Vicious words spew into the street outside the 7-Eleven opposite the Drexel University campus. Two groups form, spectators surround; a car peels out, attempting escape. I watch from a comfortable distance as a skateboard is launched toward the escaping automobile. Break lights flash as a man emerges from the car holding a bat. Drexel security slides into the midst of the turmoil. Soon a Penn cop drives up, another follows, a Philly squad car arrives and another follows. The street fills with red and blue light. Suddenly the bat swings into action, slamming down on the front windshield of the now idle car. Two girls scurry out of the front seat, startled, shaking, reeling from the attack. People are handcuffed and stuffed into police cars. The commotion is quelled and the audience eventually moves on.
Another day, a similar time, and only a block away, a small food truck waits on the curb across from Drexel's fraternity row. The generator grinds noisily as a line begins to form. Two tables sit next to the truck, filled with people enjoying conversation and quesadillas, the latter smothered in homemade salsa and sour cream. In a circle, bike police discuss politics over burritos. A girl dressed to party passes the truck. "Taco Lou! Taco Lou!" she exclaims as she moves toward the frat houses. A man--thick sideburns, beard and leather jacket--rides a 1979 Vespa scooter onto the sidewalk. Showing off his ride, he pries off the tire cover, pointing at the spare, single cylinder engine and the glove box. "It doesn't come close to making emissions," he brags, causing an eruption of laughter from sidewalk admirers.
And just like that, the small-town barber shop and big-city caf‚ manifest themselves in a West Philly food truck. In the center of this sidewalk salon stands a relatively short, 53-year-old black man with soft features and a smile that is naturally poised upon his face. On his head rests a black cowboy hat, encircling his brow under street lamps' glow. Within these 10 concrete slabs of city sidewalk, Louis Williams, known fondly as Taco Lou, orchestrates the environment before his food truck with every greeting, handshake and taco.
In 1948 Louis Williams was born near Durham, N.C. He lived there for 16 years before moving to Philadelphia to join other family members, including his brother, who had moved north years earlier. Growing up in the south taught him that his future prospects were limited. "I wasn't taught that I could become anything," Lou recalls. "The only thing I thought you could be was a mailman, a truck driver, a school teacher." And yet in his 53rd year, Lou, by most standards, has not achieved much more than his childhood teachings foretold. He operates a late-night food truck, serves as a cook at a Drexel fraternity and runs a catering service. But despite the hardships of his daily toil he engages his work with his own liberating beliefs.
Lou first realized he could defy the limiting teachings of his youth while observing his brother. "He would go to New York and buy jewelry, $3 a dozen--rings--and he would sell them for a dollar." Watching his brother sparked Lou's own interest to make it on his own. "The only way I thought you could make money was you have to work for somebody," comments Lou, who at the time was in his eighth year working in the check processing department at the Federal Reserve Bank in Philadelphia. Emulating his brother, Lou started selling handbags he bought on wholesale in New York, sometimes bringing in as much as $2,000 to $3,000 dollars a week. With this new influx of money, Lou quit his job at the bank, and for the first time set out on his own.
Standing in the gutter beside the food truck, James, the street sweeper and Lou's hired help, is far more than any assumed labels. His jacket is tattered and oversized, and a pair of earphones and an old CD walkman accompany him on the job. Pulling fallen leaves, cigarette butts, napkins and other trash into a pile, he remains quiet, eyes down, slumped in posture, engaging no one in conversation. At 23 he has never left Philadelphia, and after graduating from UCHS he didn't have enough money to go to college. So he works nights for Lou, setting up the truck at 6 p.m. every Wednesday through Saturday and helping close things down in the morning hours. His utterances are soft-spoken and slow, hinting at his own capabilities, but his desires nobly expand beyond what the average passerby would expect. Eight times he has tried and failed a test to join the navy. His recruiter tells him that if he studies harder he can overcome the math sections that are tripping him up. So he keeps trying, fitting into a family history that has seen brothers and other relatives pass into the enlisted ranks. For James, however, enlisting means a chance at college with the money provided for in the GI Bill. Temple or Lincoln are his choices, and he talks about them as if he were starting classes in a few months. Moreover, enlisting means a broader perspective, and for a kid who has barely seen beyond the streets he is currently sweeping, shipping off to foreign lands or even other states is a prospect that James welcomes wholeheartedly.
Quitting his job at the bank and setting out on his own proved to be more frightening a move than Lou expected. "When I quit..., it dawned on me that here I am in this world, all alone--the only thing I had to rely on to survive was myself." Without a paycheck or other options to fall back on, Lou entered into a liberating and debilitating period in his life. "It was so frightening to me, at that point, that I actually thought [about] committing suicide," Lou remembers, leaning back against the chain-link fence in front of his truck. "At the same time it was the best move that I ever made in my entire life, because I have come to realize that security is within yourself." With this new insight, Lou contradicted his limiting childhood lesson by risking failure and trusting in his own abilities, all in exchange for control of his future.
Now, eight years after his momentous decision, Lou's future includes acting as a single parent of three kids and owning a popular Mexican food truck. This is not a rags-to-riches story. For Lou, setting off on his own was never about being an entrepreneur, but rather, the freedom to escape the workingman's grind. Louis Williams followed his calling: to live simply, to define his own values and to reject the societal drive for money. And from the moment he gave notice at the bank, the philosophy of Taco Lou began.
