Leaving the Bronx

I’m gonna take a minute to go back to the exit from NYC. In our crew we always talk about how journeys begin before you leave and end long after you return…

14 - 9 - 10

Another journey has begun…even before the sun announces we’re worthy of another day, the call of brotherhood sounds. Enmanuel, Frank and Flo roll out of bed and out into the sleepless shadows of Valentine Ave. to grab the whip that’ll take me to the airport. Mike stumbles out into the dim light of the hallway to say peace and then insists on taking the traditional foto of me with my bags. Classic. Down in 3B Abe gets up and opens the door to give me a final pound y la bendicion, (we figure the more blessings the better). I walk out onto our block. I’m standing alone for a moment in the yellow haze of the streetlights.

Ahh, the block…I hate it, but I hate to leave it. The violence of crack, the guy stabbed across the street a couple months ago and my boy get put up against the wall and cuffed just last week. And yet right next door is family, where Rosa sells taquitos and tortas and Harris y Tito and the others guys kick it and tell stories and ask us to get the guitar to sing. Home. And then the late night chaos, somebody gotta break a bottle. The midday screaming matches between the lady on the fourth floor and the guys sitting on the hood of a car. Street football games at 2am when a diving catch sets off a symphony of car alarms. And drugs like milk outa the bodega. Home. It got a little quieter after that bust a while back when they found millions of dollars of heroin, guns, etc across the street but it’s getting back to its hostile self. Valentine Ave., you break my heart. I think of the last line in our piece about Manhood: “This War zone of a Home cannot steal our free will… We can still be as beautiful as the Sun…”

My brothers pull up in the car. Frank and Flo holding down the back seat, I get in the front next to E. I look at their tired faces. “Yall already know”. That means I’m grateful. Frank pats my shoulder, E says I owe him big time, Flo sits back and smiles. We turn down 194^th st and roll toward Webster then left on Fordham and out to the airport. Leaving the Bronx always hurts a little. I swallow the pain and regain focus. Its time to get to work and this is a good new beginning.

Flying down the highway through Queens listening to Nas I can’t think of a time when I had such a good sendoff since being in the back of a bread truck with fifteen family members bouncing down out the mountain hood in Quito to take me to the airport also at 5am. I feel strengthened by the solidarity. “Yah” I say, looking at each of them… “this is Brotherhood.” They laugh- “We got you brother” I nod, thinking to myself- yah, yaw do, and that… that is as beautiful as the sun.

It’s September 14^th and the Peace Poets are on the move again. Less than 12 hours ago Frantz and Abe arrived at JFK from Germany where they were representing Brotherhood/Sistersol and The Peace Poets at an international conference. Now I’m back at JFK putting my feet up at gate 3A realizing I’m ready. Here we go again…