Strangers Among Us

raise Jesus! Praise our Lord!” cried the middle-aged man. He stood on the corner of Park Street in Hartford, CT, dressed in loose jeans and a baseball hat. He was the only white guy on the street. Next to him, a younger, dark-haired woman echoed his cries of faith. She was also white. They were both handing out flyers to passerby’s.

“Praise Jesus, our savior! Praise God!”

They were the first white Anglos Kate and I had encountered all day. We had walked up and down Park Street like prostitutes looking for clients. Earlier that morning, we talked to a Hispanic mailman, named George.

“How much crime do you think occurs in this area?” I asked him.

George leaned on the wheel of his little white post office truck and furrowed his brow. “Not much. Nada. I don’t know. I just work here.”

“Yeah right,” we thought as the third police car in an hour sped by with its siren wailing.

Park Street was full of young Puerto Ricans and Dominicans. Middle-aged men with gold teeth cruised up and down the street, driving thirty thousand dollar Cadillacs. They played rap music so loudly that the ground vibrated. Young girls in revealing clothing walked by in groups, pushing baby carriages; toddlers trailed behind, tied to them with little strings and cords around their waists. Younger men stood in small groups of five or six, in front of shops and in parking lots. They shouted obscenities at other ,small groups of men, and paced back and forth in circles. Every once in a while, someone would rush past us, eyes bloodshot and red, scrunched up dollar bills in his hand, sucking on a cigarette. All of the shops on Park Street were curtained with steel bars and advertisements in Spanish.

Kate and I tried to blend in and not look suspicious. But on a street where everyone was either an enemy or an ally, it was impossible not to be recognized as an outsider.

“We should go talk to them.” I said to Kate, pointing to the couple who were praising Jesus and passing out flyers.

“Yeah, we should.” Kate said, as she adjusted the camera strap draped across her shoulder.

“Hi,” we said in unison to the couple.

“Here,” the young woman said as she thrust a little booklet into our hands. “Praise the Lord for Easter.”

“Uh, thanks.”

She turned to a group of teenagers behind us and handed them flyers.

“Do you speak English?” Kate asked the man.

“Sure do,” he said with a quick nod. He was as preoccupied with handing out flyers the woman.

“Can we talk to you for a moment?” I wasn’t sure he’d heard me. “If now is a bad time, we can come back later.”

He slowly turned and acknowledged us. Noticing my bellbottoms, vintage jacket and purple notebook he laughed lightly and turned to Kate. Kate’s clean tennis shoes, blue athletic cardigan and camera drew another laugh. “What are you two doing hanging around these parts?” He seemed very curious.

“We’re students, and we’re working on a project for our class. Can we speak with you for a moment?” Kate asked.

“Students? Where do you go to school? Trinity?”

“Well, I go to Trinity,” Kate said.

“But, I go to school in Amherst.” I cut in.

“Amherst. That’s a prestigious school isn’t it?”

“Uh, yeah, but I go to Hampshire College.”

“Huh? Well, my name is Peter. And this is Maylene,” he said.

“Hello,” Maylene said with a smile.

We introduced ourselves and asked again for a moment of their time.

“So, wait, how do you two have a class together if you go to different schools?” Maylene asked.

“Well, the class is at Hampshire.” I said.

“And I just commute.” Kate added.

“Oh.” As groups of people approached us, Maylene shouted, “Praise Jesus!” and then stepped in their path to hand them a flyer. “Thank the Lord!” she cried as they skirted by her and dropped the flyers to the ground.

“So, what’s this project about?” Peter asked.

“Well,” I began. “I’m a writer, and Kate is a photographer and we’re interested in this area. Park Street.”

“We’re interested in anything you know about it: the crime, the food, the people, the culture. Anything. Anything. We’re so glad you speak English!” Kate added.

Peter gazed over the street and the shops behind us and then cleared his throat. “Now --- this place is all Hispanic. But it wasn’t always like this.”

“What was it before? How long ago?” I asked.

“It was Canadian up till about 25 years ago when all the Hispanics kicked out the French. Heh, I was in a biker gang around here, back then. Funny huh? Well, I mean we weren’t doin’ real bad stuff like drugs or crime. But we had bikes and thought we were cool.”

