Needing to Find Noel
I woke up on a recent morning with a premonition that Noel was dead.
I’ve known Noel since 2017 when I met him while I was reporting on a pilot program Curran Fromhold Correctional Facility was rolling out to offer inmates who were leaving naltrexone, a drug that can help prevent relapse from opioid and alcohol dependence. I bumped into my friend Cyndi Rickards, who teaches criminology and justice studies at Drexel University and was running an “inside-out” program with inmates and her students. Cyndi was about to meet with Noel and some other inmates, and I asked if I could tag along.
Noel was eager to talk to me. I was eager to listen. He was in for drug charges or parole violations or whatever — it all circled back to drugs. I wrote down my number. Noel memorized it. He has never forgotten it, and I have never changed it.
Our correspondence began, first with me putting money into his global tel link account so he could call and start telling me his story. For some reason Noel quickly named me “gangster rat.” And not long after our meeting in CFCF, he received early release into the forensic intensive recovery program, basically rehab, where I was able to visit him in person, and where he told me more about his life.
Noel explained to me about his early trauma, sexual abuse, being the only Puerto Rican family in an all Black neighborhood, and being assaulted and bullied every day for it. He suffered from depression and other forms of mental illness. To numb out, Noel started smoking weed young and frequently. “I’m a weed fiend,” he would tell me.
My childhood trauma was different but intense, but I have always had a luxury Noel has never had — being able to pay for regular psychiatric treatment. Even with this help, I have been in a lifelong battle with PTSD and depression, which had been deeper and worse of late.
I knew seeing Noel would do me good.
I wouldn’t have to say anything. Just being with him would make me feel ok with myself. He has been through more hellfire than just about anyone else I know.
Noel has also done terrible things to plenty of people who loved him and called him family and friend. But I do believe that deep down Noel has a good heart. Addiction can drive even the most gentle human to madness. Except for times when Noel has tried to take advantage of me — and sometimes been successful — he has always been kind to this gangster rat.
But then I thought, he’s dead.
Frantic, I called his brother, Ruben, who I’ve been in touch with through the years.
“No, he’s alive,” Ruben said. “Same old, same old. I gotta go,” he added, hanging up, obviously fed up with the whole thing.
I called Mr. Berrios, Noel’s father, who I’ve spent many afternoons sitting on his porch with Noel talking. His father is so tired of Noel that he can barely speak to him. However, Mr. Berrios still answers most of the time when Noel calls from random numbers and goes to the hood and buys him a sandwich. Things like that.
“Courtenay?” Mr. Berrios said. “Why haven’t I seen you in so long?”
“I know, I know,” I said. “It’s terrible. Can I come buy with Noel?”
He assented as he alway does, such a strong 89-year-old man, who moved from Puerto Rico to Philadelphia by himself when he was 19, was married to Noel’s mother for 33 years, had five children with her, worked as a Philly cop for five years and then for the sanitation department, driving a truck, for 22 years. He cannot understand why Noel does not have his head screwed on straight.
“A lot of work of the devil,” Mr. Berrios says, shaking his head.
He cannot understand.
So I knew Noel was alive but had no way to reach him. Then my phone buzzed that evening.
“Hey gangster rat!”
“What the hell,” I cried, literally bursting into tears. “Did your brother or dad tell you to call me?”
“What? No. I ain’t talked to them.”
This was so eerie, I said, because I had called them earlier that day, suddenly worried he was dead.
“Now why would you worry I was dead, gangster rat?”
Comments like this always made me laugh with Noel, as if he were taking a tour of the park instead of snorting fentanyl (100 more potent than morphine and 50 more potent than heroin) and smoking crack every day, all day.
Plus, Noel has a special knack for getting into fights. He’s always getting his head bashed, with two-by-fours, pipes, bricks. One time he called me and said someone had hit him over the head with a chair. I said, oh my god, go to the emergency room, you’re probably concussed. He laughed. He was like, “Gangster rat, it was a plastic chair.”
Noel’s always stealing — too often from friends, and sometimes from dealers. He’s a smart guy, but what the fuck?
In fact, that’s part of why I stopped taking Noel’s calls for a while. Dealers were chasing him. Noel was desperate. He wanted me to cash app him money. I wasn’t going to do it. It was unbearable. I had no idea what the real story was, but I had hit my limit, at least for a time. I said no, like I had never said no in the past.
Sometimes I wouldn’t pick up the phone when I saw calls coming in from random Philly numbers and knew it was him, because I was too mired in my own struggles. If Noel wanted something from me, I wasn’t going to be able to take it. Perhaps I should have picked up those calls. Perhaps he just wanted to chat with gangster rat. Maybe he was just lonely, too. Such a hard dance. Who knows.
But now I needed to see Noel. It had been way too long. I would never forgive myself if he died before I was able to chat with him in person again. I was lonely, unable to talk to my regular friends, and terribly worried about Noel who had told me on the phone that he couldn’t stand up straight because he had tried to lift a cast iron radiator and had fucked up his back.
So I headed to one of his two corners, in a neighborhood of drug dealers where I risked being hit by a stray bullet, but also a place of beautiful, if suffering human beings, and regular working folks raising families.
Swerving my 13-year-old woebegone minivan from one side of the street to the other, I called out my window, “You seen Noel?” Most people said not today. Then two ladies said, yes, Noel’s my buddy, he’s right up here. So I parked and jumped from my car.
“Noel!” we screamed.
I saw a hunched, old man, slowly heading toward us, hoody on his head.
“Is that who I think it is?”
“Yaass!” I cried. We hugged, long and tight.
“You are a sight for sore eyes, gangster rat.”
“So are you.”
Of course, I treated the trio to sugary drinks and junk food at the corner bodega before Noel and I drove off to see his father.
As soon as we reached Noel’s father’s house, he hollered at his dad that he needed to use the bathroom. Mr. Berrios slowly unlocked the door. Then Mr. Berrios and I sat on the porch talking about his past and about Noel.
I asked Mr. Berrios if despite everything that he goes through with Noel, whether it’s better that Noel stays in touch with him so that he knows he’s alive? Mr. Berrios didn’t answer. I guess that was a very difficult question.
When Noel came out, we took some selfies, like we always do.
Noel is a very troubled person who has done horrible things to many people. He has suffered immensely and has caused a lot of pain. If Noel were ever to make it into long-term recovery, his list of amends would tumble in long strands to the ground.
But I believe in Noel as a human being. I don’t judge him. I will always call him my friend. And as long as he is around and I have money in my pocket, Noel and I will do what we always do after our porch visits: make our way across busy Hunting Park Avenue to Walgreens, where I nurture Noel by buying him his favorite gummy worms, pistachios, Twix, cold, cold 7-Up, and 2 packs of Newport 100s — with a lighter.
I wish I would do more for you, I tell him.
“Just keep being you, gangster rat. Keep being you.”
I took some video of Noel, with his permission, even though he had been using. If he hadn’t been using, he would be very sick, going through withdrawal. Some people will criticize me for filming Noel. I understand. But I think he has valuable things to say. And he has always, time and again through the years, fully consented to me sharing his story, sober or high. He wants people to know what this kind of life is like.
Postscript: When I got home from my visit with Noel, I received a text back from a number I had texted the day before — a number Noel had called me from. I had texted the number asking Noel to call me. Here was the return text I received: “Noel is no longer allowed in my house. He stole my rent money.”
