Bensalem, PA
Philadelphia Park Race Track
By Robin Friedlander
It's still dark at Philadelphia Park Race Track and in each of the 25 barns on the backside of the track, Mexican barn hands are muttering in Spanish as they muck stalls and fill water buckets. Some even sing softly as they work around the familiar bodies of the horses with whom they spend every morning.
The stalls are dim even though thick light from naked bulbs overhead bathes everything in a honey-colored film.
By this time most trainers have arrived at their barns and are checking out the progress of their hired hands. They greet their staff and check on sore hocks and loose shoes before disappearing into the barn office to consider the training schedules of the horses they have working that day.
Philadelphia Park is a smaller and less prestigious track than either of those, but trainers with full barns there keep up to 45 horses at a time. For $45 to $60 a day per horse, on top of the potential glory and purse money to be garnered from a moment in the winners circle, the bleary eyes of the early morning are worth it.
The exercise riders--compact young men and women--are filtering into their respective barns and checking out the mounts they have been assigned for the morning. Grabbing tack under one arm, they coo good morning to their first ride.
The camaraderie among the four groups represented in this scene--trainers, riders, barn hands and race horses--prevails, despite the hour, the weather and the aches and injuries that go along with the sport.
Even as the first rides head out to the track to gallop, and the inevitable explosion of energy from restless horses results in biting and kicking and bucking, no one is rattled. An everyday affair for horse people, it's a good sign when the stock is feeling good and displays an eagerness to get out and run.
The common belief at the track is that a horse will win if it wants to win, not just because its breeding is good. And if a horse wins, the rider who galloped that horse every morning makes a name for himself, the trainer wins the horse's owner's approval and the owner--the essential source of financial backing--is happy. And of course everyone in that horse's barn gets a fraction of the purse money. A race horse knows when it has done a good job and it expects praise from its family, the team at the barn that nurtures each thoroughbred, whether the horse is of mediocre talent or is the "big horse" in the barn.
On the surface, the characters here might give you the impression that that you wouldn't want to run into them alone in a dark alley. The track is notorious for drugs among both the workers and the riders, although trainer Lou Linder Jr., who has been at Philly Park since 1974, says that the drug scene is not nearly as bad as it used to be.
The hot walkers, groomers and barn hands make $1'0 dollars a week. And, according to catch pony rider Joseph Richards--the man on horseback who catches runaway horses if they're out of control--exercise riders often have to chase down trainers to receive a paycheck.
Yet there is a reason that those who work here are attached to the culture of the track and don't quit for a steady job and normal hours at Burger King. Like the thoroughbreds they care for and train, it gets in their blood.
Lou Linder Jr.'s father, Lou Linder Sr., raised his son at the track and still comes in in the mornings sometimes to help out. And Anna, a hot walker for trainer Ned Allard who barely speaks English, has a favorite horse, which she identifies as "27," his stall number, because she can't pronounce his name, "Alexander's Choice." Anna works seven days a week and has two high school-age children to raise, but she spends her mornings outside stall No. 27 because "27" is "no loco."
Joe Richards complains about the 10-minute coffee and bathroom break he gets after spending from 5 to ' a.m. on the track. He shakes his head as he surveys the mist rising off of the pond in the infield.
"Just about everybody you see that gets away from it gets back into it," he says. "It gets in your blood."
3301 S. Galloway Street
Philadelphia Food Distribution Center
By Sara Shahriari
You have to be on your toes. If not, you'll be crushed by one of the forklifts zooming up and down the aisles of the docks of the Philadelphia Food Distribution Center. Here, 4:30 in the morning is like noon in the middle of a busy street anywhere else. Men in flannels or sweat shirts unload produce, drive the lifts, smoke and talk, while managers take orders by phone and in person from the buyers combing the market.
At the foot of the Walt Whitman Bridge, down by the stadiums, this marketplace jumps from 4 till 11 in the morning while planes coming into the airport sail low overhead. Huge refrigerated tractor trailers hum, sitting backed to the docks, emptying their bellies out into the stalls where fruit vendors display their wares. Fruit comes here from all over the world--from Maine, California, Washington to Chile, Honduras and Guatemala. The concrete docks stretch out for thousands and thousands of feet, backed by three-story refrigerated warehouses.
