There’s something about old school freestyle music that takes me right back. TKA, Stevie B, Cynthia, Johnny Q — that whole era. I wasn’t old enough to really party back then, but I remember my mom taking us to at least one event. A speaker as tall as I was, and me standing off to the side taking it all in.
Those memories always lead me back to Clarke Place. The block had its own ecosystem, its own rules, its own hierarchy. You didn’t need anyone to spell it out. You just learned it.
Two families stood above the rest. One was a large Puerto Rican family anchored by a sharp, no-nonsense matriarch. The family was enormous — sisters, cousins, kids everywhere — and that size alone carried weight. The other was a Black family, smaller but deeply connected. Their influence came through alliances and one enforcer who seemed to know everyone in every surrounding block. Between the two, there was an unspoken truce. Everyone else worked around them.
I got along with most people, but that enforcer was a different story. For years he targeted me — taking my things, threatening me, making his point. I held my own once when one of his associates came at me alone, until the rest showed up. A blade came out that day.
The last time I saw him I was older and had grown into myself a little. He asked to see my sunglasses — and we both knew what that meant. I said no. He told me he could just take them. I told him he could try. He laughed and walked away. That felt like a win.
Looking back, Clarke Place had its own social order — unwritten rules everyone understood and mostly respected. Not so different from how power works anywhere, just scaled down to a few blocks in the Bronx.
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