Chapter 6 Jingle Bells, Jingle Bells, Jingle All
From Killers I have known, a pretty sick but true story
Chapter 6 Jingle Bells, Jingle Bells, Jingle All the Way
Marie Simonetti stood all of five foot eight, kind of muscular to be honest for my taste in women, and quite a bit too mean. Her skin was café au lait as they say, a light brown, and she spoke with a slight Spanish accent. A matter of fact voice, more like a man’s than a woman’s tempo in a voice. She burst into my life suddenly, but whoa let’s slow down, I am getting way ahead of my story. Back in 1974, I was working at my first real job in the field of social work. With my BS degree in sociology, the only work that I could get, was kind of the worst work of all from one angle, I guess the best from some other. My job forced me to live in a different world, one with rules so far away from what I had grown up to believe and understand, that it truly took me a while to understand. Describing the job quite easy, explaining how it changed me for good, and my attitude toward the world, authorities, justice, would take far more explaining than I have time for, and would still do not fully understand.
The job was simply called an intake worker, I worked foster care. I called the job it my “hot off the griddle job”. It involved simply taking children from their parents, generally the mom and putting them into foster homes. I nicknamed the “hot off the griddle” job, because generally kids were coming in fresh and quickly needed a home quickly after some sudden jolting experience. Secondly, it reference the time I had gotten three kids off a mother who had thrown each of her small three children one by one onto a hot skillet on the stove and taken them out, luckily the burns were fairly minor as these things go since there had been no grease in the skillet, but the kids were all hurt and needed some protection and burn care.
I talk about how different a place foster care was because that woman did not go to jail, certainly the kids were taken away for a while, but not forever. Kids would come in who had been in incestuous relationships with their step father, and I never heard of one father getting arrested. The punishment generally seems to be that his little princess was taken away for a bit of time. One child had been beaten so badly on the back of the head that she was permanently blind; her dad did not go to jail nor her mom who had accepted it, although we did end up with all four of his and his wife’s children. Each one having gone through some horror before we could take them away, the blind girl was the first born, and the first in.
I was brought it up at a staff meeting, saying, “it is odd how incest is no longer illegal in Brooklyn.” People got all sort of upset of me saying, “What the hell are you talking about”, “of course it is”, “it will always be illegal”. I started going over a quick list of patients who fit that description, “how about Dorothy, Alice, Andrea, Steven, Wolfgang, and Gwen”. I than added, “if a law is not enforced, it is no longer a law”. They fell silent for a second thinking, my boss Carol Smith said, “You’re right, it is kind of curious”. The conversation was over. I later got forced to leave. In my evaluation it said that I would say strange things at staff meetings. They were right, strange in this world of Brooklyn foster care.
Oh well, I did not meet Marie Simonetti quite right away. First I met her children, I forget their names, they came by the half dozen and them, who all needed homes right away. It was the week before Christmas, and it took four different homes but we found places for all of them. They had been living in the Louis H. Pink Houses, a public housing project that I was quite fond of since I had grown up there. The Pink projects stood at the edge of the swamps near Kennedy Airport, next to the swamps and a short walk to both the Department of Sanitation Incinerator, a huge incinerator which burnt garbage for the Brooklyn, a borough of some three million, and behind that a garbage dump. It always smelled where I grew in the Pinks, but after a rain, the garbage smelt the worst. That is why the poor got to live there, I guess, we were being recycled. Just joking, I just wanted to let you know where the kids came from, I am still hoping to get that smell at out my nostrils, and it has been thirty years.
You are right, very right, it is wrong and horrible and immoral to split up a family like that. Six children, four homes, but that is foster care in New York, no one has room for six kids at once except an institution. We were placing them with families, some of whom did it out of charity, some who hope to make a few bucks, and the saddest, those who took children in because they could have none of their own and were trying this quite dangerous back door to adoption. You might want descriptions of the children, but I met them briefly and saw them only a couple of times, They remain but a quick blurred in my memory, all rail thin, ranging in age from five to about twelve. Marie really bunched her kids together. The Jean, the second oldest told me the story, later confirm by the evidence, and simply not denied by the mother. I think Jean was the only one to see it, she was still quite shaken. Jean was thin like the rest of them, and her skin was the color of coffee with lots of milk in it, not mother’s milk I thought at the time.
