Hello Friends,
I thought that I'd take this post back to my shortly lived past and reminisce about the wonders of 149th street in the Bronx.
A little history about me, I'm from a small town called Groton, Connecticut. Some people know of Groton as a major contractor and home of Electronic Boat Corporation, if I remember correctly. People in my area, literally knew everyone, you couldn't even go to the grocery store without seeing your cousin -- not me but some of my friends. Everyone use to try to be from New York, "What part you from?" They use to just say the Bronx, or
Manhattan, never Brooklyn or Queens because I guess they didn't know about those places. I made it my destiny to move to New York, I became obsessed with it I just knew that life would be better for me in New York, the city that never sleeps. My senior year, I decided to apply to some New York colleges so I could at least get my foot in the door and then just go with the flow.
When I got accepted to FIT, I bragged to everyone and when I said everyone, I literally meant, Everyone! Neighbors I never talked to before, family, friends, teachers, the principal, EVERYONE! Some people were haters, not going to name anyone, but they were a specific boy who I wasn't too fond of, and he would pretend they didn't know that right after high school I was going to the city. As soon as graduation hit I prepared myself mentally and physically to leave home and spread my wings and fly. My mother and step-father help me set my room up and after, we ate our last meal together before I was pronounced an official adult and was living on my own. Once they left, I did become sad because I was by myself, my roommate who was a junior at the time hadn't come in yet so I had a whole room by myself. Not trying to make myself sad, I finished putting together a few things, got in the shower to get ready for bed. I had a big day a head of me, that was filled of exploring and I wanted to be well rested.
The next day, I put on my best outfit and went onto the streets where oddly dressed people, high buildings, and super fast cars sped past me while greeting me ever so gracefully, I just knew I belonged here. Although, I couldn't do much exploring because the school had events for all of us to attend. I wanted to meet as much as people as possible! "Hey, I like your tattoo! What is that? Wait don't tell me, Virgo?!" Some girl said to me while looking at the tattoo on my shoulder. "Yeah, how'd you know?" I asked, happy that someone was talking to me. "My best friend is a Virgo," She points to some girl that was standing next to her but hadn't said a word since she's been talking. "Nice to meet you!" I said to both of them, and they said it back to me and proceeded to greet more people. As I walked on someone came up to me and told me that I had just spoken to Magic Johnson and L Cool J's daughter, taken back I was kind of stuck but played it cool and continued to just go on about my day. I couldn't wait for these little five minutes seminars to be over so I could just explore the town and see what New York City has to offer me. The second night in NY and I was out until one in the morning, being in time square with a group of people I didn't know and one boy named T, that I've been talking to over Facebook before I came to the school. He was cool but extremely annoying and obsessed with showing people his illustrations, don't get me wrong they were nice but this boy would sit next to you and make sure that you browsed through all of them. Anyways, I hung out with a bunch of people but they never wanted to explore with me so I often ended up going out myself and taking long walking trips. I would walk endlessly and see how far out I could go until one time I got loss, or I was so tired I had to take a cab back to campus. When I met my boyfriend I was happy because I finally had someone to show me around town and I had a buddy with me to enjoy it with.
He took me to the Bronx where he lived and I thought it was so cool! I hadn't been back since I was younger and I was so happy. After a while of us being together I packed up some stuff and moved into his place, the area he lived in wasn't too bad during the day but at night, it was completely different. Being from Groton, to living in Manhattan and not having a curfew, to now having to be inside at a certain time was odd to me. "They shoot over here, oh yeah. During broad day light, they just don't care," He explained to me like it was normal, of course my stubborn ass didn't believe him I thought he was just trying to be cool or something.... until one night.
My boyfriend and I was playing, Last Of Us, with the lights off -- that is the best game ever created, if you play, you have to play in the dark -- just when I was in beast mode, and a zombie was going to get me, I heard a pop noise outside and it sounded just like fire crackers. I didn't know why people would be setting off fire crackers in the middle of September but we kept playing the video game. Two more fire cracker sounds went off and my boyfriend went to the window to see what was going on, and to my amazement, a group of young boys were in the middle of our complex shooting off a gun. When I say, I was so dumbfounded at the time, I couldn't believe my eyes.
I felt kind of safe because at least we were on the sixth floor but I couldn't believe what I was looking at, right after one of the boys set off the gun they all ran in different directions. We thought it was done but I kind of was in shock still, my boyfriend just went on playing his video game but I kind of sat there. "I thought you were joking," I said staring off into deep space, "why would I lie about that?" he said while shrugging his shoulders. Five minutes later, we saw a flash light in the window and heard a gush of wind go by. Waiting a minute before looking outside, my boyfriend turned off the TV so it would be completely dark in the room and a big SUV police van pulled up, under cover cops was on the scene and ready to arrest the suspects. Next thing you see is, one of the group of boys -- I know because I remember what he was wearing -- trying to walk pass the cops like he wasn't just playing with a gun. I don't know how they knew it was him but you see him run pass them and the under cover cop, run right behind him and then obtain super powers and wrestle him to the ground. I felt like I was watching Cops on TV but had a front row seat on the real action.
Ever since that night, the people in that area were always up to no good, and for some reason it was always behind our building. I'm happy that we don't live there anymore and have to deal with living like that. This doesn't mean that all of the Bronx is bad, only some parts, the only sad thing is we have to move again because of our crazy landlord. What would you do in this kind of situation? Feel free to comment below and start a conversation. Until next time ❤
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