Brandon Stanton's Blog, page 48

(7/32) “I arrived in New York City on Valentine’s Day. It was...

(7/32) “I arrived in New York City on Valentine’s Day. It was like being reborn. All my mistakes in life: the pregnancy, the prison time, everything, had been because I was trying to get away from something. But I was finally where I wanted to be. Now my mistakes would be my own. The first thing I did was get a room at the Salvation Army. I had nothing in my bag but $90, a pack of baby powder, and a bar of prison soap. My roommate was a prostitute named Edna, and she had the exact same bar of soap as me. But neither of us are admitting that we just got out of prison. I started working at a clothing factory off Washington Square. We were making waiter jackets or something. At first I was just cutting threads off stuff, but when the owner found out I could work an industrial sewing machine, he moved me up quick.  On my days off I’d go out and explore the city. Back then a subway ride cost fifteen cents, but I always took the bus. Because I wanted to see everything: every park, every square, every skyscraper. There was none of this stuff in Albany. I’d always get off on the corner of 59th and 5th and watch the wealthy people walk down the street. Every single one of these women dressed like my mother. There was real money in New York.  We had money back in Albany, but it always seemed like pretend money. Like everything was a ‘put on.’  If a person in Albany had a really nice ring, it was usually to distract you from the polyester they were wearing.  But I can read fabric. So I knew the truth.  And when you’re really rich, everything reads money. That’s how it was in New York, money from head to toe.  Leather all the way to the floor. One of the first things I did was get my wardrobe together. I could never afford what these rich people were wearing, I did all my shopping at the discount store, but I managed to get a little something going. I bought myself a hat for every day of the week, just like my mother. The rest of my clothes were pleather, except for my shoes. People with money only wear leather shoes. So I saved up for three weeks and bought myself some brand new leather shoes.”

(6/32) “The warden knew that the fix was in. She told me that my...

(6/32) “The warden knew that the fix was in. She told me that my parole would be denied. But she was cool. She knew I didn’t belong in prison. So she told me that if I could wait one more month, the head of parole would on be on rotation at the men’s prison in Dannemora. Then she drew up some fake papers and claimed that I was locked up in solitary. My board hearing got rescheduled, and the next month I went in front of a whole new panel. My test scores were off the chart. I was like the valedictorian of the prison. And the warden even wrote me a letter of recommendation, so my parole was approved. I knew just what I was going to do. I was never going back to Albany. I was going to catch the first bus to New York City, and begin a brand new life. But before I left prison, there was one more thing I wanted to do. There was a white-haired woman named Roberta who lived on my wing. She came from Poughkeepsie Mental Hospital, and everyone was kinda scared of her because she had these bad dreams at night and screamed like her whole body was on fire. But she was also kinda famous for reading palms. So the night before I got released, I let her read me. I gave her my last cigarette, and she looked at my hand and started describing all these things. She told me that I’d live my entire life in New York City. And I’d only be in love once. And that it would be a tough life. And a lonely life. But that one day a lot of people would know my name. And the craziest shit about it, is that every single thing came true. Well, almost everything. Roberta told me that I’d come into some real big money one day. And that better happen quick.  Cause I’m already 76.”

(5/32) “I knew my mother wasn’t going to let me come back home....

