In my first weekly walk of the semester I visited a place I hadn’t been in about six months, queens center mall. This for the most part is strange because there was a point in my life where it would be a weekly destination. During High school me and a few friends would go after we finished up our daily classes quite often. Whether it was to shop, eat or even just hangout we could always find an excuse to meet up there and enjoy the rest of day with each other. The reason I would finally go back is because some of the friends from back then wanted to meet up once again like old times. Upon leaving my house I remember thinking “The water in my hair is going to freeze with how cold it is right now, I wonder how Jelani is holding up with the weather coming back from california? I’ll be sure to ask him when I see him”. This in turn lead to me sliding down my stairs landing firmly on my behind, Way to teach me not to zone out. Dusting myself off I got up and proceeded to walk down the dark cold street of Allendale, which had this empty atmosphere to it almost like a western movie when a tumble weed blows past the frame. After drudging through the unfrozen ruminants of what was once a beautiful snow fall that had become a dark unsightly pool of slush on the street I reached the futuristic air train station. Proceeding quickly past all the tourist that spoke in foreign tongues and the homeless who also ironically sounded like they spoke a language from another land. I entered the subway riding down the jerky and clearly out of code escalator only to be greeted by New York’s finest. Upon on looking on their faces one thing is always apparent “a fundamental truth of the hood” they don’t play for your team and you don’t play for yours.