Bridge Out Of Brooklyn

Our Hero

The U.S. Marine Corps has a saying: "Once a Marine, always a Marine." That's how I feel about Brooklyn, New York. "Born in Brooklyn, always a Brooklynite. No matter where you live." I’m Giovanni Albert Triano, Johnny A-Train to my fans, maybe you've got one of my CD's? I'm the leader of the Loco-Motions, an award-winning big-band based out of my nightclub “Steppin’ Out," in New Orleans, Louisiana.

Guilt Trip

I make a pilgrimage to the old neighborhood once a year, to place flowers on the stairs of the tenement I grew up in. I place them on the step where my sister Rosie was sitting when she was shot and killed. Beautiful Rosie at seventeen, who got cut down by a stray .22 caliber bullet while sitting on our front stoop eating an apple I'd just handed her.

Cops never did find the shooter. The police report concluded that the jagged hole the bullet made meant it was tumbling when it struck her. The wound and condition of the extracted slug led them to believe it must have been fired from a zip gun. It had been decades since a zip-gun case had been filed in the precinct. It's been thirteen years that Rose Anne Triano's murder has been in the cold case file.

Autumn In New York

Leo Kaplan, who lived in the building across the street, sent word he would like to speak with me. When I arrived I looked at him lying there and couldn't help but think of the big burly man who used to own the Kosher butcher shop down the block. Now he was diagnosed with stage-four colon cancer. What he spoke of sent me into a tail-spin. He knew. Thirteen years and he'd said nothing.

What Now?

I was angry when I left Mr. Kaplan's. My mind was a jumble, what was I going to do? I was so messed up, I'd even been abrupt with my Aunt Mary whose apartment I was staying in. Snapped at her when she asked what Mr. Kaplan and I had talked about. I couldn't sleep that night. How was I going to handle this? There is no statute of limitations for murder. Was it murder? They killed Rosie, they deserve what they get.

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