The Hottest August

- Mike, we're live.

- Hi, I'm alive.

female narrator: Here we were, in the month of August.

The year was 2017.

The place, New York.

- The neighborhood has changed.

- We lost everything, but we're still here.

- Do you have any worries about the future?

narrator: Filmmaker Brett Story brings us an intimate portrait of New York city residents, their anxiety about the changing climate, and their look to the future.

- I'm greatly concerned about the planet, our home.

- People have thought the United States was far more stable than it actually is, but the level of the harm is so vast that we actually need to be thinking about it all the time.

- Our kids might not live out their full lives.

- It is a reality that a lot of people don't like to face.

- It's all worth fighting for.

narrator: "The Hottest August," now, only on Independent Lens.

[uplifting music] ♪ ♪ - Tell me when I'm hot.

I didn't shave.

I'm sorry.

- Nah, it's perfect.

- I'm gonna take my girlfriend out to the beach and go dancing tonight.

I just moved here from Suffolk County.

I had to get out of the bubble.

This is awesome.

I've worked--I built the boardwalk.

I'm a union man, and I said I've got to spend one summer in Rockapulco.

This is Mike.

Mike, we're live.

- Hi, I'm alive.

- Mike's an ironworker.

- Yeah, I build skyscrapers.

I built the World Trade Center, Yankee Stadium, all the bridges.

- Mike's an ironworker.

This is a union house right here.

- Well, how do you feel about the future of unions?

- We're losing market share.

It's hard to keep a base.

- Yeah.

- We're getting too many non-union... - Non-union.

- Immigrants.

- Yeah, and they send the money home.

It's not good.

- The contractors are undercutting everybody.

They say they're gonna pay fair market wage.

They do the bid work for that, but they don't pay.

- Right.

- So these guys got no medical coverage or health benefits.

- They're getting 12 bucks an hour and then they die because the safety levels are not up to spec.

It's a shame.

- Yeah, it's a shame.

- ♪ All the kids playing out front ♪ ♪ Little boys messing round ♪ ♪ With the girls playing Double Dutch ♪ ♪ While the DJ's spinning a tune ♪ ♪ As the old folks dance at your family reunion ♪ [tense music] ♪ ♪ narrator: So here we were, in the month of August.

The year was 2017.

The place was New York.

♪ ♪ Over that month, 10,485 babies were born, 4,373 deaths mourned, and 200,000 tons of garbage collected.

♪ ♪ While the city was home to many animals, thousands of the planet's species had recently gone extinct, included the Christmas Island pipistrelle, the beaver pond marstonia, and the blue-tailed skink.

♪ ♪ Every day that August, a stranger roamed the city, stopping people to ask questions, as if something useful might be gleamed about the time.

♪ ♪ Since then, all types of objects have been recovered.

♪ ♪ One of these, a guide to wilderness survival, contained this sentence: "The plan, a memory of the future, tries on reality to see if it fits."

♪ ♪ [waves crashing] ♪ ♪ [beeping] - Hi.

Sorry, I hope you don't mind.

I--If you wanted to talk to us, we would love to talk to you.

- Sorry.

Okay, my name is Lrae.

Um, it's my father's name backwards.

His name is Earl.

They flipped it around, but my parents don't, um, pronounce it that way.

They pronounce it Lira.

It's Italian for money.

Uh... [laughs] Pretty cool.

Well, I work at AST Fund Solutions.

It's a call center here in the Brooklyn Army terminal.

It's pretty decent.

It's pretty flexible.

I attend college in the morning, so, uh, it's very good with my schedule.

I work 3:00 to 11:00 p.m. - Do you have any worries about the future?

- [chuckles] - Like what?

- Oh, this is a terrible thing to say out loud.

I would prefer not to be single forever.

[laughs] Okay.

[dramatic music] ♪ ♪ [dogs barking] ♪ ♪ [splashing] [all laughing] - Gonna go right down here.

We now have 28 nesting pair of ospreys.

In 1990, we had none.

So we're happy to see that they have come back and, uh, doing very well and fully restored to the bay now.

[phone beeping] Oh, okay.

[bird chirping] Some of the houses, you can see, got really slammed by the storm and they didn't repair them.

I think, uh, these people are definitely gonna have to move or jack up their houses another ten feet.

