Days of mourning – Part 2: COLEGA and Eddie Garzon

1. Eddie Garzon and Marlene Forero, Undated photo, Flushing Meadows Park
2. Composite image of the COLEGA float designed by Eddie Garzon

Eddie Garzon had come to the Colombian Lesbian and Gay Association (COLEGA) in 1996 through Fernando G., another organization founder. Having first-knowledge of Eddie’s stage and costume design skills, Fernando had convinced Eddie to work with COLEGA in designing that year’s Queens and Manhattan Pride costumes. That first year, Eddie came at a late stage in the planning so we ended up doing something simple, with long Colombian flags floating in the wind and a bunch of huge helium filled balloons with the yellow, red and blue colors of the Colombian flag.

But for 1997, Fernando and others wanted something more grandiose so, as Fernando was prone to do, he exaggerated the number of volunteers and the fiscal support that COLEGA would be able to provide, invited Eddie once again - and then quickly disappeared when it came to crunch time. The result? A few volunteers spent almost five days and nights helping Eddie and some of his closest friends needle, cut, paste, twist and mold some body costumes shaped like coffee cups, a huge coffee pot, two big straw bags which looked like coffee sacs and, once those were over, paint, cut, saw and carry a horse-shaped wood figure which we then mounted on top of a jeep the night before the Heritage of Pride Parade. The theme? “100% Colombian coffee, 100% gay Colombian” – a play on gay and national pride.

On the day of the actual Heritage of Pride March, the huge coffee pot failed to vent white vapor from its spout as it was supposed to do, six of the twelve coffee cup costumes did not arrive on time (nor the dancers inside them), and it seemed as if the stress nearly drove everyone to leave the organization even as we were marching. Nevertheless, we all looked amazing and were featured in most of the nightly news that night. One of the most vivid memories that day was running up 5th Avenue from 32nd Street back to 56th Street with Eddie running at my side when we were told that the additional costumes had finally arrived, then taking a cab ride sans costumes when we realized that the dancers had left when they did not find the contingent.

With us in the cab, Marlene Forero, a single straight woman and mother, who had been with us every night as we put together the costumes and the float. Marlene had met Eddie at a performance of Estampas Negras (Black Pictures), a Colombian folk dance company in which Eddie also performed. Though not familiar with gays, Marlene struck the closest of friendships with Eddie almost immediately based - at first - on their common nostalgia for their country of origin but evolving to the point where Marlene would call Eddie when she was at the supermarket and ask him if he was missing anything in his kitchen. Eddie, who was incredibly charismatic and seemed to know just about everyone in Queens Latino gay circles, started presenting his friends to Marlene. Soon, Marlene’s home had become the place where all these beautiful boys would stop by for some Colombian food, no-nonsense advice from a woman who adored them and to dish (her friends, mostly a group of single and married Colombian middle-age women, chided her at first for hanging out with so many gays but then grew jealous of the fun Marlene was having going out with them to the bars and special events and ultimately started to join her on her 'gay expeditions.')

That was the last year that COLEGA would participate in the Heritage of Pride march and, though I saw Eddie a couple of times after that, by the time he was accosted, we had lost track of each other.

So, four years later, in light of the news reports, it made sense to reach out to Marlene, who was the first one at the hospital on the night of the attack. She quickly brought me up to date: Eddie was in a coma four days after the attack and his prognosis was uncertain, his parents were flying from Florida the next day and they wanted to have a prayer ceremony at the chapel inside Elmhurst Hospital for close friends and family. I told her I’d be there. By then, the police had put up some flyers alerting the community of the crime, asking for leads, the attack was being investigated as a ‘hate crime,’ and people in the bars were slowly finding out what had happened.

