One time, in my drunken and down and out days, I was living in one ofthe worse places in Cincinnati a person could possibly live, which was known as Over-The-Rhine. At first glance, you might not really suspect how bad this neighborhood actually was. In fact, this is the area where some of the finest of old Cincinnati architecture is to be seen and appreciated, the old City Hall building, and Music hall, where the Cinncinnati Symphoney still plays, and quite well.
Over The Rhine is a place where, on Elm Street, the god Bacchus with his leery grin can be seen on a sign advertising the Bacchus Inn, which caters to the music hall crowd and musicians. Right next door to it is the City Gospel Mission, where a sign shows the image of Christ. It caters to the downtrodden, with a meal and more often than not, a sermon. There are or was at one time limited rooms availiable for transients and the homeless. Drinking, however, was not allowed. To put it plainly, I was a patron of the mission far more often than of the Bacchus Inn.
But on those nights I had a little too much to drink, and undertood that I could not get past Kartl or Kenny's watchful and suspicous through experience gaze, I made out the best I could. I was not truly addicted to alcohol, not in the way that I am to caffeine and nicotine, but I was in a sense addicted to the need to associate with an atmosphee of camaraderie, as oppossed to one of despair, which all too often seemed the more appropriate venue in my case.
But after three or four beers, I was on my way-most of the time. Sometimes I would hit eight, or ten, or more. Then, I was gone. Sometimes, I would be completely blacked out, and would not remember the folowing day, and thus would find myself agonizing over what may or may not have transpired. But one night, in particular, I remember all too well making my way from downtown, from the old Saloon, which had formerly been Larry Flint's old place, to my little sleeping room in Over The Rhine, on Race Street, just across Washngton park from Cincinnati Music Hall.
About halfway there, however, I was hailed by a man with a gruff voice, who asked me how I was doing. I was very unnerved at the prospect of being stopped by this person in the middle of a deserted Race Street, close to Washington park, one of the most crime ridden areas of Cincinnati, infestd with drugs and the potential for violence, and even murder. And I was obviously, to myself as well as to the world, stinking, staggerring drunk. I tried to act as casual as possible when he asked me where I was going. I told him I was going home, to Race Street. He told me he would walk with me.
I noticed for the first time the tall thin serious looking black man was wearing a beret, and held in his hand a walkie talkie. He talked into it quietly, too quiety for me to hear what he was saying, which to me was disconcerting in it's own right. I tried to chat it up with him, engage in small talk, but he didn't really seem that engaged. Not really hard to understand, seeing as how I can not recall the small talk I attempted to engage him in, it must have seemed as inane to him as the whole situation seems to me now. He seemed to be a man on a mission, and the more I walked alongside him, the more I was glad he was around.
That was my one and only experience with the Guardian Angels. I never saw the man again, to my knowledge. But I am quite sure that if I were to see him again, after all these years, I would remember him. And I would thank him again, and shake his hand again, as I did that night. Because it occurs to me that, although his presence that night might have been incidental, and had he not been there, nothing untoward may have occurred-you can never really be all that sure.