So for right now, people are preparing; they're coming up with different plans.

One plan is to put a big gate--build a gate right behind the bridge there, right across the bay.

A sea gate, and, uh, only--and during-- leave it open, but when you have a storm coming, close the gate.

You know, keep the word.

But 100 years from now, you know, where are we gonna be in the city?

I don't know.

- Have you always, uh, cared about animals and nature?

- Yeah.

Even since I was a little kid.

I had that gene, the nature gene.

I was teaching a class once, and I had all these little kids, and I said, "Are there any animals in this classroom?"

And the little kids looked around and, you know, a couple raised their hand.

And I raised my hand.

I said, "Look, we're animals.

We're part of the animal kingdom," and the bus driver was there-- you know, the guy that drove the school bus, sitting in the corner.

So after the class, the kids went out, and he says, "You know, that ain't right, what you said."

He says, "We ain't animals."

I says, "What we're we?

Vegetables?

Minerals?"

[chuckles] You know?

You know, we forget.

We're part and parcel of the whole animal kingdom.

[distant shouting] [Fifth Harmony's "Ex's & Oh's"] - ♪ Now there's one in California ♪ ♪ Who's been cursing my name ♪ ♪ 'Cause I found me a better lover in the UK ♪ ♪ Hey, hey until I made my getaway ♪ ♪ ♪ - Alfred and I are very resourceful, and that's something that I know I can always fall back on, because even at 61 years old, I could still run circles around some of the 30-year-olds and 40-year-olds.

Uh, I was a realtor.

I was a store owner.

Uh, you know, I've really done it all.

I've done so many things, and I like to do that.

I guess I'm working class.

I just see myself different as a person that sets an alarm and gets up every single day to get on the train and go into Manhattan, or whatever--wherever it is that they work.

You know.

- You feel the same way?

- I--I don't know if anyone has labeled us as blue-collar.

You know, um...

I--I somewhat feel the same way, yes.

You know, but it's just-- everybody wants a job, but nobody wants to work.

[indistinct shouting and chatter] [distant music playing] [seagulls cawing] - Yeah, don't step on the dome-- - I graduated valedictorian of my college, and I can't get a job.

I have a degree in physical and environmental geography, so it's kind of hard, uh, to find something that doesn't require a master's degree also.

So my dad actually works for the EPA, so I figured I could go for that, but right now, it's a really bad time to try to get an environmental job, because the EPA had to be downsized.

Um, so I haven't had much luck in my field.

- So yeah, for reasons.

- For reasons.

- Political reasons.

Um, it's tough, learning the realities of being an adult.

- I think there's a much more real fear for us, that, like, our kids might not live out their full lives.

Right now, I don't want kids, and I'm not gonna say that it's all because of that, but there's definitely a big part of me that's like, "Well, I don't know how much time I have."

[dramatic music] ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ narrator: There is a scientific and ideological language for what is happening to the weather, but there are hardly any intimate words.

Is that surprising?

♪ ♪ People in mourning tend to use euphemism.

The most melancholy of all euphemisms--the new normal.

♪ ♪ It's the new normal, as a beloved pear tree, half-drowned, loses its grip on the earth and falls over.

The train line to Cornwall washes away.

The new normal.

We can't even say the word abnormal to each other out loud.

It reminds us of what came before.

The way season followed season.

What used to be is painful to remember: chilly April showers, July weddings that could trust in fine weather.

"At least," we say to each other, "at least August is still reliably ablaze."

[train doors beeping] [train rattling] - I'm not quite sure what this is, but, um, I think it's, um,-- oh yeah, it's a really big print of, um--of the Afronaut.

His name is Dr. Tanimowul, which is my middle name, coincidently.

Um, so this piece is when he's in China and, um... getting some interesting looks on the street.

When people see the suit, when they're removed out of their reality, when something surreal happens to them, it allows them to envision that solution that exists in the future.

So by jumping to the future or moving to the past and finding problems there, and solving those problems there, they could apply that to problems that they have in the present.

[warbling music] ♪ ♪ - And one, two, three.

Five, six, lock step.

One, two, three, four, five, six, seven.

Walk.

Cross it over.

One and two, three and four, five and six, seven and eight.

One and two, three and four, five and six.