Previous post:

• Part 1: The Attack
  

Next posts:

• Part 3: So what is, exactly, is a 'hate crime'? (and a prayer)
• Part 4: Eddie Garzon passes on
• Part 5: The Vigil
• Part 6: A Newsday Editorial
• Part 7: A parade of angels
• Part 8: Epilogue
• Eddie Garzon: After five years, an arrest (June 29, 2006)

Days of mourning – Part 1: The Attack

I did not find out about the attack – which happened around 3:50 a.m. on Wednesday, August 15^th, 2001 - until 5 days later when I read a Sunday Newsday article (“Gay Activists Rally Against Hate Crime,” August 19^th, 2001). Even then, it also took me a couple more days to track down some old friends and confirm that the “Edgardo Garzon” in the article was, in fact, Eddie Garzon, the beautiful, vibrant, talented young gay man who had been a member of an organization I founded in Jackson Heights a few years earlier, the Colombian Lesbian and Gay Association (COLEGA).

According to newspaper and police reports, and the recollection of R., a friend who had walked home with Eddie the night of the attack, he had been partying with some friends at a couple of local bars including Friend's Tavern and had ended up at Cositas Ricas, a Colombian bakery on the corner of Roosevelt Avenue and 80^th Street. After dancing and drinking the night away, they were ready to call it a night and, as usual, in the end it was Eddie and R. turning right on 77^th Street off Roosevelt Avenue in the general direction of their apartments.

The Newsday article initially said that he had been attacked outside Friend’s Tavern but a week later other news reports corrected this: Just as Eddie and R. had made the turn on 77^th, Eddie stopped to urinate in the dark next to a tree. R., who had walked a few steps ahead, realized that Eddie had stopped and waited for Eddie to catch up. Instead, a red car seemed to stop next to Eddie as he was zipping up and R. observed Eddie and the driver exchange a couple of words. When Eddie finally caught up with R., he said it was not anyone he knew, just a guy apparently trying to pick him up (SIDE-NOTE: 77^th Street and 73^rd Street actually bracket a small 4-block 37^th Road. Back in the 1990’s, when the Indian movie-house The Eagle actually used to be a porn theatre called The Earle - and a seedy gay bar called The Magic Touch was right next to it - 37^th Road was actually so well-known as a gay pick-up spot that it received the name “Vaseline Alley” which still survives today though both the porn theatre and so-called “Tragic” Touch bars have gone – as well as most of the pick-up action as well).

Here is when things get blurry: There is a camera inside a bank on the corner of 37^th Avenue which captured the moment when Eddie and R. say good bye and start heading their separate ways – R. takes a right on 37^th Ave. while Eddie begins to cross that same Avenue (37^th Ave. is actually one block down from 37^th Road – yes, Queens street addresses can get a bit complicated). The camera shows that Eddie seemed to stop and look at some people inside car parked near the same corner. He seems to just stand there for a few seconds, just looking at the car and its occupants, and then he just finishes crossing the street.

R. says that he was half a block away when he heard the screech of rubber wheels speeding up on the pavement. Turning around he notices the car make a hard left and rush in the direction Eddie had gone. Fearing something is awfully wrong, he runs back and turns a right on 77^th Street. It’s dark and there are trees lining the street, R. is not sure if he just sees one or two people jumping back into the car. He is just certain that the car is speeding away from him as fast as possible. He screams Eddie’s name and there’s no response. By the time that R. is able to reach Eddie, he is already unconscious, lying in a pool of his own blood.

By morning, the sidewalk would still have blood stains despite the powdered white detergent that the police or the neighbors spilled on it; R. was at the police station, being interviewed as a witness, Marlene Forero had been awakened and gone to the hospital and patiently waited to hear news of how serious the injuries had been, and Eddie was in the operation table undergoing emergency surgery for massive trauma to the brain caused by being hit by “either a lead pipe or a baseball bat,” as Newsday put it in that first article. Four years later, what was used to kill Eddie Garzon, remains a mystery.

• Part 2: COLEGA and Eddie Garzon
• Part 3: So what is, exactly, is a 'hate crime'? (and a prayer)
• Part 4: Eddie Garzon passes on
• Part 5: The Vigil
• Part 6: A Newsday Editorial
• Part 7: A parade of angels
• Part 8: Epilogue
• Eddie Garzon: After five years, an arrest (June 29, 2006)
  

My New York - And a Detour

69th Street R Train Station - Queens

On a related subject... maybe we should also talk about sex.