The Gentlemen of Baltimore
In 2005 I began a year-long project on homelessness in Baltimore. The project was born after two men died of exposure on Pratt Street, a main downtown artery. They were homeless, living and sleeping on the street. I was haunted. How does this happen? What would it be like to not have a home, a bathroom, a bed? I was scheduled to have a gallery exhibition in the fall of 2006. I contacted the gallery and asked if they would be interested in a show, a collection of portraits and short interviews with homeless men of Baltimore? They gallery promised a show and the project was born.
I was forever changed as a result of this project. I learned to look homelessness in the eye, to talk to the homeless, to attempt to help and comfort. It did not come easily at first. But, to a man, these gentlemen welcomed me and taught me of their world. I share a representative portion of the project here.
James - It was a cold January afternoon when I found James walking up Charles Street. We stood in the sun while he smoked. He had been homeless for ten years and lived on the streets in Albuquerque, Ft. Worth, and other places in the south and west. He had recently taken a bus to DC from out west. "I thought it would be different." He had used his disability check to pay for the ride. From there he came up to Baltimore. He found DC to be hard. He said that he simply was "floating for a place to live." I asked if he was a veteran. "I missed being drafted by one number."
Charlie - Charlie has been homeless for three years. He said it began after breaking up with a "lady who was on drugs, all messed up." We were sitting on a bench in the Inner Harbor talking with a police office approached. The officer asked if I was an advocate for the homeless. I had my notepad in my hands and two cameras over my shoulders. "No sir," said Charlie, talking fast. "He's a photographer. He's taking my picture. We're just talking." The officer moved on. I asked Charlie what would have happened had I said that I was an advocate for the homeless. He laughed hard. "Oh man, that would have really messed with his head"
Lonnie - "They call me the Godfather of the Inner Harbor. I never leave the harbor, here twenty-four seven." Lonnie was bright and articulate. "The lifestyle is addictive. I have no responsibilities, no bills, no commitments. It's the life I've chosen. It gives me time to do what I want. My main things is books." He said he pulls books out of the dumpster behind the Barnes and Noble. "Reading is my drug of choice. It changes your mind, takes you to other places, a different reality. And it's legal!"
Flynn - Flynn sat on a bench. There was a book next to him, "The City Boy." "It was the first book Herman Wouk wrote," he told me. "I have an eidetic mind. The second definition of it is total recall, a photographic mind. That's what most people are familiar with." I asked him what the first definition is. "Science of the world," he quoted, "intuitively apprehended." He said he had a lot of ideas. "And they are all elegant."
Charles - "I've been on and off the street since I was fourteen. It's my fault. I wanted to do what a grown-up did. I was just a kid and made bad decisions." He told me of his various illnesses, including diabetes. "I also suffer from depression, but take medicine. He described his circle of seven or eight friends. They all sleep together at Charles and Saratoga, at the steps of St. Paul's. "There is safety in numbers. We all look out for one another. If somebody has food and somebody's hungry we give it to them."
Alphonzo moved to Baltimore from Maryland's Eastern Shore. "I didn't want to bring shame on my family." That was five years ago, and he has been on the street ever sense. He says he makes money panhandling and turning tricks. He also has a drug problem. Two weeks previously a drug deal turned ugly. "We were in an abandoned warehouse and the dealer told me to do jumping jacks. I did them. He told me to do push ups. I did them. Then he made me stand on a box and sing. He had friends and they started to stab me with little stabs all over. Finally they heated a knife blade and burned my face. I went back a week later for more drugs. He was gone. It was probably a good thing he wasn't there."
Ben - "I am Vietnamese." To compound the challenge of homeless, Ben hardly spoke English. He came to America to be with his aunt. He worked in a restaurant until it closed nine months ago. His aunt left him. "She go with somebody. I don't know were she went." He kept wiping his eyes. "I want to go back to Vietnam. My mom and dad are still there." He grabbed his bags and walked to the corner. I watched him. He stood there, staring into the street. I walked a block away and when I turned back he was still there, motionless.