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Hanging with the Crack Dealers with George
Camden, NJ
July, 2003
Crack in Camden and the Walt Whitman House. This was another wild day. Probably a mistake to do so much again because George got really sick on Saturday. We had been going nonstop for 4 days and George complaied a little, but hey, you know he was excited about seeing the Walt Whitman House. We picked up Chris at about 11:00AM and began our trip up the Atlantic City Expressway. On the way out of Atlantic city there is a big Billboard with two fully geared up Soilders on each end with, “God Bless Our Military” in the middle. George couldn’t believe his eyes. “Who paid for that sign? The Government? God bless the military? That’s crazy. Typical America” he ranted. This was also the first time I had seen the sigh. Very dissappointing.
When we arrived in Camden we drove down to the waterfront and took look at the Battleship New Jersey. It was large, pretty impressive, but George just skoffed at it and didn’t comment. The Walt Whitman house was just down the street and we arrived at 12:30PM and the next tour wasn’t until 1:00 PM so we had an half hour to kill (or should I say “Get Killed”).
On the way up two Camden, George told us a couple cool W. Whitman stories. When Walt was bed ridden he had lots of fameous visitors. One was Sylvis Beach. At the time she visited Walt was throwing lots of his poetry in the trash and when she was there she dug a poem out and kept it. This was one of her most prised possessions and it is currently in one of her collections either in Buffallo, NY or Princeton with lots of her other books, etc. When he finished this story I asked, “George, why don’t we go by and look at her collections? We will be near both places!” “Nooo,” he said. “I have no interest that.” Go figure. The other story he told us was about how Walt was pretty much bed ridden for the last three years of his life. Lots of fameous people visited him like Oscar Wilde and George Orwell. He really dwelled on this, like that where his destiny may lie. “That’s probably how I’ll end up,” he said. I laughed and said, “But George, look at you, you’re as strong as an ox.!” He just shook his head rumbleing, “Old man, nope, just an old man...”
So we had an half hour to kill and our mission was to find a place where Chris could tale a leak. We drove all around trying to find a fast food joint but no luck. The town was one big slum. “Typical America!” George exclaimed. “Look at this place. It looks as bad as the slums of Mexico City. Right in the heart of America!” He was right, it was really bad. Finally Chris saw a Bar across the street from a doughnut shop so we parked in the lot besides the shop and Chris ran across the street to use the toilet in the Bar. He returns five minutes later and says, “The place is really nice and warm, nice people, I don’t want to sit in this cold car for 20 minutes, lets go inside.” George says, “I know, you guys want to drink beer, go ahead, I’ll wait here.” I wasn’t about to leave George alone in the car in that neighborhood but Chris is all, “OK, Ron. Lets go!” I say, “Forget it, we can’t leave Georg here.” George says, “No, go ahead, I’ll be OK, just go.” I’m all, “No way,” and then Chris gets out of the car and says, “Well I’m going back in,” and walks back across the street to the bar. Seconds later I notice a car pull up next too ours, about 5 feet from George amd a crack deal goes down. A black guy runs over to the car from the doughnut shop and I see the two fives and the rock of crack change hand. Then a dealer comes over to our car and glares in to see if we want something and I ignore him. Thank god we don’t look like cops. Then another car pulls up and another deal. Crap! I think. I can’t belive that Chris left us in the middle of a gang of crack dealers! We have got to get the hell out of there. George is relaxing reading the paper and notices nothing. I look at him and say, “Man, did you jist see those crack deals go down?” He says, “No, you are really observant” and goes on reading his paper. This is a really bad. I look in my rearview mirror and see a parking spot on the street open up. I figure it must be safer there so I back out and take the spot. Now I have full view of the cituation. There are about 6 black guys standing in the doorway of the doughnut shop. They are all wearing extra bright white tee-shirts and baggy jeans. Obvoiusly a gang, and they are doing really good business. Cars are pulling up everywhere scoring drugs, some right in the middle of the street next to us. And now we are in the full view of the gang and they are eyeing us. I can’t belive that such blatantly obvious drug dealing is going on, the cops must be paid off. I tell George, “I’m going in to get Chris, we can’t sit here anymore, its too dangerous.” George says, “Don’t be ridiculous, it’s the middle of the day, there not going to just come over and shoot us for no reason.” I’m not so sure, but I sit there for 5 more minutes watching the deals. Another guy come by our car and gets real close before returning to the shop. I couldn’t take anymore. I was nervous leaving George for the two minutes it would take to run to the bar. I get out, lock the door and run to the bar. I find Chris casually sipping a coke reading the paper oblivous to what is going on outside. “Dude, were out there in the middle of a crack dealing zone. Lets go now!” He looks at me like, “OK, let me pay.” I run back out to the car and all is cool. A few minutes later Chris comes out and we get the hell out of there. That was insane. At least now I can say that I was 5 feet from a crack deal in Camden, NJ with George Whitman!
Soon enough we are back at the walt Whitman house. It is a modest little house with a small living room, a dining room connected to the kitchen and three bedrooms upstairs. As we pulled up, the caretaker, a park ranger, ran up to our car to help George out. Later George said, “He must be lonely, not many people probably come and visit.” The ranger was hevey set, around 50 and wore a ranger unifor and specticals. He was really egar to tell us the whole WW story. We started in the living room and he started by telling us about WW’s childhood and the history of the house (Walt was never rich and it was purchased for him by some wealty supporters). Then he talked about dinner parties, fameous visitors, quotes by Whitman, etc. When the ranger was about half way through, Georg blurted out, “Can we see the bedroom now?” This threw the ranger off and he rejectedly said, “Ah, Oh, don’t you want to know the rest of the history, um, I guess we can go up...” Chris saved him and said, “No, please continue. George rolled his eyes and gave me that “Look” and continued to listen. George was bored because he already knew the history and occasionally would lookup and shke his head when he heard an inaccuracy. Finally, when the ranger was done, and chris asked some questions to be nice, all which George raised his eyebrows to, we went up to the bedroom. George listened more attentively as the ranger described everything in the roon, the bed, the furnature, the fake fireplace, etc. George kept leaning on the bed and tried to sit down but the Ranger would quickly say, “Sorry sir, you can’t sit or lean on the bed.” The rest of the tour was quick. Just the kitchen and the back room. The ranger kept on making the point of how humble a place it was for such a great writer, all his other contemporarys were living in mansions. George agreed with this, but after a few times he started looking at me, rolling his eyes saying, “Enough already.” I really enjoyed the tour especially because was with George and got to see his reactions. He is such a great judge of humanity and WW is one of his favorite people. I could tell George felt a bit sorry for WW but tried his best not to show it.
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