Let's walk again.

Walk, two, three, four.

- He has a cousin who told us to get into dance, and he said it's fabulous foreplay, right?

Dance for foreplay.

- It's one of the values, yes.

- It's one of the values, right.

Exactly.

So we love it.

[big band music] ♪ ♪ - So when you think of the 1920s, what do you think of?

- I think of the music of George Gershwin.

- Mm, yeah.

- Um, whom I love.

- He's a Gershwin freak.

- I'm a real Gershwin freak.

- "Great Gatsby," of course.

But just jazz in general.

Just men dressed up more.

- I mean, Prohibition, but, um... - This is true.

- [laughs] - The '20s is just an explosion of new ideas and-- and new--new everything, so it's very exciting.

[big band music] ♪ ♪ - Huh?

- How are you feeling about the future?

- Good.

I'm gonna do what I have to do and be where I want to be, 'cause right now, I'm not happy where I'm at.

So I have to make changes and do things that I need to do so I could be happy with-- to be where I'm at, because nobody is not gonna do it for me.

If I don't do it, I'll just be stuck in life.

- Thank you for calling 311, Amber speaking.

I see you're calling about road repair?

- You left the item there.

You did call and speak to someone on the premises, and they told you that they was gonna place the item aside for you.

When you tried to call back, they--no one would answer the phone, or you can't locate the item.

Is that correct?

Okay.

- I mean, this is a privately-owned building, right?

Okay, so I mean, with those types of complaints, um-- those things go to Department of Housing Preservation & Development.

So I mean, if you want to, uh... [overlapping chatter] - Thank you for calling 311.

This is Beverly.

How can I help you with illegal parking?

- Okay, well, that would be a 911 call.

- Would you like for me to transfer you?

- You want to be anonymous?

You would like to be anonymous?

Okay.

So we have a street condition, rough, pitted, or cracked roads for the past three weeks, located in Queens, South Sandalwood Avenue between Guy Brewer and Springfield Boulevard.

Is that correct?

- Okay.

- Well, thank you for calling 311.

[dramatic music] ♪ ♪ [distant traffic passing] [chicken clucking] - I was a very good mathematician.

I had several years of college mathematics before I'd even gone to college, and there was this major at Emory called Economics Mathematics.

I went into a class, and I realized economics was about optimization.

The first lesson--and it was called marginal analysis-- said you just do something until it doesn't make sense to do it anymore.

You do something until the marginal benefit is exceeded by the marginal cost.

As a general premise in investments, what you want to do is try to buy something for less than it's worth, and spending a long time thinking very much about what things ought to be worth but what they actually are worth in a social, societal, or private context--why those two things are different is very animating to people like me.

[relaxed piano music] ♪ ♪ [banging] - We get a lot of people just coming for guys' night, girls' night, date night, corporate event, stuff like that, and, uh, we get a lot of, um, sort of empowerment things, and it's also a big sort of stress reliever, as far as, um, getting some pent-up energy out.

You know, this is a city filled with a lot of stress, and also a modern time filled with a lot of stress, and this is a place where people can just get it out, leave it here, and move on with their lives.

- And how is business this summer?

- It's going well.

[distant clattering] [train approaching] [dramatic music] ♪ ♪ [seagulls squawking] ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ [indistinct chatter] ♪ ♪ [birds tweeting] [crickets chirping] - So we were here, after Sandy, without the electric, without anything.

Three months.

Three months.

Even I called FEMA, I asked them.

You know?

Me and my husband.

All our community was gone.

And now, they're asking me to go?

- You know, it's a shame, because isn't her house up to the amount it's supposed to be for height-wise or what--however FEMA runs their stuff.

She paid a lot of money.

She had a big mortgage here.

And now what?

She don't count?

- Anything happen to your house?

- Yeah, we had 13 feet of water in it.

- [laughs] Yeah.

Everybody same.

- My house fall-- whole first floor.

- Everybody same.

- Yes, we lost everything.

We lost a lot.

My husband lost all of his machinery.

Lost a lot of stuff, but we're still here, and I don't need the guff.

- It's hard to believe Sandy was five years ago.

- Yeah.

- Where do you live?

- Right there, behind the big tree.

[chuckles] - Oh, yeah.

My bad.

- Yeah.

