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.

December

David
Main Street
Binghamton, NY
December 2008

I figured it would be harder to find people on Main Street as it got colder and grayer in December, and I was right. I spent four days driving and listening to the radio and drinking coffee and searching for something almost elusive.

I was frustrated, naturally, and wrote to my friend and pen pal and mentor, a writer in Minnesota, and told him what I was up to.

He wrote back: There is a certain male beauty that's very transient, and I think that's because most men become unnecessarily hard too fast. The beauty is in the mixture of vulnerability and strength, and in most men it doesn't last much after adolescence. (Charles Baxter)

David was the only guy in Binghamton who moved me in four days. I know an overly sensitive person when I see one, and these are the kind of people who make sense to me right off the bat.

David told me he was from Philly and somehow, he ended up in Binghamton. He said he hated Binghamton. He didn't have any friends, and there was nothing to do.

I asked him if he had a job, and he said he was a cook at a school down the street. I asked him if he had a dream, and he said he wanted to start an outreach program for kids on the street, since he had been on the street himself. He said he had done enough bad things in his life and he wanted to do something good.

I thought that was a pretty important thing to figure out about yourself at nineteen years old and I was glad he was so smart.

I am leaving in the morning to travel and to visit my family and I'm checking off the blog for while, so happy holidays to all and stop by again in the new year.

Ernest

Ernest
Main Street
Binghamton, NY
November 2008

Ernest was sitting on a step outside a downtown storefront on Main Street, and the first thing he told me was that his girlfriend was having his baby on June 9th. I got the impression that he was sitting on Main Street waiting for June to arrive and for the most important thing in his life to take place. He said he wanted a girl - boys were too much trouble. If he had a boy, girls would be calling all of the time.

When I told him I lived in Brooklyn, he said he heard it was crazy there. He heard a lot of people get shot in New York City. It's not the first time I've told people I live in New York, and they say they've heard a lot of people get shot there.

Ernest sat patiently through a roll of film and then he abruptly got up and said he had to leave. When I went back to the car and drove away, I noticed Ernest at the end of the same block on Main Street, waiting.

Jonathon

Jonathon
Main Street
Johnson City, NY
September 2008

If anyone is a maverick, it's probably Jonathon. Jonathon struck me as the kind of guy who I might have gravitated towards as a cover boyfriend when I was in high school. The combination of his sexy rebel looks and inwardness, his gentleness and sensitivity. The kind of guy who fills cheap note books with private thoughts and poetry. The kind of guy who makes you want to hide out in a treehouse with a litter of stray puppies.

After I took his photograph, Jonathon actually thanked me politely and shook my hand. He was wearing those fingerless leather gloves that felt rough, except his fingers in contrast were super soft.

It looks like I am jumping on a bus tomorrow to head back to Binghamton in hopes of finding more sad young men and one happy girlfriend. If only it were warmer, and we all got to wear less clothes.