Jacob

Some people have been asking me if I think any of the young men I photographed in Binghamton will come to the opening of the exhibition next week in New York City, and I think the answer to that is probably not. While I was shooting the work, I tried to get as much contact information from these subjects as they were comfortable giving - phone numbers, addresses, email addresses if they had them. In some cases, I noticed that the phone numbers they gave lacked area codes and the addresses lacked zip codes, as though the world for them didn't yet exist outside of Binghamton. And those who do have email addresses don't necessarily check their emails as frequently and compulsively as I do. I have sent information about the show to a number of the subjects and invited them to come to the opening or to see the show during the two months following, but I haven't received any responses yet. I imagine that New York City might seem far away and inaccessible to many of them.

The last time I saw Jacob was in early December. I was in Binghamton for a few cold days driving and looking for subjects and I figured I'd wait to see if I spotted him on Main Street. I saw him a few times, but he was talking to friends, and I didn't want to interrupt their conversations. I noticed he had cut his hair short - almost like a military buzz cut or a skinhead. Then I unexpectedly got an email from him saying he'd lost his phone, as though he sensed I was there, and I saw him later that same afternoon walking alone.

I pulled into the parking lot of Danny's Diner, and we stood outside the car talking for a while. It was cold, and his face was flushed from walking outside, and he was wearing a wool thrift-store overcoat and carrying a plastic bag of groceries in each hand. I imagined photographing him like that but felt intuitively that the more right thing to do was simply to talk and to listen.

I asked about the girlfriend, and that was over already. She did something crazy, and they weren't speaking anymore. He still hadn't found a job in Binghamton and he was thinking about a job in Texas that sounded a lot like working on a fishing boat in Alaska. You could make a lot of money fast but the work was dangerous. You could make $4,000 a month, but he said he'd never been to Texas and he didn't know anyone in Texas.

He asked me if I'd give him a ride back to his house and when got into the passenger seat of my girlfriend's tiny car, he struck me as so much more massive than either of us. He wanted to talk about New York City again and said he had looked on craigslist and had seen apartments you might be able to afford in Harlem, even if you were on welfare. I said it was a really tough time to move to New York without a job. People were losing jobs, and even people I knew who lived there for a long time were struggling with the turn of the economy.

When we pulled up to the house where he was renting a room, we said we'd stay in touch. As he walked up the driveway, a woman about his age who was sitting on the steps of the porch said to Jacob, "Is that your sugar momma?"

I said no from the window of the car, and she said, "Oh my god - she heard me" - and I laughed and drove away. If she knew how broke I was myself, and how my interest in Jacob had nothing to do with wanting sex, she might understand what a poor sugar momma I'd make for him or anybody else.

I haven't heard from Jacob since. I wrote to him a week ago and sent him links to my website and the gallery's website, but there has been no response from him yet. I don't know if he is still checking his messages at the library. I don't know if he is still in Binghamton, or if he is in Texas, or if he is somewhere else altogether. I think the most likely thing is that I will see Jacob sometime in the future walking on Main Street. But peoples' lives are impossible to predict - his and my own.

Red Brick Alley

Jacob
Red Brick Alley
Binghamton, NY
November 2008

I found Jacob standing on the same block of Main Street where I met him in October. I yelled "Jake" out of the car window, and he smiled and waited for me to park the car.

We walked towards the Chenango River, and he told me that he might have found some construction work in Syracuse. He was trying to figure out the best way to get up there, and we talked about the Greyhound bus.

He said he liked the picture of him that I had sent to his email address and he put it up on his MySpace page. I told him some of my friends had seen his photo and said he was gorgeous, and one of them said he could be a Calvin Klein model. He laughed and mentioned an experience with the Chippendales.

I asked him about girlfriends, and he said there was someone he liked. He was planning to help her move out of her apartment later that morning and was waiting for her phone call.

He said there was someone else who liked him, and she had a lot of money, more than $300,000. He seemed to be mulling it over, but said he had been in these kinds of relationships before, and they never last. I said I thought it was probably best to follow his heart.

We talked about New York again, and I told him how much the city made me miss things like trees and clean air, and he said he would miss that too. He told me he loved to walk, and every day, he walked miles up and down Main Street.

