Welcome to Shitsville

No girl ever said, "I want to be an escort when I grow up."

After I graduated from high school in one of the "collar counties" around Chicago, I moved to New York City instead of going to college. My big sister got most of the book smarts in the family, and that was just fine with me. I had dreams of building a life for myself that didn't involve grades and homework, and making it on my own in an exciting new city.

I arrived in the summer of 2016 full of optimism and a basic understanding of how challenging and unforgiving a big city can be, especially for someone with no higher education. I crashed on a friend's couch in Manhattan for the first few months while I hustled to find solid work, and in the meantime I kicked in a little money I'd saved up back home to help with the rent, plus whatever I could scrape together in the moment. I also did some of the cooking and cleaning, which helped me feel less like a freeloader.

A few fill-in spots as a runner and busser in a local restaurant turned into semi-regular waitressing. A casual conversation during intermission at an off-Broadway play resulted in an introduction to someone who was willing to give me a shot at occasional shifts selling t-shirts and other merchandise in theaters. A sewing favor for my temporary roommate's boss got me a phone call from a fashion house that sporadically needed seamstresses on a cheap hourly basis, and they knew another fashion house...

I still remember the day I did the math and realized that I should be able to afford an apartment of my own, if I could manage to have some discipline with things like clothes shopping and brunches. It was like I'd conquered a tall mountain, and I couldn't wait to coast down the other side. Then I started looking, and quickly felt instead as if I'd plummeted off a cliff.

Rental apartments in New York City can be insanely expensive -- and enough has been written about that, so I won't get into it further. But you may not know that for an awful lot of buildings in the city, a broker has to bring you to see an apartment, and it used to be that if you ended up in that apartment you had to pay that broker a fee that could be as high as 15% of your annual rent (e. g., $4,500 on a $2,500/month apartment). That's after paying an application fee to the landlord, which you don't get back if you're not accepted. And in order to apply, you have to be able to prove your annual income is at least forty times the monthly rent.

I don't know about where you work, but for the kinds of jobs I had, nobody was about to sign a letter verifying my "salary." Of course I had income tax returns going back a few years, but all from high school. I couldn't prove anything to a potential landlord beyond showing them recent pay stubs, and since those didn't include my cash tips, they weren't good for much more than comic relief.

There was another option, which was to have a guarantor willing to cosign my lease who could prove their annual income was at least eighty times the monthly rent. But as well as my mom was doing in the HR department of a Chicago law firm, she didn't make that kind of bank. My dad couldn't even be bothered to make his share of payments to my orthodontist, so I wasn't about to count on him for this. Besides, most landlords insisted that guarantors live within shouting distance of the city anyway.

I could have tried to find an open bedroom in an existing two or three-bedroom apartment, but living with people I didn't know might be risky. I'd heard a ton of roommate horror stories already. I wanted to be able to put my stuff wherever I pleased, bring a boyfriend home without having to be quiet, and enjoy that feeling of independence that would only come with being the sole occupant of my address.

Eventually, one of the patient but frustrated brokers I'd been talking to said he knew a few landlords who might be able to help. Apparently some landlords are willing to make exceptions for tenants who can pay a few months' rent up front in cash, along with the usual security deposit of a month's rent. The buildings would be in neighborhoods I "might not list among my top choices," said the broker. But I was brave and determined, and from what I could tell, neighborhoods all over New York City were enjoying renaissances. I could end up somewhere amazing.

I still had to ask my mom for help coming up with the money. But once I moved in I would have a few months paid in advance, so I knew I'd be able to pay her back as I kept working and getting paid. The broker showed me photos of a studio apartment that he said was in a diverse, vibrant neighborhood in Brooklyn, where the subway commute to my restaurant would be less than an hour, and I said yes.

When lease signing day arrived, the broker drove me there to meet the landlord, and somehow I still hadn't brought enough money. Apparently, the landlord felt so strongly that he was doing me a favor by letting me pay three months' rent in advance in lieu of a credit check, he expected some extra money from me purely out of gratitude. (In most places outside of New York City, they call this a "bribe.") My broker assured me he'd explained that part to me, but I was just as sure he'd neglected to mention it completely.

I convinced the landlord to accept "only" half a month's rent as his thank-you gift, but that meant I would still owe him that amount on top of what I was paying him that day, and I would owe it soon. Then I had to pay the broker's fee -- and then I had to move in and furnish the place.

By the time the dust settled, I was living in a space smaller than the garage on my mom's house in Illinois, I was in sudden, unexpected debt, and I wasn't about to ask my mom for more help already. But I was on my own at last.

I spent the first couple of weeks I lived in Brooklyn with my head down, commuting to and from Manhattan to wait tables. But eventually I had time to explore my neighborhood a little.

Where I lived was a corner of Brooklyn that Bedford-Stuyvesant residents tend to insist isn't part of Bed-Stuy, Bushwick residents will generally deny is in Bushwick, Ocean Hill residents reject, and Brownsville residents ignore. In 2017 you could charitably have described it as "up and coming," but there was still a lot of "up" left for it to come. It wasn't pretty.

