BY JEFF DEENEY “Today I saw…” is a series of nonfiction shorts based on my experiences as a caseworker serving formerly homeless families now living in North and West Philadelphia. I decided not long after starting the job that I was seeing so many fascinating and disturbing things in the city’s poorest neighborhoods that I needed to start cataloging them. I hope this bi-weekly column serves as a record of a side of the city that many Philadelphians don’t come in contact with on a daily basis. I want to capture moments not frequently covered by the local media, which tends to only cover the most fantastically violent or sordid aspects of life there.
Today I saw signs of spring approaching in North Philly. It was the first Friday in March, temperatures were well above average for the first time since January and everyone wanted a taste of that sunshine. Rising mercury early in the month means more foot traffic than usual under the El tracks in Kensington and Frankford, and a buzz of underground commerce to the west in Fairhill. The checks don’t all come out on the first like they used to; government SSI disbursements are staggered now, with some arriving late in the previous month, some on the first and some on the third. The welfare checks hit every two weeks, but on the first of the month the food stamps come in with them; all this amounts to a substantial cash influx to local vendors, licit and illicit, over the course of that first week.
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There was money in every pocket and the public schools were on a half day; the streets teemed with parents and children walking hand in hand headed to the Avenue for a new set of kicks, to restock prepaid cell phones with minutes or to fill shopping bags with groceries. The hustlers pound the pavement hard around the first. Some carry buckets and rags, setting up ad hoc detail shops on the corners. Some set up sidewalk stands and hawk their oils, knock-off handbags, sunglasses and bootleg DVDs.
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I’ve seen whole engines hanging by chain hooks next to propped-open hoods as mechanics turn a buck right there on the street, between parked cars. There’s a guy who works the north end of Frankford Avenue, walking the streets pulling behind him a rolling metal rack with shiny helium-filled balloons tied to it. The balloons go for a couple dollars each — SpongeBob SquarePants, Powerpuff Girls, shit like that. Those balloons disappear quickly when the checks are out, especially on a half school day. I’ve seen the same guy rolling his tall metal contraption up the avenue on a mid-month late afternoon, looking forlorn, unsold balloons bobbing in the air behind him. It’s important to get that money while it’s there. Better luck next month, my man.
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There are always the pipers and junkies, doing that quick-step shuffle to the ‘cop spot’ with a handful of that good government green. I had my window down as I pulled past the Pentecostal church on 5th and Clearfield, where a dirty-looking junkie stood on the steps in a heavy coat, stained jeans and beat-up basketball sneakers. He was wearing a Walkman and making small talk with a woman waiting for the bus. He looked pleasantly high; his head swayed in a slow circle and he was clearly feeling chatty: “How about that Anna Nicole? You know they said they’re going to bury her in the Bahamas? With her son, down in the Bahamas, that’s kinda nice, ain’t it?” The woman was trying to ignore him.
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I saw a group of older Latino men with streaks of grey in their slicked-back black hair and wearing white tank-top undershirts congregated around a rusty red Volkswagen Rabbit near 7th and Indiana. They rested Bud tallboys on its roof and were laughing at one of their friends, who held the group’s attention, gesticulating while he talked in rapid-fire Spanish.
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I parked across from the Fairhill Burial Grounds, a 300-year-old Quaker graveyard that sits behind a wall of black iron bars, and ate my lunch. The cemetery sits on a piece of grassy land amidst the row homes and vacant lots. It only measures a square block but is lined with row upon row of small headstones, little nubs of timeworn granite that poke from the soil, marking the graves of famous Underground Railroaders like Lucretia Mott and Robert Purvis. Neighborhood folklore has it that addicts break into the mausoleums in the winter and curl up next to the cold caskets to escape the elements. I don’t believe this, even though I have heard it more than once from different sources.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR: Jeff Deeney is a freelance writer who has contributed to the City Paper and the Inquirer. He focuses on issues of urban poverty and drug culture. He is also a caseworker with a nonprofit housing program that serves homeless families.