And that's what they did to Muhammad.

He's up--he looks like-- he's a birdhouse now.

- This old home.

This is not, you know-- - It doesn't make any sense, and, um, they're gonna be building a wall here that's supposed to protect us, and then from what I hear, they make, uh, big money doing this.

Our tax dollars.

It was a 100-year storm.

- What does that mean?

- That means there's not gonna be another storm for another 100 years.

- Who knows!

- You don't think?

- No, I don't believe in that.

No, I don't.

That's Al Gore.

You know, he's making tons of money on all of that.

- I hope not, but always could happen.

- Well, we've always gotten flooded.

I grew up here.

My mother grew up here.

We're from the beach.

Nothing ever happened like this.

We grew up with rubber boots on our feet.

- You did, not me.

I was in Poland.

- Well, you better get a pair.

[both laughing] - Okay.

- Alright, you guys, be safe.

- Okay, thank you.

- See, it's too quiet.

Like--like--like everybody want to stay to they self, but you don't see nobody.

You don't know where they hiding and stuff.

I don't like it.

- You know, to be a neighborhood.

- Now, it's so separated.

I don't like it.

I don't like it.

- Where is everybody?

- They in their house.

They just stays in the house, it seems like.

You know?

Don't want to mingle.

Don't want to meet people.

I don't know.

You know?

I don't know.

- It's definitely everybody knew everybody before now.

- Yeah, I don't like that.

- Individualized.

- I don't like that.

[rat squeaks] You see it?

- Yeah, where Vicki?

- He just went in the street.

- 'Cause you know I can't run.

- That's why I sit this way.

- [laughing] - 'Cause I got to see them suckers.

I never seen rats like that over here.

That, I've never seen.

- But you know what it is?

It's all the work that's being done.

The destruction and renovation and stuff like that.

- And tearing down stuff, and then they coming out.

They ain't got nowhere to hide, you know?

- [laughing] - So they coming out.

There was raccoon on this block.

He used to tear their ass up.

What?

You hear them in the middle of the night.

All you can hear-- "Eek, eek, eek."

And that raccoon was nothing to play with.

I don't know what happened to it.

But-- - Yeah.

- And then it was like--like, people was out all the time.

So, you know, rats and stuff like that never came out.

They was scared.

- Used to be 24/7 busy neighborhood.

- Yeah.

- Especially Nostrand Avenue.

- Now this block is so quiet.

I don't like it.

[dramatic music] ♪ ♪ [unsettling music] ♪ ♪ - I was told three things by my mom when I graduated from high school: you need to go to the military, or you can go to college, or you get a job.

So, you know, I didn't want to leave Mom, so I ended up going to college, and I needed money, so I ended up choosing going to work.

You know, and I really didn't follow the field of what I went to college for, and now I'm-- I'm at a point where I want to go back to school for what I didn't finish.

- What's your living situation now?

- I'm looking for a room now.

Actually, as--it's funny you brought that up.

Um, I have five appointments tomorrow morning, looking for a room.

Like, I have to move out of my apartment by tomorrow.

♪ ♪ [train clacking] narrator: Capital is, in practice, moved as much and as little by the final depopulation of the human race as by the probable fall of the Earth into the sun.

♪ ♪ Everyone knows that some time or other, the crash must come, but everyone hopes that it may fall on the head of his neighbor, after he himself has caught the shower of gold and placed it in safety.

♪ ♪ Après mois, le déluge.

After me, the flood.

This is the watchword of every capitalist and every capitalist nation.

Hence, capital is reckless of the health or length of life of the laborer unless under compulsion from society.

To the outcry as to the physical and mental degradation, the premature death, the torture of overwork, it answers, "Ought these to trouble us, since they increase our profits?"

♪ ♪ - No.

[clears throat] - No.

- No.

- No.

[indistinct chatter] - I came today because I witnessed something-- you know, I witnessed something, myself, happen.

Uh, this was around the election-- around the election, and, um, yeah, before-- anyway, I was walking down the street in Greenpoint, and, um, someone was very-- seemed drunk, outside a bar, very aggressive.

Obviously--I don't know, it was a bad situation.