Jean eyes told me the story, as she spoke, but you could tell by the listening that she was just describing the vision that was replaying on her eyes, and hearing the conversation all over again. “Mom and dad were fighting, yelling and screaming like usual”.
“Than the fight ended, like quickly, dad was tired, He laid down on the couch. Mom started humming, Jingle Bells, Jingle Bells, Jingle all the way, over and over again. She kept humming as she put up a big pot of water. The big spaghetti pot, she just kept humming Jingle Bells, jingle bells, jingle all the way.”
Jean’s eyes widen and than narrowed, and seem to be watching the image of her mother as she walked back and forth singing softly in the kitchen as the water came to a full boil. She stood stiffly almost in a trance. “Mom got the pot. She began to sing as she approached dad” Jean’s fists tightened, she seem compel to tell the story, like it had to leave her as though telling it would make the visions go away. Her voice became louder and more rapid. “Jingle Bells, Jingle Bells, Jingle all the Way; she dumped all the boiling water on daddy’s face”. Jean began almost shouting as the female worker; Wendy who was with me went to hug her. “Daddy screamed, Daddy scream, daddy screamed.” Dad, Michael, died a month later, in the hospital, he never spoke again after that scream, and had no face so he could not scream. I was told that the pain was horrible. I did not need to be told. His face boiled off in brutal seconds.
I would meet Marie Simonetti, the mom, the three or four weeks later to return the children to her. She had no regrets, they had had an argument, and the bastard deserved to die. “How dare he call her a bitch and than go to sleep without apologizing, she said in justification”. I was told that the judge upon hearing her case was shocked, shocked. Six kids had been placed in foster care and taken away from their mother, what harm might come of it, what terrible harm. He ordered her released. I am not sure if there was ever a trial, since the Brooklyn District Attorney found no reason to pursue the case. The kids went home, all of them.
I am not sure if on that day, I learnt anything about justice or the worth of a man’s life. I am not sure what the whole tail is worth. It was all matter of fact at the time, if the fact was Brooklyn foster care. Reverend Al Sharpton, of Brooklyn of that era, is fond of chanting, “No Justice, no Peace”. Well rest in peace Michael Simonetti, rest in peace, if you can. I see no justice. God please let that man rest in peace.
Chapter 6 Jingle Bells, Jingle Bells, Jingle All the Way
Marie Simonetti stood all of five foot eight, kind of muscular to be honest for my taste in women, and quite a bit too mean. Her skin was café au lait as they say, a light brown, and she spoke with a slight Spanish accent. A matter of fact voice, more like a man’s than a woman’s tempo in a voice. She burst into my life suddenly, but whoa let’s slow down, I am getting way ahead of my story. Back in 1974, I was working at my first real job in the field of social work. With my BS degree in sociology, the only work that I could get, was kind of the worst work of all from one angle, I guess the best from some other. My job forced me to live in a different world, one with rules so far away from what I had grown up to believe and understand, that it truly took me a while to understand. Describing the job quite easy, explaining how it changed me for good, and my attitude toward the world, authorities, justice, would take far more explaining than I have time for, and would still do not fully understand.
The job was simply called an intake worker, I worked foster care. I called the job it my “hot off the griddle job”. It involved simply taking children from their parents, generally the mom and putting them into foster homes. I nicknamed the “hot off the griddle” job, because generally kids were coming in fresh and quickly needed a home quickly after some sudden jolting experience. Secondly, it reference the time I had gotten three kids off a mother who had thrown each of her small three children one by one onto a hot skillet on the stove and taken them out, luckily the burns were fairly minor as these things go since there had been no grease in the skillet, but the kids were all hurt and needed some protection and burn care.
I talk about how different a place foster care was because that woman did not go to jail, certainly the kids were taken away for a while, but not forever. Kids would come in who had been in incestuous relationships with their step father, and I never heard of one father getting arrested. The punishment generally seems to be that his little princess was taken away for a bit of time. One child had been beaten so badly on the back of the head that she was permanently blind; her dad did not go to jail nor her mom who had accepted it, although we did end up with all four of his and his wife’s children. Each one having gone through some horror before we could take them away, the blind girl was the first born, and the first in.