Maylene stood by his side nodding and occasionally handing out a flyer.

“What else do you know about this area?”

“Well,” Peter said, adjusting his baseball hat. “It’s not a real safe place, I know that. Teenage girls having babies, in abusive relationships with drug addicts. There aren’t any role models around here; and the men are all in gangs and dealing drugs. Whew, it’s about as bad as it gets.”

He looked at Kate’s camera. His eyes opened, wide, “You should watch out where you point that thing, some people would not be very happy to have their picture taken. They might think that picture could mean life or death. Just be careful is all.”

“Oh, I know,” said Kate.

In fact, earlier that morning, in front of a shop, Kate had snapped a few pictures and a man had quickly run outside from another store nearby. He walked up to us nonchalantly, but stared with an obvious intent.

“What’s that for” he inquired in a harsh, deep voice. He was a large man with a moustache that looked glued on. It curled up at the tips like Captain Hooks’. He looked and sounded very displeased.

In my most innocent voice I said, “ Oh, she’s just taking pictures for our school. We like the colors of the sign up there. It’s pretty.” I smiled and pointed up to the sign that read, HAPPY NAILS.

“Alright.” he said, satisfied. Kate kept on snapping pictures of random advertisements along the street.

“Oh we know,” I assured Peter. “We’re careful.”

Maylene smiled at us again. She resumed her cries and praises.

“So, do you work for a church?” I asked Peter.

“Not exactly, I’m a Reverend, but I’m also a social worker. So is she,” he said gesturing to Maylene.

Kate and I shared a “This is getting good” look.

“Anyway,” Peter continued. “If you two are interested in some stories about this street you should know that the real stuff happens in the homes, the neighborhoods. This, this is nothing compared to what’s out there,” he turned around and opened his arms out to the homes lining the blocks behind us. “I’ve been working with this stuff for fifteen years now, and I’ve heard it all. Jerry Springer style! So, you just tell me what you want to know.”

“Well,” I paused. “Tell us about the teen pregnancies, the gangs, drugs, families, all of it.”

“Sure,” he said looking around us. “Sure.”

“Hey,” Maylene jumped in. “Why don’t you girls get a real taste of what these people’s lives are like? Why don’t you come with us today on our runs? We’re heading out in a half hour or so.”

“Runs?” Kate asked.

“Yea, we go to Dutch Point, the housing projects, almost every day, and work with the people there. Get them into church, give them faith so maybe they’ll straighten out their lives.” She elbowed Peter in the arm and said, “Pete, they should come with, right? It’s good, young people are learning about this stuff. Yeah, it is. Praise the Lord that our young people are learning.”

“Sure,” Pete said, distracted by a couple walking by. “They can come with.”

* * *

Dutch Point is one of the oldest housing projects in Hartford. It was built in 1936, two years after the establishment of the National Housing Act. “All individuals needing assistance will be provided with adequate housing funded by the state,” the Act declared. Originally, World War II veterans occupied the housing projects. By society’s standards they were considered the “worthy, deserving poor,” the sober and the aged who had come to poverty through no fault of their own. By 1950, citizens with a tendency for crime and civil disobedience but with no place to live were also recognized as needing public assistance. These people were grouped together as the “unworthy, undesirable poor”. Over the next decade they filtered into the housing projects. By the mid 1960’s, housing projects were comprised of immigrants and those deemed “undesirable”. According to Lawrence J. Vale, Americans began to regard most of the poor, not as neighbors in need of solidarity and support, but as strangers in need of isolation and correction.” Immigrants from Puerto Rico, the Dominican Republic and Cuba came to America, looking for a better life. A language barrier and inadequate education left many of these people unable to support themselves. They looked to the government to satisfy their needs. Crime became a means of survival and the circumstance of poverty, a struggle for existence.

* * *

We followed Pete and Maylene into Dutch Point. They drove into the parking lot of Good Shepard Church, adjacent to the project. Kate and I sat in our car for a moment listening to The Beatles while Pete and Maylene flipped through a notepad with lists of names and addresses.

“This is going to be weird,” Kate said as she stuffed rolls of film into my backpack.