I asked Jacob where he got his tattoos, and he said he got some of them done in a shop, and the ones on his chest were done in jail. He lifted his shirt to show me the tattoos on his chest, and I asked if I could take pictures of them. I asked why he had spent time in jail, and he said he had been in and out of jail since he was fifteen for small things like driving without a license, and I didn't press him for more information.

We walked into a red brick alley near Main Street, and he took off his shirt. We barely spoke while I took pictures of him. At one point, I said, "You remind me of a famous German painter, Egon Schiele, with your hair sticking up like that," and I don't think he knew who I was talking about, but it felt like a compliment, and he smiled.

When we left the alley, I said I'd give him a ride to the library where he was planning to meet up with his girlfriend. I felt just slightly awkward in the car, and asked him questions to fill the silence.

I fumbled with the radio.

"What kind of music do you like?" (I hate that question).

"I like everything. Rock, country, whatever." (I probably would have said the same thing).

"Do you play any instruments?"

"No, some of my friends are in bands."

We got to the library, and he opened the door of the car. He said, "Stay in touch," and I said I would.

During the next two days, I saw Jacob on Main Street several times standing with groups of guys. He acknowledged me, but I felt like we were keeping something between us.

Tomorrow morning, I am leaving to spend Thanksgiving with my girlfriend and her relatives and to drive the wintery streets of Binghamton again.

Jacob

Jacob
Main Street
Binghamton, NY
October 2008

I spotted Jacob on the section of Main Street that passes through the middle of downtown Binghamton. I thought he might be waiting for a bus, but when I asked him if I could take his picture, he said he had time. He said he wasn't doing anything - just looking for a job.

We started walking down Main Street together, across the river and past the high school, into a seedier part of town where drunk war veterans sit on stoops outside homes and teenagers in bulky jackets meet on corners. Jacob told me they call this "The Strip" and at night, you can see prostitutes and drug dealers.

When I told Jacob that I live in Brooklyn, he told me he planned to move there someday. He said he had friends in the Heights and he had some idea of what neighborhoods you could actually live in. He thought he might have better luck getting a job in a bar or a restaurant and he might feel less alone in the city. Binghamton felt small to him, and sometimes there was no one around and nothing to do. He said you could fit everyone out on the street in Binghamton onto one block in Manhattan.

I asked him if he tried to get a job in a bar or a restaurant in Binghamton, and he said he'd have to work in the back - washing dishes or something - on account of his tattoos. Then I asked if he could do anything, what would he do.

"What's your dream job?"

Jacob told me his dream job was to be a construction worker. I wondered how hard it could be for a strong and strapping twenty-year-old guy like Jacob to find a construction job, and he said, "It's harder than you'd think."

I asked about his family, and he said they had their own problems and he didn't lean on them for help too much. His parents lived in Florida and he had a brother in Binghamton. When I wondered aloud if he was ever tempted to use drugs, he said, "No, that stuff will mess you up real bad."

When we passed a launderette, Jacob said he'd like to buy one of those. He thought you could make a lot of money off those coin machines.

We talked about the election and if the economy might change for the better. He wanted to know who I planned to vote for and when I told him Obama, I held my breathe to see how he would respond. He said, "Yeah, I'd vote for him too."

Before we said goodbye, Jacob looked me over and asked, "Is that the hippie look or just the laid back look?"

I said I definitely didn't consider myself a hippie, so I guess it was the laid back look.

He also wanted to know what I was taking these pictures for, what I was trying to do. I told him I was interested in the struggle of being his age in a place like Binghamton.

I gave him my card and asked if he had an email address so I could send him a photo. He said he was planning to set up a yahoo address at the library, and this week, I got a message from "Joker B".

When I mentioned Jacob to my girlfriend, I said," He wants to live in New York City."

"Don't they all," she replied.

I am leaving for Binghamton again tomorrow. I voted yesterday at the Board of Elections and I plan to celebrate Obama's victory on a late night bus back to New York City on Tuesday that makes a stop in the Greyhound Station in Scranton, Pennsylvania - Joe Biden's hometown.

I hope I see Jacob again - to take more pictures, perhaps, or simply to see how he is doing.