26 new york | january 3–16, 2022
PHOTOGRAPHS: COURTESY OF MARQUIS FRAZIER (BOATWRIGHT); ANDY ZALKIN (MERCADO), COURTESY OF RAY RIVERAVictor mercado andRay Rivera had different parents,
but ever since they were locked up together in the 1980s,
they’d been brothers. To Ray’s mother, Mercado was the
son who would peel the green bananas for pastelesat
Christmas and give her Yorkies haircuts. Whenever he
returned from a periodic stint upstate—usually on a small-time drug
charge—he would end up at her apartment on Brook Avenue in Mott
Haven. It seemed like everyone on the block knew him: Theabuelitas
would lean out the window and ask him to carry their things down; the
old men would ask him to come up and cook them a meal.
With his girlfriend, Tammy Echevarria, Mercado would turn on the
Temptations, crooning and spinning her around her plant-filled apart-
ment. With his best friend, Rivera, Mercado would head to Gonzalez
y Gonzalez in the Village. Even in his 60s, weathered by the streets and
the drugs he sometimes used, he could match thesalserosthere move for
move. Rivera always wanted Mercado to get his paperwork together for
travel so he could show him the Dominican Republic, Cuba, and Puerto
Rico, where the Mercados had come from. But he never did.
One day in July, the police surrounded a car off Brook Avenue. Mer-
cado puttered up on his scooter. The officers started hassling him, found
the car key on his person and a gun in the car, and arrested him. The
judge set his bail at $100,000. Two weeks later, Mercado appeared in
court for a hearing. Echevarria winced when she saw him. He was in a
wheelchair, in need of a haircut and a shave, with a look in his eyes that
seemed to sayHelp me.James Kilduff, Mercado’s lawyer, had fought to
have the hearing in person, the better to argue that Mercado was infirm
and the bail too high. The court issued its ruling: denied.
Mercado tested positive forcovidtwo weeks later. On October 10, he
called Rivera to say he didn’t think he was going to make it. Four days
later, he was at Elmhurst Hospital. Kilduff and a prosecutor got into a
virtual courtroom, where this time he persuaded the judge to have mercy.
Before Kilduff could tell Mercado’s friends and family that they would be
able to see him, Rivera called. Mercado was dead.
Echevarria and Rivera are still waiting for his ashes. She will keep
some. “I want him with me,” she says. Rivera has his own plan. He’s going
to carry Mercado onto the plane he never boarded, over the Atlantic he
never crossed, to Puerto Rico, the home he never had a chance to see.
He’ll take the ashes to the edge of the island and let his brother fly.alcolm boatwrightnever forgot
a phone number. “Even though he’d
get a new number every other month,
he’d still memorize yours,” says his
brother Marquis Frazier. If you didn’t
pick up, he’d come knocking. As soon as he knew you
were okay, Boatwright would be pounding the pave-
ment to check on his mother, aunt, and eight siblings.
The family called him the Gentle Giant: He was heavy-
set, and his mother says he was autistic, with the mind
of an 11-year-old. Boatwright would watch Tyler Perry
movies on repeat until his sister Precious begged for
a break. He’d turn, cheese real big, and tell her, “Girl,
I love Madea.”
When Boatwright was in
his late teens, prosecutors
said, he placed his mouth
on a boy’s genitals. He was
sentenced to ten years
probation and six months
behind bars, to be served
at Rikers. While there, his
family says, he was raped.
After Boatwright got out,
he was accused of going
near a playground where the child was. He pleaded
guilty to a lesser charge, but before he was sentenced he
tried to kill himself, and he was placed in a mental-health
facility. He would join his family for church on Sundays,
wearing a sky-blue shirt and tie, and grab dinner before
returning to the facility by curfew.
In November, Boatwright was accused of touching
another boy’s “intimate parts,” according to a report, a
crime he insisted he did not commit. He was terrified of
going back to Rikers. At the arraignment, his attorney,
Calvin Saunders, asked for a psychiatric exam to assess
Boatwright’s fitness to stand trial. Boatwright went to
Rikers in the meantime. During his month on the island,
he told his family that the other men wouldn’t let him
shower, threw feces at him, and stole his things. “We
heard nothing but fear in his voice,” says Precious. One
Monday, he said he’d hit his head, though his mother
suspected someone had hit him. Then Boatwright called
and said he’d had a seizure. Like Stephan Khadu, he had
no history of them. The last time Boatwright spoke to
his family, he called from Bellevue Hospital. He was
headed back to the island and promised he would call
again. He never did.
On December 13, an officer at the Brooklyn Crimi-
nal Court called Boatwright’s name off the docket.
Saunders informed the court that his client had died.
“I’m sorry to hear about the passing,” said the judge,
seeming to mean it. “That is all.”malcolmboatwright,
28died: december
VICTOR MERCADO, 64OCTOBER 15Mercado, right, and Rivera in New York.Boatwright