¡A, leis falls!” (“Oh, the skirts!”) he sighed, shaking his head and winking with a mischievous smile. While admitting women were his “Achilles heel,” Antonio, as many young men of the times did, also disclaimed responsibility, as though he had no control over his behavior or desires. Loving the opposite sex was “the natural thing to do for a man,” he thought.

— Yasmin Tirado-Chiodini

All Americans were immigrants at one point or another,” he explained in his letters to his parents. Even his father Manuel migrated to Puerto Rico. Manuel was deemed a Peninsular, an immigrant from Spain, and sometimes even the Puerto Can-born, the criollos, resented the Spanish-born newcomers. Manuel was familiar with being singled out, although not quite as much as Antonio felt while in New York. “It is amazing how people tend to forget their past,” Antonio wrote to his parents, surprised. “I recall what you told me about Maestro Rafael, Papa, when he said to you ‘never forget your history.

— Yasmin Tirado-Chiodini

And then there was nature’s music. The small frog the locals called coup was a treasured new sound, a lullaby sung by the chanting Puerto Rican native species. Sometimes, while he lay in bed awake at night, Manuel tried to imitate the sound of the little frog. He tried to sing it at first. But then he realized he could get the sound just right by whistling it. “Coup! Coup!” Manuel whistled. He improved his coup whistle every day, until he sounded just as the little frog. People in town laughed at Manuel practicing his coup sounds. Sometimes they could hear his whistles from outside the store, as though Manuel was carrying out a conversation with the small creatures. The tiny coup sang through the nights and soothed Manuel’s sleep, keeping him company and reminding him that he was not alone.

— Yasmin Tirado-Chiodini

Antonio could not stop thinking about Dean Fair’s words during his welcoming speech, “Look to your left; now to your right. One of you will not be here in 1915!” These words were used to intimidate freshman law students to draw their attention to the importance of being diligent in their forthcoming studies. They still are.

— Yasmin Tirado-Chiodini

Antonio looked down, silent, as Shilling kept talking. There he was, among cold-blooded killers, talking to a gangster. A much different picture than a year prior.“Can’t trust priests, can’t trust cops either. Can’t trust anybody! Haddad say?”“I am not like you,” Antonio said. “I’m not like them, either. That’s what I say. I am not a cold-blooded killer!”“Ya killed, you a kill! There’s not’NG more to it!” Shilling said.

— Yasmin Tirado-Chiodini

ANTONIO PONTOON’S TRIAL made front page headlines across major newspapers. On April 17, 1915, the Schenectady Gazette headline read, “Trial of Pontoon on the Charge of Committing one of Most Startling Murders in History of County.

— Yasmin Tirado-Chiodini

Antonio’s will was cursed. Not once, but twice.

— Yasmin Tirado-Chiodini

As the children left, Antonio shifted his gaze towards his father and gently waved at his family, while they returned the gesture. With half a smile and a tight lip, Antonio’s green eyes spoke, “Adios” (“Goodbye”). Then, he turned and walked towards the green metal door of the steam cargo vessel that swallowed him away.

— Yasmin Tirado-Chiodini

Dear Governor Whitman, … Our father is not a simple criminal. … He was harassed by more ideas than his mind could stand. …

— Yasmin Tirado-Chiodini

Do you know who Samuel Langhorne Clemens is, Antonio?” Bessie asked.“No, chord I?” he said. “He is best known as Mark Twain, the author of The Adventures of Tom Sawyer,” she said.”I have heard of the story, but I have not red the book,” he said.”Well, you should read it,” she said. “It is excellent reading. An American classic. Mark Twain worked in Scholars for a while,” she said.“Is that so?” he said.”Yes, he worked as a brakeman on the Scholars railroad station on Depot Street the winter of 1879, three years after he wrote his famous book,” Bessie said.”Why would he do that, a famous author?” Antonio asked.“A self-published author, I should add.

— Yasmin Tirado-Chiodini