Young ‘Studs Terkel’ profiles Tompkins homeless

Jim Flynn, right, with Rino Thunder near Tompkins Sq. Park

Feeling “fed up with the transparent hipsters on the Downtown bar scene,” as he put it, three years ago, Jim Flynn, a young teacher, decided to search out a more authentic New York. He found it in a place many would shun — among the homeless regulars and drifter punks in Tompkins Sq. Park.

“As the Downtown scene has changed, it’s become a lot more difficult for a true artist to pay for an apartment Downtown,” Flynn said in an interview at The Villager’s office last week. “That artistic, bohemian environment has changed a bit. But the people in the park, they’ve lived through it.”

Flynn, 25, a former East Villager now living in Brooklyn, interviewed his subjects over two years, logging 1,000 hours of micro-cassette tape. The end product, “Stranger to the System,” a 300-page, pocketsize book, was published in June by Curbside Press, his own imprint.

In the style of Studs Terkel, whom Flynn cites as a big influence, the profiles are in the subjects’ own words.

“I felt that by remaining neutral in my own perspective and letting people use their own words that allows the reader to come to their own conclusion about the situation,” said Flynn, who has a beard and a slight Upstate twang. “I was just the bridge.”

Accompanying Flynn was Nelson Hall, who did the pen-and-ink illustrations in the volume. A longtime former fixture in the park and on Avenue A, Hall’s story as a recovering alcoholic is central to the book.

Flynn interviewed his subjects in many cases in multiple sessions over two years. He let them look over the rough drafts or read the drafts to them if they were illiterate and let them edit them. Nothing went into the book without their approval. Flynn paid his subjects $10 per hour.

“They were giving me something, too,” he noted. “These people are perceived as not having value.”

Drawing out the individuals was often tough, but with persistence and a nose for when he was close to breaking through, Flynn got them to open up.

“Some people came straight out,” Flynn said. “There were other subjects, like Nelson or Rino Thunder, that required many hours.”

For a year, all Flynn could talk about with Lawrence LaDouceur, a towering homeless man with the mien of a Biblical prophet, was his bizarre philosophy. But then LaDouceur finally broke down and told him of his family in Montana and his experiences being institutionalized in Bellevue where he was shot full of brain-numbing drugs.

“It was very emotional for him to reveal that side of himself,” Flynn said. “And when it came out it came in a gush of tears and emotion.”

When Flynn found out Hall was an artist, he brought him paper and pens to draw. Hall credits it with reviving his interest in art, his first love.

“As a matter of fact, I have my sketchpad with me,” Hall said. “Would you like your sketch done?”

During the interview, Hall, sketched sensitive portraits of first the reporter, then Hall.

For another subject, Flynn bought him a bus ticket to visit his family in Maryland and even dropped him off at the Port Authority. In the book, Flynn calls it the project’s most gratifying moment — but he later discover the man never went.

Many of the subjects yo-yo between recovery and relapse. In the course of the project, several fatally O.D. on heroin or die by other means.

“Stranger to the System” is divided into “The Living Room” with profiles of the homeless people who hang out in the park’s southwest corner around the chess tables, and “Crusty Punk Lane,” profiles of the young punks and train-hoppers who hang out on a nearby row of benches.

The subjects are black, white, Hispanic, Native American, Eastern Indian, young and old. Flynn said he simply chose people who were the most visible and most willing to talk.

“I didn’t really have to make a conscious effort” to get a cross-section, he said. “It’s one of the most diverse areas in the world — Tompkins Sq. Park and the Lower East Side.”

There’s Sweet Leif, a tough girl who ran away from home to live in the Tompkins Sq. Park tent city, got hooked on heroin and became a prostitute before realizing she was a lesbian; The Chess Monster, an N.Y.U. graduate whose life’s goal is to promote his version of chess where one can arrange the back row of pieces any way one likes; and Rino Thunder, a Native American and former actor, patriarch of “The Living Room.”

While Rino is alcoholic, others, especially some of the punks, like Bolt and Stephanie — whom Flynn watches shoot up in East River Park — grapple with heroin addiction. Others suffer from mental illness. Some are Vietnam veterans.

The profiles were often pasted together from several interviews and extensively edited for syntax, though Flynn tried to keep them as close to the subjects’ language as possible.

Part of the idea behind the project is to help the homeless help themselves by having them sell the book. Flynn sells them the books for $2 each and they sell them for $10. Flynn sells the book himself during evening rush hour in front of the Astor Pl. Starbucks. So far, they’ve sold 350.

“It prepares them for being a salesman,” Flynn said. “They have to have confidence, speak clearly.” In addition to himself, other vendors currently include Gray Wolf, Chess Monster and Hall. Flynn hopes to expand his distribution network and is working with local nonprofit organizations like the Harm Reduction Center to find more vendors. For example, one homeless man selling the book needs money for a ticket back to Jamaica.

At first, Flynn was promoting the book under the concept the money would help house the homeless. But then he realized many in the park consider it their home and community.

“For some people, it’s their only family,” Flynn said. “Everybody in the book knows each other.”

If they were to live indoors, they’d probably want it to be around the park, but noted Flynn, “It’s very hard to find affordable housing around Tompkins Sq. Park.”

“You got that right,” interjected Hall.

“People don’t want to leave the neighborhood,” Flynn said. “They’re fiercely attached to the park.”

But Hall did move away, Uptown, where he now has a place.

“I’m kind of grateful to Jim for including me in this” project, Hall said. “To live more of my potential than I was when I was living in the park — It’s just good to be indoors.”

Hall had to hit rock bottom and decide for himself to stop drinking.

“Jim watched the transition occur,” he said.

“When I met Nelson he had sunk very low in his lifestyle,” Flynn said. “Sometimes he’d be passed out drunk on the sidewalk and taken away by ambulances. And the next day, I’d talk to him about Shakespeare. It was kind of an enigma to me how a person like that could be in that situation.”

Self-publishing allowed Flynn editorial control, but at a price. The printing cost for 10,000 copies was $20,000 and he’s $14,000 in debt. He applied for 50 different grants but found no takers.

“It’s all financed through credit cards,” he said.

An admitted “suburban kid” from Albany, Flynn has been a special education teacher at Chelsea’s High School for the Humanities for four years. He said it was teachers there who inspired him to “learn outside the classroom,” leading to the book project.

Two earlier attempts by Flynn at oral documentaries didn’t pan out. In one, he hitchhiked across the country and interviewed people. The other was a project similar to “Stranger to the System” but with the Los Angeles homeless. He had an agent but no publisher; it left him bitter but was a learning experience.

Flynn is also a musician and plays what he describes as “jokey folk” in Sidewalk café on Avenue A.

The most gratifying thing to Flynn is when he sees people who buy the book then go sit down and talk with the subjects in the park. It gives the people in the book a sense of pride to be recognized and has in a way turned them into local celebrities of a sort.

“I think you accomplished a lot with that one,” Hall said. “Fifteen minutes of fame.”

Though sales might not be as brisk as he hoped, Flynn remains upbeat.

“Even if I don’t sell all the books and I have to use them as doorstops, I got what I came for,” he said.

For more information on how to buy or sell “Stranger to the System,” visit www.curbsidepress.com.