I’d been contracted to build a fence for one of my clients. The fence was to enclose a vacant corner lot in a neighborhood affectionately labeled by locals as “Little Mogadishu”, usually called the West Bank, in Minneapolis. The vacant lot was next to a liquor store and on the busiest street in the area. I suggested to my client that I wanted to build the fence using stainless steel, and he gave his approval. The neighborhood was quickly becoming lawless and unpleasant, and any other material used for the structure would be subject to vandalism and abuse, and if made of simple steel, would rust and be an eyesore soon enough.
At the time I was living on a boat moored in the Mississippi river, so sat in my cockpit easy chair and worked up a design for what I wanted to be both a sturdy and enduring, low-maintenance fence, while at the same time a timely work of art. To execute this vision would be one of the most difficult jobs in my long career as a builder, problem-solver, and would-be artist type.
The streets and sidewalks were bustling all around the job site, and the heat and humidity of late summer added to the drama and discomfort of the job. Not to mention the inherent difficulties of bending and welding 316 stainless steel. And I was working alone on the project. It wasn’t the king’s wall I was constructing. It was my love fence! Each section of the fence was roughly 7 feet in length, with curved stainless members portraying a deco heart shape. Each completed section weighed hundreds of pounds, and was built in a workspace behind the Hard Times Cafe, also in the neighborhood. I then transported and welded the sections together at the vacant lot, one at a time, until the space was enclosed.
As I was suited up and sweating one day, happily engaged in welding one of the stainless serpents I’d designed into the fence, I heard shouting from a fellow off to my left on the sidewalk. I raised my welding helmet and saw a young Somali man, who I immediately profiled as a thug on drugs and filled with anger, as he stooped down and picked up my angle grinder from the sidewalk. He then swung it by it’s power cord in my direction. I jumped back and missed being brained by the heavy and dangerous tool. ‘WTF?’ I thought as I retrieved my hammer from my tool belt and did a quick analysis of the situation.
“I’m black!” he shouted at me. “I’m black!” he repeated, then slashed again at me with the power tool.
“I see that,” I responded after jumping back. “So what?”
“I’m black!” he repeated over and over. His eyes were bloodshot, and his naked upper body drenched in sweat. He had a rabid animal aire about him and stank of evil.
I appealed to his humanity, “Man, I’m just here doing my job. I see that you’re black. Big deal! And I’m white. Put the tool down and leave me alone to work. I’m just trying to make some money.”
“I’m black!” he repeated over and over. For almost a half-hour we stood there facing each other, me jumping back as he would swing the sharp tool towards me. Not one passerby stopped to intervene. I considered ending it all with a precision hammer blow to his skull, but rejected the idea as unwise. I was a guilty white man in Little Mogadishu!
The mad Somali eventually tired, looked me directly in the eyes, nodded, placed the tool on the sidewalk, turned, and sauntered off. I was confused and sweating. This wasn’t the contract I’d signed up for in life! The rest of the day on the job I kept my eyes open for danger and tried to understand what had just happened.
The final touch to the fence was my addition of an astrolabe, welded to it’s center top surface. It was a whimsical addition to what I believed to be a masterpiece. Somali elders passing on the sidewalk would smile and nod approval at the beauty of the fence.
The next morning I visited the site and saw that attempts had been made in the night to vandalize the astrolabe, perhaps to detach it. But it had held fast! Someone stopped by and informed me that he’d seen a punk with a long metal pipe trying to detach the astrolabe in the night, and marveled that it had held. I grinned and moved on to the next job in the neighborhood. Success again!
20 years later attempts are still being made to remove the astrolabe from the love fence, thankfully without success!
CP Butchvarov 2024
