Brooklyn, I love you

I am walking down the street, arms full of groceries, coming up on three boys shouting angrily at each other.

“It landed on me!”
“Bullshit, son! It landed on me!”

We live near a middle school, and I’ve learned that the kids in my neighborhood either do not view me as an adult or couldn’t be bothered to care if I am. I’ve witnessed a few fights and even tried to break one up to no avail.

These boys are not little, but not quite teenagers, and things are getting heated. I’m trying to decide whether to cross to the other side of the street or not when one of them screams, the final straw, “NO, it goes bubblegum bubblegum in a dish, how many pieces do you WISH, and it landed on YOU!”