It’s a cold December night and I’m taking my co-worker Tamisha home. She missed her bus and I don’t want her waiting at a bus stop freezing and alone. What can I say? I’m a nice guy.
“You sure you know the way?” I say, guiding my car through the streets of Newark.
“Sorry,” Tamisha says. I always take the bus and don’t drive. My sense of direction is rusty.”
To my the right glass sheathed apartment buildings designed by Mies van der Rohe tower over us, their windows winking like a binary code of light and dark squares. Ahead of us the Cathedral of the Sacred Heart sits on a hill bathed in light. Despite the weather plenty of people are on the streets.
“”There’s my cousin,” my passenger says. “Little jerk. He should be home.”
“How old is he?” I say, looking at a group of kids clustered under a streetlamp.
“Twelve.”
Something tells me these kids aren’t coming back from the malt shop. But Tamisha is black, I’m white and voicing my opinion would probably be awkward. Instead, Tamisha speaks for me.
“Already up to no good that one,” she says, “Damn shame.”
“Anyplace for kids to go in this town at night?”
“Now?” she says incredulously. “What do you think?” My silence withdraws the question.
“Make a left here,” Tamisha says. “ Steve, this town is crazy. One day some gangbangers had a gun battle in front of my house and bullets went into my baby’s room.”
“Jesus!” I say. “That’s insane!”
“We moved the next day,” she says. “But our new neighborhood isn’t much better.”
A large speed bump appears out of nowhere and I hit the brakes. “Like those?” Tamisha says. “City put them in to slow down carjackers escaping to the highway.”
I’m actually very aware of carjackers. My eyes are constantly checking the rearview mirror and I give the cars ahead of me plenty of room. Rule number one, don’t get boxed in.
“Ever since that white guy got shot in Short Hills people are suddenly interested in carjackers,” Tamisha says. “Happens here all the time.”
“The murder rate is going up I understand.”
“You have no idea. I’m Brick City born and bred but my husband and I want out of here.”
“Looking for a place?”
“We are but we can’t afford a car and take buses to work. So it has to be somewhere close to the hospital.” That will limit her options.
“Where do you live?” Tamisha asks me. I tell her.
“What a beautiful town,” she says. “Lovely houses, safe, good schools. You’re lucky.” For no reason at all I feel guilty.
“Lots of good people in this city,” Tamisha says. “But the bad ones run it. Sucks.”
After ten minutes of driving around I pull up to Tamisha’s apartment. She lives on the second floor of a house. Despite the temperature being in the lows teens, several young men are sitting on her porch.
“You see that shit?” Tamisha says, pointing to them. “They don’t even live here. That’s what I have to put up with.”
“I’ll wait until you get inside,” I say.
“Let me call Ralph.”
Tamisha gets a hold of her husband and a minute later the front door opens. “ Now I can go in,” she says. “Thanks for the lift.”
“See you tomorrow,” I say.
“Be careful going home.”
Tamisha walks past the men on her porch and go inside without saying a word. Then I notice all the guys on the porch are looking at me. Makes sense. I’m a stranger in their neighborhood. If the tables were turned I’d wonder what the hell they were doing in my town. Fair? Of course not.
Ten minutes later I park in front of the cigar shop. “Hey, Steve,” Rich, the proprietor, says. “Enjoying the weather?”
“I just dropped a co-worker off in Newark. It’s even colder there.”
Rich’s eyes narrow. “Where in Newark?” I tell him.
“Promise me you’ll never do that again.”
“Why?”
“Are you fucking stupid? You know how many people get shot in that area? You have a baby on the way, don’t be an asshole.”
“I’ve been driving around Newark for years. I know the score.”
The proprietor flicks an ash of his cigar. “Steve, you are too nice. That’s your greatest weakness. If you got blown away your co-worker would be on T.V. saying, “He was such a nice man!” but you’d be dead. Fucking dead. What good would you be to your wife then?”
“I dated a girl in Harlem for years,” I say. “Nothing ever happened to me there.”
“Newark is not Harlem.”
I spend an hour at the shop and then go home. With no traffic it’s fifteen minutes from my house to Tamisha’s but we might as well be on different planets. As I look at my pregnant wife sleeping Rich’s words ring in my ears. “You’re too nice.”
