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Tuesday, August 04, 1998 By Tony Norman
My nephew cocks his head and looks at me like I've uttered a four-syllable epithet.
"Uncle Tony," he says with a worldliness that never sounds convincing coming from a 14-year old, "these people are just trying to make a buck. It's called business. If their customers don't get what they want here, they'll go somewhere else."
We're discussing the economics (and propriety) of a Philly cheese steak shop selling bottles of 40-ounce malt liquor, seemingly by the ton to an endless stream of idle men, many of whom haven't worked since Mayor Rizzo poured contempt on them in the mid-'70s.
The owners of the cheese steak shop, an industrious but suspicious Korean family, are gathered on the same side of the inch-thick Plexiglass cage as the cash register.
Their faces betray an indifference to anything higher than the pursuit of capital in the City of Brotherly Love.
Like all good citizen immigrants, they've learned the art of neighborhood stoicism. It's business, nothing personal, as a seminal rap group once said.
The customers, black, resentful and many already buzzed thanks to 40s guzzled earlier in the day, shout the names of their favorite malt brands like farmers at a cattle auction.
The Notorious B.I.G is pumping out of the shop's speakers. My nephew steals a glance at the posters of scantily-clad women covering the walls, all poised like Sirens brandishing bottles of malt liquor.
It's an advertising campaign that perfectly embodies the tragedy and tackiness of my old neighborhood.
"Does this make sense to you, Robert?" I mutter after we've placed our order with one of the African-American cooks employed by the shop.
"These folks are obviously afraid of their clientele, but they haven't made the connection between their customers' bad behavior and the liquor they sell them."
Robert, ever noncommittal, shrugs as I ramble on about Lenin's boast that in its lust for profits, capitalists would compete to sell even Soviets the rope to hang them with at a lower price.
Robert is too preoccupied with watching the cook prepare his steak hoagie to pay attention to my complaints about how the neighborhood has gone down the toilet.
The way he sees it, this is his last carefree summer for many years. He doesn't want to ruin it by listening to his uncle's bitter tirades about rapacious capitalism and social control.
He's already not looking forward to his first day next month at the George Washington Carver School for Engineering and Science because he's intimidated by quadratic equations.
Meanwhile, increasingly rowdy groups of men stroll through the door, triggering the squeal of the store's high frequency electric eye.
They complain about the service, about "these Chinese so-and-so's" and how they "don't speak English, but they sure know the value of a dollar."
"See these losers," I say uncharitably because one particularly dirty man used to terrify me.
"We've narrowly avoided their fate thanks to Grandma's nagging."
This gets Robert's attention only because Grandma's nagging really gets on his nerves.
We watch as at least a dozen men carry their 40s out in black plastic bags. Many will end up drained and smashed to pieces in the elementary school yard next door.
"Chill out, Uncle Tony," he says, flashing a smile. "Some of us really aren't doomed."
Tony Norman's email is: tnorman@post-gazette.com.
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