Back when we were kids in the Bronx, there was no Facebook Messenger, no texts. If you wanted to reach your friends, you either leaned out the window and yelled their name, picked up the landline, or walked over and knocked on the door. That’s how you stayed connected.
We’d show up at a friend’s apartment and ask, “Can Angel have company?” If their parents were cool with it, we were in. Sometimes the place was already packed with friends; other times it was just a few of us. We’d play video games, watch MTV, or gather everyone up and head outside to hang on the block.
There were times when we didn’t feel like being social, or maybe there was someone we didn’t want to hang with. That’s when we’d get our parents to say we weren’t home or couldn’t have company.
It wasn’t always simple. Some kids were good to hang with outside but not necessarily inside your apartment. Everyone had their own business, and you had to figure out who you could trust in your space.
Kids today won’t really get it, we grew up in a very different Bronx, with its own rules.
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