To untold thousands in the Ashkenaz community, Edwin Thaxter is not unlike a parent: We cannot imagine his life without us.
Yet the man who has stood sentry over Ashkenaz's door for the past 38 years had already lived an adventurer's life before he entered the club for
the first time. The captain of a river-rafting company in his native Jamaica, Edwin turned a chance encounter with a client from Houston into a marriage that produced two daughters, Shani and Maisha, who today reside in their mother's hometown.
Edwin's wife, Diane, died of cancer in 1997. It was a crippling blow to a private man just months after he witnessed the murder of Ashkenaz founder
David Nadel.
The date was April 30, 1983. Edwin knows it like his birthday. He stopped into Ashkenaz on that Saturday for a beer and to check out the dance hall
in his new neighborhood.
He was sipping quietly on a Heineken when his attention was drawn to a ruckus that quickly elevated into a fight. He was in no mood for drama. So
he set down his beer and entered the fray, placing himself between the combatants.
"If either of you wants to fight," Edwin declared, "you fight me first." And that was that.
The guy who was busing tables that night saw the whole thing and invited Edwin over for a beer. He asked him if he was looking for a job. Edwin
gave the busboy his blessing to pass his name up the chain of command. The man dried his hand on his apron and went about clearing the table. "By the way," he said in parting, "I'm David Nadel."
Thus did Edwin Thaxter became Ashkinaz's doorman. And that was that.
"David was a revolutionary," Edwin said. "He stood up and fought for the people at People's Park. When you worked for David, you didn't want to
go nowhere. The love and respect you get from him, you're not going to find anywhere else."
There is another date emblazoned upon his memory: December 19, 1996. No matter how many times he replays that night, Edwin fails to see how a run-of-the-mill
encounter with an obnoxious drunk could so quickly have escalated into an apocalypse.
On that fateful Saturday night, Edwin saw a 20-year-old Emeryville resident named Juan Rivera Perez become verbally abusive with a female patron
and, noting that Perez was intoxicated, removed him from Ashkenaz. That was his job.
Shortly thereafter, Perez showed up with a cousin, with whom Edwin was acquainted, to help him lobby for re-admittance. Edwin refused. Upon hearing
the hubbub outside, Nadel appeared and quickly de-escalated the situation.
Edwin won't ever forget the next minute. Retreating inside with his boss, Edwin recalls Nadel saying "at least it ended without anyone getting shot."
Perez remained outside on San Pablo Avenue only briefly. Keeping his eyes peeled for trouble near the door, Edwin, who was unarmed, was mortified
to see Perez load his small-caliber pistol. "It was the most helpless feeling in the world," he said.
Within seconds, Perez stormed back into Ashkenaz and shot Nedal point-blank in the face as Edwin lunged to protect his boss. "I thought it was me
who got shot," he said. "There was another guy right there, the sound engineer that night, and David fell right into his arms. He never regained consciousness."
With Edwin acquainted with Perez's cousin, it didn't take police long to identify the culprit. But they never made an arrest; Perez fled to his
native Mexico. Nearly a quarter century later, Perez remains on the Berkeley Police Department's most wanted list, with an active reward of $15,000 for information leading to Perez's arrest and conviction.
In the foggy aftermath, Edwin returned to Ashkenaz to gather his things; Ashkenaz without David Nadel was inconceivable. During those 13 years at
the club, he had operated from the shadows, only appearing when circumstance dictated, but otherwise keeping his head down and protecting Nadel's door. He could not recall a single instance, until that post-mortem visit, that he had climbed the steps to Nadel's
office.
He was unnerved to see the walls of the office covered with Post-It notes, a collection so vast that it continued down the hallway and along the
walls of the stairwell leading to dance hall. Upon further examination, Edwin discovered they were all IOUs, money Nadel had lent to musicians, mostly, over the years. Edwin suspected he never made much of an effort to collect them, but that Nadel wanted to
give the recipients the satisfaction of removing their own debt from the wall. Edwin's mind reeled with the small fortune those notes must have represented.
He retreated to care for his dying wife, and, after burying her, "tried to start a restaurant. But the City of Oakland put me through a lot of ups
and downs." He did some electrical work. For the better part of a year, he drifted. Then his good friend and co-worker, Larry Chin, showed up at Edwin's door one day and dragged him back to Ashkenaz. That was 24 years ago.
"It wasn't that I was mourning David, because I don't do that. I know people are just here for a short time. But I would have been gone long ago
if not for him. He mentored me about business, about kids, about so many things. He was like a father to me. David was a class act, and if he embraced you in his world, brother, believe me when I tell you that you didn't need anything else."
Oddly, the pandemic has caused him to grapple with emotions that he had not confronted in the dark days after he lost his mentor, wife and a sibling.
Today, he says, he mourns the living.
"The difference is that I don't get to see the people at night," he said as Ashkenaz this week marks a year without patrons. "There are so many
wonderful, beautiful people there. And the thought of seeing them again, that's what makes my spirit soar."