It was the middle of the day, and I was walking with my baby, and there was a-- a woman in a full, like, hijab, walking by, and he was yelling, "Get out of this country," or, you know, this-- I don't know, like, all of these horrible things, and since I had my baby with me, since the person was obviously drunk, it was, like, a very confusing situation.

And the worst part, to me, is that I kept walking.

I did not do anything, and, um, it's, like, horrible to me to admit that.

And it's bothered me ever since.

Uh...

It makes me feel like a coward.

So, um, my friend told me about this, and I was determined, like, "No, I'm never gonna let that happen again."

I'm sorry.

It's just crazy to me, because it doesn't take very much, but you have to do something.

[dramatic music] [seagulls calling] [indistinct chatter] - Tell me about the neighborhood.

- The neighborhood, um, has changed since I was a little girl going to St. Theresa's, which is right down the block.

It was strictly, uh... Irish, Italian, some Jewish.

Uh, it's changed.

A lot of, uh, different ethnic groups have come into the neighborhood.

And I've got great neighbors, and that's not the issue, but then, sometimes, uh, you know, it gets a little rough around the edges, where sometimes all that you see on TV and in the news--I get a little freaked out walking around the neighborhood, whereas I didn't.

There's good areas and bad areas in every single borough, but people leave their neighborhoods and then they come here and they want to take that with them, and they turn the neighborhood into-- - Yeah, and it doesn't matter, as far as race is concerned.

- No, I--listen, I can turn around and say there are good and bad... - Italians have caused trouble, you know--it doesn't matter.

- In every race across the board.

And I'm not a racist.

I just don't like people who, um, you know, attack other people and do wrong and stuff like that.

[dog barking] [indistinct chatter] - You guys from Staten Island?

- Born and raised.

Where are you from?

- I'm from Canada originally, but I live in Brooklyn now.

- Okay.

- Yeah.

Why are you rolling your eyes?

- We've got a good friend of ours who's in Canada right now; he's Canadian.

That's not a big deal.

Where--where in Brooklyn?

- I live in Crown Heights.

- Okay.

- [chuckles] Yeah?

- Oh, what--what's funny about that?

- I was a cop and I worked in that area in the '70s, for ten years, and there no people like you there.

- You mean no white people?

- Not of your caliber.

Put it that way.

I played softball there for years.

- But it's changed.

- Evolving for a long time.

- Everything's changed.

Everywhere.

Bed-Stuy, Williamsburg, Crown Heights.

It's all changed for the better.

- You pay attention to politics?

- No, no.

- Don't talk politics in a bar.

- Never, ever do that.

- [laughing] - See these things?

They'll be flying over the place.

Don't want to do that.

- We tend to stay away from talking politics.

- Rather talk--when you're in a bar, you talk sports.

That's the best thing to talk about in a bar is sports.

- Unless you're a Mets fan.

- [laughing] Thank you.

Thank you.

[laughing] - Hey, some people take advantage of the law, that's on their side.

Okay?

You're on welfare, so you're gonna keep having kids after kids after kids after kids.

Why?

You can't even raise one kid.

Why have--why have five more?

- Well now, you can't go there, but-- - Well, yeah, but you can go there.

- You can't tell somebody, "You can't have sex."

- I'm not saying you can't.

I'm not saying you can't.

I said, why?

[overlapping chatter] - Well, they brought up the thing-- - Why?

Because they know that they're gonna get the money that we pay taxes to raise their kids.

- Do you think there's still racism in America?

- Absolutely.

- Yeah.

Totally.

100%.

- It'll never go away, never.

- 100%.

Yeah.

It'll never go away.

- It's called--I like to call it resentment, instead of racism.

Resentment.

Some people get treated differently than other people.

[unsettling music] ♪ ♪ [machines whirring] - Obviously, the tensions and the crowd are boiled over, all of this following violent clashes breaking out at a white nationalist march last night at the University of Virginia.

- As we describe the violence that was seen in this town last night, a torch-lit rally through the University of Virginia's campus, inviting white supremacists who gathered here.

[machines whirring] - Holy [bleep].

Holy [bleep].

That guy just drove into people.

Oh, my God.

Oh, my God.

Oh my God.

[police radio chatter] [tense percussive music] ♪ ♪ [distant sirens blaring] [distant car horn approaching] [soft dramatic music] ♪ ♪ narrator: From all hills came screams.

