A Year in Da Bronx

I was recently trying out for a writing position at an online magazine that reviews outrageously expensive consumer goods. My job would have been ghostwriting pieces for a fictional character who is extraordinarily wealthy, tends to name drop, and has the sexual morals of an alley cat. As I don't really have access to luxury goods right now, I decided to write a review of some of the street food in my area. Here it is:

What: Empanadas
Where: The corner of Fordham Road and Webster Avenue
Price: $1.00 each and up.
Why: Sustenance and a nifty hangover cure

It doesn't happen often, but last weekend a combination of fresh mojitos and a latino jazz combo conspired to make my Saturday night a complete blur. I awoke to find myself in a strange bed north of 145th Street, again. While I tried to convince my timid driver that a passport is not necessary for traversing the Triboro bridge, I noticed that the combination of dirty dancing and clean rum had left me more than a little dehydrated. After surrendering my favorite pair of boxer shorts, which the young lady was quick to place on a homemade altar composed of three candles and a velvet painting of Our Lady of Guadalupe, I made my goodbyes in the broken Spanish that functions as the lingua franca of the area. Walking down the street, I happened across an empanada saleswoman on the corner of Fordham Road and Webster Avenue. While she initially offered her wares at the bargain-basement price of one dollar each, I quickly talked her up to ten dollars for two. In return for this princely sum, I received a fresh, crispy crust with a lightly-spiced, meaty interior. The saleswoman assured me that the contents of the empanada came from a local grocery store, not the pound. A few minutes later, my driver appeared in the Hummer, sporting a taser and what appeared to be a flak jacket. A greasy smile on my face and a stomach full of empanadas soaking up last night's mojitos, I settled back in the seat and awaited my return to civilization.

Although this is tongue-in-cheek, I think it gives a pretty good impression of my neighborhood. I have discovered that the Bronx isn't, in fact, located in New York. Rather, it exists in a mythical space, somewhere between Puerto Rico and the Dominican Republic. It is a bizarro world, where Spanish is the native tongue, the pizza and Chinese food are inedible, and the tacos are worthy of religious devotion. In Bronxland, every street corner features a salesman selling helado, a delicious tropical ice cream, and the English comes with a hispanic accent and a hefty dollop of four-letter words.

Whenever I take the fifteen-minute subway ride to Manhattan, I am surprised to discover that I don't have to go through customs or have my passport checked. All of a sudden, I no longer have to speak in broken Spanish, and I am shocked to find myself surrounded by white people dressed in conservative, concealing clothes. En mi barrio, people tend to be tan, clothes tend to be minimal, cellulite is worn proudly, and I look like an albino.

The people on my block are very friendly. Admittedly, some of them ask for money, but they're not too aggressive. I think they've figured out that the white guy in the hood is probably not flush with the pesos, if you get my drift. The tenants in the building tend to be somewhat protective, warning me that "there are bad people in the neighborhood" and to "watch out for panhandlers."

The general feeling tends to be that we are nice, mildly eccentric gringos who are probably a little insane. When we first moved in, the neighbors seemed worried that we were drug addicts. As the super, Ivan, explained, most of the white people who move up here are hippies, druggies, or both. This was brought home to us when my wife was harassed by the local policemen, who wanted to know why a white woman was wandering around this neighborhood at 6:00 AM. After she convinced them that she was not a prostitute, she only had to mildly hint at the possibility of a lawsuit before they let her be.

The wife describes the general reaction as "You do realize that you're white, don't you?" This attitude underlay her run-in with the police, and has characterized all of our interactions with the neighbors. Everyone feels obliged to warn us about the neighborhood, but is surprised when we point out that they live in the neighborhood, too.

It's fair to say that we like it a lot.