True Story.

It was our parents' rule: don't run after fire trucks. 
"You could fall behind them and get hurt," they warned. 

But when you're ten years old and live in a six-story, cold, brown-brick apartment building in the South Bronx's Patterson Projects, your options for fun are limited. 

Playing hide-and-seek in the open stairwells of your building. 

Pitching pennies against the stoop in front of 2595 Third Avenue. 

Charging the imaginary soldier's fort with toy rifles on the patch of brown and sort-of-green grass next door. 

You're always going to dream of something more exciting.

For us, a real adventure was crossing Third Avenue, with its constant stream of buses, trucks, and cars headed toward the Third Avenue Bridge or turning west at 138th Street toward the Madison Avenue Bridge into Manhattan. 

Both would take them into Harlem, then south into East Harlem, El Barrio.

But safety meant imagining Manhattan as another country. Stay close to home.

That meant crossing Third Avenue to a couple of concrete squares on the sidewalk next to the Auto Parts store to play Boxball against the wall. 

Or play Johnny on the Pony, a cruel game where the whole point is to see how many of your friends, lined up bent over with their heads against the wall, you can jump over. 

Sound like fun? Not if you're the first Pony (usually me). 

Your back can only hold so many bodies crashing down on you.

When we wanted to test fate, we'd head out to the Street to play Skelsies with bottle caps pushed around on chalk-drawn boxes or Stickball, where part of the fun is dodging cars on 140th Street.

The parent rule quickly dissolved into the clouds of that mild-weathered June Saturday as three wailing red fire trucks barreled down Third Avenue past 2595. 

We stopped our street games and headed for a more exciting adventure, chasing the fire trucks.

We ran screaming and excitedly down Third Avenue toward 138th Street, just in time to see the fire trucks, their sirens piercing the air, turn toward the Madison Avenue Bridge and grow farther and farther away.

We stopped, frustration boiling up inside us. 
"Anthony, you’re slowing us down. You’re too fat," Skippy declared. 
"Yo momma's fat," was my usual response to insults about my weight. 
"Look," Mickey shouted, pointing. "The fire trucks stopped at the bridge."
There's something mysterious and thrilling about exploring a new part of the South Bronx you call home at age ten. 

It didn't even occur to us that we were in unfamiliar territory, with industrial warehouses and truck repair garages on both sides of 138th Street. 

It was the farthest we'd ever been without our mothers knowing where we were.

We lost the fire trucks. 

They were no longer at the bridge entrance when we arrived. 

Determined, Mickey, Skippy, and I marched across the Madison Avenue Bridge, headed for El Barrio in Manhattan. 

We found ourselves lost in endless circles, running a gauntlet of gangs, winos, and junkies, desperately searching for a way back to the South Bronx. 

We were scared and depressed as we turned onto a side street lined with burnt-out buildings and old cars baking in the early-evening sun when we saw the sign: Willis Avenue Bridge—the Bronx.

Four hours after we had begun our lost adventure, the three of us, tired, dirty, and hungry, cried with relief as we walked down 140th Street, straight into the arms of our mothers, who were also crying. 

Through my tears, we promised we would never chase fire trucks again.

My mother took my hand, soothing me as she led me to our fifth-floor apartment, telling me I looked dirty and should take a bath. 

She filled the bathtub with warm water, promising me a late Arroz con Pollo meal. 
My hunger was that obvious.

She closed the shower curtain and the bathroom door, leaving me to soak in the water rising over my dirty, tired body. 

Suddenly, I heard the bathroom door crash open. 

The shower curtain was nearly ripped from its metal bar. 
I almost jumped out of my skin and out of the bathtub. 

There stood my mother, a mask of anger on her face, a belt in her hand.