Sofia: October 1997
We are in my little red Dodge, Sofia and I, driving northbound on the Kennedy, a couple of junkies solving the world's problems on the way to get a fix.
"Standardized testing," I tell her. "That's the problem. When I was in North Carolina we spent two months getting the kids ready to take that test. Now when I was in school, it was just assumed--not only that we would be okay to take the test based just on what they taught us, but also that we had the common fucking sense to know HOW to take it. I remember when I was subbing in the city, they had at least a week of just how to fill in the bubbles!"
"Yeah, but you went to a decent school," she said.
I change lanes and aim for the Lawrence off-ramp. "I went to a middle-class white school, is what I went to. And that's exactly who those tests are designed for--middle-class white kids. There are concepts on there that would be totally foreign to a kid from the West Side."
"No doubt," she says. "Plus they don't even test what they know--they test whether or not they know how to take a certain type of test."
I make a left onto a curving one-way street, and Sofia scans the block expertly for undercover cars or other signs of danger. "Park here--I'll be out in a couple of minutes." She gets out, then taps the window to add a postscript. "Cut the engine off," she says, though my hand is already on the ignition key to do it.
She strolls off toward Cicero, then disappears down an alley behind a small apartment courtyard. This is galaxies away from the West Side's abandoned buildings and hard-eyed security men; this is a well-kept neighborhood filled with neat little single-family homes and two-flats with pretty little flower gardens in the front. During the day the streets are teeming with kids coming from the nearby school, young mothers with strollers and toddlers in tow on the way to the park on the corner, older Polish ladies on the way to church with pastel babushkas tied under their chins; at night it is quieter, but it is not a dangerous quiet.
Rocco, Sofia's connection, is by all accounts a strange and unsavory man. I only know this from what Sofia has told me, since she is the one he knows and he is very particular about who he allows in the apartment. He sells generously-sized thirty- and sixty-dollar bags; he also keeps his weekly pickups from the methadone clinic in the freezer and sells them for sixty dollars a bottle. And for those in more dire straits, in need of a clean sample for a probation officer or a pre-employment drug screen, he collects his children's urine and sells it in baby-food jars. Rocco is a born entrepreneur; he's created a one-stop shopping experience for heroin addicts.
The house is filthy, she says; his wife occasionally emerges from the back bedroom, stringy-haired and foul-mouthed, wearing a grimy bathrobe. Sofia says their two young children know exactly what is going on in that kitchen, why at all hours of the day and night the doorbell rings and thin, jumpy people ask to see their father. The girl in particular is getting to that age where she knows enough to be embarrassed, and though we are outraged by the child's predicament, our outrage is not enough to stop us from going there nearly every day and splitting a sixty-dollar bag.
I sit in the car and sing quietly along with Jimi Hendrix. The heroin that Rocco serves is not my favorite--I prefer the white heroin they sell on the West Side. Rocco's is the brown kind, and the rush is not as strong and it's harder to see the plume of blood as it flows back into the needle, so it's always a tossup as to whether or not you've hit the vein. But the simplicity of this score, especially at night, is infinitely preferable to the drama of trying to score on the West Side, where sometimes it seems as though there is a cop around every corner.
After about twenty minutes, I look in the rear-view mirror for the hundredth time, and this time I see Sofia coming down the back stairs into the courtyard.
I have the car started and in gear before she emerges from the alleyway. "We straight?" I ask her as she opens the passenger door. She nods, and I pull off.
As we turn onto Cicero, a police car creeps up next to us, and my stomach jumps a little. The officer gives us both a long look, then half-shrugs and turns onto a residential street.
We drive on. We are just two girls out on a Friday night, solving the problems of the world and listening to Nirvana, on our way to anywhere at all.
"Standardized testing," I tell her. "That's the problem. When I was in North Carolina we spent two months getting the kids ready to take that test. Now when I was in school, it was just assumed--not only that we would be okay to take the test based just on what they taught us, but also that we had the common fucking sense to know HOW to take it. I remember when I was subbing in the city, they had at least a week of just how to fill in the bubbles!"
