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. 

He told stories about us. 

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 he said the guy was "out of his mind, but needed reminding about respect."

I asked him what was hurting. A few weeks back, he'd been on the block when a ricochet, from a bullet not meant for him, struck his ankle.

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. 

He showed me the tattoo on his back, the Grim Reaper. He was conflicted about it. He got it when it represented him, but today it represented who he was. 

When telling stories about what it was like to grow up—me in Knoxville, Iowa, him in North East Baltimore—we wondered aloud, how could we live in the same country, and have such different experiences of public spaces? We felt at times excruciating irony at the notion of America,. Maybe a better word is bamboozled. We felt like we'd both been bamboozled about what America is. 

We talked about ways we'd made money, about problems in the relationship with my father and 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, how most things in life are like this, a double edged sword. 

 Our relationship was one of sharing stories as responses to each other around topics, fathers and sons, types of love, types of pain, what you need to learn from your pain or how to know when you can't learn anymore from it. 

But it slowly shifted. As the day went on his tone towards me took an ever more paternalistic note. 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."

Looking back now, from 2023, I regret I never went back, never got to show him the photos. I did send them to his son, I found his email somewhere, or maybe on Facebook. He seemed happy, but reserved, to receive them. 

I hope Herman has got his farm, or at least a little more space, and a few more animals.