Last weekend I chanced upon an out-of-luck doll, standing un-clothed and unarmed in front Police Service Station 3, on Central Avenue in Bushwick. I asked her how she came to her unfortunate state of affairs and she told me her story. Her name is Barbie and she came to Bushwick to seek her fame and fortune, but wound up running with the wrong crowd… It wasn’t long before she found her self walking the streets at night to make ends meet. The Sunday morning of our encounter she had just been released from a holding cell without a scrap of clothing on her back, or a solitary cent to her name. I offered her the slightly less exploitative job of modeling in exchange for bus fair to her family farm back in Kansas. It turned out that she was a natural for modeling — no useless arms to clutter up the highly artistic shots, and a fixed expression that seemed to tell the tale of her hard times. She’s back on the farm now, and as far as I know, Bushwick is already a distant memory.
