"You ever piss on your old lady in the shower?" Was a question posed to me by a Baltimore City Firefighter after leaving the scene of a suspected bomb in a Park Heights home. A call was received that there was a cell phone placed in the oven with a some strange package attached to it. Turned out to be nothing, but the group of firefighters nearby just helped me cement my belief that you can see and hear anything in this town, especially from complete strangers. I was packing up my camera and tripod and came walking past a group of four firefighters who were hanging out and smoking. "Hey we got a question for you." one of them said. "This guy over here (pointing to another firefighter) is getting married next week. We've all been married and we want to see if he (again referring to the engaged fireman) is the only one who hasn't done this so, you ever piss on your old lady in the shower?" I tried to hide how hilarious this sounded to me and of course I was taken aback but had to agree that I had in fact never urinated on another individual in a shower. "Aww!!!" the three pissing firefighters said and I think slowly began to wonder if they were in the minority.
So the engaged fireman thanked me for my honesty and I packed up the news truck and drove the quick 5 min drive down Druid Park Drive to the station. And that's what I love about Baltimore and this job. I think I've been given a unique opportunity to see people at their best and at their worst, and meet people I would have never met before. I've probably walked through more drug corners than an suburban kid probably should, and learned how dishearteningly close the bad neighborhoods are in Baltimore to the good ones and wonder what sort of strange luck, or tradition that keeps one block safe and drug/violence free but another 400 yards away clocks 4 homicides a year.
There are a lot of good people in Baltimore. I've been lucky to meet some of them but spend most of my day documenting the bad. And you really start to get numb to it.
