Years back, a few of us made our way over to Elliot Place to see a friend. Nothing about that day felt out of the ordinary when it started. By the time it was over, it had become one of those memories that never really settles.
A group rolled up on us. Chains, bats, knives, pit bulls. Around twenty of them, three of us. We had no business with anybody that day. No crew, no beef, no reason to be seen as a problem. The friend we were visiting was cut from the same cloth as us, a regular kid into the same things we were into. None of that seemed to matter to them. They came at us like we represented something we didn’t.
I’ve gone back to that day in my head more times than I can explain. The aggression, the numbers, the arsenal they brought just to confront three kids who were there for no reason other than to hang out. It never added up. We were from the same neighborhood, walking the same halls in the same schools, living basically the same life. There was nothing there that should have warranted what they brought.
We got word to some older guys from our block and they helped us get out of it. That call was probably the thing that kept a bad situation from becoming something none of us could take back. Even now I think about how differently it could have ended.
What I’ve never been able to fully work through is the mindset behind it. That instant willingness to escalate, to bring that much force to something that amounted to nothing. Growing up in the Bronx meant navigating that kind of tension constantly, but knowing it existed didn’t make it any easier to face when it showed up directly in front of you.
I don’t know where those guys ended up. Sometimes I wonder whether they’re still around, whether some of them are gone or locked up, whether any of them ever think about that day the way I do. Certain moments just attach themselves to you and don’t let go. That one is still with me.
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