“How did we get into this?” I asked myself, staring out past the church lot at the rows of identical two story brick houses. I thought of all the news reports I’d ever heard about murders and arrests in the projects.

“Ready?” Pete shouted to us from outside.

As we walked down the dirt path, past the broken down gates, I heard Pete laugh beside us.

“Don’t look like your walking to your death,” he chuckled. “In fifteen years, I’ve only been shot at four times.”

Kate looked at me with wide eyes and a grim expression.

“Great,” I said under my breath.

The projects looked a lot like small college dorms, desperately in need of repair. In the projects, rent was twenty-five dollars a month, and it showed. The doors on the houses were all red and had numbers stenciled in black on the front. I gazed around, 45A, 45B, 45C, 45D…the numbers ran from 1 to 210 and the letters from A to G. Up to seven people could live in one house. They were absolutely identical: steel bars protected all the windows on the first floor; clotheslines were strung from second story windows, tied to old white wooden posts, stuck in the ground. Jeans, shirts, shoes, and underwear hung from every clothesline. Small patches of brown grass merged with large areas of dusty brown dirt. Rap music blasted from speakers in doorways and on window ledges. Young boys rode around on bicycles with no seats that were too big for their short bodies. They shouted to each other in Spanish. Little girls with face paint, hold hands and chased after the boys. Older men stood in groups; they spoke quietly and looked over their shoulders every few seconds. They nodded to Pete and Maylene, acknowledging their presence in their territory. They looked at Kate and me curiously.

“Don’t make eye contact,” Maylene shuffled over and whispered to me.

All of a sudden a group of three children rushed over to us.

“Pete!”

“Pete.”

“Hey, hey, Reverend Pete!”

“Hey, Chanti, Romi, Pedro!” Pete responded. “How you guys doin? Nice day huh? Ohh, looks like the church had face painting this afternoon? Did you have fun? Collect some eggs for Easter? Hey Pedro, how’s your mom? She home?”

They talked excitedly for a while. Soon all of the children gathered by Pete’s feet as though he were Santa Claus. I stood next to Maylene and watched. Kate took pictures of the children and the houses. The men at the far corner of the lawn continued to stare silently.

Two young women, in their late teens or early twenties approached us. They both had brightly dyed red hair that looked stiff, like it had been soaked in mousse. They wore dark makeup and sweatpants with oversized shirts and big boots.

“Yo Pete!” They shouted above the noise of the screaming kids.

Pete released himself from the children and moved over to the girls. “Yo, Julia, Laura, it’s been a while, where you guys been?”

“Eh, we’ve been around,” the taller girl said.

“Yeah, I want you to meet some friends,” he gestured to Kate and me.

“Uh, hi,” we said and introduced ourselves.

“These girls are doing some school thing, they wanna know about life in the ‘hood,” Pete said with a laugh. He took off his baseball hat, smoothed his thin graying-brown hair back and put the hat back on his head, sideways.

The taller girl laughed at him and said to us, “The ‘hood aint no fairytale.”

“Yeah, where’s my Romeo?” the shorter girl said jokingly. “Where he at?”

Kate and I looked at each other, and then smiled at them.

“We know,” I began. “But would it be possible to talk to you guys sometime? We want to know what it’s really like to live here.”

“I’m Julia,” the taller girl said in a serious tone. “This is Laura,” she put her arm around the shorter girl. “We’re like sisters out here, keeping each other in line, helping each other maintain out here, it aint no joke.”

In my high school, people got out of the way when girls like Julia and Laura walked down the halls. Even big preppy jocks were afraid of them.

“So,” I asked again. “Can we talk to you?”

“Sure,” Laura said. “We can talk.”

“I live right over there,” Julia said, pointing to 43D. “Why don’t you roll on by sometime.”

“Thank you,” I said gratefully. “We’ll be back.”

“Famous last words,” Pete said to me, turning his baseball hat around again.

“Terminator, right?” Maylene quipped.

* * *

The following week, Kate and I sat in my car in Good Shepard parking lot staring out past the gates and into the projects.

“We’ll be fine without Pete, right?” I asked Kate. I was trying to reassure myself.

“I think so. I mean, it’s a Saturday at one o’clock in the afternoon. What could possibly happen at one o’clock in the afternoon?”

