by Paige Dearth
As they turned right onto Kensington Avenue, their awed gazes were caught by the massive steel tunnel that ran the length of the street as far as they could see. They would later learn that this seemingly endless prehistoric-looking centipede was the Market-Frankford Line of the subway that was elevated above the ground; everyone called it the El. The underbelly of the El harbored prostitutes and drug addicts. Brianna drove by slowly, and as the three of them took in their surroundings a man suddenly stepped in front of their car. Brianna slammed on the brakes to avoid hitting him, but the man never even looked up. He just kept walking, as if in a trance, and they watched intently as he continued his conversation with himself.
They pulled over on the side of Kensington Avenue and asked a teenager who appeared somewhat sober where they could find a motel.
The homeless boy bent down and looked them over. “Sure, I’ll tell you where you can go, if you give me a dollar.”
Emma pulled a bill from her pocket and handed it over. “Now where the fuck is it?” she snapped.
The boy was amused by her outburst. She had a fiery nature and he thought she might just make it here. “Go up and make a left on Tioga Street,” he directed. “There’s a place called the Trenton Inn, a big white building. Maybe I’ll see you around.”
Although they were somewhat uncertain about his recommendation, they followed his advice, given that their options were limited. Before they knew it, they had pulled up alongside the Trenton Inn. The place made Chain Street seem almost respectable. The building was of white brick. The windows on the first floor were glass block—harder to break into, Emma realized. The second-floor windows were all covered with white boards to ensure absolute privacy, she concluded.
They went in through the sole entrance, the bar, and approached the bartender.
“We need a room for the night,” Emma stated assertively, worried that if she was perceived as weak the man would know they were underage and wouldn’t rent them a room.
The bartender, a rugged older black man with short gray hair, looked at them over the top of his glasses. He wasn’t fazed by the girls’ tender age or their need for a room. In Kensington, he was used to it. It was a way of life in this part of hell on earth—young girls and boys, running from family, hooked on drugs, and making money by selling their bodies. More violence was born and bred in Kensington than in any other part of Philadelphia. It was infamous for the cruelty with which everyone who lived there treated life, regardless of the consequences.
“Sure,” the bartender replied. “I need some ID and forty bucks. I can put you in the back of the building, away from the bar, so it’ll be a little quieter.”
Brianna handed him her fake ID and the money. He held the ID up and pretended to scrutinize it. He couldn’t give a shit who they were. They needed a room, they had the money, and it was better than staying on the street all night. He handed Brianna a key, and they headed to the back of the bar, where the staircase leading to the second floor was located.
When the girls unlocked the door to their room, they were met with filth. There were two double beds with old brown bedcovers. When they pulled the covers down, they found wrinkled, soiled sheets that were dull yellow and worn so thin they could see the mattress design they were meant to cover. Watermarks patterned the nightstand where glasses and beer bottles had sat too long. The green carpet was worn down near the door to the dingy bathroom, exposing the wood underneath it. There was, of course, no television set. The window was completely boarded up, and the only source of light in the room was a lamp that sat on the nightstand. The bathroom was starker still, with a sink, a toilet, and a moldy tub. Forget about little bottles of shampoo or soap for the room’s occupants to use; there wasn’t even a mirror.
The girls settled in, tired from the events that had led to their flight from Norristown. Knowing they would eventually have to find something to eat, Emma suggested they venture out while it was still daylight to buy dinner and a newspaper so they could look for an apartment to rent.
As they walked toward a take-out place they had noticed on their way to the hotel that specialized in fried chicken, an older man, covered in grime, approached Gracie and asked her if she had any money she could spare. “No, I don’t have anything,” she told him.
Emma was quickly at her side to find out what the man wanted with her sister. “Oh,” she said, looking at the man with pity. “Here you go. A dollar is all I can give you.”
“Thanks, sweetheart,” he replied and smiled at Emma with three rotting teeth in his mouth.
After he walked away from them, Gracie turned to her older sister. “Em, I’m scared. There are a lot of strange people around here. What if someone asks us what we’re doing here?”
“No one is going to ask us anything, Gracie. And you know, just because a lot of people here are poor doesn’t mean they’re bad. We’re poor and I think we’re the coolest fucking chicks on earth,” Emma teased her sister and made Gracie smile.
After they returned to the dump they were staying in, they sat on the bed, side by side, and looked through the newspaper. They found nothing in Kensington. That struck them as odd. Emma went downstairs to the bartender.
“Yeah, um,” she ventured, “we can’t find anything for rent in the paper. We’re looking to stay in this area and thought you might know of something.”
The bartender laughed. “Missy,” he said, “there ain’t nobody gonna pay to advertise in the paper ’round here. Tomorrow, go down to Potter Street. I seen a ‘For Rent’ sign on one of the doors when I was picking up my grandbaby the other day.”
Hoping they had a good lead, the girls finally settled into their room for the night, but Emma slept lightly. She was awakened every so often by the shuffling and curses of drunks stumbling to their rooms and the shriek of women’s laughter echoing through the hallways. She knew they couldn’t stay there more than one night. Besides, she was eager to find a permanent place to live that the three of them could call home before they found themselves in more trouble.
