The Ghost of Broad Street

I call my brother: “Let’s corner the market on cemetery plots.” He doesn’t like that concept. He asks for another. I look up and see Halal Bilal Steak-and-Take Drive-Thru, a clean well-lighted fast-food joint for Muslims at 6501 North Broad. I suggest we franchise Halal Bilals throughout the Third World, starting in Iraq and Iran, the I-and-I of the Axis of Evil. Either my cell loses its connection or my brother hangs up. It is only 6:30 a.m. in Santa Monica. I am left holding the phone, so I talk to the owner of Halal Bilal, Hassan, another man who thinks about death and dying all the time.

“I go to a farm in Virginia every week,” he says with exuberance, “and I find the animals I want, and I have to pacify them, rub their heads, get friendly with them before they get slaughtered or they be tough meat. If they get tense, if I have to chase him around, I just let them go. Cows, lamb, no difference. When the animal is calm, I say a prayer in Arabic — in the name of Allah — and slit the animal’s throat, and then I have 15 seconds to get the animal into the slaughterhouse before he realizes what’s happening and causes all kinds of trouble. A cow can be as strong as, as strong as … ”

“A bull?”

“Yes. A bull!”

Atop the Oaklane Diner’s roof at 66th is a sign that sings WELCOME TO PHILADELPHIA. So I stop for a cup of coffee and the daily news. Larry Bowa, union unrest, Bruce Springsteen, Neil Stein, Eagle madness, Ed Rendell, Jerry Blavat, Dick Vermeil, Arlen Specter, Lynne Abraham, and the resignation of the Cardinal Dougherty athletic director, who allegedly used racist epithets. Is this the Twilight Zone? A quarter-century, and nothing has changed. The names remain the same. It’s comforting; it’s disconcerting. It’s why you left 25 years ago; it’s why you are back today.

Just outside the diner, a black-and-tan squirrel is schlepping a drumstick to the parking lot. He climbs a fence and finds a comfortable spot in which to eat his lunch and ignore me. He is seated next to a familiar green sign:

LEW BLUM TOWING
1130 N 40th St.
222-5628 $150/15 a day storage
CASH ONLY

I ask Lew Blum how many cars he tows each day.

“I can’t tell you that. That’s the key to my whole business.”

How many signs do you have around the city?

“I can’t tell you that, either. Then my competitors will know.”

How many competitors do you have?

“Too many. You know who tows the most? The Parking Authority. A hundred cars a day, easy. And you know why? They don’t play fair. They put up signs about six inches wide, and you can’t see them. The private tow guys have to put up signs three feet by three feet. Hey, let me have teeny-weeny signs and I’ll tow 100 cars a day, too.”

How many vehicles do you tow a day?

“You already asked me that. Is this a trick?”

How many employees do you have?

“I have enough drivers, towers and salespeople to get the job done.”

Salespeople?