Carlos Alberto Laster

Dissecting Pedro's Cockroach Carlos Alberto Laster

I was having a delicious coffee at the "Poet's Passage" in Old San Juan sitting right at the table that looks to the street as people and cars pass by when this lady walked by. She stops suddenly just right in front of the glass window when it happens that I was then looking out thru the big glass window as people walk by the sidewalk. She stops, looks in and focuses on me, the only person on that front table. I asked myself, "What's going on?" She came into the passage directly to my table and looking at me right in the eyes and said; "Where you once a crime undercover detective for the New York Public Housing Police I mean like 47 years ago? I immediately tried to recognize who the hell was this woman, so inquisitive, so voluptuous, so brunet, such Nuyorican accent, so.....well. My cerebrum hard drive "patinó" on the rails for a while as I tried to make a composition of her face 47 years ago. No luck at all. The first time when I came across the "Suicide note from a Cockroach in a low income Housing Project" that Pedro's left on the floor on the same spot he found it, between the cat's and dog food plates next to a trashcan filled with cigarettes buts and canecas of Palo Viejo's rum, lying on that dirty floor of the 17th floor of the low income housing project on 106 street between Park & Madison Ave, were as more of 70 % of the of tenants were Puerto Ricans, I figure, ¡well what else can you expect! I went inside the bedroom and was not sure what was what I really saw laying on the mattress, for a few brief seconds I thought I saw something like a T. V. rabbit antennas coming out of her forehead but the detective Lebronsky told me right then to get out, which I did.