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| (Photo by JGraphics) |
It’s a brown paper bag city! This is our tribute to the hustle. Year and date are hard to remember, my mind eye blurry. All I hear is “Yo Shawty, they got that good ready” next stop bodega. The store clerk hands me a brown paper bag, what’s inside aint none of my business. All I know is the content need to get back to where I’m headed and they need to get there fast. I’m too young to go to jail, and I look like an innocent altar boy in these Sunday church cloths. Deception is the devils trait. Holding the brown bag with sweaty palms I cross the street on green light, Dominican cab driver almost takes my leg off and calls me “mama yemaso”, what that means, I don’t know” but it can’t be good. I set foot on 184th street. Now I’m making my way to second 6 story building, the one with the rusted fire-escape that looks like it hasn’t been used since the Blacks and Ricans took over the Bronx from the Jews and Italians. Ring the buzzer; wait for the door to click open, no answer though. Every second feels like an hour. Looking both ways but trying not to look suspicious. This block is on watch mode.
Finally I hear a voice out of the speaker box, “Who that”. “Tone sent me” I answered with a nervous pitch in my voice. “Come UP” the voice responded. I swing the door open with a knot forming in my stomach. I needed desperately to rid myself of this brown paper bag. I made my way to the second story, my legs sticking to my parasuco jeans. For some reason summers are getting hotter and hotter in the Bronx. I found myself standing in front of apartment 2b, my eyes focused on the Jesus sticker on the green door, right next to the words Fuck Life carved into the wood along the peep hole. I heard dogs barking from the apartments on either side. “What the hell is taking so long” I whispered.
Its three minutes later, and I hear locks being undone from behind the door. A tall Hispanic man opens the door a wine stained tank top and wearing And1 shorts, white tube socks and sandals. He rushes me inside the apartment and looks down the hall before he closes the door behind him. One, two, three locks on the hinges. In a state of confusion I ask the man where he wanted me to place the bag. He signals me to put it on the table. The table was located in a lil hall between the kitchen and the bathroom. He walks into the kitchen and proceeds to wash his hands. “I hope it was worth the wait, I’ve been here expecting you for half an hour”, Knowing I only took about 15 minutes from the corner store to this apartment I knew the man was being confrontational. I apologized for taking too long even though I knew I dint as he proceeded to walk towards the table. He sits down, still gazing at me with a stern face and a slight grin. The flies in the apartment swarmed around a fruit basket the man had placed in the center of his retro dining table. He reaches over from one end to the other end of the table and grabs the brown paper bag. Let’s see what your uncle has for me today. He rips open the brown bag and feasts his eyes on a fresh Italian sub from the store deli. “Now that’s a sandwich” the man claimed and then reached into his back pocket, took out a moist five dollar bill that was taped together at the left corner. “Tell your uncle Tone a lil less mayonnaise next time” the man uttered as he handed me the bill.
As I made my way out of the fly infested apartment and down the building steps, I saw my friend Will walking into his apartment with a brown bag in hand…but Will is a well known hustler, aint no sub in that brown bag. But then again, that’s the mystery behind the brown paper bag, we never know what its contents are till we look inside, and by then it might be too late.
Walking back to my uncle’s corner store where I was working the summer I thought to myself, this is a brown paper bag city!
Finally I hear a voice out of the speaker box, “Who that”. “Tone sent me” I answered with a nervous pitch in my voice. “Come UP” the voice responded. I swing the door open with a knot forming in my stomach. I needed desperately to rid myself of this brown paper bag. I made my way to the second story, my legs sticking to my parasuco jeans. For some reason summers are getting hotter and hotter in the Bronx. I found myself standing in front of apartment 2b, my eyes focused on the Jesus sticker on the green door, right next to the words Fuck Life carved into the wood along the peep hole. I heard dogs barking from the apartments on either side. “What the hell is taking so long” I whispered.
Its three minutes later, and I hear locks being undone from behind the door. A tall Hispanic man opens the door a wine stained tank top and wearing And1 shorts, white tube socks and sandals. He rushes me inside the apartment and looks down the hall before he closes the door behind him. One, two, three locks on the hinges. In a state of confusion I ask the man where he wanted me to place the bag. He signals me to put it on the table. The table was located in a lil hall between the kitchen and the bathroom. He walks into the kitchen and proceeds to wash his hands. “I hope it was worth the wait, I’ve been here expecting you for half an hour”, Knowing I only took about 15 minutes from the corner store to this apartment I knew the man was being confrontational. I apologized for taking too long even though I knew I dint as he proceeded to walk towards the table. He sits down, still gazing at me with a stern face and a slight grin. The flies in the apartment swarmed around a fruit basket the man had placed in the center of his retro dining table. He reaches over from one end to the other end of the table and grabs the brown paper bag. Let’s see what your uncle has for me today. He rips open the brown bag and feasts his eyes on a fresh Italian sub from the store deli. “Now that’s a sandwich” the man claimed and then reached into his back pocket, took out a moist five dollar bill that was taped together at the left corner. “Tell your uncle Tone a lil less mayonnaise next time” the man uttered as he handed me the bill.
As I made my way out of the fly infested apartment and down the building steps, I saw my friend Will walking into his apartment with a brown bag in hand…but Will is a well known hustler, aint no sub in that brown bag. But then again, that’s the mystery behind the brown paper bag, we never know what its contents are till we look inside, and by then it might be too late.
Walking back to my uncle’s corner store where I was working the summer I thought to myself, this is a brown paper bag city!
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