"Yeah, but you went to a decent school," she said.
I change lanes and aim for the Lawrence off-ramp. "I went to a middle-class white school, is what I went to. And that's exactly who those tests are designed for--middle-class white kids. There are concepts on there that would be totally foreign to a kid from the West Side."
"No doubt," she says. "Plus they don't even test what they know--they test whether or not they know how to take a certain type of test."
I make a left onto a curving one-way street, and Sofia scans the block expertly for undercover cars or other signs of danger. "Park here--I'll be out in a couple of minutes." She gets out, then taps the window to add a postscript. "Cut the engine off," she says, though my hand is already on the ignition key to do it.
She strolls off toward Cicero, then disappears down an alley behind a small apartment courtyard. This is galaxies away from the West Side's abandoned buildings and hard-eyed security men; this is a well-kept neighborhood filled with neat little single-family homes and two-flats with pretty little flower gardens in the front. During the day the streets are teeming with kids coming from the nearby school, young mothers with strollers and toddlers in tow on the way to the park on the corner, older Polish ladies on the way to church with pastel babushkas tied under their chins; at night it is quieter, but it is not a dangerous quiet.
Rocco, Sofia's connection, is by all accounts a strange and unsavory man. I only know this from what Sofia has told me, since she is the one he knows and he is very particular about who he allows in the apartment. He sells generously-sized thirty- and sixty-dollar bags; he also keeps his weekly pickups from the methadone clinic in the freezer and sells them for sixty dollars a bottle. And for those in more dire straits, in need of a clean sample for a probation officer or a pre-employment drug screen, he collects his children's urine and sells it in baby-food jars. Rocco is a born entrepreneur; he's created a one-stop shopping experience for heroin addicts.
The house is filthy, she says; his wife occasionally emerges from the back bedroom, stringy-haired and foul-mouthed, wearing a grimy bathrobe. Sofia says their two young children know exactly what is going on in that kitchen, why at all hours of the day and night the doorbell rings and thin, jumpy people ask to see their father. The girl in particular is getting to that age where she knows enough to be embarrassed, and though we are outraged by the child's predicament, our outrage is not enough to stop us from going there nearly every day and splitting a sixty-dollar bag.
I sit in the car and sing quietly along with Jimi Hendrix. The heroin that Rocco serves is not my favorite--I prefer the white heroin they sell on the West Side. Rocco's is the brown kind, and the rush is not as strong and it's harder to see the plume of blood as it flows back into the needle, so it's always a tossup as to whether or not you've hit the vein. But the simplicity of this score, especially at night, is infinitely preferable to the drama of trying to score on the West Side, where sometimes it seems as though there is a cop around every corner.
After about twenty minutes, I look in the rear-view mirror for the hundredth time, and this time I see Sofia coming down the back stairs into the courtyard.
I have the car started and in gear before she emerges from the alleyway. "We straight?" I ask her as she opens the passenger door. She nods, and I pull off.
As we turn onto Cicero, a police car creeps up next to us, and my stomach jumps a little. The officer gives us both a long look, then half-shrugs and turns onto a residential street.
We drive on. We are just two girls out on a Friday night, solving the problems of the world and listening to Nirvana, on our way to anywhere at all.
posted by GJC at 12:17 AM
4 Comments:
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Your site Gladys Cortez, I found to be very interesting. When I was searching for Marlboro Cigarette Home Page yours was the most eyecatching. While working on my site Marlboro Cigarette Home Page I have been seeking ways to make it better and found yours to be helpful. Thanks!
Your site Gladys Cortez, I found to be very interesting. When I was searching for 2005 Marlboro Catalog yours was the most eyecatching. While working on my site 2005 Marlboro Catalog I have been seeking ways to make it better and found yours to be helpful. Thanks!
Are you/were you a teacher? If so, this is pretty eerie. Thanks for posting this. Can't really say anything else.
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