(5/32) “I knew my mother wasn’t going to let me come back home. So I decided to leave Albany for good. I was gonna go to New York and live a fantasy life like Esther Williams, with music and dancing and smiling people all around me. But first I needed to sneak back into my bedroom and get the rest of my clothes. I waited until late at night, when everyone was asleep, and I climbed inside the window. I started filling up my bag with all my dolls and my clothes. And I almost made it. I was just about to climb back out. When suddenly the lights flicked on and there was my mother, standing in her bathrobe, madder than hell. She called the cops and had me arrested for burglary. The judge gave me a choice.  Either I could give the baby up for adoption, and go back to live with my mother, or I could do ‘one to three’ in Bedford Hills prison. I agreed to give the baby up. But I wasn’t going back to my mother’s. So I told the judge to send me to prison. The whole courtroom gasped. Three weeks later my son was born. The hospital sent him straight to St. Margaret’s Children’s Home, and I was shipped off to Bedford Hills. It was a modern prison. There weren’t bars on the cells or anything. But I was scared. I was only eighteen. I’d never been around criminals before. Since nobody from the outside was putting money into my account, I had to get a job in the prison factory. Back in the day all the bras and underpants were made by convicts, so that’s what we were doing. I’d always been good at art, so on the side I started making marriage certificates for all the lesbians. I’d use crayons to draw little hearts and stuff. Then I’d sign it at the bottom to make it look official. In return they’d give me cigarettes, which was money. Pretty soon I had a little reputation. I was like the artist of the prison. The warden even asked me to choreograph a dance for the prisoners on family day. Nobody had any problems with me. I was certain that I’d get paroled after nine months. But on the day before my interview, the warden called me into her office. ‘I’ve got some bad news,’ she said. ‘Your mother is fucking the head of the parole board.”

(4/32) “All I ever thought about was getting out of that house....

(4/32) “All I ever thought about was getting out of that house. I’d spend hours watching those old black-and white Hollywood musicals, with Esther Williams doing ballet in the water. She’d be surrounded by rows and rows of smiling white women, kicking their legs high in the air. I’d fantasize about running away from home and dancing right alongside them. That’s the problem with growing up in a white world. You think you can do anything that white people can do. By the time I was a teenager, the only black person I knew was an old lady at our church. I didn’t know anything about black culture.  I didn’t know anything about black music.  I had an entire record collection, and my favorite album was Rhapsody in Blue, that’s how white I was. I began to feel like I didn’t belong, which is probably why I fell in love with the first black guy who would talk to me. His name was Birdie. And he was from the hood, but he didn’t act like a hood guy. He had a car. He took me places. I don’t remember much else about him. I just remember that he told me he loved me, which I believed cause I was stupid. I didn’t know what the fuck love was. I was all alone. There was nobody to discuss girly stuff with: this happened, that happened, none of that stuff. So when Birdie told me that all I had to do was pee after sex, I believed him. And you can guess what happened. Three months later I was pregnant. I knew my mother was going to kill me. But Birdie came to my house, and showed her this big, fake diamond ring. He spun this story about how he was going to bring me to New York and give me this great life. My mother actually seemed impressed. I think she was happy to be getting rid of me. And I was excited too. The plan was for Birdie to go ahead to New York and find us an apartment. I’d drop out of school and follow behind a few weeks later. I remember arriving in Penn Station, four months pregnant, thinking I was about to have The American Dream. Birdie showed up with flowers in his hand. Then he gave me a kiss and told me to go back upstate. Turns out he was already married, and his wife was some sort of invalid, so he decided that he couldn’t leave her. I was shit out of luck.”

(3/32) “I was the fly in a bucket of buttermilk. All my...

