{"id":45993,"date":"2013-06-28T09:20:36","date_gmt":"2013-06-28T08:20:36","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/breaking-news\/sleepwalking-in-camden\/45993\/"},"modified":"2013-06-28T09:20:36","modified_gmt":"2013-06-28T08:20:36","slug":"sleepwalking-in-camden","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/breaking-news\/sleepwalking-in-camden\/","title":{"rendered":"Sleepwalking in Camden"},"content":{"rendered":"

With 77,000 people, Camden<\/a> has one public library left, and in a city where Walt Whitman spent 19 years and is buried, there are exactly two bookstores, a Barnes and Noble serving Rutgers Camden students, and, not too far away, La Unique<\/a> African American Books and Cultural Center, with The Master Game, The New World Order, The Unseen Hand and Say It Like Obama in its window. Camden has no hotel<\/a>, and only one downtown bar, The Sixth Street Lounge. Hank\u2019s closed in 2010 after half a century in business. Now, if you can barely drink in the heart of any American city, no matter how tiny, you know it\u2019s seriously messed up.<\/p>\n

Just off downtown, there\u2019s also Off Broadway, however. The first time I entered, four years ago, I noticed \u201cNO PROFANITIES\u201d on the wall, yet the very stern barkeep had this T-shirt on, \u201cPRACTICE SAFE SEX. GO FUCK YOURSELF.\u201d You\u2019re finally home, I thought. On that occasion, I was able to make the acquaintance of Jamaal, a 65-year-old former math teacher. A jazz lover, he told me his favorite concert ever was Art Blakey and the Jazz Messengers at NYC\u2019s Blue Note. We talked about Mickey Roker, who used to be the house drummer at Philly\u2019s Ortlieb\u2019s. I once had a cassette of Roker keeping time behind Dizzy and Ray Brown, but it was erased by an embittered, life-hating middle-aged Korean art student I had lent the tape to. I should be awarded a peace prize, or some chintzy ribbon at least, for not strangling this motherfucker. A bottle of Rolling Rock in Off Broadway was, and still is, only $1.50. Jamaal informed me, \u201cThis place is all right. It has an older crowd. You can go home at the end of the night.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cWhat\u2019s the alternative?\u201d I asked.<\/p>\n

\u201cSomeone beats you up or shoots you.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019d rather just go home.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cMe too.\u201d<\/p>\n

In Camden, I had seen Wynton Marsalis at a free concert by the river. Like Baltimore, Camden has a safe tourist section, with a much smaller, grayer fish version of the celebrated aquarium. People who come to this protected enclave don\u2019t need to see the real Camden, not that they want to. They can even arrive and leave via a ferry from Philly.<\/p>\n

Lying outside Camden\u2019s tiny bullet-free zone, the Walt Whitman House, on Martin Luther King Blvd, gets almost no visitors, not that Americans are flocking to pay homage to their writers. Even during its days, this \u201ccoop\u201d or \u201cshanty,\u201d in Whitman\u2019s own words, was called \u201cthe worst house and the worst situated,\u201d and Camden was thriving back then, with its best decades still ahead. By the 1940\u2019s, Camden would become an industrial powerhouse, with many factories employing blacks and whites, and the largest shipyard in the world.<\/p>\n

\u201cYo, Chris Rock, I\u2019m at the Walt Whitman House.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cRun!\u201d<\/p>\n

In 2011, Ken Rose wanted to interview me by phone on July 4th, so I decided to do it in front of the Whitman House. On the day this country was born, I would not be in Philly, its birthplace, but Camden, its prototypical morgue. A habitually lawless government has no business celebrating the Constitution, and with this country being deliberately tortured and drown by its rulers, accompanied by flag-waving acquiescence of deranged voters, each 4th of July has turned into a sick and sad spectacle. Across the street was the Camden County Jail, and on the next block, ABC Bails Bond. Before Ken called, some guy shuffled up and said he was the caretaker of the Whitman home, but as we chattered, I soon realized he didn\u2019t even know who Walt Whitman was. He referred to Whitman in the present tense, as in, \u201cHe owns this entire row, including the parking lot right here.\u201d Predictably, he wanted me to give him some change.<\/p>\n