Chapter Twenty-Four
When the girls woke up next morning, they washed their faces and quickly left the shady motel, almost relieved to be back out on the dirty streets of Kensington. At least the sun shone outdoors and the world opened up around them. Before they got back into the car again, Brianna stopped at a pay phone to call her mother, knowing that if she were gone for more than a day, Pam might call the police.
“Ma,” she said, “it’s Bri. I’m gonna be away for a while. No big deal. Just trying to figure some things out.”
It was early for Pam to be woken up. “What do you mean ‘away for a while’? Where are you?”
“Ma, stop already, will ya?” Brianna said in exasperation. “I’m in Philly. It ain’t a big deal. I have your car and I’ll take care of it until I come home. Alright?”
Pam nudged the stranger who was stretched out in the bed next to her. She had met him the night before. He sat up and she motioned for him to leave. Then she put her hand over the phone’s mouthpiece. “See you again sometime, baby,” she whispered to him.
The man, whose name Pam hadn’t bothered to find out, staggered across her bedroom. “Yeah, whatever,” he mumbled. “But next time, for seventy-five bucks, you’re gonna need to get a little more creative.” He threw the money on the bed next to her.
“Sure! Whatever you want, baby,” Pam promised with the sweetest smile she could manage that early in the morning. She needed good clients, and this new guy was a half-decent person. She wanted to hang onto him for a while.
“Mom!” Brianna huffed impatiently at the other end of the line. “What the fuck! I’m talking to you! So that’s the deal. I’ll be away for a while and I’ll take care of your car. I’ll try to check in once a week. Okay?”
“Yeah, okay,” Pam agreed, giving in to her daughter. “But I want a call from you once a week. Don’t do anything stupid.”
“Yeah sure, I’ll talk to you later!” Brianna hung up the phone
quickly before her mother could ask her anymore questions.
Having settled things with Brianna’s mom, the girls set out to explore Potter Street. They quickly found the row home that the bartender had mentioned. They knocked on the door, and when no one answered, they wrote down the phone number that was on the handmade sign in the window. Back at a pay phone, Emma dialed the number.
“Hello?” a gruff voice breathed into her ear.
“Yeah, hi,” she responded. “I’m interested in renting your house on Potter Street.”
“Oh yeah?” the man said. “Well, it’s four hundred a month, plus utilities. I need the first and last month’s rent up front. If you can do that, I’ll show ya the place.”
“You mean eight hundred dollars?” Emma asked, shocked.
“Yeah, eight hundred dollars. What? Are you stupid?” the man accused.
“Fuck you!” Emma yelled and slammed the receiver into its cradle.
She went back to the car and explained to Brianna and Gracie how the renting thing worked. “We’re fucked. We need eight hundred dollars just to move in. Then it’s four hundred a month, plus ‘utilities,’ whatever the fuck they are. We have three hundred and forty-four dollars left. We’ll have to figure out something else. Until we get jobs, renting isn’t an option for us.”
They parked the car on a side street and made their way toward Kensington Avenue to look for work. As they walked along, taking in the circus around them, Emma became increasingly apprehensive and disheartened. From what she could see, there were plenty of drugs and people who were strung out on them. Hookers practically lined the streets and sleazy men seemed to slither up from the gutters. The three girls were approached by a couple of men who asked them if they wanted to get high. The prostitutes eyed them up, making it clear that if they even thought of hooking in their designated spots, they would rip their heads off. There were no “help wanted” signs in the store windows, and Emma even went into pawn and coffee shops to inquire about a job, but it was apparent that no one needed help.
After two hours of futile searching, the girls bought hot dogs and sat on the curb at Kensington and Somerset to rest. A couple of minutes later, a girl in her early twenties approached them.
“Listen, bitches,” she said belligerently, “if you’re gonna work, find somewhere else to do it. Me and my girls here,” she gestured toward a pack of strung-out, slutty types, “work this area. So fuck off!”
Emma stood quickly, dropping her half-eaten hotdog on the ground, and stepped into the girl’s comfort zone.
“Fuck you, bitch!” she said nastily. “Who the fuck do you think you are? We’re not here to steal your business. We’re trying to eat our lunch. So mind your own fucking business!”
Brianna and Gracie looked on in surprise, amazed at how aggressive Emma had become in a few days. The other girl stood for a moment sizing Emma up, and sensed she wasn’t kidding.
“Fine,” she conceded, “but don’t let me catch you trying to turn any tricks or I’ll fuck you up real good!”
The girl went back to her friends and exchanged a few words with them. Then they all scattered to stake out their territory.
Emma sat back on the curb between Brianna and Gracie, picked her hotdog off the ground, brushed the grit off it, and finished it. Brianna had considered herself a tough ass all her life, but seeing her friend stand up to the girl on the street made her realize she wasn’t that tough after all. Emma was actually the tough one. Gracie couldn’t take her eyes off of her sister.
“Ah, Em, what the hell has gotten into you? Are you trying to get our asses beat?” Gracie asked.
