“There had better be a cheesesteak outside within 72 hours, or you’ll have a big problem,” the seemingly-homeless, unhinged man said to my friend Amanda. Amanda tends bar at one of the popular Ethiopian restaurants in my neighborhood. A petite white woman, she’s a school teacher by day and worked as many shift bartending as she could during the summer to provide for her two young daughters. Now she comes in after work and sometimes works until two or three in the morning, and then gets up and goes to work again.
Usually, the owner of the restaurant or his son, the head bartender, are in the place during Amanda’s shifts, but they had to run an errand so this afternoon she was the only employee in the building. The crowd is light until about five or six, and the incident occurred just after opening at four.
Amanda asked the man to leave several times. He’d been in the restaurant begging on many occasions, harassing customers as they enjoyed the food and drinks they’d paid for, but usually Alex, the head bartender and owner’s son, chased him off. Alex is an Ethiopian-American man, probably in his mid-30s, who grew up in a restaurant/bar in West Philadelphia. He’s calm, but firm, with the authority that one black man can have with another black man.
Amanda told me the story later. She was shaken, alone behind the bar and unable to leave her post. The man stayed just outside the door, and she could see him through the glass storefront window. He paced back and forth while she waited for Alex to come back, or for customers to come. It was an unusually slow afternoon and the time dragged as she had no idea what to do. She’d phoned Alex and his dad, but neither answered.
Fortunately, that’s when our friend Frederick came in. Frederick isn’t someone you mess with. Born to a drug-addicted mother, he grew up in the foster care system in Baltimore. Now he’s a contractor in Philadelphia, owns a business and employs others. A tough, muscular black man with dreads, you wouldn’t guess that he’s a poet and a conservative. Sometimes you’ll catch him at the coffee shop writing in his little notebook, but he’s usually holding court at one of the local bars with our many neighborhood friends. He’s the guy who’s always helping someone move, talking someone though a suicidal crisis, and just holding it together.
Amanda, like me, has known Frederick for a long time. We’re neighborhood friends who meet up in the park or at the bar or coffee shop and end up talking for hours.
Amanda told Frederick about the incident.
Frederick takes care of business.
He went outside and had a talk with the man. The man went away.
Frederick came in and told Amanda not to worry anymore. Then he ordered his usual: a “Citywide.” In Philly that means a shot of well whiskey and a Pabst Blue Ribbon. I can’t stand the smell of it, but it’s what the cool guys drink.
The next day the man came back in. I was chilling with Amanda at the bar after work. “Miss, I’m really sorry about yesterday. Don’t worry about a cheesesteak. You have a good day ma’am,” the fellow stammered. Then without ceremony he walked out.
That’s when Amanda told me the story. “It’s scary to be a woman alone in this town,” I said. We agreed. While she has a boyfriend, she lives with just her two girls. I live alone with my girl cat. Neither of us own guns, nor do we want to. What we want is some kind of law and order so that we can do our job and drink without fear.
But there are no cops around. This neighborhood’s a hotbed of “defund the police” idiocy. Stickers on telephone poles say “F the cops” without the abbreviation. Signs say that one police officer’s salary could pay for x number of public transit rides… while women are afraid to go to work because there’s no protection from threatening people. We know if we called the cops they wouldn’t come. There are too many big crimes taking place just to the north and west of us. This is small-time, but scary to us.
Sure enough, Frederick walked in, just as we were talking about his intervention. Amanda told him that the guy had been in to apologize. We were both pretty amazed. “I told you not to worry,” Frederick said. Then he got his drink and went out to the patio, with no further word about it.
“Thank you for taking care of that guy who threatened Amanda,” I texted him. “You already know,” he texted back. “I don’t tolerate that stuff.”
Life in this neighborhood is precarious. While most of the gun violence is to the west of us, the vagrants are aggressive and there are just enough muggings to make you afraid to go out at night alone. At the school where I teach, fewer than10 blocks west but deeper into West Philly, every kid has been impacted by gun violence.
The police are rarely seen. I want more law enforcement, and am running for a small public office to try to do something about it. But for now, we rely on men like Frederick to do what men have always done: protect the women and keep the peace. The liberals who decry “toxic masculinity” have never been trapped in a bar with a threatening man outside and no hope that the cops would come if they were called.