Escape From South Philly

by Brian Howard

Last Friday night, my girlfriend and I took my mom, in town from Bethlehem, out to dinner for her birthday. It was her first Jose Garces experience, and a lovely time, but it didn't start that way.

After work, the GF and I grabbed a cab in Old City with the intent of picking up my mom at my sister's place in South Philly. The first cab we flagged down flatly refused to take us. "No," he said, his eyes awash in panic. The second was more amenable, if no less foreboding: "Sure, if the traffic ever moves," he said, which seemed odd since traffic in Old City was moving just fine. A little old lady, let's call her Margaret, overheard us and asked if she could head south with us. The more the merrier.

And we were off — slowly, steadily. Until about Fourth and Mifflin, at which point the cab started shimmying violently left to right in the rut-pocked street. When we reached Margaret's stop, it was apparent she wasn't going to make it out of the cab by herself — mountains of snow arose on both sides of Fourth and Jackson. To a chorus of blaring car horns, I helped her out and then slowly across the ice-coated intersection. The cacophony swelled as Margaret and I reached her corner. Before I could bid her adieu, a giant wolf-dog burst from a stoop five doors up and bit a young woman, walking ahead of us, on the arm. The dog's owner dashed out to corral his dog — as we looked on in shocked terror. The young woman's companion yelled, "Your dog bit my pregnant fiancée!" No lie.

Though I was madly curious about how the melodrama would play, and nowhere near sure Margaret was indeed safe from further wolf attack, a riot was developing behind the cab, to which I retreated. We arrived at my sister's, hopped out of the cab and piled into my mom's car. We got on the road and found ourselves stuck behind a woman pushing a stroller full of laundry down the middle of the street. An evasive maneuver found us, three turns later, again impeded by laundry-stroller woman, now walking toward us down a different street.

After that, it was your classic South Philly obstacle course: The Raymour & Flanigan truck double-parked on Snyder, reducing the two-way street to an alternating one-way. The all-black-clad cyclist weaving through traffic and icebergs. A Broad Street so backed up, just one car snuck through each green light. When we turned around to head south on Broad, we were immediately cut off by a van. Road rage — an emotion I'd not experienced in some time — overcame me as I leaned on the horn until the van's driver stopped, started to get out to confront me, then thankfully proved the cooler head.

It's been several months since I sold my totaled car for scrap. And yes, there have been times since that I've thought about getting a new one. The next time I do, I'll think of last Friday night.

Some days, hell is other Philadelphians.

(bhoward@citypaper.net)