that a couple of guys have to resort to this kind of hustle in order to just get by.
Well, it appears, when Mr. Cintron was alive the three friends did all they could, including pooling their resources, to make it. They cared for each other and when Cintron sank deeper and deeper into the final stages of Parkinson’s, as he weakened and couldn’t fend for himself, O’Hare and Daloia shared their food with him and nursed him through his last days.
As someone said, “They grew old together. The friendship doesn’t end if one of them is needy.” That’s the real metaphor.
posted by Steven Zwerling at
5:57 PM
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