Final Reflection

Leaving Dirty Jersey is an intriguing memoir to read. I was interested throughout the whole book and eager to keep reading. Leaving Dirty Jersey used imagery very well. The description of each setting in the book was vivid. Some other moments in which Salant used detailed descriptions were actions like someone getting beaten or Jimmy taking a shot. The moments in the memoir were so detailed that I could easily picture them in my mind. I admire the way Salant uses so much detail that the audience can picture what is going on throughout the story. The dialogue used in the story was very helpful in characterizing the characters. For Jimmy the dialogue he once used changes from when he was younger to when he gets older he uses a harsher tone toward others. The dialogue used to characterize Joe, Jimmy’s brother, in the beginning of the book was harsh. Joe was perceived to be a mean or even crazy boy who bullied his brother. I also like how Salant decided to tell many moments of his life in which he was at his lowest point in life. It was as though he wasn’t ashamed of telling the whole world of his story of battling drugs. One thing that I do not like about many memoirs in general is that the authors incorporate their own feelings or point of views into the story making someone they have a grudge against or a certain person they don’t like look worse then they actually are. Memoirs also only get one side of the story instead of both sides of the story since they are told from the first person point of view. Overall I very much liked Leaving Dirty Jersey from Jimmy starting to do drugs, getting clean, relapsing, breaking down, getting clean again, relapsing one more time then getting clean for the last time.

Word Count: 313 

Connections

I chose a song by Amy Winehouse called Rehab. Basically throughout the songs she sings about people wanting her to go to rehab but she makes excuses saying she doesn’t have the time and her father thinks she’s fine. Amy Winehouse in a way avoids trying to get help from anyone and going to the rehabilitation center. She then sings about how she never wants to drink again and how she just was using alcohol to fill the void she has basically using it as a “friend”.  This relates to Jimmy and how he doesn’t try to reach out for help when he’s doing drugs in Riverside. Jimmy uses drugs to receive happiness. While Jimmy is in Riverside his parents happen to visit him. The time he spends with his parents he promises to go to GSL but he eventually breaks the promise until he realizes how low he’d fallen.  In one point in the song Amy Winehouse sings that if her dad thinks she’s fine she probably wont go to rehab. This is similar to Jimmy’s situation because he didn’t feel as though what he was doing was wrong because he had support from his friends like Luke and Wendy. After a while of Jimmy doing Wendy goes to jail and one day she tells Jimmy that she will go into rehab after she gets out of jail so she can be clean once and for all. Luke starts to think more of himself and his child because he knows he needs to support his kid so Luke stops tagging along with Jimmy to do drugs. Jimmy, near the end of the book, finds himself alone on the street. He then realizes without anyone supporting him doing drugs he decided to then ask for help. Luckily Jimmy eventually stopped doing drugs after his trial unlike Amy Winehouse who sadly died due to alcohol intoxication.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KUmZp8pR1uc 

Title Significance

Leaving Dirty Jersey is a memoir written by Salant who talks about his life when he was under the influence of drugs. Jimmy, the narrator and main character, struggles to stay away from drugs. This was a problem until his parents found out and tried to help him. Jimmy’s parents then send him to a rehabilitation center called Getting Straight for Life. The center in which Jimmy is sent to is located outside New Jersey, so Jimmy has to leave New Jersey to get clean which refers back to the title Leaving Dirty Jersey. After graduating GSL Jimmy doesn’t stay clean for long. He moves to Riverside with his friend Luke then he becomes involved in drugs. Jimmy thought that where you came from meant everything so he described New Jersey as a drug infested place from his experiences. Many convicts represented their hometown by getting a tattoo like Manny: “He had massive biceps, and the word ‘Fontana’ was printed across his chest in thick block lettering—a conspicuous tattoo that, as he would later explain to me, he’d gotten in prison to show everybody that he was representing his hometown”(201). Just like Manny Jimmy wanted to represent where he was from, he wanted to make himself look tough: “She knew the artist, and her present, I suppose, was the cheap price I paid: eighty dollars to have the words ‘Dirty Jersey’ tattooed in an Old English Script inside my left forearm” (58). Jimmy referred to his home in New Jersey as Dirty Jersey: “I told him I’d learned all about respect back home in Dirty Jersey” (201). He might have referred to it this way because New Jersey is the first place he started actually doing drugs. Usually when people decide not to do drugs anymore then they are considered to be clean. New Jersey, according to Jimmy in this memoir, is the place where there are lots of drugs making it not clean which refers back to the title Leaving Dirty Jersey. Leaving Dirty Jersey pertains to the pot, the character and the whole story in many ways.

