The children were unresponsive to my overtures. When I
asked the oldest boy, about age five, where he lived, he
pointed to door number 602. I knocked, and knocked again.
Finally, the door opened a crack and quickly closed. As I
moved on, it opened again, and my small informant disappeared.
The next knock was more productive.
I explained my
mission to a slight, disheveled girl who toted a tiny infant
while a toddler peered from between her legs. She was only
seventeen years old. Distrustful at first, she soon admitted
me to the apartment and allowed me to attend her children.
Eventually I was able to gain entrance to several apartments
on each floor. I began to look forward to my house calls. The
children giggled as I walked upstairs, and protected their
buttocks with their hands. Once the mothers trusted me,
they chattered away and solicited all kinds of medical advice.
The apartment building differed from any world I had
ever known. The women were pervasively sad, sometimes
angry, and often frustrated. Many anticipated no change
other than another pregnancy and another birth.
Free birth
control was available but seldom employed. One young
mother dreamed about returning with her three small children
to her parents' farm in Connecticut, from which she had
run away six years before. She had saved no money and had
not written home.
She had never informed her parents of the
birth of her last infant, who was of mixed racial background.
Sexual matters were often discussed, although sexual
pleasures appeared to be rather peripheral.
The making and
breaking of relationships, the anger at men who didn't seem
to care, and hope for one who really would afforded the most
conversation and relief from boredom. Little was expected
from men and little was received. Coitus was generally brief,
with scant foreplay, something to be "put up with." Heavy
drinking often preceded the act.
Lovemaking was as often
associated with rage as with tenderness. One thirty-fiveyear-
old mother slept with a knife under her pillow. When
her boyfriend was too intoxicated to perform, she "kneed him
in the balls."
She preferred aggressive, assaultive men and
couldn't tolerate a "fag type." In spite of partners' misuse or
indifference, and their own anger or depression, a few
women reported an excellent erotic response. Even then, sex
had little impact on the bleakness of life.
Each morning, toddlers and preschool children were
placed in the barren hallway to play. Toys were not provided
because they were stolen or broken, or caused fights. Children
soon formed their own social order, based on size and
strength. The younger, weaker toddler would huddle silently
against the apartment door, thumb in mouth.
These children were well acquainted with sex. They wit
nessed the advent of new boyfriends and listened at the
apartment door. Tiny living quarters and thin walls added to
their expertise. Some slept with their mothers even after an
"uncle" or a "fiance" came to stay. Erotic activities in the hallway
were an intriguing substitute for toys. Because of apathy
or by intent, older children often went without underclothes.