One weekend night Amanda got really drunk and began yelling that she was a lesbian. Over and over she proclaimed her love for women as she sat on the cement embankment by the food truck. A fun night in the Drexel frat houses had only just begun for this 18-year-old high school dropout and self-proclaimed slut. Most of her weekends are spent at Taco Lou's, tagging along with her big sister, who works in the truck. Some nights Amanda serves as the Taco Lou DJ, playing her eclectic assortment of tunes for the hungry line. Other evenings she follows around Q., one of the Drexel frat boys, to the various parties. He keeps his eye on her, making sure she is safe when she passes out on some fraternity house floor. Furthermore, he offers companionship to a girl who has very little family. With a father who doesn't seem to care about his daughter's well-being, a mother who isn't around and a sister who fills all the voids--sister, mother, best friend--Amanda has managed to find a place where she belongs. Taco Lou's is her family, and the hours spent by the food truck are an escape from the failures she clearly sees and feels powerless to change.
Lou calls himself a "Life Consultant," or so claims his Web site, http://vcsn.com/~lwilliam. There, in his little corner of cyberspace, Louis Williams divulges his views on education, survival, religion, the power of the mind and other new-age philosophies to the surfing public. "Let the doors of your mind open," proclaims the site. And while in this online forum Lou is disconnected with Taco Lou, his philosophy carries on into the making of Mexican treats for the late-night munchie hordes that pour from Drexel's frat row. Of the questionable disconnect between his personae, Lou states, "We're all the same. I live what I believe, and I incorporate my beliefs in everything that I do.... The fact that Taco Lou's is so successful..., it just confirms that what I'm doing... is right."
And while his views are complex, mixing eastern beliefs in reincarnation, Marxist views of monetary acquisition and atomic theory, at the heart of it all he simply thinks people are fundamentally good with enormous potential. All humans are constructed of millions of atoms, each that has the ability, if split, to "level city hall." To utilize that energy for expansion and growth beyond society's constraints is the message that Lou dispenses with each taco. Whether or not he is right, hundreds of atomic constructions--sorority girls, frat boys, druggies, dropouts, bikers and cops--flock to his truck. For somewhere within his convoluted notions about life, a distinct place exists for troubled girls like Amanda, for the drunken concerns of college kids and for simplistic souls like James, dreaming of greater possibilities.
Lou got his start in the food service business after his handbag store downtown was robbed. Needing to support his wife, he applied for a job as a cook for Drexel's Lambda Chi Alpha fraternity. After working there for a while, as well as serving as a cook at a Philadelphia country club, Lou decided to expand his enterprise. So he bought a trailer. "I had no knowledge of Mexican food at all when I started this business. I never even had a burrito. I didn't even know what it looked like," comments Lou. "One of the students was telling me how to prepare one night for dinner.... The brother told me..., 'Lou, this stuff would sell.'" It was eight years ago that Lou opened his first food truck on 33rd and Market streets. As business increased, Lou moved permanently onto Drexel's campus, and purchased an even larger trailer. The new trailer had room for one table, and as Lou notes, "the larger trailer got to be such an icon... The students would come inside and sit down and hang out."
The trailer transformed Taco Lou's into more than simply a food truck, and provided the vehicle through which his message was heard. Yet with increasing popularity, betrayal brewed, inspectors were called and Lou was forced to sell the trailer. "I think it got to the point that it got too popular," he says. "Sometimes [students] would come and bring beer.... That was probably the main reason that the trailer had to go." Whether it is his good nature or na‹vet‚, Lou is unwilling to point fingers at either Drexel or the police. Regardless, Lou says someone from within the community, the very community that he cares so much about, wants him gone. "It seems to me that someone wants me off of this corner.... I don't know why."
Lou understands the problems inherent in the old trailer, but he talks about it with a sense of nostalgic loss. "The old trailer had more of a personal feeling. People would come to the old trailer and hang out." And though closing the old trailer signaled dying glory, Lou fought for the sidewalk community that he spent eight years fostering. By placing tables beside his current food truck, he hoped to continue the community aspect of his establishment.
Yet the unseen dissent continues. Last month, Lou was forced to remove the tables. The scene was suddenly changed. People would show up, order their food and stand around with a sense of confusion, not quite sure what was wrong. People, who just days before spent hours sitting at the tables, stood around with burrito in hand and then wandered off aimlessly down the street. "It hurt when the trailer went," mourns Lou. "I thought the tables would kinda compensate for the trailer, but now the tables are gone. The only thing next to leave is Taco Lou's, and that's the last thing in the world I would ever want to do."
Yet whoever it is that makes complaints and sends inspectors is doing more than disrupting business. He or she, or the entity behind this attack, is in some way telling Lou that his teachings are unwelcome by reminding Lou and his patrons of the brutal reality that in the end, he's just running a food truck. And yet the voice of dissent is not based within one individual, but rather, the entire community. Rumors circulate among students about sketchy dealings concerning Lou and his truck--rumors that, regardless of validity, stem from people's tendency to rebel against the notion that a black man in a cowboy hat, selling food at 4 a.m. on a West Philly street, might not have any ulterior motives. Seemingly unconcerned, and still sharing alcohol with 18-year-old Amanda and her older sister, Lou continues business as usual.
As I wander back toward Penn, Amanda's selection of the Doors following behind me, I look back upon the scene I am leaving behind. Surrounding the truck, various groups form. Some sit on the concrete embankment, others lean against the chain-link fence. Some stand in the street while other form circles where the round tables used to exist. The line, anxiously shifting weight from foot to foot, streams away from the window from where Lou presents warm meals to famished customers. "It's a family here," says Lou, who tends to his responsibilities like a father. And while the tables may be gone and the trailer may be smaller, while his beliefs might fall on the spinning minds of drunken partiers and police discussing politics, Louis Williams seems to know that to fulfill his responsibilities toward Drexel students and live his life by his own terms, he must keep on being Taco Lou.