I was brought it up at a staff meeting, saying, “it is odd how incest is no longer illegal in Brooklyn.” People got all sort of upset of me saying, “What the hell are you talking about”, “of course it is”, “it will always be illegal”. I started going over a quick list of patients who fit that description, “how about Dorothy, Alice, Andrea, Steven, Wolfgang, and Gwen”. I than added, “if a law is not enforced, it is no longer a law”. They fell silent for a second thinking, my boss Carol Smith said, “You’re right, it is kind of curious”. The conversation was over. I later got forced to leave. In my evaluation it said that I would say strange things at staff meetings. They were right, strange in this world of Brooklyn foster care.
Oh well, I did not meet Marie Simonetti quite right away. First I met her children, I forget their names, they came by the half dozen and them, who all needed homes right away. It was the week before Christmas, and it took four different homes but we found places for all of them. They had been living in the Louis H. Pink Houses, a public housing project that I was quite fond of since I had grown up there. The Pink projects stood at the edge of the swamps near Kennedy Airport, next to the swamps and a short walk to both the Department of Sanitation Incinerator, a huge incinerator which burnt garbage for the Brooklyn, a borough of some three million, and behind that a garbage dump. It always smelled where I grew in the Pinks, but after a rain, the garbage smelt the worst. That is why the poor got to live there, I guess, we were being recycled. Just joking, I just wanted to let you know where the kids came from, I am still hoping to get that smell at out my nostrils, and it has been thirty years.
You are right, very right, it is wrong and horrible and immoral to split up a family like that. Six children, four homes, but that is foster care in New York, no one has room for six kids at once except an institution. We were placing them with families, some of whom did it out of charity, some who hope to make a few bucks, and the saddest, those who took children in because they could have none of their own and were trying this quite dangerous back door to adoption. You might want descriptions of the children, but I met them briefly and saw them only a couple of times, They remain but a quick blurred in my memory, all rail thin, ranging in age from five to about twelve. Marie really bunched her kids together. The Jean, the second oldest told me the story, later confirm by the evidence, and simply not denied by the mother. I think Jean was the only one to see it, she was still quite shaken. Jean was thin like the rest of them, and her skin was the color of coffee with lots of milk in it, not mother’s milk I thought at the time.
Jean eyes told me the story, as she spoke, but you could tell by the listening that she was just describing the vision that was replaying on her eyes, and hearing the conversation all over again. “Mom and dad were fighting, yelling and screaming like usual”.
“Than the fight ended, like quickly, dad was tired, He laid down on the couch. Mom started humming, Jingle Bells, Jingle Bells, Jingle all the way, over and over again. She kept humming as she put up a big pot of water. The big spaghetti pot, she just kept humming Jingle Bells, jingle bells, jingle all the way.”
Jean’s eyes widen and than narrowed, and seem to be watching the image of her mother as she walked back and forth singing softly in the kitchen as the water came to a full boil. She stood stiffly almost in a trance. “Mom got the pot. She began to sing as she approached dad” Jean’s fists tightened, she seem compel to tell the story, like it had to leave her as though telling it would make the visions go away. Her voice became louder and more rapid. “Jingle Bells, Jingle Bells, Jingle all the Way; she dumped all the boiling water on daddy’s face”. Jean began almost shouting as the female worker; Wendy who was with me went to hug her. “Daddy screamed, Daddy scream, daddy screamed.” Dad, Michael, died a month later, in the hospital, he never spoke again after that scream, and had no face so he could not scream. I was told that the pain was horrible. I did not need to be told. His face boiled off in brutal seconds.
I would meet Marie Simonetti, the mom, the three or four weeks later to return the children to her. She had no regrets, they had had an argument, and the bastard deserved to die. “How dare he call her a bitch and than go to sleep without apologizing, she said in justification”. I was told that the judge upon hearing her case was shocked, shocked. Six kids had been placed in foster care and taken away from their mother, what harm might come of it, what terrible harm. He ordered her released. I am not sure if there was ever a trial, since the Brooklyn District Attorney found no reason to pursue the case. The kids went home, all of them.
I am not sure if on that day, I learnt anything about justice or the worth of a man’s life. I am not sure what the whole tail is worth. It was all matter of fact at the time, if the fact was Brooklyn foster care. Reverend Al Sharpton, of Brooklyn of that era, is fond of chanting, “No Justice, no Peace”. Well rest in peace Michael Simonetti, rest in peace, if you can. I see no justice. God please let that man rest in peace.
