For this story I am going to tell you about the time that I managed to get myself trapped in the ghetto. It all started last year when I was walking my college campus and I noticed a guy with flyers trying to recruit people. He was asking to see if anybody wanted to get paid for telling people to vote for an election that was coming up. Figuring I had nothing to lose I walked up to him and asked how much money was being offered and what I had to do. He explained to me that I would be put with a group of people and we would all walk around town knocking on peoples doors and telling them to vote. He also added that for our service we would be paid fifty dollars an hour.
Taking all of ten seconds to decide, I took the paper out of his hands and signed myself up. He told me that I would be receiving phone call with more information about what would be taking place. As I walked away I thought to myself "This is perfect. With fifty dollars an hour I'll be able to buy my family Christmas presents and still have money left for myself. All I have to do is walk around this place for a few hours and I'm set".
During my time waiting for the call I spoke to my friend Dave to see if he wanted to join me, but he ended up being too busy. The week before the event I received a phone call to inform me of what was going to happen. After making sure that I understood what was expected of me, the guy on the phone told me something I never saw coming. He explained that the original town I was going to be walking in, the town around my college, was already filled with workers so they were sending me to a different location. At that moment I considered the idea of walking on the deal, but the idea of making fifty dollars an hour was to good a deal to pass up. I told him that I would be there that weekend.
On the day of the event I had a map to tell me where to go, my wallet, and cell. The drive to this new location took me about forty five minutes to an hour, I can't remember exactly. When I arrived I found a group of people in front of a table signing in. I didn't know anyone in the group, not one person from my college was at this location. After signing in and receiving some kind package, I was made to wait for everyone else to finish. At this point the first of three things went wrong. I found out that I wasn't just telling people to vote, I was telling people to vote for a particular candidate, and it wasn't the guy that I was rooting for. But I figured that I'd stay since I already made the drive and it would be nice to make the extra money.
When everyone finished signing up the people in charged explained what was going to happen. We were told that in our packages we had forms to hand to people, we had a map, we had a glow stick for when it got dark, and a checklist of houses we were supposed to go to. It was than explained that we would be divided into groups of two and would be dropped off at separate locations. My partner ended up being some kid named Chris, who luckily had good knowledge of the area. When the introduction was finished we were sent to different vans, three groups per van.
Once inside, a lady stepped up to the door and passed a paper to each of us. She explained that the paper was a waiver that we had to sign before being taken to our location. We all signed it and waited to drive off. While waiting for the driver to get in we started talking and getting to know each other. Just for conversation I mentioned how it was such a great deal that we were getting to be paid fifty dollars an hour. After a moment of silence a girl turned to me and said "It's not fifty dollars an hour, it's fifty dollars for the day". I briefly tried to argue, but the others in the van confirmed to me what she said was true. I was pretty mad after hearing that and didn't really feel like talking anymore.
Finally, the driver entered the van and we were off. As we drove along, the driver talked to us and asked us about who we were. Eventually, we made it to the first drop off point and the first group was let out of the van. When the guy and the girl got out, the driver explained to them to just follow the map, pass out the forms, and to give him a call to pick them up when they were finished. As we drove off I noticed that my partner had a look of concern on his face, but since I was still steaming over the money I didn't bother to ask about it.
We soon came to the next drop off point and another guy and girl got out, leaving just me and my partner. As we drove away my partner looked concerned again, but this time he said something. "That was a really bad area those two just got dropped off at" he announced. After asking what he meant he explained to me that there was a great deal of drug and gang related activity that took place there. "Great" I thought sarcastically "So where are him and I getting dropped off at".
We arrived at our location and stepped out of the van. From what I could tell we were in a nice little town sitting on top of a hill. The driver explained to us our duties and drove away. We took out our maps and checked to see where we were. We soon realized a problem when we saw that our starting point on the map did not match the street that we were on. We walked across the street to ask a man for directions. He looked at the map and explained to us that to get to our location we had to follow the road that was to our right and start walking down the hill that we were on. We would see the street when we got to the bottom.
So we did as we were told and started walking down the hill until we got to the bottom, leaving behind the nice town that we had just come from. Sure enough we found our street and were greeted with an unexpected surprise. Not only were we no longer in a nice town. We were in some kind of run down dying neighborhood that didn't appear to have any life left in it. It almost felt like we had entered a different country. After taking in the scene my partner turned to me, pointed at the sky, and said "Chris, we need to get out of here before that sun goes down". This story will be continued in the next post.
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