And oh Bronx, here’s another example of your no mercy ways. As you know, the
most delicious eating establishments that go by the name of White Castle are
liberally sprinkled all over your fine ass. White Castle: the only place in the
city where one can buy a sack of 15 miniature hamburgers for the
bargain price of $5.99. If I wasn’t a vegetarian, I’m sure I would satisfy
my palate there all the time, subsequently designating 10% more of my time to
the bathroom. Well here’s a little known fact to some: White Castle is one of
the most dangerous places in all of New York. In my freshman year of college,
some guy got hammered to death in the parking lot of our local White Castle. And
by hammered to death, I mean hit with a hammer until life ceased to exist in
him. Oh Bronx, you rebel, you.
I love you Bronx because I always know what to expect on your local subway,
the D train. It’s by far the worst kempt in the NYC subway system, so it never
keeps me guessing. If I walk down into the station and it smells like hot pee,
that’s because indeed, the gentleman standing not four feet away from me has
just urinated all over the staircase. That large buffalo I just saw scamper
across the train tracks? Silly me, it was just your everyday, local sewer rat.
And if I step on broken glass, I don’t even need to think about getting that
tetanus shot because, hot damn, I know I’ve just contracted Hepatitis B.
I love the D train because without fail, I am always the only white person
riding it until Columbus Circle and it feels so good to finally get some
diversity in my life. My favorite thing about the D train though, is that with
all the people who get on and perform for change, it’s like my own personal
little Broadway. Where else would I find a homeless man screaming “rock and roll
McDonald’s” into a plastic bag? Not in some whack performance of The
Producers, that’s for sure! Oh Bronx…blissful, beautiful, bountiful Bronx!
I love you Bronx because nowhere else in the world can I walk out onto the
street and
buy a Bible and a bong at the very same vendor. I mean, that’s a birthday
present for my mom right there in one fell swoop. And if I wanna look fly at the
club, all I have to do is stop by one of the high-class garment retailers on
Fordham Road like Pretty Girl, Easy-Pickin’s, or Dr. Jay’s Ladieez. I can choose
from an array of nipple coverings, perhaps a tangerine thong, and a sexy pair of
booty jeans so I can shake what my Mama gave me. Which isn’t much, but if I
stuff a couple of cantaloupes in there I can fake it pretty well.
Or, I can just load up on some of the soulful, delicious Bronx treats that
they sell roadside: Those honey roasted peanuts, or that onion stuff coated
in…some kind of…crust, or that uh, ambiguous meat on a stick with
something-sauce or those genetically-engineered peeled fruits chopped with a
rusty knife….actually, I avoid your yucky roadside food altogether, Bronx. I
ain’t feeling that so much.
But the best Bronx purchase I’ve ever made was last Friday. My roommate Gwen
and I were strollin’ back from the D train on Fordham Road when this Asian lady
in a fluffy, white parka with a crazy gleam in her eye approached us holding a
clear, plastic container holding two small turtles the size of half dollars.
Immediately, I loved these turtles
like a fat kid loves cake, and ten bucks later, we were the parents of two
baby Bronx red-eared sliders.
What we didn’t realize is that these turtles are crack turtles. We know
because for the past week, they have been continuously beating the crap out of
each other, all the while refusing to eat, probably from crack withdrawal. We
named them Bobby and Whitney because they’re violent drug addicts laden with
cholera. We’ll take care of them forever and ever. Which really only means for
the next couple of weeks until we realize that they will inevitably die under
our care, and then we will release them in a pond at The Botanical Gardens.
Word.
Oh Bronx, more than anything about you, I love all your locals who make you
the diverse, spicy, energy-filled borough you are. I love that guy who stands
outside the Metro-North station every Sunday on a wooden platform with a
microphone to preach the word of God and accuse all white people of being the
devil. Every time I walk by he shouts profanities at me and damns me to Hell.
But I just smile and wave, because I don’t think he’s realized that no matter
what he says, I’m going to Hell anyway. I’m badass like that.
I don’t take his curses personally though, because he hates every kind
of person there is. One time my friend Liz pretended to be a lesbian just so he
would perform an exorcism on her. He placed his hand right on her forehead and
through his microphone shouted, “CHILD, BE STRAIGHT! PRAISE THE LORD!” He yelled
this repeatedly, so loudly that the sound resonated in some neighborhoods as far
away as Staten Island. Liz didn’t know what to do, so after a while, she just
started yelling, “I love penis! I love penis!!” That was nice of Liz, because
she actually made that man believe that he had cured her of her lesbianism. Good
Samaritans we are, here in the Bronx.
I love the street corner prostitutes that hang out by the newsstand a couple
blocks away from campus. Crystal, Destiny, Chastity, Candy, Angel, Dyslexia, and
the rest of the herd stomp the yard and do their prostitute thang. And even
though I know what they do for a living is
totally illegal and unfulfilling, I get a little envious because they all
look so damn hot from 50 yards away. But in a weird way, it also gives me hope
that maybe from 50 yards, some unsuspecting young man will mistake me for being
good looking, too.
Not to cut myself short or anything—Bronx locals hit me on all the time!
Sometimes, men only 30 or 40 years my senior will ogle me and whistle at me as I
strut down the street. I try to ignore the bizarre types of lingus they’re
probably fantasizing about and accept every catcall as a gracious compliment.
Because I’m not getting any of those from boys my own age (this is your cue to
collectively feel bad for me).
Perhaps my favorite people in the entire Bronx are the Italian bodega owners.
Upon entering their stores, they always greet me with a hug and a very
respectable handshake, commenting on how intelligent and literary I am with my
copy of The Onion. Most importantly, though, they never fail to supply my
friends in our rampant race toward alcoholism. They so generously overlook our
status as underagers and help fill up our liquor baskets with Majorska,
Aftershock, Jack Daniels, Captain Morgan, Smirnoff Ice, those little TGI Fridays
Mudslides, and my personal fave, Arbor Mist Tropical Fruit Chardonnay. Then we
leave the bodegas, hail a gypsy cab, heckle with the driver in rudimentary
Spanish, and drive off into the sunset with Poland Springs bottles full of malt
liquor. Oh the good, wholesome fun we have in the Bronx.
Now Bronx, you may think that this letter to you is merely a grouping of
unconnected ramblings that don’t lead to any specific point, and usually that is
a characteristic typical of my writing. But this letter holds a much deeper
meaning.
Though I try, I truly do not fit in with the Bronx culture, and this leaves
me bitter, harsh, and caustic. I am trying to strip myself of my Connecticut
ways: the pearls, the Ralph Lauren sweaters, the ignorant, elitist attitude. I’m
gonna try hard to fit in to some Apple Bottoms Jeans and keep it real in the
Boogie Down.
So if you see me trading in my East Coast vocabulary for
some spicy Bronx attitude and I’m lookin’ all a fool, harden not your heart
and give me some room to grow. In due time, I will adapt to the true ways of the
B-X. In the meantime, you keep curb stompin’ Manhattan, ya heard?
xoxoxoxo
Love,
S. Baby