Yes, some Camden folks will ask you for cash, but many will also offer you cigarettes, dope or sex. Here, illicit dealing is king. Also in 2011, I met Abdul<\/a>, who was selling body oils, perfumes, knit hats and boxer\u2019s shorts from a table set up in front of a fried chicken joint. After peddling stuff for 7 years, business was getting worse and worse, so Abdul was planning on moving to Senegal, where he had a wife. Years ago, he had been busted for drugs, a wrong conviction, he claimed, and locked up for 3 1\/2 years. In prison, he converted to Islam. Released, he visited Senegal. As he walked into a Western Union, the lady behind the counter exclaimed, \u201cYou\u2019re my husband! I saw you in a dream.\u201d<\/p>\n

His wife was 40-years old, and \u201cdoesn\u2019t have a bad thought,\u201d Abdul said. \u201cShe can\u2019t be any better!\u201d Since she didn\u2019t want to come to the States, he would go to her. He was having a house built over there for $20,000. He sent her boxes of old clothes to sell. \u201cAmerican clothes are popular in Senegal,\u201d he explained. \u201cEven used clothes.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cWhere do you get old clothes? Where do you buy them?\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cI don\u2019t buy them. I get them from my relatives!\u201d<\/p>\n

In 2012, I met another Black Muslim man, 38-ish, who also sold on the sidewalk, in his case socks from a wheeled cart. Across the street was the ruins of the Carnegie Library<\/a>, so I said, \u201cThat was a beautiful building once!\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cI hear they\u2019re gonna fix it up.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cReally?! But the city is broke. Camden is broke.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cCamden is broke?\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cYeah, man, Camden is broke. Philly is broke. The whole country is broke! Didn\u2019t you hear about all the cops they laid off?\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cThey got money.\u201d He then read from the inscription on the building. \u201cNineteen-O-four. Man, that building is old. How old is that? Thirty, forty years?\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cIt was built in nineteen-O-four, so it\u2019s over a hundred-years-old.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cReally?\u201d<\/p>\n

He told me about a cop who had given him a ticket for selling on the street, \u201cThe judge will throw it out, though, because I was sitting in a restaurant when he busted me.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cYeah, but you\u2019ll still have to waste your time in court. What an asshole! Doesn\u2019t he have better things to do than to bust people trying to make a living? This city is so fucked up and he\u2019s busting you, and you\u2019re not hurting anybody.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cThere is a lot of complaints about this guy.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cIs he an older guy?\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cNo, a young cop, a young, white cop.\u201d<\/p>\n

Whoever this cop was, he\u2019s gone, because Camden has laid off its entire police force. That\u2019s right, all 270 cops who survived previous layoffs were let go in April of 2013, though 50 were immediately hired by the County Police that\u2019s now in charge of keeping Camden, um, safe. Announcing this restructuring, the mayor said, \u201cWe cannot sit back and allow our children and families to experience another 2012.\u201d Or another 2011, 2010 or 2009, etc., for year in, year out, this post-industrial city ranks as one of the deadliest in America. With its cops trimmed and shuffled, little has changed on Camden\u2019s streets, though there\u2019s a mobile observation tower across from the bus terminal. Inside that box is an anxious man with his head rotating nonstop, or a dozing schmuck, or no one at all, but you wouldn\u2019t know, would you? An instant panopticon, it is sprouting up everywhere, from theme park parking lots to your next mass protest. The Guardian Angels also made a cameo appearance<\/a> in Camden, but have wisely disappeared. Unarmed, they\u2019d stand an excellent chance of being peeled off the sidewalk, then rolled, posthaste, into Cooper Hospital, Camden\u2019s one world class institution. Come to Camden, where you can be cut up or expire with distinction! World class hands will stitch you up!<\/p>\n

