Hanging around on the block is a sort of science. You have a lot to do and a lot of nothing to do. In the winter there's dancing, pad combing, movies, and the like. But summer is really the kick. All the blocks are alive, like many-legged cats crawling with fleas.
People are all over the place.
Stoops are occupied like bleacher sections at a game, and beer flows like there's nothing else to drink. The block musicians pound out some gone beats on tin cans and conga drums and bongos. We rolled marbles along the gutter edge, trying to crack them against the enemy marbles, betting five and ten marbles and the other guy's. We stretched to the limit skinny fingers with dirty gutter water caked between them, completely oblivious to the islands of dog filth, people filth, and street filth that lined the gutter. That gutter was more dangerous than we knew.