The stands here sell to restaurants like Le Bec Fin, produce stores, businesses as big as Genuardis and as small as the fruit vendors you see on the street in Philadelphia. Bernie Batt, a vendor, says, "The key to doing what I do is take a nap in the afternoon, one hour, two hours, wake up, have a cocktail, some dinner. This is really a 24-hour business. You're on call all the time. We sell service, that's what we really sell." Bernie sees a buyer for an upscale market stride the long dock like a minor celebrity. The vendors watch him, waiting. It's rumored that for this buyer, price is no object.
The sheer quantity of fruit and vegetables is really unbelievable. Fifty-lb. mesh bags of huge pearly onions piled three stories high, displays of apples of every shade of green, red, pink and yellow, beds of flowers in full bloom under the fluorescent lights. Crates and boxes stacked everywhere tout the names of their wares. Honey Ts and Baby Os, Super Apples and Rainbow Fujis are the language of the vendors.
The guys working the market are quite a crowd. From gentlemanly Sam talking about citrus fruit, to John Birch down the dock, who offers, "If you ever wanna keep a man on the side, someone to call at 4 in the morning, let me give you my business card." It's definitely a man's world here.
As the sky lightens slightly, the docks are still buzzing along at the same speed, ready for another six hours of buying before the noon lull. But once you leave the gates of the center and turn back out onto Packer Street, it's impossible to know that anything is going on at all down in South Philly at 5:30 in the morning.
42nd and Pine Streets
Taxi Driver
By Sebastian Stockman
At 42nd and Pine, a weary cab driver picks up yet another fare. "John" is less than three hours away from the end of his 12-hour shift, which started at 7 yesterday evening. After the sun's up, John will go back to his apartment at 17th and Benjamin Franklin Parkway and sleep through the better part of the day.
John is Pakistani by birth and has been in the U.S. for five years, on and off. His wife still lives in Pakistan, and he often goes back to be with her for months-long stretches.
"I stay here for seven, eight months, [and] then go back to be with her [for a while]," John says in heavily-accented, slightly broken English. "I am citizen. I try to get her here, but [it hasn't happened] yet."
In his five years in the States, John has lived in San Antonio, Chicago, New York and, of course, Philadelphia. But he's only driven a cab in Philly.
"In San Antonio, I work at Stop and Go," he says. "I have brother there, in Texas."
John hasn't been driving a cab all that long--less than a year--but he's quickly picked up on the night's fluctuations: the early evening going-out time, the 2 a.m. rush after the bars close and the lull during the morning's wee hours.
While John's driven around more than his share of drunks and assholes, his worst experience as a Philly cab driver was much more disturbing--not to mention dangerous--than a nauseous or discourteous rider.
"North Philly," John says. "definitely is the worst.
"I pick a man and a woman up in North Philly and he say he want to go to 42 and Walnut, then he say, I change my mind, I want 30 and Gray's Ferry.' So I say OK'."
John drives the man and his companion to their destination and is instructed to drive behind some type of warehouse structure; the man and woman get out of the cab and then:
"He say, I don't have any money,'
"I say, If you have no money, then why do you take cab?'
"He say, I have a phone card'
"So, I roll down window to take card and he puts gun to my head. [John points to his temple with his forefinger extended and his thumb in the air.] He say, Give me all your money,' So I give him $200. Then he say, Give me keys, too.' So I hand him keys. Then, he reach down."
Here, John is gesturing down near his shins. It looks like he's talking about an ankle holster or some sort of weapon, but he's not.
"And he shoot my feet," John says.
He did what?
"He shoot me in the feet four times, it was very bad, very bad. My feet hurt very bad."
41st Street
Spring Fling
By Asher Hawkins
Most people don't like to talk about it, but passing an enjoyable Spring Fling requires a lot more effort than it should; the idea behind the whole weekend is not so much "Let's have a good time" as it is "we must have fun." And so it was that last Thursday night, I found myself standing around drinking beer and talking to people I know in at least five times as many various locations as I do on any given Thursday night. By 4 a.m., the group I was with had decided to rest up in the living room of a house whose party was long dead.
In an upstairs room, the housemates had taken to entertaining their friends with guitar-accompanied renditions of their favorite songs. We peeked our heads through the doorway, and found out what happens when the intricate melodies and soulful power chords of Guns 'n' Roses are brought to the bedroom of some frat's off-campus house. Needless to say, the results were not encouraging. Had I been wise enough to bring my loudspeaker and bright-yellow biohazard suit, I could have cordoned off the area with the force and immediacy the situation merited.