(3/32) “I was the fly in a bucket of buttermilk. All my neighbors were Italians and Jews. My first crush was a boy named Neil Murray. He’s fat and bald now, but back then he looked like a Kennedy. Every day he’d carry my books home from school. Until one day the nuns gave us a lecture about how you can’t be interracial, so that stopped real quick. But I did everything else the white kids did: ice skating, snow skiing, horseback riding. My mother sent me to a private Catholic school, and we were reading all those classic novels: The Illiad, The Oddysey, Tale of Two Cities, all that stuff. We even studied Latin. No black kids were taking Latin in the 1940’s, but I was near the top of my class. Every time there was an art thing going down, the teachers would put me right in the middle of it. One Christmas they put me inside a big refrigerator box, and wrapped it up in wrapping paper. All the parents gathered around. Then the music started, and the box opened up, and there I was, dressed like a doll. Standing on pointe. I began to dance, and the parents went crazy. My mom was so proud that day. Because none of the other kids could do it, even though they were white. Sometimes on the weekends I’d go over to these kids’ houses, and they had families like you’d see on television. Everyone would be talking nice. Like they were happy to be together. Even the dog would be wagging its tail. But there was nothing like that in my house. My parents didn’t even sleep in the same bedroom. There were no hugs or kisses. My only friends were my dolls. At night I’d pull a blanket over the top of an old card table and pretend it was my home. I’d be under that table, with all my dolls, in their beautiful dresses, and it was like I had a little family.  I’d gather them real close and we’d say a prayer: “Lord, please get me out of here so I can find a family that loves me.” I’d say it over and over. “Lord, please get me out of here so I can find a family that loves me.” One night my mother must have heard me in the hallway, because she burst into my room. She kicked over that card table and slapped me across the face. When I came home from school the next day, all my dolls were gone.”

(2/32) “I grew up an hour outside of Albany. The neighborhood...

(2/32) “I grew up an hour outside of Albany. The neighborhood wasn’t too nice, but it was better than the black neighborhood on Hill Street. Right now the house looks like shit, but back then it was completely clean. And my job was to keep it that way. My mother would come home after work and run her hand along the dining room table.  Then she’d look at the tip of her finger.  If she saw a speck of dust, she’d beat me with a belt. I hated that woman. The only thing I liked about her was her style. She looked just like the movie star Lena Horne. And whenever she walked down the street, both men and women would stop and stare. There used to be a store in downtown Albany called Flah’s. And in the 1940’s if you didn’t buy your clothes from Flah’s, you weren’t affluent.  My mother only shopped at Flah’s.  She bought the best of everything: silk blouses, thirteen pairs of shoes, a hat for every day of the week. No matter how much I hated her, and I hated her,  I always wanted to dress like her. My mother might have been the only black woman in the capitol that wasn’t working as a secretary. She was special assistant to the Governor. I’ve always wondered how she rose that high, but I certainly have my guesses. She fit in so well with white society that she wanted nothing to do with anything black. She never acted black.  She never talked black.  She talked about blacks, but never talked black. She used to tell me that I’d be a lot prettier if she’d married someone with lighter skin. And you know what else she tried to tell me once? She was crying about something, and she tried to tell me that she never wanted kids.  But she had me anyway so that she could have someone to love. I looked at her like she was crazy.  Cause she never showed me love.  Not once. The only time we spent together was when I took ballet. I was on pointe at six years old. They won’t even let kids do that anymore. My mother came to all of my lessons and danced right alongside me. It was the only time we ever bonded.  But she couldn’t do pointe. Not even close.”

(1/32) “Tanqueray, Tanqueray, Tanqueray. When this photo was...

(1/32) “Tanqueray, Tanqueray, Tanqueray. When this photo was taken, ten thousand men in New York City knew that name. My signature meant something to them. They’d line up around the block whenever I was dancing in Times Square, just so I could sign the cover of their nudie magazine. I’d always write: ‘You were the best I ever had.’ Or some stupid shit like that. Something to make them smile for a second. Something to make them feel like they’d gotten to know me. Then they’d pay their twenty bucks, and go sit in the dark, and wait for the show to start. They’d roll that magazine up tight and think about their wives, or their work, or some of their other problems. And they’d wait for the lights to come up. Wait for Tanqueray to step out on stage and take it all away for eighteen minutes. Eighteen minutes. That’s how long you’ve got to hold ‘em. For eighteen minutes you’ve got to make them forget that they’re getting older. And that they aren’t where they want to be in life. And that it’s probably too late to do much about it. It’s only eighteen minutes. Not long at all. But there’s a way to make it seem like forever. I always danced to the blues. Cause it’s funky and you don’t have to move fast. You can really zero in on a guy. So that it seems like you’re dancing just for him. You look him right in the eyes. Smile at him. Wink. Put a finger in your mouth and lick it a little bit. Make sure you wear plenty of lip gloss so your lips are very, very shiny. If you’re doing it right, you can make him think: ‘Wow, she’s dancing just for me.’ You can make him think he’s doing something to your insides. You can make him fall in love. Then when the music stops, you step off the stage, and beat it back to the dressing room.”

