Rico’s summer is a mix of chasing girls and hustling homemade cocktails out of a cooler on Orchard Beach, the Bronx. But when Destiny, his teenage girlfriend, crashes at his place with his family, it’s only a matter of time before his carefree days come spiraling down.

Curator's Note

If you live in Crotona Park East and don’t have a car, then one way to get to Johnny’s Reef, a fried seafood place at the southern tip of City Island that’s packed all summer long with Bronxites celebrating graduations or capping off beach days, is to take the 5 train from Freeman Street a few stops to Pelham Parkway/Williamsbridge Road, where you can catch the Bx12 bus and take it to Bruckner Boulevard (US 95), across the Hutchinson River from Pelham Bay Park. From there you’ll take another bus, the Bx29, the only public transit on City Island, via Orchard Beach. It takes a little more than an hour each way, but if track work or traffic holds you up, the Bx29 only runs every 15 minutes during peak times, so you’ll want to budget in some extra waiting time just in case, and if you’re coming back at night, the 5 train doesn’t run south of East 180th St after 9:00 p.m. So, then: If a 19-year-old from Crotona Park East cannot regularly show up on time to his minimum-wage job at Johnny’s Reef, how immature do you consider him to be? This question, in a sense, is the subject of Mad Bills to Pay, the debut feature by Bronx native Joel Alfonso Vargas, an instant-classic New York Movie and a lively, sophisticated study of the interrelated imperatives of masculinity and money, grounded in the specifics of a Dominican family in an unaffordable city. - Mark Asch

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