My young friend Haley and I met in Fort Greene after the passage of the season’s first tropical storm. We had originally planned on cruising down Kent Street into Williamsburg, however the evening sky blaze blue and we opted for a voyage to Red Hook. Larry, a fellow African traveler lived in the low projects and was happy to hear I was coming his way. I missed a turning and we ended up at the end of Van Brunt Street at sunset. It was hard to believe a storm had rampaged up the Atlantic Seaboard and the Statue of Liberty marked the beginning of America.

I excused myself from Haley.

I had to relieve myself.

I hadn’t seen the approach of a middle-aged women with two dogs, but she entered the open space before her luxury condo building and said, “People live here.”

I apologized and she mumbled something about low-lifes and I refrained from a nasty comment, since her second dog’s rear legs were strapped to a coaster. I felt more for this dog than this woman. No one white had lived along the harbor in the last century. My cop friends had worked the project’s slave patrol.

Thieves and murderers of the 76th Precinct.

Now Red Hook is the 37th safest area in New York.

Larry met us at the Red Hook Lobster Pound.

Lobster rolls were $15.

Good, but not Maine good.

We walked over to Coffey Park and I told him about my encounter. The young man shrugged, saying, “Nothing stays the same.”

“You’re right.”

“But I had a friend killed in plain daylight the other week. Why? Who knows.”

Larry, Haley, and I ate our lobster rolls in peace.

Happy to be safe from Karens and especially guns.