New Horizons Academy

It is almost ten pm

It is almost ten pm and street noise is starting to die down. Waiting for my wife I sit alone with a nearly empty porcelain coffee mug at a rear table in my daughter-in-laws restaurant. It is a variation on the “Rotisserie Chicken” theme and in Latin America, or our part of it anyway, this style of restaurant is open fronted. The odors of wood smoke, roasted chicken and exhaust fumes from the street permeate the place. A six-foot wide brick fireplace faces the street displaying to passers by the chickens as they roast rotating over a wood fire. The restaurants interior and stainless steel steam tables are also visible from the street, as are the dozen square wooden tables. Seating four people each, save for myself, they are empty at this late hour. I have been re-reading the day’s newspapers trying to ignore the nasty taste and smell of coffee brewed five hours earlier then left to slow cook over the heating plate.
Glancing up I notice four men across the street. They are in conversation and from time to time look in my direction. An internal alarm bell sounds softly. Since it opened five years ago the restaurant has been robbed seven times. Left unmolested for more than a year I figure it is just a question of time. It is the same feeling you get living on a very active fault line that has been quiet for a few years. I pretend to go back to my newspapers. Shortly a car rolls to a stop in front of the four men. The car, painted flat black, is low-slung and sports heavily tinted windows. My internal alarm kicks up a notch or two. Three of the four are now bent over and in conversation with the car’s occupants. One man, taller than the others, continues to examine the restaurant.
Casually I push back from the table, stand up, and slowly walk toward the front of the restaurant . I make my way onto the street glancing left and right pulling a cell phone from my shirt pocket as I go. I put the phone to my ear and pretend to make conversation as I study the car. Moving slightly I intentionally stare at the cars front license plate and continue my mock conversation. Two of the four men on the street get into the rear of the car and it shoots away tires protesting. The two remaining individuals give me a last look before they too depart moving downhill into the heart of the barrio.