\u201cWork here. Play here. Live here,\u201d shout the LIVE CAMDEN billboards, but until recently Baltimore also declared itself, \u201cThe Greatest City in America,\u201d and Milpitas<\/a>, whom most people have never heard of, drapes banners all over its blink-and-miss downtown, trumpeting, \u201cMILPITAS A Great American City.\u201d Whatever. What is Juarez\u2019 slogan, I wonder? Or Kabul\u2019s? Speaking of Cooper, I must tell you about Paul Matthews Young<\/a>, whom I met in 2012 at the Broadway train stop. On a plate glass window, this 50-ish man had taped his New Jersey ID, social security card and about eight sheets of paper showing his \u201cMoneterial Earning Assessment.\u201d It wasn\u2019t clear what he was trying to convey, to whom, or if it was some kind of protest. When he told me had 18 children, I asked, \u201cWith how many women?\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cNone.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cWhat do you mean none?!\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cI had them by myself.\u201d<\/p>\n

He said his 18 kids were born microscopic from the tip of his penis. The doctors at Cooper had something to do with this, but I couldn\u2019t get him to explain fully the procedure beyond the fact that Paul had to pleasure himself quite energetically.<\/p>\n

Hearing Paul\u2019s story gave you that old, most generic notion? Now that you\u2019ve got your cheap, discount sox made in China, you want some flesh also? Are you, by chance, versed in gonorrhea? You speak syphilis? Can you spell AIDS? It\u2019s not so much a carnal need, you say, but simply an ethereal desire to assist, or rather, nudge up, the local economy? See her, that\u2019s Angela. She looks about 14, but she might be as old as 17. Walking unsteadily, her eyes are practically closed, but she can see enough to tell that you\u2019re not serious. She\u2019ll keep walking because she has no time to lose. Each day, she can easily go through five or six bags of dope, plus some powder for variety, plus she has to eat, too, and maybe down a few cans of Steel Reserve to flush that lousy Chinese food, bought from Yuk\u2019s, yes, that\u2019s really the name, at 827 S. Broadway. I\u2019m not making anything up. Why would I? No one knows anything about Angela, not even her best friend. Thirty-three-year-old Michelle regularly gives Angela food and dope, but Angela still won\u2019t say nothing about herself, and don\u2019t you give me that shit about her being too drugged to remember, because on one level or another, none of us ever forgets anything.<\/p>\n

I won\u2019t forget walking with Michelle<\/a> when she said, \u201cThat\u2019s my baby\u2019s daddy,\u201d and she pointed to some guy across the street. Squinting, the dude was probably thinking, \u201cWhat\u2019s my side piece doing with that Chink (or fuckhead, or asshole)?\u201d You know, anything but \u201cgentleman\u201d or \u201cAsian American,\u201d per the New York Times stylistic guidelines. To think is already to compose, and thus to dissimulate and cover up, and to write is to further distort, nearly always, what we pretend to think, but writing, paradoxically, can be used to hint at the rawness beneath all this culture, this domestication, this farce, this composition. This half-assed expose almost never happens, however. Maybe it has never happened. Looking hazy, dude kept squinting as if he had a hard time recognizing his lay even.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s Rashid\u2019s birthday!\u201d Michelle shouted.<\/p>\n

\u201cHuh? What?\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cRashid! It\u2019s Rashid\u2019s birthday today!\u201d<\/p>\n

Showing no emotion, no smile, no grimace, dude gave Michelle one final squint, then kept walking.<\/p>\n

\u201cHe doesn\u2019t remember his son\u2019s name?\u201d I chuckled.<\/p>\n

\u201cNo, he remembers. Lamon\u2019s just a little out of it today.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cHow old is Rashid?\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cEight! He\u2019s eight-years-old!\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cAnd he stays with you?\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cNo, with my mom.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cSo your mom is not so bad after all.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cShe might as well do something for him, since she didn\u2019t do shit for me!\u201d<\/p>\n

Though Michelle is one-quarter Okinawan, it\u2019s hard to see any Asianness on her white face. She was mostly raised by her Japanese grandma, but at 16, she moved to Camden. Already a coke head, she got hooked on heroin at 19, thanks to her junkie uncle. Unable to pay for her daily treat, she started to trick, \u201cI\u2019ve been raped and beaten. Look,\u201d she opened her mouth, \u201cthese are dentures. I don\u2019t like to go with young black guys. They\u2019re fucked up! There are, like, nine guys who go around beating up girls.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cJust for the hell of it?\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cYeah, just for the hell of it. This is Camden!\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cSo what are you going to do? What\u2019s your next move?\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019d like to get into rehab, maybe go to Florida.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cWhat\u2019s in Florida?\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cI dunno. There\u2019s a good rehab place in Florida. My sister told me about it. I need to get out of Camden, that\u2019s for sure.\u201d<\/p>\n

