Stories & Essays: Between the Devil and the Deep Blue Sea

"Wildness is a necessity." -- John Muir

Seven and a half miles of beach stretch along the mouth of the Chesapeake Bay in Norfolk, Virginia. There are few, if any, spots in the Ocean View neighborhood where one can actually see the Atlantic. It's a place of inherent contradictions. Vulnerable to weather's every whim, the connection to the natural world, even if not embraced, can't be denied. Once a rowdy playground for sailors, the area was rampant with drugs and prostitution. Residents still boast of its edginess and embrace its diversity. It's a siren call for transients and misfits. But low rent also provides a way out of the projects for working class families. For them, the beach is free. And it's always there.

It's an area filled with pride, yet always teetering on the edge of change. Old cottages are being bulldozed to build million dollar homes. "We're gonna reclaim some of this property, and make it what it should be," said a woman who moved here a couple of years ago.

Competing desires are at the heart of this community. The devil is elusive and we all have our own demons to fight. I moved to this neighborhood two years ago and started documenting. I've found the beauty and complexity here overwhelming and intoxicating. My hairdresser once said to me, "A place so diverse must be forgiving."

In progress

   
  
Bryce Morris, 15, explores the jetty while playing in East Ocean View.
     
  
   
  
A dive bar encourages people to ride the storm out inside.
     
  
Paul "Red Rooster" Trice works on a mural inspired by the movie "The Little Mermaid" on the side of his house. Despite cranky neighbors (they're just jealous, he said) and a city inspector who dropped by recently, Red Rooster, 77, is determined to turn his rented home into a house of art. Stucco is the hardest to paint on, he said: "It's like painting on a frog that's full of warts."
   
  
     
  
A plane flies over as a sailboat lingers on the Chesapeake Bay after the weekly Little Creek sailboat race.
   
  
Rapper Tony "Nucklez" LaBella records a music video outside Hector's Tire & Rims. "Getting money fast cash every day is a very addicting lifestyle." It's harder to survive this way, he said, but, "if I'm doing music I can't do anything illegal."
     
  
Norfolk Police gang squad investigators check Jaquawan Callender for any gang tattoos while questioning him in Ocean View. The gang squad keeps an eye on "hot spots" - known or suspected areas of gang concentrations - in an attempt to curtail activity. Investigator Rich Creamer (left) got his start in 2000, patrolling Ocean View and Norview. "Ocean View takes a bad rap, but the city's done a good job of cleaning it up," he said. "I can see the difference. Absolutely."
   
Bloody clothing is scattered around a gas station parking lot after a stabbing. The incident happened across the street from Ocean View Beach Park where the 19th Annual Ocean View Crab and Seafood Fest was being held.
  
Sean Bishop, 19, and Ashley Williams, 20, flirt while hanging out at the Ocean View Fishing Pier in Norfolk, Va.
     
  
An 11 year-old girl (name withheld by photographer) makes a penis out of sand while playing at the beach with her family in Ocean View.
  
Nico Thompson takes eleven punches from his friend Raheim Baxter, 12, in honor of his 11th birthday while playing with friends afterschool.
  
Oysters cook under wet burlap at the Annual Knights of Columbus Oyster Roast.
     
  
Moonrise, Ocean View
   
Resident folk artist, Paul "Red Rooster" Trice hangs out at his home in Ocean View. If someone were to bring all the self-taught artists together, from around the world, he says he'd be named No. 1. "I betcha a dollar I'll win. Let 'em prove me different."
  
     
  
   
  
     
  
   
  
Chairs dangle from a storm-ravaged deck.
     
  
Brandon Hatfield, 38, is a third generation waterman. Both his father and grandfather worked at the Naval Base, but commercial crabbing "was a required income to keep the family running." Construction in the winter months helps him get through the off-season and funds the next year's gear. But during that time, he's just not as whole. "I'm a much happier person out here. Everything else seems to fall in place."
   
A die-hard fishermen pulls up a catch as a storm passes through Ocean View.
   
Liz Majeskie (center) parties with friends in the Chesapeake Bay in Ocean View on the Fourth of July.
     
  
A flock of birds fly over Ocean View Inn while people hang out on the balcony. Many residents who can't afford an apartment pay weekly rates to stay in one of a handful of cheap motels in the area.
  
Judy Dickinson and her husband Fred have a drink with friends during a picnic event at East Beach, a new upscale subdivision in Ocean View. Bobby Waldrop (background) primarily lives in Richmond and spends a couple of weekends a year in his house here. Before the area was redeveloped, only a handful of the 1500 residents were homeowners.
  
Stepsisters Kaitlyn Blaney (left) and Sonya Self, both 10, pose for a portrait while taking a walk to McDonald's before trick-or-treating on Halloween.
     
  
"Airbrush Frank" Letchworth paints his truck out of a garage in East Ocean View. Though he grew up in the area, he says he's been on the road for 35 years and living in his truck since May. He says Ocean View has "a real diversity" with its million-dollar homes and crackhead prostitutes.
  
  
     
  
Nya Tolbert, 8, picks vegetables from the East Ocean View Community Center Children's Garden.
   
Apartment complex, Ocean View
   
Kelly Leitzke, 23, plays with her son Allen outside their apartment in Ocean View.
     
  
   
James White and Brian Kaltenbach (foreground) push a stranded car out of the road.
  
Undeterred by the wind and the waves, Cailyn Ayers, 1 1/2, runs along the beach as Hurricane Earl passes through the area. Ocean View is "not for the faint of heart," said one resident.