Righteous Dopefiend (California Series in Public Anthropology) by Philippe Bourgois & Jeffrey Schonberg

Author:Philippe Bourgois & Jeffrey Schonberg
Language: eng
Format: mobi, epub
Publisher: University of California Press
Published: 2009-05-28T22:00:00+00:00

Jeff’s Fieldnotes

I accompany Carter as he cases out a junkyard he plans to burglarize for recyclable metal later tonight. From behind a camper, we hear three men talking in Spanish. They are celebrating the end of the work week on this warm Friday summer evening, drinking beers.

At the foot of the warehouse loading ramp, there is a small green and tan canvas duffel bag. Its straps are crisscrossed and twisted to form a more secure single reinforced strap. Carter looks at the bag intently and slows down, but keeps walking. With feigned disinterest, he casually turns his head to the right and then to the left. Detecting that the bag is not within the view of the three men, he slowly walks back to inspect it more closely, patting it softly with the palm of his hand. I hear him mutter something about a drill, and then a more audible, “Please help me, God.”

Scanning once more in both directions, but this time more openly and more tensely, Carter whispers to me, “Why would they leave the bag back here out of sight and be sitting just ten feet away?” I pretend to ignore him, but remember that some of the guys say the toolbox that led to Sonny’s beatdown had been bait, left out by the construction worker to catch him red-handed.

Carter takes a deep breath, grabs the bag, spins around, and cradles it in both arms to his chest so that it is not visible from behind. Hissing, “Jeff, watch my back,” he walks briskly down the street.

A nervous smile fixed on his face, Carter deliberately slows his pace as he reaches the middle of the block. His back has now come into full view of the three Latino workers sitting on the warehouse loading dock. I hear him murmuring, “Oh, please, Lord, just let me get around that corner; please, please!” I can tell that his insides are coiled and he is ready to burst into a sprint at the slightest noise behind him.

Rounding the corner and out of sight, he lunges into a sprint. An empty rusted shopping cart happens to be lying on its side in the gutter, and he drops the canvas bag into it. He pushes it rapidly at a trot for another two blocks. After rounding two more corners, he finally stops to examine the bag’s contents. A well-worn leather work belt is neatly folded on top as a protective cover. Underneath is a power drill with an orange extension cord coiled into a tight ringlet. Further below lie a masonry hammer, a screwdriver, and some heavy-duty wire cutters.

I follow Carter three more blocks to an auto body repair yard that fences stolen goods. The owner, an Asian man, is busy with a customer, and we have to wait for an hour. Carter, still nervous, tells me he is planning to ask for forty dollars for all the stuff but will settle for thirty-five.

Feeling terrible for the workers who have just been ripped

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