The Young Man Who Bought a Cup of Coffee Where Angels Feared to Tread

It's Black History Month again and sometimes I still think about The Young Man and wonder what he is doing today but first, a little background music ...

I live in Oak Park, IL, a town which today is one of the best truly integrated places. There really are no minorities here - not only are we a good blend of Black and White together but also a rich ethnic melting pot for all sorts of other cultures and ethnic groups. There are even different languages spoken here and there. The Ridgeland station on the Green Line (CTA) for years was known as the "Rainbow" stop because the conductors and motormen noticed so many different types of people getting on or off there ... but it wasn't always that way.

When I moved here in 1965, Oak Park was segregated and things were tense. Homeowners worried about the looming specter of integration and its potential effect on property values. That didn't mean "squat" to me as my only property back then was a pathetic assortment of things barely taking up one corner of my almost bare apartment over on Lake Street. I could sense the tension though, and see the Civil Rights parades of people carrying picket signs and singing "We Shall Overcome" on Saturday mornings from my window. In those days a Black person entering the village was charging in where angels feared to tread.

That's the way things stood one morning when a bunch of us Caucasians were hanging out at the coffee shop that used to be on the northeast corner of Lake and Austin. There we were, reading our papers, chatting quietly or just relaxing, as we sipped coffee or ate breakfast. In the back, near the kitchen, a sleepy waitress was filling glass sugar jars before distributing them to the tables. Suddenly, a neatly dressed young Black man entered. He looked as though he was commuting to work as he walked over to the counter and asked for a cup of coffee to go, with sugar. The minute he walked in, total silence enveloped the place as we all stopped what we were doing and regarded this event with various degrees of uneasiness, suspicion or hostility. Some watched - like me - out of a sense of curiosity as to what was going to happen next.

In those days, there were no paper packets of prepackaged sugar in restaurants. If you wanted sugar in your coffee, you had to pour some out of a glass sugar jar so the woman who waited on the young man slid the styrofoam cup of coffee over to him and then beckoned to the waitress in the back to bring one of the filled sugar jars over, which she did. The Young Man poured some in his coffee and fastened the cup's lid shut, paid for it and walked out.

Conversation and silverware clinking started up again, as though nothing had happened, until someone sipped their coffee and began to gag. Someone else at another table tried to eat cereal and had to spit it out. Only then did we realize that the waitress in the back had accidentally filled all the sugar jars with salt. In the confusion and panic that followed, we were all stricken at the thought of The Young Man who had trusted us and perhaps even now would be gagging on his salted coffee and thinking that someone had played a mean trick on him. The woman who had waited on him raced out the door and tried to look for him but he was gone by then.

Nobody knew what to do and God knows there was plenty to be done, including emptying out all those sugar shakers, washing them and refilling them with sugar. Of course, the rest of us had to discuss it all at great length and that's what we were doing when The Young Man came back. This time, he walked into an entirely different kind of reception with the rest of us greeting him as though he had been a long-lost relative. Everyone tried to explain at once what had happened. Someone asked him what he had thought when he drank the salted coffee. He just smiled and replied "I thought it was the worst coffee I had ever tasted!"

I never saw The Young Man again but I have never forgotten him or the way he looked when he re-entered the restaurant. The determination on his face was there and he was prepared to assert himself for a decent cup of coffee but if there had been anger and mistrust, he had not betrayed this. By coming back and asking for another cup of coffee, he had given us a second chance.

I've always admired The Young Man for that and sometimes wonder how life has treated him since then. Whatever happened to him after that couldn't have been much stranger than the day he tried to buy a cup of coffee where angels feared to tread.