I now had a fulltime security man; an experienced store detective. He was a 260 pound Nigerian. Big black guys—since most whites show visible fear of black males—are under a lot of pressure to be tough and aggressive in social settings. With Mister Mbutu this was doubled, since my employer’s—the gay/lesbian brother/sister silver spoon supermarket scions who we named Andy and Randy—were verbally open about the fact that they liked having Mister Mbutu around to intimidate people because he was a ‘large intimidating black man.’
There was one problem with this, Mister Mbutu was a coward. He often came to me shaking in fear saying, “Boss, I need you boss. There is a bad boy up front.”
The American blacks hated him and he was just plain terrified of poor whites so was under constant stress. I refereed one argument between him and my perishable lead Redneck Pete, who told him to go back to Africa.
One afternoon Crazy Mark came in the store to sell me some wheat pennies and Mister Mbutu stood back fearfully. After Mark left he approached me. “Boss, that is a bad crazy man. They say he lives in vacant houses. I hope he never steals anything.”
A month or two later as Mbutu and I were discussing receiving policies in Aisle 11two deep voices sounded down the aisle. We turned to look up front and Pete had Crazy Mark by the jacket sleeve with one hand and was carrying three twelve packs of Pepsi products under the other arm. They were both in a hurry to speak with me. Mister Mbutu began to have an asthma attack, I think, and slunk behind me, “Boss, what do we do?”
“I’ll talk to him. Just grab his ankles if he starts beating me.”
Both of these men, the Ozark Mountain redneck shoplifter tackle and the feral urban heathen towered over me, but stood angrily at attention and asked me to hear their case. Pete had caught Mark out back with three 12-packs of soda and no receipt. Mark had found them next to the dumpster or in it. There was some disagreement about this between him and Pete.
This was odd and my moral authority hung in the balance. These guys were hot and a finding against Mark would mean holding him for the cops, and that would be real ugly. If I took Mark’s side I would be undercutting Pete who was a vigilant loyal guy. This was one of those situations where you could smell the testosterone and sweat as these two amped up for a fight.
I first thanked Pete for bringing this to my attention and thanked Mark for being cooperative. I knew the sodas to be credits; out of date product the soda rep bought back but did not properly dispose of. I, of course, blamed his non-present ass and promised I would talk to him with Pete present. I then pointed out to Mark, that although this was not theft, that for insurance liability reasons we could not condone him dumpster diving in our hydraulic trash-crushing machine and asked for his word that he would not approach the dumpster or the doc. [We once had a guy named John who lived behind the dumpster and even had his mail delivered to the store! Duz got rid of him.]
Amazingly both of these guys were disappointed that they did not get to fight over this. Mister Mbutu acted as if he had just avoided death. I asked Pete and Mbutu to work out credit disposal procedures and assigned Pete to inform the sales reps that they needed to speak to me. I also told them I would take care of Mark, who I had asked to wait for me by the courtesy.
Mark was still bristling at the thievery accusation, flexing his hands. Looking at his hands, I noticed, with a boxing coach’s eye, that he had teeth imprints in his knuckles that had been healing for about a week. We took a walk outside and I explained that I spent hours every day driving off panhandlers and keeping them from getting too deep onto the property. I also informed him that Old Man Jimmy, Jimbob, and Jeremy had been recently beaten up within a few blocks of the property coming and going to work between 8 and 10 p.m.
He looked at me, made fists and growled, “Packs of ոiggers right?”
“Let us say the attackers are bonded groups of oppressed individuals of color.”
Mark belted a hardy laugh out into the parking lot and then turned to face me with his hands on his hips like Captain White Trash America with his olive drab surplus army coat and scuffed up jump boots. He snarled, “So you don’t want any scalps. You just want your weaklings to be able to make it to work.”
I adopted a noncommittal conspiratorial tone and stood next to him pointing out the two side streets where my men had been attacked and from where purse snatchers and muggers would emerge to prey on customers on the parking lot.