“People usually get shot and raped at night.” I said with certainty. “Ok, this is ridiculous. We’ll be fine.”

“I know,” Kate said. “We’ll be fine.”

We headed straight for 43D, to find Julia.

Dutch Point was quiet and empty that afternoon. Apparently, no one was awake yet. We found Julia quickly. She had heavy bags around her eyes, like she hadn’t slept in a while.

“Hi,” I said. “Julia, do you remember us, we came with Pete last week?”

“Hell yeah, I remember you two. You wanna talk now? I aint got nothing to do. We can go over there,” she said pointing to a concrete bench near a clearing, next to a flagpole.
We followed her. Julia and I lit cigarettes. Suddenly, I felt completely comfortable.

“So,” she said, adjusting herself in her sweatpants. “What do I say? What do you wanna know?”

“Um, well,” I said a bit confused. “Everything. Start anywhere you want.”

“Aight. Here goes,” she said and with a deep drag off her cigarette she blew the smoke up into little rings in the air. “We was livin’ in Charter Oak when I was like eight years old and my father tried to shoot at my mother for somethin’. I don’t know. He was always beatin’ on us for everything. I never know what we done wrong but was he always mad. My momma called the cops on him and he went to jail for a year or two. When he got out he moved down to Tampa, Florida. So, when he was gone my momma got real bad. She was drinkin’ all the time and, wait --- you don’t mind if I cuss --- that ok? I gotta cuss.”

“No, no, it’s fine. Say whatever you want,” I assured her.

Julia took another drag off her cigarette before continuing. “So, she didn’t give a fuck about nothing and she was fuckin’ all these men and doin’ crack all the damn time and she don’t care bout shit no more.”

The sun moved from behind the clouds and Kate got up and began to take pictures.

“So we went on welfare and I was taking care of myself, ya know. Cause she aint no help. So then I dropped outa school in ninth grade cause I gotta work now. Then, this one time I was in my house and me and my friends was drinkin’ and smokin’ and I heard a rumble in the room and he was bleedin’ all over the place. My boy Roberto was stabbed in the leg, his girl, she stabbed him for screwin’ around or something and he died. Man, he fuckin died right there. You ever see someone die? That shit is fucked up!”

“No, I haven’t,” I said.

“Yeah, yeah, I seen him die. I got a tattoo for him. Right here, I got it when he died.” She lowered her jacket and revealed a blue tattoo on her upper arm that read: R.I.P. on a tombstone with ROBERTO written in cursive beneath it.

“So, round then, my mom left, she went with some boyfriend that was givin’ her free crack and then they shut down Charter Oak and we all moved here.”

“We?” I asked, putting my cigarette out the sole of my shoe. “Do you have any brothers or sisters?”

“Yeah, I got three sisters and one brotha. So, we moved down here to Dutch Point. And then I was in the ‘hood chillin’ one day, and saw this guy get shot. Them cops found me and I testified in this murder case in New Britian and there was lots of witnesses. So he goes to jail and now I got his boys looking for me to kill me or something cause I got in his business, fucked up his life. That man is fucked! He in jail for fifty years or something. But during that case and trial and shit I met this sheriff and we started getting it on. You know what I mean? He was a young Puerto Rican, nigger. He was tryin’ to get me to Narc and shit. It aint gonna happen. But, he was buyin me all this stuff and given me everything and man, he was dosing out the money. This nigga had money!”

“A sheriff?” I asked. “He was a sheriff?”

“Hell yeah,” she wailed. “Man, cops’ll do anything to get into shit in the hood.”

I nodded. Suddenly, a group of seven or eight children, between four and six years old, ran toward us from behind a building. They were shouting in Spanish. Julia began speaking to them as they approached us. One little boy was wearing jeans that were a few sizes too big for him. His pants were falling down; his face was covered with snot and red crust. Another little girl had her dress on inside out and was running around barefoot. The ground was still cold; she had cuts and blisters on her little feet. Three other boys were fighting over a piece of paper. They were punching and hitting each other and the smallest boy was crying. Then, a little boy, riding an old bicycle, suddenly knocked two girls, walking hand in hand, to the ground. The girls began to scream and chased angrily after the boy. Kate and I just watched. Julia yelled something at them in Spanish, and waved her arms in the air. The children quickly quieted down and dispersed.

