“Ay yo, lil’ mama.”
A candy-apple green Oldsmobile with shiny chrome wheels pulled up beside me.
“Shit,” I whispered under my breath. I kept walking, flashing an uneasy smile.
“How old you be,” he said in his syrupy Southern accent.
I laughed. “I’m 15.” I paused. “A minor.”
“Well, you don’t look 15,” he said. I shrugged my shoulders and continued to walk. The car crept on by. And I was thankful.
Here I was, a nosy reporter with my Poynter badge and my Canon camera, parading around the ‘hood taking photos. I was in Palmetto Park, a black neighborhood in St. Petersburg, Fla. It was sizzling hot, one of those days you just wish you were inside.
I wanted to explore my beat and tell their stories.
I must have looked like an outsider, a person of authority. The person I feared I would become, the one they did not trust.
I was paranoid. What if I asked the wrong question to the wrong person. Would I get shot? A disheveled man mumbled something incoherent. A crackhead. I looked away. And all I could think about was my camera, this $1,000 camera wrapped around my neck. I had to guard with my life.
My journalism training couldn’t save me now.
I quickly tucked away my badge, switched into my urban slang, and slung my camera to my side so it was out of sight.
The further I walked into Palmetto, the further I was from the neat houses with manicured lawns, and the closer I came to the boarded-up houses with cars parked on lawns.
An hour had passed but time had slithered on without me noticing. The beating sun was waning. I had to leave before it turned dark. I noticed a group of boisterous youngsters posted outside. They shot me a glance, just like they do when a cop car cruises by. Their suspicious looks said it all: What the hell are you doing here? Why she got a camera? Mind your business lady. I crossed the street to avoid their catcalls.
I was just looking for a friendly face, someone I could talk to.
Along the way I met “Worm.” He was about my age. He had an armful of tattoos and was sitting on a lawn chair, while his grandma fried fish in the front yard.
I was black, he was black. And I wanted to say, “Hey, I’m no different than you, I can relate to your experience.” I approached. “I want to hear your story.”
He dismissed me and I left, defeated.
I’ve always been drawn to “bad” neighborhoods. The ghetto, the ‘hood, the inner city, whatever name you want to call it. It was always that sketchy part of town where few dared to enter.
But I wasn’t scared, or at least I told myself that. After all I grew up in that “bad” place, the daughter of Eritrean refugees. My parents escaped civil war only to be transplanted into another war zone in Seattle. My mother worked late nights as a housekeeper at a nursing home and my father worked at the Seattle Housing Authority as a groundskeeper.
I remember sneaking out playing in Park Lake projects with my best friend from Cambodia. Her parents too had escaped the killing fields.
I wasn’t fearful of the gangbangers, the kids with backwards pants and red bandannas slipped in their pockets. I was too young to understand why sometimes we couldn’t play outside, or why some houses had bars on the windows.
I remember riding the Metro 135 and looking out the grease-stained window to see yellow tape and patrol cars. The next day a short blurb appeared in the newspaper, something about the rash of violence: three dead within a month in White Center, nothing more. Whenever someone died, it was always gang-related, drug-related, or the person deserved it. I longed to know more about the chalk figure drawn in the concrete. It’s the reason why I wanted to become a journalist.
Back in Palmetto, an older black man pushing a lawn mower in the street looked at me. I looked back. And then we played tug of war with our eyes, glancing back at each other. Finally I approached him. He stepped back. I repeated the script I had rehearsed over and over. I reached out my hand. His were rough and calloused. “Hi, I’m Mary, I’m working on a student journalism project. I’m taking pictures. Do you have a second to talk to me?”
His eyes were large and sallow and he revealed a toothless grin. “You better be careful,” he said, a warning disguised as a threat.
My instincts warned me to get the hell out of there. A minute later an old white Chevy pulled up, passenger door flew open. I could hear some yelling. But I didn’t turn back. I knew it was a drug deal.
At the end of the block there was nowhere to turn besides a deserted industrial area. It would get dark soon.
I wanted to cry. But I had to be tough because my mother was strong. She survived war. Over and over in my head I said, “Toughen up, Mary, you can’t be weak. Journalists aren’t weak.”
I was just looking for a friendly face, someone I could talk to.
I saw a mother with her two children. I prayed she would talk to me. Even for a second, I wanted to be reassured.
The church-going woman smiled. “Sure, honey,” she said. I was caught off guard.
She was vulnerable to me. “I need some shade. I can’t stand this heat,” she said. Patches of discolored skin on her chest and arms were reminders of a long-ago fire. She survived with God and her two daughters, no man, she added.
We continued to talk for 30 minutes, as I fiddled with my camera and unraveled the wires of my audio recording machine. I snapped photos of her two daughters as they jumped rope.
But then I stopped and listened.
“Ya know the neighborhood is changing. But I only let them play in pairs,” she said alluding to the danger up the street.
Her daughter Kenya reminded me of me, all smiles, a bright future clouded by uncertainty. She wanted to be a teacher. Her older sister received a $10,000 scholarship, her mother beamed.
“I was the first in my family to go to college,” I said.
She wrapped her arms around me. “Thank you, Mary.” Her words were simple and at that moment I knew it was all worth it. I walked around the corner past the drug dealers and crackheads, content. I tucked away my camera. I knew there was hope.
