Raphael and I train together regularly. We are both well into our fifties now so gone are the days when I woke wondering what crazy situation he got into the night before. He used to live five doors up to my right 20 years ago when I began writing this stuff. He still looks the same. Go to my bio or Amazon page and check out The Logic of Steel. He is the guy on the cover; a tough little Puerto Rican. This guy managed to show up in every chapter of that book!

When, this past Sunday morning, he walked up to Charles and I to speak as we limbered up for sparring and mentioned, “these gosh-darned wetbacks” I figured he had a political subject eating at him. What else could it be, we’re both grandfathers, right?

This was related to me before Charles beat my ass for an hour, so I will not try and quote Raphael. I can accurately describe the scene he described, particularly since I walk down ‘The Block’ past the bar in question once a month. The Block is literally a city block of Baltimore Street packed with strip bars. That is it. There is also The Big Top porno store and the Polack Johnny’s eatery, and the police station. I am amazed at how many drug deals I see go down right in front of this police station as cops come and go just before midnight.

Raphael, 55, walked into the strip bar to visit his 25 year old girl friend who dances there. She is “half Japanese” and I don’t know what the other have is. But if I am a judge of my man’s taste I would say her father was some sort of Latino, probably Filipino or Puerto Rican.

He had expected to watch her finish dancing. But when she saw him she knocked off for the night, saying, “It’s slow, no money, nothing but wetbacks in here.”

Now, a pause to describe the people present:

-A Caucasian owner

-A Caucasian doorman [this is as much about ‘barking’ as enforcing security]

-Will, a ‘gigantic’ black bouncer

-An unspecified number of Mexican or Guatemalan laborers, who Raphael “recognized” as such “by their dialect.” If there were only two or three he would have said so, so there must have been more. Due to the small size of the bar I’ll put the number at 4-5. His mechanical recall is off the charts. If I had actually interviewed him about this we would have a lot of detail, but I was rolling out my wrists and wondering if my cheap ankle brace was going to hold.

This is basically the bar from Star Wars where Harrison Ford shoots the alien bounty hunter.

Raphael’s girl walks toward the dressing room and—no way did I see this coming; I mean who would have thought!—one of the “slimy little wetbacks grabbed her ass.” She reflexively slapped him. The wetback then began calling her “a whore in Spanish.”

Raphael confronted the wetback who adopted a combative posture. Not considering it a stipulation of his code of honor to have to throw hands with men less than half his age, Raphael did the reasonable thing and drew his knife, hid it behind his hip, then stepped closer showing it down by his thigh, and describing in some detail how he was going to eviscerate this guy.

Will, larger than both men combined, stepped over and inquired with Raphael, with whom he is close friends. Raphael said there was no problem as he pocketed his knife. The wetback said there was “no problem”, over and over again in a very hostile tone.

Will then informed the wetback that he had to leave. The laborer then defiantly refused, making a great show of sitting back down on his bar stool, which Will kicked out from under him in perfect time so that the fellow hit the floor on his ass just as Will seized him “like a sack of shit” and tossed him at the front door, which was being opened with choreographed timing by the doorman. The wetback hit the street “almost to the center line” and “just laid there.” The cops coming and going, “could have cared less.”

Will then informed the friends that they too could leave by the same means if they choose. They opted for bipedal locomotion over African-powered flight. The owner then reminded Raphael that he and his “martial arts friends” were welcome there any time.

Raphael’s girl was shocked at his immediate recourse to lethal means and said, “I had no idea you were so violent.” [This revelation on the part of a new girlfriend typically enhances the next intimate encounter exponentially—just in case you were wondering why knuckleheads tend to remain knuckleheads.]

Thinking back to his years of bouncing on The Block Raphael decided that it was not a good idea for him to be there with her—as Will was more than able to take care of her, and he had nearly knifed an idiot over a functionally mute point. Will and he have decided that Will shall walk her two blocks down to where he will be waiting in his car, in order to avoid such situations.

When quizzed about what his course of action would be if he had had to “shank” the wetback, he said, “I’d a been out the backdoor and down the alley quicker than that fool could have said, ‘he stabbed me!’”

This statement was not a boast or a wish, but a realization, that when push comes to shove, he’s still a Chico-Rican kid who was involved in knife fights before he hit puberty, and is likely to revert to type in such situations. Therefore, as a grandfather who wants to spend time with his new grandson, he realizes that he has to avoid these situations, no matter how sweet the fresh grass is on the other side of the gender fence.