Emma put her arm around Gracie. “No,” she said, “but nobody is going to fuck with us ever again. I will fucking kill anyone who thinks they’re going to bully me. I’ve had my share of that shit. Fuck that bitch!”
Following her heated exchange with the prostitute, adrenaline was pumping through her body, making her feel alive. After a long, tense silence, she spoke again. “Here’s what we’re going to do. We’re going to sleep in the car tonight, until we figure some shit out. We need to spend our money on the right stuff so we can get by until we earn more money. Let’s find a market and buy some things to hold us over.”
The girls walked back to the car feeling a sense of failure because they were unable to find jobs. The only jobs available to them, as far as they could tell, involved either drugs or sex. Neither was something that Emma wanted any of them involved in, but she also knew that there are times when you have to do things that you don’t like. She had spent most of her young life learning that lesson. Emma hoped there weren’t more lessons she’d have to learn.
Chapter Twenty-Five
After paying another teenager a dollar for information, the girls drove over to the Save-A-Lot on Lehigh Avenue. They bought water, cans of tuna with pull tops, crackers, cornflakes, powder milk, a loaf of bread, and peanut butter. They also purchased some cheap plastic bowls and utensils. This was enough to see them through several days, until they found a way to earn money.
Next, they bought blankets, pillows, and a couple of dark-colored sheets. They would use the sheets to cover themselves at night so that no one knew they were sleeping in the car. Emma was happy that they had been able to buy so much for only fifty-seven dollars. Of course, she had to bargain hard with the guy at the bedding place, but she had managed to talk the slimy young salesman into selling her displays at a deep discount.
Once back in the car, they set out to find a place to park for the night. Emma realized quickly that given the overwhelming number of drug addicts, dealers, and prostitutes on the streets, it would be difficult to find somewhere safe. Driving down Kensington Avenue, they came upon a street without sidewalks. Emma quickly told Brianna to turn onto it and park. She figured that on a street without sidewalks, there would be less foot traffic, making it somewhat safer—if the word had any relevance in a place like Kensington.
The first night the girls spent in the car seemed endless. Emma found herself wide awake for most of the night, alert to the sounds and sights around her. She was prepared to battle every possible threat if she had to. At daybreak, when Brianna woke up and ended her vigil, an exhausted Emma let herself sleep for a few hours.
By noon, the girls were back on Kensington Avenue, trying to come up with a way to earn money. Again, they had to ward off pimps, who approached them disguised as drug dealers and trying to get them high. These propositions were in keeping with the way things worked on the streets. At first, the pimps would offer girls drugs for free. As their prey steadily increased their intake, they became dependent on the drugs. And once the girls were totally hooked and at the mercy of the pimps, the bastards would turn them out to prostitute to pay off their drug debt and keep themselves high all the time. Confronted with the ugliness of the streets, Emma thanked her foul childhood for having taught her a valuable lesson: trust no one.
Walking down Kensington Avenue under the El was depressing. The steel monstrosity that loomed overhead always blocked the sun out and cast a cloud of gloom over the street, day and night. It was as if night never came to an end and the sun never rose below the underbelly of the El. All one saw in its shadows were hapless souls who stumbled through life, dismal and hopeless.
As Emma looked around she realized that as young as they were they had an important decision to make: find a way to live here or live to find their way out of this hell hole. There were so many people and she wondered how they could all have been so unlucky in life, including herself. Maybe she belonged in Kensington with the other misfits of the earth. She felt like nothing more than a throw-away person. Born. Abused. Taught anger and hate. Then thrown away to make a life on her own.
Still, she wanted the best for her sister. So over the next week, Emma began collecting information from the other teens on the streets, valuable information that would help keep them safe. She learned to park the car in different places so that no one could identify it or pinpoint its exact
location. They rotated parking lots at churches, hospitals, and anywhere that public parking was allowed. Their biggest problem in moving the car around was the money they had to spend on gas.
Ten days had passed and the girls were still living out of Pam’s car. They desperately wanted a shower. They had used some of the water they had bought for drinking to wash themselves, but their unwashed hair had become lank and greasy and they were beginning to stink. It was at this point that Emma met Sydney, a teen who lived on the streets and gave her advice on how to “steal a scrub.” Emma learned that they could steal a scrub by sneaking into the girls’ locker room at Carroll Charles High School, but they had to be very careful and time it just right. The homeless girl had warned Emma to be cautious.
“Just pretend you go there and are familiar with the place,” she had advised. “The janitors know that some of us go over there once in a while to take a shower. They won’t bother you as long as you don’t make any trouble or trash the place. Make sure you stay cool, because if you don’t, you’ll fuck it up for the rest of us.”
Sydney had been born and raised in Kensington. Her mother had abandoned her at birth and her father was a drug-dealer-turned-addict. By the time she was seven years old, her father was in prison and Sydney had taken to the streets to survive on her own. Emma liked the young girl and was intrigued by her courage and ability to survive the mean streets of Kensington on her own for four years. She stopped to talk with her every day, and as the girls confided in each other about their traumatic backgrounds, they were able to connect on a level that was quite different from the one Emma shared with Brianna or anyone she’d ever met.