On the 4th of July last year, I tried to go see World War Z with a few of my friends, but the theater in my neighborhood had a line that wrapped around the block, so we went back to my apartment to watch Edward Scissorhands (what?) and eat Mexican food from a place with prices so low it’s cause for alarm in Brooklyn. When the fireworks were about to start, we went up on our rooftop and stood around with all the people in our building we’ve never met and listened to the Bon Jovi and Ted Nugent coming from a private party in the area of the roof where Jack could’ve paid an extra $40,000 when he bought our place to own a chunk and fence it off from the plebeians but didn’t because he’s not insane.

Fireworks were going off in all directions around us from different parts of the boroughs and the tri-state area, and the lights on the Empire State Building were switching from pink to purple to white in a way that made it look like the top was spinning. I took this picture of Chris, Nik, Jack, and Andrew for no real reason and edited it right away but never did anything with it. I came across it recently, though, and it amazed me how different everyone looked even seven months ago. We’re growing up! And someday, these guys will have gotten married and had kids and moved to other cities like everyone does, and one of them will find this picture and think back to the better times in his life when he was eating cheap Mexican food with his best friends on a rooftop in New York City.