In the hood, the cell bars are made of pleasure

I've often mentioned that life in North Philly can get pretty depressing and if there's one thing associated with "hood life" it's drugs. Most people see a crackhead on the street and scoff when they ask for money. Those who have lived in the hood have a different perspective on the homeless and druggies however. It's somewhere in between the guy giving them money and the guy actively mocking the homeless on the street. One famous individual from when I was growing up was always called "broom man".  I even found a youtube video... of him apparently being taunted for using crack. What most people, including the younger generation in the hood don't realize is that many people like him were in situations beyond their control. Many times it's a combination of personal life circumstances and personal willpower. (Nature vs Nurture)

Broom man as he's called always carried a broom around and knocked on your door at 3 in the afternoon offering to sweep your steps. He made quite a bit of money off of this and is famous for carrying a knife inside of his hollow plastic broom. I still see him from time to time as he used to help clean our yard in the fall. I remember sometime during my college career he disappeared and people spread rumors he was dead. About a year later I saw him outside of KFC walking down the street with a big smile on his face. Cleaner and with a very different personality emanating from him. I remember going up to him and saying "damn broom man I thought you was dead?" and I'll never forget his reply "people talk a lot of shit don't they?". We talked for a while and I found out he was a Vietnam veteran who was drafted only to return home with no skills. A series of bad luck events landed him out on the street and on crack as he is today. He carries his veterans benefits documentation on him most of the time as a reminder to people.

However, Broom Man's case was relatively tame compared to most of the other druggies in the area. Steven was probably one of the worst that I remember. Steven actually finished high school and started jumping around from place to place doing odd jobs. He ended up having 9 kids and 4 "baby mommas" by the age of 30. He had a myriad of mental problems that he suppressed because of the "hood mentality" of toughness. He kept immense amounts of emotional pain hidden from everyone because it just wasn't a good thing to show weakness. When he was ten his mothers' ex boyfriend broke into her house forced him to have sex with his mother. The ex boyfriend raped and tortured her in front of him, eventually cutting her genitals out and throwing them at him. He later shot her and then himself leaving a little boy with his baby sister alone in a house with two corpses and a pool of blood. For years he never spoke to a therapist it was a sign of weakness, he never let anyone know how he felt. Many young men in North Philadelphia and many "hoods" in general perform this little self destructive act of machismo.

Today he lives on the street surviving on heroin. He is immensely depressed but cures himself with waves of pleasure from heroin. A few times I saved his life by calling an ambulance and performing emergency CPR. Heroin is a bitch of a drug that suppresses your respiratory system and leaves you with a pale as hell corpse on your couch on the verge of dying. Every single time he was brought back from the brink of death he would make up the same excuse. "Yeah, the doctor said I had all this food in my throat and I was choking on it" except for the fact I was on the ambulance with him to the hospital so I know that was a load of shit and insulting. If this sounds personal it's probably because Steven is my half brother. My father took pity on him for being homeless and let him into our home. Which of course enabled him to pursue his cure for a shitty life through drugs.

See that's the problem that these "bootstraps" people don't seem to get. No option is a good option for someone in that situation in the hood. His depression and trauma hindered his ability to perform in school. This alone would cut his chances at a future by quite a bit. Mix in the fact that if he saw the school therapist or was caught going to see a psychologist he risked being beaten by family members or people at school. They'd instantly take the position of "oh you're a fuckin pussy, suck it the fuck up you little bitch". My father was also never in his life, he was surrounded by a heavily criminalized part of the family and unable to seek help anywhere. The end result is an adult with no skills that turns to the one thing that will bring happiness in life. Drugs imprison a person in these situations and keep them there. You now have a solution to all your problems, why should you change? What, you think that fucker in a nice warm comfy home telling you what you're doing is wrong is going to change your opinion? No one in this world will help you and to pull yourself up by your bootstraps and better yourself you need to at the very least have a starting point. A reason to go out and build a life for yourself, a spark that makes you want to do those things. This is why keeping him homeless was the best option in his case. He needed to either die or come close to death and solitude in order to find a cure to the illusion of happiness from heroin.

In North Philadelphia drugs are the only cure for a life of shit. A life where nothing went well and the only way to find happiness is to buy it. This is why my conceptual organization would target those that can be saved in schools. A social safety net is required, a place where those we can save and have promise to change the "hood" can go. It's a legal minefield but it has to happen if we're to create a group of elite hopefuls out of the ghetto. Again, the money isn't there for me to do anything (my portfolio is still at a 4% loss) and the existing social safety nets are woefully inadequate so for now it'll stay a pip dream