“They all crazy!” Julia said looking at the children as they all ran away. “Where was I?”

“The sheriff.”

“Oh yea, the nigga in New Britain. Well, he took off after I stopped given lovin. Man, I missed the money though, that shit was the best part about that nigga. So, now I had no money and my sisters wasn’t givin’ me shit. I had no food or nothing and I just fell down one day, to the floor. From bein’ real hungry, you know? So, I had to maintain, you know. Still have to maintain. Shit out here is hard man. It’s hard. So, I sell heroin now. Had to start hustling to bring in the flow. Gotta live hour by hour, no day by day shit. Life out here is hour by hour, ‘cause in one hour some niggas be dead. Fuck, you drop dead, too.”

Julia rubbed her hands over her face and pulled her jacket over her shoulders. The wind was blowing, but her hair remained stiffly plastered to her head. We sat in silence for a moment while everything sank in. ‘This girls’ life couldn’t be real’, I thought. But, looking at our surroundings, I realized that this was reality. Outside the bubble I lived in, this was reality. I suddenly felt like I shouldn’t be sitting there listening to Julia. Kate should not be snapping pictures of poverty for our stupid college class with her three hundred-dollar camera.

“So,” Julia said, breaking the silence. “I got this boy, now. His name is Nuno, see I got a tattoo of him too,” she pulled up her shirt to reveal Nuno written on her pelvis in blue script. “I got this about three months ago.”

“How long have you been together?” I asked, nearly choking on my words.

“Six months or something. He’s in jail now, though. Narcs caught him sellin dope.”

“I’m sorry,” I said.

“Naw, whatever,” she waved her hand in air. “He’s a fuckin’ bastard. Man, he be fuckin’ other girls and telling me he thinks I’m cheatin’ on him. See, I was strippin’ for a while at this club in North Hartford. But, I aint sleepin’ with no customers or shit. I just makin’ money to maintain, you know. So, he comes home and throws punches at me and he breaks my nose. Can you see it, here,” she said pointing to the bridge of her nose. “I got a scar right there. See?"

“Yeah.”

“Well, he was punchin’ me and he broke my fuckin’ nose! So, fuck him! Man, I aint gonna be fuckin’ no boy who’s cheatin’ on me. I gotta maintain my own body, ya know? Lots o’ people out here got ‘the chicken’! Man, lots of them!”

“What’s that mean? ‘The chicken?’”

“Chicken. AIDS. HIV. POS-IT-IVE!”

“Oh. Do they know they have it?”

“Hell, naw. They aint take care of their bodies if they be fuckin these nasty niggas. I take care, I maintain my body.”

In the driveway behind us, a car peeled out, tires screeching. Somewhere to the right, beyond the flagpole, a woman was screaming.

“So,” I began. “Do you ever see your mom?”

“Yeah, she come rolling through every once in a while, she don’t care for shit though. She don’t give a fuck. But, my sista just set me up with this Egyptian man who needed a Green Card to stay here. So, I married him for five-hundred dollars. I aint never sleep with him or nothing, but I helped him out, ya know? And he gave me money. So, I stocked up on my stash and found all the damn feigns in this place and hustled. I hustled that shit. And in two years, we get a divorce and be done wit each other.”

“When did your mom move to Hartford? Or, did she grow up here?”

“Naw, she came from Puerto Rico with my brotha, a year or two before I was born. I don’t want no kids though. Not till I can maintain myself away from this shit and all these fucked up niggas. Man, girls out here they be havin their babies to keep their men. Them niggas don’t care about kids. Hell NO! They care about their dicks. Keepin their dicks happy. That’s all they care bout. Fuck!”

Julia threw up her hands and laughed. Then, she began to pick at the chipped nailpolish on her left thumb. “I’m gonna get the fuck outa here! I’m gonna get my G.E.D. when I get the money, and then I’m gonna go down south. To an island. Getting a tan out on the beach, man that’s where I’m gonna be. Fuck this shit. These damn chicken niggas. Hell no.”

* * *

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