Crack, a Rift in Society

If Crack had a face, what would it look like?

If Crack had a child, what would it name him?

If Crack drove a car, what kind of car would it be?

She was in court the other day in an orange jumpsuit, the woman who drove her Volvo station wagon into a crowd at a street festival in Anacostia. It was a horrible day, June 2. Scores of people injured, some seriously. No one killed. Police said she was high on crack. People in the crowd said she was laughing as she drove into the crowd, hitting at least 40 people. Not stopping for children. Laughing and driving even as a man clung to her windshield.

But there she was Wednesday, appearing in court at 9:37 a.m., her hands clamped in handcuffs, a chain around her waist. She looked tired. Her expression? It was hard to say. But she was not laughing. She sat quietly as her attorney, the prosecutor and the judge discussed the status of her case.

The spectator benches behind her were not crowded. No hordes of angry people. There were no television reporters. No politicians. Nobody in this courtroom called her what they call her in the neighborhood: "That lady who was high on crack who drove her car into a crowd."

The police chief said Tonya Bell, who is charged with aggravated assault, knowingly had been "smoking crack all day long" before plunging the Volvo into the crowd. A 7-year-old child was in the back seat as she drove. When asked to discuss Bell's case, her attorney, Daisy Bygrave, of the D.C. Public Defender Service, said, "I don't have a comment." The U.S. Attorney's Office would not comment further because there is an ongoing investigation.

By 9:43 a.m. the hearing was over and a deputy with black leather gloves touched Bell's left shoulder, motioning to her that it was time to get up and go back to jail.

Just as quietly as 30-year-old Bell had entered the courtroom, she disappeared.

And just as it has long been, the issue of crack cocaine had made its public appearance, then slid quietly away, leaving damage in its wake.

Even though you don't know her and she has not been convicted, there is something about this woman's story, which is intertwined with crack, that feels familiar. Because crack, we believe, is familiar.

It seeped into popular culture long ago, revealing something about itself and what it does to people. Remember Samuel L. Jackson, playing the crackhead Gator Purify in "Jungle Fever," doing the crack dance before his father shot him? And Halle Barry's not-so-pretty turn as a crack addict in the same film? Remember Michael Douglas in "Traffic," searching for his once-preppy daughter only to find her in a ghetto apartment, tricking for rock? We've heard Busta Rhymes sing about crack economics. We've read rapper 50 Cent's stories, in his autobiography, about cooking it. You don't have to "hit" it to know something about it, about its reach.