And that's okay, because the neighborhood also had a lot of character. There'd been construction and renovation of some kind or another going on since the day I moved in. I met some wonderful people there who own or work in local shops and restaurants, play dominoes on sidewalk card tables while sharing the accumulated knowledge of three generations of Brooklynites, or just hang out on the corner shooting the shit. And at the very least, most people smiled and waved back when I passed by and said hi, including those loud guys on the corner.

Some of my coworkers at the restaurant were worried for me when I told them where I'd moved to live on my own. Those guys hanging out on the corner were bad news and I should cross to the other side of the street, they said. If I was heading home after dark, I should get off the subway in a safer neighborhood like Clinton Hill and take an Uber the rest of the way, they warned. But most importantly, I was a small girl, and I had to be careful around the locals. They danced around the issue enough that nobody ever said it in so many words, but the subtext was pretty clear to me: I was a small white girl, and I had to be careful around the black and brown locals.

The first time I came home from work in broad daylight, after subbing for someone's breakfast/lunch shift, I walked past a couple of loud, active construction sites. As I approached the last one before home, I heard a wolf whistle. I ignored it and sped up a bit, then I heard a second one, followed by a shout: "Don't walk that ass away so fast!"

It wasn't the first time I'd been harassed at a construction site since moving to New York City, but this was my new neighborhood, and it was discouraging to think I might not be able to escape it here. My train of thought was broken by the sudden appearance of two guys in front of me who must have just come around the corner. "Honey, we said we need to take a closer look at that ass!" said one of them, and I tried to walk around them as they laughed. They weren't that big -- honestly, if I'd had to describe them to the police later, I would've said, "short, stocky white guys" -- but there were two of them and they were bigger than me, and suddenly they were blocking my path.

"Just turn around and give us a quick look, that's all we want!" the second one said, and I felt tears start to form in my eyes.

"Guys, I'm tired and I just want to go home," I said, my voice cracking.

They were starting to laugh again when I saw a blur out of the corner of my eye, and all at once there were three more guys standing next to the curb. I started to panic, because it didn't register at first that these were a few of the guys who I'd seen hanging out on a street corner not far from my place.

"Yo, Billy and Jack, how y'all doin'?" shouted the tallest one of them in a mock redneck twang, and I took a step back, my heart pounding. The two construction guys and I all turned to see a trio of African-American locals, smiles on all their faces, staring at them.

"None of your fuckin' business," the first construction guy said. "We're just makin' friends."

The tall local laughed, then continued in what must have been his actual, somewhat Caribbean accent. "Sound to me like the girl decided she got enough friends. Think you should let her pass."

"I said it's none of your fuckin' business," came the answer. That's when the tall one slowly stepped up onto the sidewalk and gradually got close to the construction guys, staring down at them.

"Everything this side of that wall is my business," he said with controlled calm, tilting his head toward the wooden fence around the construction site. "I don't go on your side getting in your business, you stay out of mine. Yeah?"

For a moment it seemed like the construction guys were weighing their chances against these odds. Then without a word they shook their heads and walked back around the corner. As my three rescuers turned toward me, the tall one lifting his hands to shoulder height to signal he wouldn't come any closer if I didn't want him to, I finally burst into tears. Abandoning his plan to keep his distance, he rushed over, got down on a knee, and gently grabbed my arms.

"Baby girl," he said, "you gonna be fine. We got you, okay? We got you." I looked up at him, then at his two friends, who nodded their agreement. We got you, we got you. "You live in Shitsville now, baby girl, and East Shitsville belong to me."

I laughed through my tears at the absurdity of his welcome, but it was oddly comforting, and I fell into his arms and hugged him tightly. He hugged me back. "Call me Dev," he said.

"Hi Dev, I'm Samantha," I replied, sniffling.

Dev stood up and gestured for me to follow. He introduced his friends, though I wouldn't be able to remember their names for a long time after that. They walked me the rest of the way home, and it was only as I was climbing my building's stoop that I realized I hadn't told them where I lived -- where I'd lived for less than a month. They already knew. I turned around to see Dev smiling at me. "We got you, baby girl," he said, and they waited until I was inside before they turned to go.

On my regular dinner shift the next night, I was ready to tell a couple of coworkers about the whole thing. But the more I thought about it, the more I realized they would just see it as proof that I lived in a dangerous place. The skin color of the assholes didn't matter if I wasn't safe, and it would probably sound like I'd invented Dev and his friends no matter how I told the story. So I kept my mouth shut.

Still, I knew the truth. That night when I knocked off work, I felt a little bit better about where I lived than I had the day before last. I walked the several blocks to the subway, and waited on the platform for the one of the last few C trains of the evening before the A train would take over. A few minutes later, I stepped through a set of sliding doors and grabbed a pole. The conductor's voiceover crackled, and I smiled as I imagined her saying, "This is a Brooklyn-bound C train to Euclid Avenue, making all local stops, including East Shitsville."

"Stand clear of the closing doors."