Baltimore
Posted: Sun Mar 30, 2003 6:57 pm
I am back from Baltimore. What a crazy place that is! The downtown is beautiful and there are giant banners everywhere that say "BELIEVE" like some sort of crazy X-Files episode.
I stayed in a Quality Inn on the outskirts of town. The first morning, thinking nothing of it, I decided to take a bus into town.
BAD IDEA! NEVER TAKE A BUS IN AN UNFAMILIAR CITY IN AMERICA!
I was dressed in an Oxford shirt, pants and shoes (thankfully I do not own a suit or I would have worn that) and it was the first bus stop in a big strip mall street called Security Boulevard.
I asked the bus driver, who looked like a young Ice Cube and wore headphones the whole time he drove, if the bus went near the Convention Center. He looked at me with all the contempt I deserved and said "No, but this bus goes downtown."
I had already waited 30 minutes for the bus so I decided to stay on. I sat down and started editing my book of short stories for the millionth time.
By the time I got to the third story I looked up and the bus was full of poor black people and half of them were staring at me... some in hate and some in disbelief. I felt like saying... "Yes I am the only white person without a car in the USA."
The bus went through... no joke... fifteen miles of cracked out ghetto. All black. All poor. People hanging out in the streets drinking and smoking and (I felt) staring at me. I must have been the only white guy to have taken a bus through their streets in the past 25 years.
I prayed to any listening God that the bus would not break down en route or end abruptly. I was scared and I constantly tried to convince myself that nothing was going to happen. The night before in the hotel bar this hick from Oregon told me Baltimore was a great place for "black boys".
I told him I didn't appreciate racism and furthermore I didn't support the war in Iraq. He told I had pussy hands like a piano player and that whenever he went to Seattle he used to fight as many liberals as he could. We laughed for a while and I bought him a beer and bummed some cigarettes off him.
But now I am in the ghetto. A ghetto that was endless and more desperate than one I could have ever imagined existed in Baltimore. One out of five houses boarded up... people walking around with religious placards on... everyone under 30 looking like if they had one wish in life it was for some dumb white guy in his 30's to get lost in their neighborhood.
Eventually, after about an hour (which seemed like 5 hours) of winding through the ghetto, I saw tall buildings and a cop car. I decided to make a run for it and got off the bus. My instincts were correct, as the bus turned and headed back into the ghetto. It was 5 blocks before I saw a white guy and he offrered to sell me drugs. I needed them but I declined anyway. 5 blocks later I was at the Convention Center.
When I got to the convention, I met a few clients and a few vendors and went on with my day happy to be in one piece. I didn't even care about the huge sweat stains underneath my armpits. Conventions, for some reason, make me nervous I said.
I don't know what I learned from this experience besides never take a bus in an unfamiliar American city. It just makes me sick that many of the people who live in those ghettos will never have the opportunity to see Paris, own a computer, learn to read and write, express themselves artistically. I am no bleeding heart liberal, I am actually a selfish bastard, but I wonder how we can spend hundreds of billions of dollars liberating and rebuilding Iraq when we cannot find the funds to do the same in the ghettos of Baltimore.
I stayed in a Quality Inn on the outskirts of town. The first morning, thinking nothing of it, I decided to take a bus into town.
BAD IDEA! NEVER TAKE A BUS IN AN UNFAMILIAR CITY IN AMERICA!
I was dressed in an Oxford shirt, pants and shoes (thankfully I do not own a suit or I would have worn that) and it was the first bus stop in a big strip mall street called Security Boulevard.
I asked the bus driver, who looked like a young Ice Cube and wore headphones the whole time he drove, if the bus went near the Convention Center. He looked at me with all the contempt I deserved and said "No, but this bus goes downtown."
I had already waited 30 minutes for the bus so I decided to stay on. I sat down and started editing my book of short stories for the millionth time.
By the time I got to the third story I looked up and the bus was full of poor black people and half of them were staring at me... some in hate and some in disbelief. I felt like saying... "Yes I am the only white person without a car in the USA."
The bus went through... no joke... fifteen miles of cracked out ghetto. All black. All poor. People hanging out in the streets drinking and smoking and (I felt) staring at me. I must have been the only white guy to have taken a bus through their streets in the past 25 years.
I prayed to any listening God that the bus would not break down en route or end abruptly. I was scared and I constantly tried to convince myself that nothing was going to happen. The night before in the hotel bar this hick from Oregon told me Baltimore was a great place for "black boys".
I told him I didn't appreciate racism and furthermore I didn't support the war in Iraq. He told I had pussy hands like a piano player and that whenever he went to Seattle he used to fight as many liberals as he could. We laughed for a while and I bought him a beer and bummed some cigarettes off him.
But now I am in the ghetto. A ghetto that was endless and more desperate than one I could have ever imagined existed in Baltimore. One out of five houses boarded up... people walking around with religious placards on... everyone under 30 looking like if they had one wish in life it was for some dumb white guy in his 30's to get lost in their neighborhood.
Eventually, after about an hour (which seemed like 5 hours) of winding through the ghetto, I saw tall buildings and a cop car. I decided to make a run for it and got off the bus. My instincts were correct, as the bus turned and headed back into the ghetto. It was 5 blocks before I saw a white guy and he offrered to sell me drugs. I needed them but I declined anyway. 5 blocks later I was at the Convention Center.
When I got to the convention, I met a few clients and a few vendors and went on with my day happy to be in one piece. I didn't even care about the huge sweat stains underneath my armpits. Conventions, for some reason, make me nervous I said.
I don't know what I learned from this experience besides never take a bus in an unfamiliar American city. It just makes me sick that many of the people who live in those ghettos will never have the opportunity to see Paris, own a computer, learn to read and write, express themselves artistically. I am no bleeding heart liberal, I am actually a selfish bastard, but I wonder how we can spend hundreds of billions of dollars liberating and rebuilding Iraq when we cannot find the funds to do the same in the ghettos of Baltimore.