A piece of sky beside the crescent sun was detaching.

It was a loosened circle of evening sky suddenly lighted from the back.

It was a flat disc.

It was almost over the sun.

♪ ♪ But something else was happening at that same instant, and it was this, I believe, which made us scream.

The second before the sun went out, we saw a wall of dark shadow come speeding at us.

We no sooner saw it than it was upon us, like thunder.

It slammed our hill and knocked us out.

It was the monstrous, swift shadow cone of the moon, hauling darkness like plague behind it.

Seeing it and knowing it was coming straight for you was like feeling a slug of anesthetic shoot up your arm.

You can feel the appalling, inhuman speed of your own blood.

We saw the wall of shadow coming and screamed before it hit.

♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ - What's the importance of being able to dream about yourself in the future?

- Ah, being able to dream about yourself in the future means that you then make plans to-- to change that future, and so, um, if you're able to dream past Tuesday, if you're able to dream past a year from now, five years from now, then you make different decisions about what your life is--what you need to do to accomplish that dream, um, and I believe that one of the issues facing, um, the African-American community or the black community is that those dreams have been stripped, or those dreams have been severely curtailed, to the extent that one might not be able to think that they have opportunities in the future, because their current situation is so dire that perhaps tomorrow they might be killed, and as a result of that, the notion of planning beyond that is, you know--it's not--is-- I wouldn't say it's not necessary, but it becomes, um--it becomes less important than actually trying to figure out how to--how you survive for the, you know-- for the next day.

[dramatic music] ♪ ♪ - Do you consider yourself an environmentalist?

- Yes.

You know, I'm greatly concerned about the planet.

Our home.

You know, the biggest problem is population.

The more of us, the more problem we're gonna have, 'cause everybody wants to have a decent, you know, middle-class life, you know, everywhere.

So can the-- all the governments keep up with building, re-building, keeping infrastructure, feeding people, keeping people happy?

You can see what's happening around the world.

It's falling apart.

So population control is--is hard to do, though.

You know, we like to think, "Oh yeah, we control the deer population.

Increase hunting, you know."

But what we do with people?

[water rushing] - Hands up.

all: Don't shoot.

- Hands up.

all: Don't shoot.

- Hands up.

all: Don't shoot.

- Hands up.

all: Don't shoot.

- Hands up.

all: Don't shoot.

- Hands up.

all: Don't shoot.

- Hands up.

all: Don't shoot.

- This is your America.

This is your America.

Wake up, white people.

This is your America.

- People thought the United States was far more stable than it actually is.

There are lots of currents-- economic, social, political--that had been alive, like magma under the earth, for centuries, really, and we've had this uneasy truth, this--this fake stability for a long period of time.

Well, what's a risk, right?

A risk is something where you multiply the probability of a harm by the magnitude of the harm, Okay?

So it's a very small probability that we'll have a nuclear war, but the level of the harm is so vast that we actually need to be thinking about it all the time.

That is, a very small probability multiplied against a huge harm results in something.

- Do you think capitalism poses any risks?

- Capitalism, like many things--like many things, uh, can be used for good or bad, right?

Any tool can be used for good or bad.

A screwdriver can do great things or terrible things, right?

So...

I think capitalism, first and--first and foremost, should not go away, by any means, right?

It is the best alternative among many.

Ownership of assets, which is what capitalism is-- that you can own something, right?

If you can't own something, it's not capitalism.

But if you can--like, if we can own this table, it's capitalism.

That kind of ownership, if anything, needs to be expanded.

Like, we need to own clean air.

[thunder clapping] [rain pattering] [thunder cracking] - ♪ Take my hand ♪ ♪ Let me take you to love land ♪ ♪ Let me show you how sweet it could be ♪ ♪ Sharing your loving with Larry listen ♪ ♪ Float, float on ♪ [rain pattering] - How you are both feeling about the future?

- Um... - I'm feeling a little scared about the future.

- Yes, I didn't want to come right out and say that, but I will have the patience and see what happens with Trump and what he puts together and how much of it falls true and, you know, hopefully they won't run out of Social Security by the time I get to that age.

- What are you worried about?

- Uh, I worry about finances.

Uh, I worry about, um, just, you know, like, where am I gonna live?

You know, this is not my house, and I just worry about certain things like that.

