The Game Room Analysis in In Search of Respect

The crackhouse on Philippe Bourgois’s block in East Harlem, and the primary site where he conducts his research on the crack trade. Ray owns the Game Room, but Primo runs it and employs Caesar as a lookout and Abraham to clean and ward off police by pretending to be senile. The Game Room appears to be a small arcade—but its pinball machine is actually full of crack, which Primo sells to the various customers who flow in and out. Bourgois notes that it is far from an ideal work environment: it has neither air conditioning nor heating, smells horrible, and only has a few small, decrepit stools to sit on.

The Game Room Quotes in In Search of Respect

The In Search of Respect quotes below are all either spoken by The Game Room or refer to The Game Room. For each quote, you can also see the other terms and themes related to it (each theme is indicated by its own dot and icon, like this one:

Anthropological Research and its Consequences Theme Icon

In the five years that I knew Primo he must have made tens of thousands of hand-to-hand crack sales; more than a million dollars probably passed through his fingers. Despite this intense activity, however, he was only arrested twice, and only two other sellers at the Game Room were arrested during this same period. No dealer was ever caught at Ray’s other crackhouses, not even at the Social Club on La Farmacia’s corner, even though its business was brisker.

Related Characters: Philippe Bourgois (speaker), Primo, Ray

Page Number and Citation: Chapter 3109

Explanation and Analysis:

Contrary to my expectations, most of the dealers had not completely withdrawn from the legal economy. On the contrary—as I have shown in Chapter 3, in discussing the jobs that Willie and Benzie left to become crack dealers and addicts—they are precariously perched on the edge of the legal economy. Their poverty remains their only constant as they alternate between street-level crack dealing and just-above-minimum wage legal employment. The working-class jobs they manage to find are objectively recognized to be among the least desirable in U.S. society; hence the following list of just a few of the jobs held by some of the Game Room regulars during the years I knew them: unlicensed asbestos remover, home attendant, street-corner flyer distributor, deep-fat fry cook, and night-shift security guard on the violent ward at the municipal hospital for the criminally insane.

Related Characters: Philippe Bourgois (speaker), Benzie, Willie

Page Number and Citation: Chapter 4115

Explanation and Analysis:

The Game Room Term Timeline in In Search of Respect

The timeline below shows where the term The Game Room appears in In Search of Respect. The colored dots and icons indicate which themes are associated with that appearance.

The Crack Trade and the Underground Economy Theme Icon

...affiliated with Ray’s gangs, takes Bourgois aside and tells him to stay away from the Game Room (the crackhouse Primo runs for Ray). Primo admits that he is afraid of Ray, who... (full context)

...be a little wild in the streets.” Primo and Caesar, his best friend and the Game Room ’s lookout, help Bourgois flee the Game Room whenever Ray shows up, but Primo reports... (full context)

Under “Accessing the Game Room Crackhouse,” Bourgois explains that his first goal upon arriving in El Barrio is convincing Primo... (full context)

Poverty, History, and Public Policy Theme Icon

As he starts hanging out more and more at the Game Room , Bourgois becomes “an exotic object of prestige,” and people want to be around him... (full context)

...Ray’s two African American dealers go by Spanish names and complain of racism in the Game Room . And Caesar goes on a diatribe about how he hates and wants to kill... (full context)

...in the 1920s, and then of course the crackhouses that Bourgois studied. In fact, the Game Room used to be a speakeasy, and the library next door documented its frustration with both... (full context)

Bourgois starts with a quote from Felix, who felt important and respected when running the Game Room , but then reveals that the crack trade is like “any other risky private sector... (full context)

In the section “Living with Crack,” Bourgois explains the Game Room ’s origins: Felix, Primo’s cousin and Ray’s old friend, originally founded it but ran it... (full context)

Primo buys his supply at the Game Room in those days, after leaving his job, wife, and child to move back in with... (full context)

Gender Roles and Family Violence Theme Icon

...goes to prison as soon as he gets out of the hospital. Candy sells the Game Room to Ray, who has just returned from prison. (full context)

In “Restructuring Management at the Game Room ,” Bourgois explains what happens after Ray takes over the crackhouse and imposes his stricter... (full context)

...[Primo] sympathized with Caesar’s crack addiction” (since Primo himself quit through stable work at the Game Room ), or perhaps because he can pay Caesar (like the other addicts who work as... (full context)

Unlike Caesar, during his time at the Game Room Benzie managed to quit crack, replacing it with powder cocaine and occasional heroin. And interestingly,... (full context)

...dealing’s low wages, Bourgois continues, it is also horrible work: it is dangerous and the Game Room lacks heating and air conditioning, a bathroom and a telephone. People sit around on “grimy... (full context)

Under “Management-Labor Conflict at the Game Room ,” Bourgois notes that Primo’s status as the crackhouse boss makes his own lack of... (full context)

The Game Room gets moved, then shut down, then reopened with an inferior product (since Ray’s former supplier... (full context)

In fact, the Game Room does get robbed twice during Bourgois’s research, and being around friends makes Primo’s job feel... (full context)

...only white man around and even starts going to police-led “community outreach meetings.” In the Game Room , Primo and his associates sold in spots shielded from view and made sure too... (full context)

...He got fired from his last job because he was still using crack at the Game Room all night, every night, and showing up exhausted. He alternates between blaming himself and blaming... (full context)

...but enjoys his time “breaking shit,” “hassling customers,” and “selling them garbage drugs” in the Game Room . His girlfriend’s food stamps pay for his food, but he has no social security... (full context)

...same week, he becomes responsible for paying his rent, starts getting fewer shifts at the Game Room , and starts resorting to asking his mother and sister for money. He gets evicted... (full context)

...of commanding respect on the street.” Bourgois first meets her when she storms into the Game Room , six months pregnant and furiously cursing out all of Ray’s associates. Candy is “always... (full context)

...the police, soon becomes “a bona fide drug courier” and then a lookout for the Game Room . When Bourgois confronts him about this flip, Junior insists that he does not do... (full context)

...not to sell it to them). Benzie recalls a customer once giving birth in the Game Room —an ambulance comes, there is chaos, and two days later the woman is back smoking... (full context)

Finally, Bourgois’s old block “has not changed appreciably,” although the Game Room shut down in 1992. Two storefronts and two teenage crews are still selling crack. A... (full context)

The Game Room Term Analysis

The Game Room Quotes in In Search of Respect

The Game Room Term Timeline in In Search of Respect