New York
I crossed the river last week and went into the heart of darkness. Unlike Conrad’s hero, it took me about 15 minutes by train, and there I was, right in the midst of a city bloated with squalor, oily storefronts, dilapidated tenements, vacant courtyards, and trash-strewn lots. I was the only white man in the station as I watched the arrest of a black hobo by two humongous black police officers. As the hobo was being led away, he screamed at me, ‘Give me a hundred dollars,’ and then broke up in hysterical, drunken laughter. It was three in the afternoon, and I had gone to Newark to watch my judo coach, Teimoc, compete in a ju-jitsu tournament, one from which he emerged a winner.
Walking up towards the site where the competition took place was an experience.
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