Instead, we sat ourselves down on the living room couch and decided to cook some spaghetti and marinara in the kitchen. I was with three guys; two are seniors, one is a freshman. I can't quite remember the conversation or joke that led up to the event, but the abridged version of the story is that, while the seniors and I were sitting on the couch, the freshman started trying to jump on top of a plastic cup--and missed every time.
Such behavior is difficult to qualify, so perhaps some context will be helpful. Most freshpeople find themselves in a constant state of anxiety about the extent to which they're having fun. Fling, which tradition mandates as the one weekend out of the year when all enjoy themselves, can easily shake a rookie's confidence. This particular freshman I know well enough to say that he's a fighter, one of the good ones.
Sadly, however, the gravity of the whole weekend had rendered him a flailing mess on cheap carpeting. By the end of only his first night of Fling, he was on his hands and knees, trying to bash a Dixie cup with his head.
We sensed that our food was just about ready and ran to the kitchen, where a debate ensued over how much salt to add to the pasta. "Mike," I said to my friend, "carbohydrates crave sodium. I should know, my mom is a chef" --all true. Consumed by culinary dialogue, we had failed to notice that about five of the housemates had gathered en masse behind us. "Listen bros," the biggest one said, quite belligerently, I might add, "all of us would really appreciate it if you guys would just take off now."
I took the eviction as a sign that my evening was over. My friends were still looking to stay out, but all I really felt like doing was going home so I could puff a freak and listen to "Life is a Highway" on repeat. About a block later I passed the house where the girl I like lives. All the lights were on. As I envisioned the fun she was undoubtedly having without me, I felt a rush of air whoosh by my side. A phalanx of local adolescent bikers had passed by me. They all appeared to be junior-high age, with the exception of one, a little guy at the head of the group who was holding a continuous wheely. He couldn't have been older than 7 or 8. God knows what they were doing out at that hour.
I found myself in a lot of different places thinking a lot of different things during the hours before the following couple dawns, but that's the moment I really liked: watching that kid rolling down the street, challenging himself to have fun at his own pace.
1219 S. Ninth Street
Geno's Steaks
By Brian Hindo
By now, there are only a few stragglers left outside Geno's Steaks, but inside the place is hopping mad. The radio is on real loud, and there're at least 10 workers inside, wiping down countertops, mopping the orange and white floor tiles and cleaning out filters.
Out back, Tony Bananas is steam cleaning the pavement. He's been at it for 12 years, working the graveyard shift from midnight to 10 a.m., seven days a week. Next to him, Sal Brooms--who defected less than a year ago from arch-rival Pat's because it's "dirty as hell"--is moving boxes.
Frank, the counter man, tells me that the frazzled-looking lady sitting with her back to the counter stops by every now and then in the odd hours of the morning to get a cup of coffee. She's in a "hospital," Frank says, and chuckles.
Frank--also a 12-year night-shift veteran--takes pride in his sparkling clean kitchen, where the reflection of the garish neon lights on the chrome counters gives the place the air of a big-top emergency room.
"Just look at both places," Frank says, pointing over at the competition across the street. "You'll see the difference... Their highest-paid person there don't make what our cleanup people make."
After the post-bar swell of customers peters out around 3 a.m., the night crew at Geno's concentrates on getting things ready for the day. Over at Pat's, the gang behind the grill plays Uno and waits for the sun to come up, but at Geno's the cleanup crew works furiously.
It's a matter of difference, and a matter of pride in that difference. It's a difference instilled from top down, from 35-year owner Joe Vento to his loyal crew members like Frank and Sallie Brooms.
"He takes plenty of pride in his business," Frank says of Vento, never referring to him by name, just as "Boss."
"When he first opened, they laughed at him. They gave him six months. And now he's a multi-millionaire. A multi-multi-millionaire."
On cue, Vento's burgundy Cadillac rolls up around back. There's not a speck of dust on it, and it gleams despite the 4:30 a.m. dark.
All his employees flock around him as he steps out of his Caddy. Sal Brooms and Tony Bananas snap to attention, lest the Boss think they're slacking off. "His car's clean--he keeps everything clean," Tony beams.
Vento shows up every day at this time, because he says it helps him keep tabs on his shifts. It's the way he's always done it.
"I'm not a day worker," he says.
