Unfortunate Son

From the red-tinted lights and $8 cocktails at Liquid Café to the pulsating techno at Mercury, Reed's routine was well known. He was always alone and often seen sidling up to the ladies.

In his inebriated haze, the charm of his political persona disappeared. He became a classic Pity Date — the high-school class president who imagines himself a stud, while the popular girls laugh behind his back.

That was evident one night last summer at The South Side in Tremont, where Reed became the unwitting star of his own Saturday Night Live skit. Hovering alone near the bar, Reed was doggedly pursuing a horde of tall, crushingly beautiful women — the kind with an unwavering sense of their own supremacy.

He would coax them out to the tiny dance floor, offering his hand as if he were Denzel, though his stiff, drunken stumbling was more Steve Urkel. At one point he even fell on the dance floor. But minutes later he was courting his next victim, while her friends giggled and snapped photos with their cell phones.

To make matters worse, Reed was an impractical drunk. He kept partying and kept getting caught driving home in his trademark BMW. Soon after the Channel 19 exposé, he was busted. Then, in November 2007, police found him on Kinsman, passed out in his car with the engine running. He's now awaiting trial on DUI charges that could land him in jail for six months.

The latest episode was enough to scare Reed into rehab. He went to the Cleveland Clinic for 28 days, emerging with a Bible in hand and a commitment to the 12 steps. Over Christmas, his aunt died of complications related to alcoholism, and he vowed not to meet the same fate. He finally understands that he can't be both a respected politician and a drunken playboy.

"I have to give up alcohol," he says. "Me and alcohol can't coexist."

But the damage may already have been done. Cleveland isn't a town that condemns people for their intimacy with bar life, yet some in his ward are simply tired of waiting for him to grow up. In a city desperate for relief, the man leading the charge can't be desperation personified.

"You'll see him maybe during a parade or on the news," says a cashier at one Kinsman Road store, "or if you're one of the lucky people to see him passed out in his car. I saw him twice."

"You tell people your councilman's Zack Reed, and they laugh," adds a Kinsman business owner. "If he doesn't care about himself, what does he care about anything and anybody else?"

But here, on a frigid January afternoon with the wind pummeling the corner of 116th and Kinsman, they love him. People honk and wave as Reed takes a stroll around the block.

"How's Mom?" asks a guy carrying a handful of clothes into Henry's Cleaners. "Mom's in the hospital," Reed explains. (She has heart trouble.)

Reed's in his element in the role of Man of the People. He organizes free summer concerts in Luke Easter Park. At Christmastime, he erects a billboard that wishes constituents "Happy Holidays from Councilman Zack Reed."

As he walks, he talks of remaking 116th Street, selling foreclosed homes to police officers and firefighters, and luring a coffee shop to the space next to Henry's Cleaners. He wants to find investors to build higher-priced housing around 93rd and Union, and says that crime has declined since surveillance cameras were installed in the neighborhood.

"He's making changes out here," says Eugene Parker, a longtime friend and owner of a Kinsman barbershop. "It takes time. He can't do it overnight, like everybody would like for it to happen."

Reed no doubt faces a mammoth task. Mount Pleasant was in decline long before he arrived, and City Hall's lethargy suggests any reversal will be accomplished on his own. But he insists change is coming.

At least five more storefronts are slated to be renovated by the end of this year, including two day-care centers, a barbecue restaurant, and a beauty salon for children. The Kinsman commercial strip, he declares, is "clearly coming back . . . This is a journey. It's a long-term journey."

These days, talk of mayoral aspirations has given way to questions about whether Reed can even hold onto his job. But he's planning to run for re-election next year. So far, he's retained the support of the Democratic power brokers.

"I still think that he's a young man who has a bright future," says Stokes. "He's obviously someone who thinks. He's out of the box."

"He was considered the most outspoken black member of city council, and possibly the most aggressive and passionate," adds Polensek. "And I don't think he's lost that much."