When I was a supermarket manager there were nine particular men who attempted to molest my cashiers at one time of another. Most of them were multiple offenders, and generally began with a pattern of harassment, always including inappropriate statements. These men ranged from 17 to 90 and I only had to touch one. Intimidation generally works on this type of male. They do it to women because they know they can overpower them. So when you do it to them they don’t need to be a rocket scientist to realize where things are headed—namely face down. For the most part you just have to be forcefully there and they will disappear or ease off the woman they've been hassling.

I took that management job with the goal of working from 18-months to 4 years to build a self-sustaining organization from what was a complete mess while I put my youngest son through college.

I increased the weekly gross by 10%.

I increased the gross margin from a dismal 18.5% to a still worrisome 21%

I decreased the payroll from an unheard of 16.5% to a barely sustainable 12.4%.

People do not understand that, at the end of the year, most supermarkets only net a half a penny on the dollar. Basically, supermarkets do two things: serve as outlets for wholesalers—who have snapped most of them up—and provide local jobs.

When I left abruptly I found out that I had been a failure at organization building, as all numbers, conditions and quality markers reverted to their negative origin. Apparently I had achieved what I had through nothing more than the persistent force of my reptilian personality.

With a loss of 10% gross 10% of the employees quickly found themself out of work. The funny thing was the employees had done accurate assessments of my opinion of them. Seven of my best employees contacted me [I think I was still on speed dial for a year!] about a job reference. I wrote letters of recommendation and everybody that asked for one, found a job. The slackers, like Jerry the Creep, never called.

The other day June met me for a drink at the local bar across from the store she is now working—a ghetto food stamp outfit. She then told me about this black customer—a man, who decided to pick on one of the few white employees—stalking her, cussing her, and harassing her even after he was checked out. One of the black male cashiers—a fellow named Keith—turned on the man and scolded him, “Sir, step back! You do not speak to our women like that. Apologize to the lady, now! Now leave, and when you come back bring your manners, sir!”

June then described the man literally squirming away.

This afternoon, as I laid back for a hopefully long and blissful evening of rest, as I’m still recovering from clinching up with Erique on Sunday, I received a text from Karen, another white cashier who I helped land a job in another ghetto supermarket. I called her and she was in a panic. A large black man, Jerry the Creep, with whom we had both worked, and who had a reputation for molesting and threatening women, had been in the store asking if she worked there, and what her hours were. Then, after she arrived to work, he came in and began demanding to have a private conversation with her. She was in a panic, and did not know what to do now that he had her shift bracketed and could wait for her to get off. Without a peace order cops don’t do anything about these situations. They’re not organized for this type of thing.

I told her how to speak to her manager about this, as he is a man I worked with. However, security is not his forte. He’s pretty much just an inventory wizard.

I walked two miles into the ghetto past a paddy wagon, nine cop cars and the chopper pursuing somebody who had carjacked a van through the neighborhood. By the time I arrived at her place of employment an ambulance was rolling out the road, so I figured the carjacker might just be the next media martyr.

I spoke with her before the store closed, and found out she was leaving with friends. I told her, “I will be out there when you leave just to make sure he’s not waiting. If he ever speaks to you again tell him that I want to see him.”

To her worried look I responded, “He and I have an understanding.”

While I was blowing 40 minutes waiting for this crew to close down the store I scouted the neighborhood and found out that I was not the only one. There was not a cop car in sight. However, there was this one beat-up, left-handed, hobble-legged cop of about 60 years patrolling the neighborhood on foot.

He visited the bars and restaurants to let people know he was around. He was not a dick about it. In the one bar that we both visited he had some friendly words and even glanced at the Orioles game.

He sat with an old lady at the bus stop until she boarded.

He tipped his hat to a couple of young thugs who pretended not to notice.

He did not even waste a glance on the 20-year-old kid driving the white jaguar.

He patrolled for one block north and south of the intersection of the primary and secondary street that forms the nexus of this business association, and for a half a block into the alleys and parking lots on either side of the main drag.

We were covering the same ground. He was even poking around in the alley where the giant panhandler had been shanked last year.

I hate cops, but I like this guy. When he said, “How you?” it was forced, as was my, “Good evening, sir.”

It will be interesting to see what becomes of this cop when we have another purge/riot event. When he saw me loitering he did not hassle me as younger cops have done before when I have waited for a friend to get off of work in a sketchy neighborhood. He acted like we were on the same team, which was, honestly, shocking.

As Officer Gruff was scouting down a back alley Karen and three coworkers emerged from the store. She waved to me as they piled into a car, and I watched them pull off before I walked along through the vacant lot the way I had come. Not having seen hide or hair of Jerry the Creep.

I have heard three more close proximity sirens on my way home and as many close passes of the police helicopter.

It was an educational, and thankfully uneventful, evening for me—the chopper just buzzed the house where I live.

Goodnight.