I’m thinking about my last visit to Art’s, a Strip District bar popular with African-Americans from all over the city. I ordered a round of beers and mistakenly picked up one that was already spoken for. A man old enough to be my granddad spun around on the bar stool and shot me a withering glare. I apologized after placing his beer back on the bar, but he wasn’t interested. “You think I’m afraid of you, punk?” he shouted mere inches from my face. “I’ll take your big butt out and teach you respect.” He was talking loud enough to be heard all the way to Schenley Heights, hoping everyone in the room knew what a tough hombre he was — cane, dentures and all. “Wait til I find my knife and I’ma cut you up good,” he said. Realizing he was serious, I headed for the door in search of friendlier senior citizens to drink with. I’ve thought about my knife-wielding Medicare recipient often in the year that has passed, wondering how he’d managed to occupy a space on Earth this long with such a huge chip on his shoulder. Lots of men in our city, black and white, suffer from a similar adherence to the macho code, an underclass creed that teaches men that no perceived slight or insult — regardless of how petty — should go unpunished. I saw it attending school in Wilkinsburg, where stepping on somebody’s new cloud-white Nikes could get you a broken nose. In later years, misinterpreted glances were enough to get your butt shot. Last month, 19 homicides were recorded in Allegheny County. Many were shocked by the carnage — many, that is, who don’t live in communities where the macho code is in force. I’ve visited the neighborhoods where these sorts of killings have occurred to interview neighbors and residents, but not this time. Too many of my questions have been interpreted as threats, and too many times I’ve had to beat a quick retreat out of Homewood or Garfield or East Liberty because some kid with more nerve and firepower than common sense wants to make his lifelong gangster rep on a reporter. None of this is new. I occasionally receive correspondence from Robert Wideman, a convicted murderer serving time at the State Correctional Institution in Woods Run. Wideman, formerly of Homewood, has been incarcerated since 1976 and has watched countless young men enter, exit and re-enter the prison. Many were raised in a culture where violence and gunplay are synonymous with manhood. Wideman counsels them to learn to let go of the rage that fills the headlines with homicides, but he’s fighting an uphill battle. Counseling prisoners is honorable and Wideman gets my props for doing so, but it’s not his job. It’s up to the fathers and community leaders to teach young men that devaluing life will land them in prison before long. Or in a morgue.

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