Many of you will remember this young lady. Tanqueray caused...

Many of you will remember this young lady. Tanqueray caused quite a stir a few months ago when she dropped some truth bombs on us, while wearing a hand-beaded faux mink coat that she made herself. What you don’t know is what happened afterward. Tanqueray, whose real name is Stephanie, sat for a series of twenty interviews with me, during which time I transcribed her entire life story. And whoa boy, what a story. Stephanie is a born performer, so we were initially going to make a podcast out of it. But unfortunate circumstances have required a change in plans. Stephanie’s health has taken a bad turn, and she’s in a really tough spot. So I’m going to tell her story right here, right now. It’s the most ambitious storytelling I’ve ever attempted on the blog. It will unfold over the course of 32 posts. But if there’s anyone who can hold an audience for an entire week, it’s Tanqueray. As her story is shared, we will be raising money to ensure that Stephanie can live the rest of her life in comfort and dignity. Stephanie has a lot of urgent needs, so her care will be expensive. But her story is priceless. If the series adds any value to your life over the next seven days, please consider making a contribution to our fundraiser here: https://bit.ly/2ZUjifW
‘Tattletales From Tanqueray’ will begin tomorrow.

TWO WEEKS LEFT! ‘Humans’ will be published on October 6th....

TWO WEEKS LEFT! ‘Humans’ will be published on October 6th. Featuring hundreds of stories and full color photos from around the world, including never before seen stories from Japan, Thailand, Poland, New Zealand, Singapore, and Jamaica. The book also includes five essays which explore the process and thinking behind the stories.
Reserve your copy today: https://bit.ly/PreOrderHumansFB

“My parents were wonderful to us, but terrible to each other. It...

“My parents were wonderful to us, but terrible to each other. It came from both sides. It would always start as something small, but then one of them would bring up the past. And soon they’d be fighting over their entire history. It was mostly a lot of loudness. I have distinct memories of doors being broken and objects being thrown. My older brother would bring me into his room and tell me stories to distract me. If I was all alone I’d just hide under the covers. But even at that age I knew what I wanted. And I made a promise to myself: my children will never go through this. Greg and I started dating our freshman year of college. We were so young. I had no idea how to be in a healthy relationship. Every time we got in a fight, I’d say it was over. Because that’s all I knew. My parents were always threatening divorce. But Greg kept saying: ‘We’re not going to do that. I’m staying right here.’ He had that kind of maturity, even at the age of eighteen. I was the immature one. I’d say the most horrible things to him: ‘I hate you,’ and things like that. Things I’d heard my parents say. But he never hurt me back. Not once. I don’t ever tell people that, because it doesn’t seem possible. But we’ve been together twenty years, and he’s never said anything hurtful. There have been some challenging times.  We’re raising two daughters. We have a beautiful son in heaven. So we’ve had our share of arguments, but I’ve never been insulted. I’ve never been shamed. He doesn’t bring up things I’ve done wrong in the past. I always joke with him that I’m the crappy person. I’m the one who lashes out. I’m the one who talks about people, and judges, and puts my foot in my mouth. He doesn’t react like me. He responds. And he’s made me so much better. Through twenty years of watching him respond, I’ve improved a little bit each day. Sometimes I wish that I could go back and comfort my younger self, hiding under the covers, crying herself to sleep. I’d tell her that it’s hard to believe—but one day she’ll be grateful for what happened to her. Because in a few years she’s going to meet someone wonderful. And because of everything she’s been through, she’ll know just how wonderful he is.”