The Breathing of the Bronx

Author: Martin

The Bronx in July is like a piece of sun-baked asphalt, with hot air gushing out of the subway vents, mixed with the aroma of fried bananas from the carts of Hispanic vendors. I clutched a wrinkled tourist map and shuttled through the Mott Haven area. The townhouses with fluorescent paint on the fire escapes were mixing jazz and baby cries into a unique neighborhood symphony.

I met Lina in a Puerto Rican cafe near Yankee Stadium. She had two earrings made from Coke bottle caps hanging from her earlobes, and was dissecting a sandwich with purple taro paste with a fork. "Lost tourist?" She pushed over a half cup of guava juice, and the sound of ice cubes colliding suddenly made the roar of the air conditioner gentle. As we walked along Grand Concourse Street, she suddenly squatted down to pick up half a piece of rainbow-colored mosaic tile: "Look, this is the legacy of the hip-hop kids who smashed the mirrors in the dance hall in the 1970s."

At dusk, the Bronx Zoo smelled of damp elephant dung. We laughed in front of the glass of the lemur house - a ring-tailed lemur was imitating Asian Escort Rina's tilted head to eat ice cream. When we passed Hunts Point Market, she took me into a second-hand bookstore with a "No Suits" sign. The owner used a rusty fork as a bookmark, and the cash register was actually a modified arcade game machine.

Woodlawn Cemetery at night was like a huge obsidian. Lina's canvas shoes crushed the moonlight and startled a few crows. "My grandmother's tombstone is engraved with 'She made the chili sauce thicker than blood.'" She suddenly shone the flashlight of her mobile phone into the distance: a temporary monument composed of twenty-three crosses, each with a pair of old sneakers underneath. "This is the shooting point created by the street basketball legend 'Mr. 23'." Her voice suddenly became as light as chalk dust, "Later, the bullet changed his score."

When we parted, she handed me an address written on a subway ticket stub: "If you still want to see the real Bronx." I looked down at my palm, and the ink had rubbed the "L" of "Lina" into a dove with its wings spread.