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confronted with a problem that went far beyond literary style. My specialty was selecting from the chaos and splendor of the given world one small part that could stand for the whole: the perfect research topic, the world in a grain of sand. But the approach of the lab coats was statistical. They favored long questionnaires, computer analysis, lots of numbers from the United States Census. They’d laugh at me if I focused on one small part of the city. And I couldn’t even argue that they were completely wrong. I wasn’t a journalist studying individuals. What I found
had
to be applicable to a bigger population. I would have to say something about the entire city—
all New Yorkers
!
And right then, I could barely find the subway.
    â€¢Â Â Â â€¢Â Â Â â€¢
    S tart with what’s comfortable,
I told myself,
and hope it takes you somewhere
. Since my work on Chicago crack dealers was my academic foundation, it made sense to start from there. My entry point came via Michael Clark, a major player in the Midwest drug scene. I had known him for years and written about him without upsetting him too much. Back in 1997, he had offered me the help of a cousin in New York called Shine. “He’ll hook you up,” he promised. Then he took my notebook into his hands and wrote down a phone number.
    I didn’t call Shine right away. I wanted to discover the city on my own, and calling Shine felt like a crutch. But after stumbling around Harlem trying to strike up conversations with drug dealers and sex workers without much success, I got out the notebook and dialed the number.
    Shine lived less than a mile from my new apartment, it turned out, but he was down in Harlem and I was up in Morningside Heights. Coming to New York, I had expected a replay of my experience at the University of Chicago, where arriving students were given maps divided into safe and unsafe neighborhoods and warned repeatedly about which ones to avoid—all the black neighborhoods, basically. And to some extent, the tiny incline of Morningside Park, one block long and barely steep enough to be called a hill, did create an invisible barrier between the worlds of Columbia University and Harlem.
    But here was my first lesson, unnoticed at the time, in the ways in which New York is not Chicago. The friendly neighborhood bar I had just discovered was also Shine’s friendly neighborhood bar. A warm and unpretentious place where most of the customers worked for small local businesses, it was a pleasant contrast to the university environment and certainly better than the noisy off-campus places jammed with students. I’d leave the West End to the ghosts of Jack Kerouac and Allen Ginsberg. I just felt more comfortable among working people.
    Shine laughed when I told him the name of the bar. “Hell, I’ll be there tonight watching the game,” he said. “Drop on by.”
    When I headed over after work, walking fast in the brisk winter air, I wondered how I could have overlooked a major ghetto drug dealer among the ordinary working people. But when I saw him, I immediately saw why. Shine was a large man, fit and athletic, with a quiet, watchful presence, but his dark blue pants and dark shirt made him look like a U.S. postal worker taking a break after the day’s shift. In a room of uniformed men, nearly all black and Latino, he blended right in.
    I ordered a drink from the bar and carried it to his booth, sitting down across from him.
    For a moment, we didn’t speak—just sat, surprisingly comfortable, taking each other in.
    â€œHow’s Michael?” Shine finally asked, his white teeth making a crisp contrast against his red lips and black skin as he smiled. “How’s he living?”
    â€œGood, good,” I muttered. “He’s settling down.”
    â€œThat nigger’s been settling down since he came into this world,” Shine said.
    â€œYeah, but if you’re