“Let’s just say that with the bad blood between you and Pete I’d rather not have you in the store during the day. But, seeing as how I’m asking you to put you self at risk approaching the store on foot after dark, and that you spend money here and also sell coins to me for my son—well…”
I let the proposal trail off and Mark picked it up admirably, “So I get two dollars a coin, maybe twenty if I have nigglet hair in my boot treads or my hands got scuffed up scraping the coins out of the rubble…”
And I picked up his leading question, “And if you’re short I can front you grocery money—no payback expected, and I have a close friend that is a hand surgeon.”
On two occasions during the course of the winter of late 2009 Mark showed up about a half hour before closing after traversing the alley that backed the two side streets I referred to, which was used by The Enemy to access and egress from the ambush points.
Once he just stood next to me grinning, looking slightly down, rocking back and forth on the heels of his boots. I was being a little dense so he pointed to his boots, one of which had crusty white and red stuff on the toes, and asked, “We never decided on the price of a shoe shine. You want your customers looking good right!”
I quipped, “The dude only shined one of your boots?”
“Oh he was in a hurry!”
I passed Mark a $20.
Then on Christmas week, while I was building a sweet potato display, Mark came in all pumped up and a little disheveled. He came up to me and showed me the teeth gouges and torn flaps of skin on his knuckles and seemed in ecstasy. I let him catch his breath and asked him how he was doing in the cold, if he had any heat. He said he didn’t need heat; that he did pushups and sit ups as soon as he woke up every morning.
He then exclaimed in a breathy manner, “Five fuckin’ bucks—damn near full grown. Niggеrs were droppin’ out of the trees. I didn’t knock them all out but scattered some teeth. They started scatterin’ and cryin’ about callin’ the cops so I hauled ass. But I’m holdin’ my own out there—young mother fuckers half my age, and less!”
I was suddenly worried that Mark might get himself in some trouble picking fights with the thugs that menaced our people, and I had grown quite found of him. I suggested he lay low for a while and that we’d increase the price of wheat pennies.
I can tell you that those were some gnarly knuckles. He must have favored the uppercut based on the tooth impressions in the front of his fist. I bought Mark some peroxide and such and gave him some items from the first aid kit at courtesy and wished him a Merry Christmas, with stress on staying out of trouble with the cops.
Next week we conclude the Tao of Crazy Mark with Hitting Crazy Mark, a first-hand account by Megan.
Nice! I love Wednesdays!
Us guys are glad to have you Maureen.
I am having drinks tonight with the woman who had the last Crazy Mark sighting I know of. Her story will cap off the Tao of Crazy Mark until I can track him down.
I hope he's okay.
I have to say, that was some serious masculine calculus you did in your head, finding perhaps the one solution that ameliorated both Ozark and Mark without either feeling that they lost face. Damn good on you James, I have learned something today.
I think you were on Pete's perishable crew at the time. Do you remember anything about this Adam?
Thanks for the props. But honestly, when you are the twerp with glasses and a tie in such a situation 'masculine calculus' is the only option.
Interesting. Given that we live in an imperfect world where so many things do not work anywhere near the way they should, even someone like Crazy Mark has his uses. The police may refuse to suppress street crime in your local, but you were able to employ Crazy Mark as your own personal anti-crime task force. Bravo James!
“For how we live is so far removed from how we ought to live, that he who abandons what is done for what ought to be done, will rather learn to bring about his own ruin than his preservation. A man who wishes to make a profession of Goodness in everything must necessarily come to grief among so many who are not good. Therefore, it is necessary for the prince, who wishes to maintain himself, to learn how not to be good, and to use this knowledge and not use it, according to the necessity of the case.”
- Niccolo Machiavelli, "The Prince".
I do not, Sir, recall ever asking Mark to go beat down some hoodrats to avenge the muggings of Old Man Jimmy, Jeremy, and Jimbob.
Touché James.
You covered the first two parts of the Clinton doctrine: 1. Admit nothing; 2. Deny everything. But you forgot number 3: Make counter-accusations.
Hey nobody here is suggesting that you or anyone else ever did or ever should engage in vigilantism or any other kind of extra-judicial punishment! I'm sure that you and everyone else will agree with me that such activity is wrong and against the law and stuff.