Her pale arms showed purple needle marks, and so did the tops of her hands. Her veins have collapsed. A blue headed pin pierced her upper lip, a large hoop dangled from one ear, and her hair had been dyed a burnt siena or, more likely, was just a red wig. It was a very hot day, yet she was draped in a charcoal colored hoodie, and her faded blue tank top had been rendered lumpy by cheap, ill fitting bra. For someone living rough for so long, Michelle still appeared fresh, so I said, \u201cYou know, you don\u2019t even look 33-years-old. You actually look younger!\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cYou think so? I used to be beautiful.\u201d She pulled two ID\u2019s from her cloth sack, showed them to me.<\/p>\n

Holding one up against her face, I pronounced, \u201cNo, I think you actually look better now, but you better get the fuck out of Camden soon.\u201d<\/p>\n

She smiled. Her dentures were newish, for they weren\u2019t too yellow. Maybe she had just gotten punched? Michelle then volunteered that Lamon may be pissed because she had been seen with another guy.<\/p>\n

\u201cSome guy you like? Some guy you love?\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cIt does get lonely out here\u2026 Hey, you want to hear something weird? Just last night, this one girl got so fucked up, she took her clothes off and ran down the street.\u201d<\/p>\n

The same night, 20-year-old De\u2019quan Rodgers was shot dead, and another young man, 19-years-old, was found with multiple bullet wounds. About three hours before I chatted with Michelle, three more men were perforated. Shootings are nearly daily occurrences here, but a young naked woman running down the street is goofy enough to be remarked upon, if only for the next 24 hours or so.<\/p>\n

All over town, there are RIP<\/a> messages spray-painted onto walls, near where a loved one has died, whether targeted or hit by stray slugs. Sunrise, sunset. Sunrise, sunset. You live and talk much shit until Jesus, Allah, Bruce Lee or Liberace text you, \u201cKum home, losr.\u201d You strut about and blather beaucoup merde until Glock, SKS or Bersa Thunger tap you on the shoulder and whisper, \u201cHiya!\u201d Even as you crawl on all fours, sightless and toothless, with your liver, spleen and entrails hanging out, it\u2019s still too early to call it a night. Is it last call already? On a memorial for Izzy and Cunt<\/a>, someone has scrawled, \u201cHeaven is where we go but hell is where we live.\u201d On shop windows and doors are flyers begging for information on Camden\u2019s disappeared. Some have come to buy drugs, never to be seen again. Some were just strolling to the bodega or the Chinese joint\u2019s bulletproof window. Yuk\u2019s, it\u2019s so yummy!<\/p>\n

Sorry, man, all you wanted was a beer and here I am dragging you down with talks of bullets, blood, gurneys, scalpels, needles and more blood, so much blood, blood geysers, showers of blood, so let\u2019s head straight into Off Broadway, without further delay. As if to negate the chaos outside, this dump has so many rules, dude, as in:<\/p>\n

