A plume of smoke and dirty soot rises up through the skeletal remains of the long abandoned International Boiler Works rotting away in East Stroudsburg, Pennsylvania. The smog is so thick it swallows the entire building within a veil of black and white, for any and all color is consumed by the grey soot, which much like a dense early morning fog, hangs low to the ground, disturbed only by the occasional winter breeze which whips through the shell of the former factory. Within a second story alcove nestled about the wreckage, a party of Poconos people are stoking a fire with whatever debris they can manage to rummage up from within the industrial ruins. A smoldering hunk of rubber billows blackness into the air, as an empty, yet very much glowing cardboard Pabst Blue Ribbon case shoots embers ceiling high, the ink laden paper consumed nearly instantly by the flickering flames of the fire.
The group of Poconos people soon notice my shadowy presence emerge from within the smokey aura. "Hey man, come up here and join us", a voice barks out from behind a curtain of smoke. With such an invitation, I place with my hands about the rungs of a cold rusty ladder and begin to climb up toward the elevated smoke-filled party room. As my eyes crest above the top rung, I am met by a young gentleman who wreaks of smoke as much as he does marijuana and cheap stale beer. "We've been here since yesterday evening, camped out overnight". "We just woke up actually, trying to get a fire started as you can see", the gentleman responds, as he gestures over toward his friend who is situated outside and feverishly hacking away at a still very much alive tree, attempting to split the lively limbs for fire wood.
Another gentleman was sitting around the campfire within the remnants of a shopping cart which had been bent and distorted into sort-of makeshift chair. Draped over his body was a "Poconos blanket", which consisted of nothing more than mangled blue tarp. Empty Dutch Blunt wrappers skated across the cold cement floor as a frigid winter breeze snuck in through a smashed out window. Aluminum beer cans littering the floor were easy crushed beneath the weight of the live tree limbs, being chucked up from below and tossed on to the fire. "Feel free to hang around awhile man, we'll be here all day", a new voice echoed as a third man appeared from under a cardboard box "sleeping bag".
And such is indeed The Poconos, a strange, depressed, rural ghetto, where the peculiar trumps reality. A stretch of secluded mountains, touted as being merely a 90 minute drive from Manhattan, but in reality, may as well be a universe away. The Poconos is the place where vehicles remaining from years of day-to-day crushing commutes to NYC and back go to die. Parked and abandoned for so long on side streets, mushrooms begin to sprout from the interior, as the flat tires deflate with as much sadness as the owners must posses themselves. The Poconos is a place where honeymoon resorts rot, and crazy caretakers shoot at you with shotguns. The Poconos is a place where those too crazy for the Catskills, go thrive. The Poconos is a place full of Poconos People and it's a place I'd rather not be.
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