He's more of a worrier than I am.

- Yeah, a little bit.

- Okay, he just worries about the past and the future.

So he misses out right now.

See, I'm the opposite.

I--I want to do things now.

I don't care the past.

Forget about the past.

I've let go of the past.

I try not to worry too much about the future.

You know, the only thing that I wor--like, I don't worry about, you know, like, you know, climate change, or, you know, anything like that.

Again, I don't have control over that.

I just worry about me.

You know, what I've gotta do.

You know, but I'll worry about when the time comes.

I've always lived like that, so I have to just roll with the punches.

[indistinct chatter] - Right now, I see my white counterparts and my richer counterparts-- they tend to live in better conditions while I'm living in the projects, struggling with, like, you know--struggling with, like, rent and a job and providing for my family.

You have other people who just have it a lot easier without having done as much work.

So that's how I'm feeling about it right now.

But, you know, you kind of got to deal with the cards that you were dealt, so I'm not really hating on it as much as I'm, like--it is a reality that a lot of people don't like to face, you know?

So, it is-- I actually graduate high school tomorrow so-- - Congratulations.

- That's, like, the first step into adulthood.

Um, but...

I think, for my future, I want to grow up in a world where...

I could look at my kid in the eye and not worry about what he or she will have to endure.

[distant jet engine roaring] - I know when my son got shot, it was the biggest tragedy.

You know, however, I had prepared myself for it.

It was almost like knowing that a train was coming, and it was going to collide.

You know it, but you know that you can't stop that either.

So I had just prepared myself.

Something tragic will happen.

Everyone gets their turn.

How am I gonna deal with that?

Am I gonna be strong enough to stand up and fight?

Or am I gonna crumble?

'Cause people do that too, and I don't judge them.

Some people just can't.

So I had kind of made that choice to just be ready and prepared for things, and I'm grateful, because every day I learn from others that are in the same situation as me.

You know, even before things had happened in my own life, I made sure I stood close to women who had suffered tragedy and studied them.

"How did you get up in the morning "after you had a child that had been killed?

How did you do that?"

You know, and the mom said, "I got up and I made coffee.

I had blood on my shirt, "And I just mechanically got up and I made coffee, and that was the day."

So I learned from that, and I think a few years ago, I would use the terminology, you know, you can't get out of the Bronx, but those were desperate times, and I didn't realize that I don't want to leave The Bronx.

Why should I move?

Like, stick and stay.

Fight for your stuff.

Like, now I say I'm gonna go down with the ship.

I don't care what happens here, how gentrified it becomes, what drastic measures, personally, I need to take.

I'm going to do that because it's all worth fighting for.

[boat engine revving] - What makes you most happy?

- Just, uh, getting out on the bay like this, on a beautiful day.

Just working and living out and close to nature.

Just seeing my little, uh, barn swallows that, next door to me, raise a family makes me happy.

They're beautiful little birds.

We have deer in Staten Island now.

Coyotes, uh, in The Bronx.

Skunks in Upper Manhattan.

Raccoons in every part.

Great horned owls nesting in every big park.

Peregrine falcons nesting in every bridge from that bridge and so all the way out to Hudson over there.

Uh, Ospreys, got that.

Red tail hawks.

[dramatic music] ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ [indistinct chatter] narrator: That August would turn out to be many things, but not the hottest.

Not even close.

There would be more rain than sun.

More fog than light.

More habits than dreams.

Elsewhere that month, and in the many months after, hurricanes surged and fires burned.

While all around New York, the water simply rose and rose.

[cheers and applause] - Don't come back here next week.

Do not come back next Thursday, okay?

The kids will be in school, right?

Yeah.

So you ready to dance?

All right.

Let's do it.

All right.

Here we go.

[Kerwin Du Bois and Lil Rick's "Monster Winer"] ♪ ♪ - ♪ Ready to perform ready to perform ♪ ♪ Ready to perform now now ♪ ♪ I know it isn't easy to make it look so easy ♪ ♪ Girl yeah ♪ ♪ You know the right combination ♪ ♪ You come with qualification ♪ ♪ You already know the program ♪ ♪ The word around the town ♪ ♪ They say you's a monster ♪ ♪ A monster winer... ♪ [dramatic music] ♪ ♪