brooklyn
...ost attractive woman on the street. When I was I child I would cringe when she would call me over to run errands because at the time she resembled a monster in a scary stories I had read. If her appearance weren’t enough she smelled like a mixture of Lysol, urine, cats. This would be expected since she old, if she owned a cat but she doesn’t. I hate to think of the last time she had bathed. . “ Well you know her mothers never home, a girl needs her mother” They were discussing the Jamie who lives up the street. She was always quiet and never had many friends. Until last summer that is. She started dressing different, made some friends, and met some guy. Now she’s five months pregnant and showing and the whole block knows. Could it be that people make a neighborhood? On the street there are children playing and laughing, dreading the approaching moonlight because they know this means the will have to come inside. The faint sound of crickets can be heard amongst car alarms, cellular phones, and passing car radios. The boys are playing basketball, dribbling and making shots with a grace I wish to posses. The cars pass few and far between, but the boys pause for each one only to begin again as if the had never stopped. Across the street the pace picks up as all the girls line up and wait for their turn to strut their stuff between the ropes. They jump double dutch at lightning speeds, each one adding a new dance step to their moves trying to show they are better than the next. But if one should happen to stumble or fall they rant and rave about the “butterfingered”, double-handed girl turning the ropes. Does rhythm make a neighborhood. It’s a little darker now and the moon is in sight. Neighborhood guys diddy-bop(walk) up the block to a hiphop song playing only in their heads. I recognize a few of them and duck behind my door so the don’t see me in my beat up house clothes with my hair looking just plain bad. Andrew and Peter lead the pack. They are both attractive but in almost opposite ways. Andrew is very tall, light skinned, with a fresh shape up, and the whitest teeth. He was meticulous and I know for a fact that he refused to leave the house unless his clothes were matched perfectly. Peter was only seventeen but looked twenty-three, he had shoulder length dread locks and brown bedroom eyes, and it is rare to find him wearing anything other than a clean wife beater (white tank top) and jeans. Andrew, Peter and I all went to school together and I can remember when we were young and would talk about what we would do when we got older. Andrew wanted to go to college and be an astronaut, Peter wanted to finish highschool and never set foot inside a school again, and I wanted to go to N.Y.U. and accomplish something. I’m the only one who fulfilled their dream. Andrew dropped out of highschool in tenth grade and Peter just started school at Brooklyn college majoring in education. Is a memory that makes a neighborhood? Coming from around the corner, Keesha who I never really like much, and her friends begin to strut up the street. Each step they take is carefully choreographed and frequently practiced. This walk ensures that all males in a certain pred...