Word count: 350

Emotional Reaction

“ ‘Are you fuckin’ with me?’ I shouted I snapped the knife open and stepped toward him. ‘Jim, I’m your brother, ‘ he said. ‘If you weren’t my fuckin’ brother, there would be no talk! And you know this! You know what I’m fuckin’ doin’ out there, and you steal my fuckin’ dope?’”(249). 

This occurred right after Jimmy’s parents visited and met up with his brother Joe. After his parents went back home in New Jersey he decided to go over to Joe’s apartment. The first time Jimmy went to Joe’s apartment he left a needle full of heroin under the sink. Jimmy came back to Joe’s house a second time to find out that his needle full of heroin was gone. Jimmy then started looking for his drugs and became very suspicious of Joe. Jimmy suspected that Joe, his brother, might have stolen it. Jimmy starts getting infuriated then pulls a knife on his own brother. This seemed to shock me because Joe was his own brother and I wouldn’t think that he would turn on his brother just because of some missing drugs. In the beginning of the book it showed how when Jimmy was younger his own brother tormented him. Jimmy never really stood up to Joe and let him walk all over him: “One of the reasons I was so quick to play along with his nonsense was that I knew that is we did argue—if he started pinching and pushing me, shouting ‘fat boy’ in my face—and I had to call my mom, she wouldn’t be able to control him”(11). After being involved with actual convicts and being on the street he had changed. Jimmy had felt superior to his brother, felt as if he were better. This shows how Jimmy would no longer condone Joe’s teasing or taunting anymore. Jimmy would no longer rely on his mother to face Joe but only himself. Jimmy had become brave which is shown when he stands up to his brother. Gaining bravery is a great thing but to threaten someone with a knife over drugs is uncalled for. It was surprising how someone could pull a knife out on another person just because of drugs but to pull a knife on someone you’ve known your whole life, someone who is a part of you’re family is outrageous.

Word Count without quote:  339

Passage Analysis

“A train pulled into the station, and then all around me there were friends meeting, shaking, then—come here—hugging; wives and husbands greeting, kissing; families huddled together. It didn’t make any sense to me: the smiles, the laughter. They were happy and it seemed bizarre. For he has fallen so low that his knees are beneath the earth, he cannot reach the grapes of the gods, and he can no longer understand the average man. I began to cry”(315-316).

In Leaving Dirty Jersey Salant writes about Jimmy, which is Salant when he is younger, who is a drug addict who had to leave New Jersey to be in a rehabilitation center called GSL (Get Straight for Living). After graduating GSL he started living in Riverside but t was not long after he started doing Crystal Meth and heroin. Throughout Leaving Dirty Jersey Jimmy continues to do drugs and eventually he finds himself in the street begging for money.  In this passage Jimmy reached an all time low and he started to realize it. Jimmy finds himself sitting on the bench in a train station watching the train roll in. The passengers come out happily reuniting with their family and Jimmy sits on the bench, watching, confused. The second part of the quote explains about a man who has fallen so low that “he cannot reach the grapes of the gods…”(316). The passage then goes on to explain how he can’t understand the average man anymore. By the end of this passage the audience as well as Jimmy knows that the man described who has fallen so low is Jimmy, himself. Jimmy realizes how low he has fallen then begins to cry.

At this point in the story Jimmy has reached the lowest point he can in life. The last sentence of this passage shows Jimmy actually starting to break down. Jimmy, in a way, shows defeat like he can no longer live the lifestyle with drugs taking over his life. This is in a way a foreshadow because the audience can assume that Jimmy is actually going to clean up his act and go to GSL as he originally promised to his parents and Wendy. At the end of the passage it shows a hyperbole when James Salant states “For he has fallen so low that his knees are beneath the earth, he cannot reach the grapes of the gods, and he can no longer understand the average man.”(315-316). Jimmy had fallen very low but not as low that his knees were beneath the earth.

The significance of the passage shows Jimmy actually realizing what he had become and how far he has fallen. There is a sense of loneliness with everyone around him who has family or friends greeting them with love and happiness while Jimmy is all alone. Jimmy considers this to be bizarre or in some way weird but then he realized the person who had fallen so low no longer understands the average man. Jimmy could no longer understand the average man making him realize how far he’d fallen.

Word count: 514 (without quote)