NO T-SHIRTS OR VEST<\/p>\n

NO HATS TURNED AROUND BACKWARDS<\/p>\n

NO SCARVES<\/p>\n

NO HOODS OR SKI CAPS<\/p>\n

NO BAGGY PANTS<\/p>\n

ALL TEE-SHIRTS OF ANY COLOR<\/p>\n

MUST HAVE LOGO\u2019S THAT ARE VISIBLE<\/p>\n

MUST BE NAVEL HIGH<\/p>\n

LOGO MUST BE ON YOUR<\/p>\n

CHEST OR BACK<\/p>\n

PLEASE DO NOT YELL OR SHOUT<\/p>\n

ACROSS THE BAR<\/p>\n

THANK YOU<\/p>\n

ATTENTION BAR PATRONS<\/p>\n

PLEASE DO NOT STAND<\/p>\n

ON CHAIR RAIL<\/p>\n

PLEASE PLEASE ANYONE CAUGHT TOUCHING<\/p>\n

TV WILL BAR YOURSELF PERMANENTLY<\/p>\n

ANYONE TOUCHING APPLIANCES BARRED<\/p>\n

YOURSELF NO EXCEPTIONS<\/p>\n

EMPLOYESS HAVE THE RIGHT TO CHECK<\/p>\n

BATHROOMS AT ALL TIME<\/p>\n

And, of course:<\/p>\n

BE AWARE<\/p>\n

THESE PREMISES ARE UNDER 24 HOUR VIDEO<\/p>\n

SURVEILLANCE INSIDE & OUT<\/p>\n

Well, I\u2019m glad I have a dress shirt on, and no pantaloons, and I\u2019ll do my best not to get touchy feely with that television. Watching a news story of five guys stealing 17 Rolexes after smashing its display case, the barflies whoop with astonishment and delight, but they are blas\u00c3\u00a9 about a school shooting simulation. As I eat a sad cheesesteak, with its dispirited meat, cheese and bread, bits of conversation drift to me.<\/p>\n

\u201cYes, there was this girl born without a rectum, and she\u2019s alive still. They haven\u2019t fixed her yet, but they will.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cYou never had possum hash?\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cNo, I\u2019m a city boy. I don\u2019t know nothing about that. My cousins in North Carolina might, though.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cPossum is sweet. It\u2019s an all right meat. And muskrat is OK too. You ought to know what\u2019s edible, and what\u2019s not, because it might come in handy one day.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cNo, ma\u2019am, I\u2019m happy with my chicken and my steak, thank you. I don\u2019t need no squirrel, no rabbit, no raccoon, no possum. Why should I bother about any of that, when I can just go to the store?\u201d<\/p>\n

Surrounded by rules, we aren\u2019t any safer, for a dickhead or two can just come in to make everyone lie on the ground, then relieve us of wallets and purses. Most patrons are bunched up at the far end, however, so they\u2019ll have a better chance to see what\u2019s what should shit happens. (Sign on a Camden wall, \u201cIf you believe shit happens<\/a>, park here.\u201d) Several of these lushes are probably packing.<\/p>\n

Three Beyonce tunes in a row tell me it\u2019s time to get the fuck home. Soon I\u2019ll stagger into the dusk, into a half feral city of aimless men and women dwelling in rotting row houses, abandoned shells shrouded by vines and shrubs, or tents, like those clustering by the freeway<\/a>, across from the long-shuttered Sears and beyond a billboard<\/a> pitching $5,000 Yurman watches to passing motorists. Living apart in a squalid tent<\/a> down a dirt path blocked by plywood, branches and lumber, ex factory worker Beasto<\/a> can choose between bacon, hot dog or pork chop, all stored unrefrigerated in a sack of rice, and all reeking, of course. Fifty-seven, he\u2019s been away from Puerto Rico<\/a> 43 years. Meanwhile, junkie Tina<\/a> has left her tent, cleaned herself up and reconciled with her mom, so of course, of course, a cheerful respite, or recovery, if you will, is temporarily possible, within the larger framework of tempered hope, outright disappointment and, naturally, unmitigated horror. Staggering on, I will pass by Cooper, where wizardly doctors can give each of us a cleaner, fresher asshole, to pump up our always suspect vanity and confidence, or I might run into lovely Michelle or Angela, for they will still be out there. All night long, she\u2019ll sleepwalk from one john to another, just so she can score and score, until she finally disappears.<\/p>\n

Linh Dinh<\/b><\/em> is the author of two books of stories, five of poems, and a novel, Love Like Hate. He\u2019s tracking our deteriorating socialscape through his frequently updated photo blog, State of the Union<\/a>.<\/em><\/p>\n

Republished with permission from:: Counterpunch<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

With 77,000 people, Camden has one public library left, and in a city where Walt Whitman spent 19 years and is buried, there are exactly two bookstores, a Barnes and Noble serving Rutgers Camden students, and, not too far away, La Unique African American Books and Cultural Center, with The Master Game, The New World […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[487],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-45993","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","6":"category-breaking-news"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/45993","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=45993"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/45993\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=45993"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=45993"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=45993"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}