People have told me the same thing before. While it’s true suburbanites have overblown fears about the “inner city” Newark isn’t a playground. I know a guy whose cousin was carjacked at gunpoint on McCarter Highway. But my personality has gotten me into some interesting situations over the years and most people told me I was crazy afterwards. I guess I have one of those “where angels fear to tread” things going on.
I shrug to myself. Was I irresponsible taking Tamisha home? I have a kid to think about. Should I be a little more cautious? Do I have to change how I’m wired? If I’m honest, I like that part of myself. But will I pay a price for it one day? Thinking about poverty, race, inequality and my own shortcomings, I turn on the boob tube to shut off my buzzing brain.
Thinking about it will only take me to a place I’d rather not go.
Two great posts in a single day! Thank you for sharing — even when the subject is dark, your humanity gives it enough light to give us all hope.
Nice to see you posting again.
Thanks for posting your writings. I appreciate them.
You did the right thing. What kind of “tough guy” leaves a co-worker alone in the cold and dark?
Thanks for the post; another everyday situation given dimension.
Steve,
You did the right thing. You said it yourself sometime back; sometimes the right thing is the terrible thing.
The first time I read your blog was back in 2008; you were still working at “Café Machiavelli”, and your manager had cut you from the floor after you did a bunch of prep work. I was working a rotating shift job, the nights were gulags of boredom, and I devoured your entire archive of posts in a single night.
I’ve kept following your blog and bought both of your books over these six years. Today, I went to Easter Brunch buffet with my family and dropped about a hundred bucks. I swear, I could hear your voice urging me to “tip heavy”, and I handed our harried, polite server a twenty and shook his hand. Since 2008, I’ve never left a server less than twenty percent, no matter how poor the service, solely because of your influence.
I’m not sure why I waited this long to comment on your blog, but your recent posts have seemed rather gloomy, maybe this post was the trigger, and maybe you need to hear this from a total stranger:
You’re an inspiration to regular folks; you’ve been an inspiration to me. Your gift of self-examination means you lead your life much more deliberately, and with much more self-awareness and self-possession than most people.
I’ve twin six-year-old girls, so I know the pressures you’re under as a new dad. You’ve got about ten years on me, and your perspective on life has often taught me lessons. Let me lend you some of my perspective. Don’t ever do anything that you’d be ashamed to tell your kids (Leave aside your predilection for derrieres, cigar smoking, and profanity; those are the vices of men). I’m sure if your daughter was older, she would almost certainly consider it right and natural that you’d want to get your coworker home safely.
Hang in there, Steve
Andy
You did the right thing. But I have a question – if she is your co-worker how can you afford a “nice” area and she can’t? Wouldn’t you get paid around the same?
great write!
I think you should stay who you are and continue to make this world a better place for your child.
This reminds me of my boyfriend’s parents. They’re too afraid to help people when they see them, like on the road. “You don’t know who’s out there or what they’re planning.” While I understand they want to be safe, we forget they’re real people with emotions and who need help sometimes.
When Rich scolded you for taking your co-worker home, I immediately was offended for you and (pretty much) everyone else. Should you leave someone alone in need if your life seems more important? What if she has kids, do hers not matter? Even if she didn’t, she has a husband who loves her, and even if she DIDN’T, she’s a human being just trying to get by.
Giving someone a ride home late at night does not deserve a scolding, nor is putting someone’s needs before yourself.
Maybe you felt guilty because it’s apparent how better off you are than her. It might’ve been a mixture of pity too. But that’s my speculation.
I’m just expressing my perspective with no meaning offense.
You are truly an amazing person i started reading your blog a week ago and so far i don’t plan on stopping keep it up you’re a great writer.
Lots of people think that they should be safe in such a neighborhood because they aren’t racists.
That’s a really foolish attitude to have.
Same with the idea that you’ve been in bad neighborhoods before and you got out alright, so you must know what you’re doing.
Another bad idea. There are lots of messed up and dead people that thought that way.
As I read your post, I got the feeling that you were congratulating yourself on your open-mindedness and willingness to do the right thing.
This is a selfishness when you put that against the very real chance your child will grow up without a father.
There are lots of ways to do the right thing that don’t involve simply taking needless chances.
Your personal stories are so similiar, yet so much more dramatic than my own, it is eery.