1- Nigger Town

White boys don’t walk River Street after dark – that snake of a road that runs along paths that George Washington once strode, separating Bunker Hill from Wrigley Park the way the river itself separates the North Side from Downtown.

Straight Street might kill you, the way Governor Street would. But no place kills you quite as dead as River Street will, a holy hell white kids from Wayne call “Nigger Town,” where they will shop for drugs by day, but rush through by car after dark.

Wayne kids got lots of names for streets down here, Spickville for Market Street, Jew Land for Broadway where it cuts through to the East Side.

River Street runs from the foot of the West Broadway Bridge to the top of First Ave, like a switch blade cut across the forehead of Paterson.

Nigger Town is so run down black kids boast that they were the first to talk on the moon, with potholes so big they swallow the rich kids cars if they drive too fast coming through, scared kids trying to get across the river to Haledon Avenue through the blue collar world to their own world on the very top of the hill.

But white kids might drive through here after dark, but none will walk here even on a dare – not unless they’re crazy like me, needing to prove something to myself if to nobody else, the black kids refusing to laugh because they’ve got something to prove, too, all of us finding out that blood is blood regardless of what color skin it comes out of.

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