J/K

I arrived in Baltimore on the evening of the 26th, with my partner, to attend a wedding she'd been invited to by old friends. 

The wedding was the next evening, and during the day she had to study for medical school, and get work done for the Iowa Harm Reduction Coalition.

So I'd have to entertain myself. Owing to a lack of funds, general curiosity and my camera, I decided to walk. I had asked a friend who grew up in Baltimore where to walk to find people on the street, and he'd cautiously suggested North Avenue. I'd have six to eight hours depending on when in the morning I began.

We went out for a drink that evening, and I found this on the sidewalk.

September 23, 2017, I went walking in North East Baltimore.

 I happened to meet a man, Herman. Well, in fact, he met me. Or rather, shouted at me, did I want to take his photo. We began talking, getting an understanding of why each of us was there in that moment. Another man walked by and stopped to admire our impromptu, and admittedly a bit awkward photoshoot. Then this man began telling us about how he had been robbed the other night, and how frustrated he was, because he lived here, this was his life, and they knew that. And they carried on a conversation about God. I wondered if Herman was Christian, but later he spoke of Allah.

When the man was gone Herman asked me what my plan was, with the camera and my walk and the direction and part of town I was heading to. I told him I intended to carry on with the street, and turn left eventually to go to the end of North Avenue, and then walk the length of North Avenue. He kind of chuckled, I think at me. He offered to walk me around a bit, suggesting that I would be better off if I were with him. We went for two long walks, with a break at his home. 

Throughout the day, as we'd met people, he had been developing a story about "who we were." As in, why a white kid obviously not from the neighborhood, but from Iowa, was hanging out with "Herm-Diesel."

"This is my son's friend, from college. He's trying to be a photographer."

"This is my nephew. He's a photographer, doing a project on me."

"This is my lil cuz. He's trying to be a photographer. Told him I'd show him the neighborhood."

He told me stories of places and people as we moved, little stories and not so little stories.

We'd been walking for about two hours, when he started to get a noticeable limp.

He turned around when he heard a guy shouting his name and said to me, "Stay here. I'm gonna go see why my name is in his mouth."

When he came back, and said the guy was just out of his mind, but needed to be reminded about respect, I asked him what was hurting him, and he explained that he had been 'on the block' a few weeks ago, when a ricochet, from a bullet not meant for him, struck him in the ankle.

I felt that he'd spent a considerable amount of time and energy with me, and that I should either part ways and be thankful for that or suggest lunch, or offer something more in return. So I acknowledged the time he'd spent with me, the value of his knowledge and introductions. He already knew my life situation, my job as a server in a restaurant, my concerns around my lack of money and my partners lack of a lack. And I knew of his, him waiting until the first of the month to go to see the doctor about his ankle, and food for his pets. We settled on food for his cats and turtle and dog, lunch, and a bit of cash. 

The walking became a medium for us to engage each other, the excuse to have conversation. We were curious about each other's lives. How we could live in the same country, albeit different regions, and have such different experiences of public spaces, to the point where we each felt at times bamboozled by certain aspects of our life we would compare and contrast to each other.

We asked a lot of questions of each other. Talked about ways we'd made money, about problems in the relationship with my father, with his son, what fun meant for us, what our dreams were. We spoke about drugs, the medical and self-prescribed, the socially acceptable and the personally acceptable. We spoke about how they can control us, and set us free, control our communities, and provide outlets.

As the day went on his tone towards me took an ever more paternalistic note. Our conversation was one of sharing stories as responses to each other around topics, fathers and sons, types of love, He began to speak to me about love, and life, and family, and death, sometimes making suggestions based off his analysis of his own mistakes and successes, but always hedging, always laying out where he was giving suggestions from, the situation he was using as a frame of reference. 

And he told me that having a relationship with his son when he got out of prison was more important than being hung up about his son's love for a man, because, ultimately, it's all about love, his love for his son, his son's love for another man—what should it matter if he has a daughter or a son, and what should it matter if they love a woman or a man, as long as the love was moving.

It was his dog, which wasn't always his dog, that taught him how to love. And if I still had the notebook I wrote in, I could tell you her name. But I can tell you his cheeks stretched his lips, and against his wishes a bit of teeth white showed when he recounted the day it finally struck him, when he walked in the door, and there she was, happy to see him—this is what it means to be loved unconditionally. 

The dog had been his friend's, and she would leave the dog with Herman when she scored big and wouldn't be able to care for her for a few days. Eventually she told him to keep her. She was malnourished. She had rashes. Her leg was hurting. And so his little pet clinic began. He took in one cat, then another. And then a turtle.

While looking out the window of his bedroom, watching kids in the street, just after smoking something for his ankle, he spoke softly to me about how, a few years ago, he could've killed me without hesitation. 

"I still could," he said, "But not like before." He got quiet, then softly spoke, wondering aloud what their life might be like. Do they know love?

As we finished lunch I asked him if he was looking forward to anything. He said, "Maybe Iowa. Or somewhere nearer to Baltimore. But in the country, where it's quiet."