6/29/20

Oliver was speaking to of my well-being as I walked through a park between a group of ebony ball players of young age and waved to them as they stood an gawked at my eye patch, and the youngest, about six, pointed at me and said, “A pirate!”

He was really disturbed that a guy my age can’t just walk down the street, “doing his own thing and minding his own business without someone fucking with you. And to boot, in Maryland, you’re not allowed to defend yourself. Heck, if you had stabbed that dude you’d be made out to be more of a monster than if you shot him!”

“I’m really sorry, James. This brings me to mind of what has been bothering me. When I was young, I might have just dropped that guy, but now, it’s all about dealing with group aggressors and I have my kids. How am I supposed to protect me and my kids at the same time?

“The answer is obviously a weapon, but a gun gets you hung and the knives I had, I just found out thanks to you are illegal in Maryland just because they are in a sheath, even though they are only three-inch blade!”

Oliver went on to relate two stories, one from his 16th year, just after we met at the gym, and the other very recent, which happened to his cousin Tee, who is a towering cruiserweight who could have been a pro boxer but is making a lot of money in advertising.

…

Young Oliver

I was living with my mother near York Road and Northern Parkway near Chinchapin Park. There was this guy about my age who was selling drugs openly on the street corner and the mothers were calling the police on him but the police never bothered him.

Anyway, I was working at the movie theater and after work I walked a coworker down to the bus stop on Northern Parkway and these three guys walk up on us while I have my back tuned to them and one of them says, “Give us all your shit!”

I turn around and one of the guys is the drug dealer and he says, “Wow, leave ‘em alone. That’s Oliver, yo.”

So we had a nice little conversation and they explained that they always go out of the neighborhood to rob people because they don’t want to adversely affect their drug trade in their own neighborhood. My coworker was really sweating it too, because it was Friday night and he had his whole paycheck on him.

…

Daddy Tee

Tee lives in White Marsh with his wife and son. His wife and him were out running and these three dudes started coming around. So he took her home.

Then his son was walking with him on the sidewalk not far from his house and these three dudes are coming around, the same three dudes and they start making demands of him and he thinks he sees one reaching for something and picked his son up under his arm and just ran like hell.

He probably could have easily beat the shit out of these guys, but he had his son to protect and its obviously more than likely that one of them has a knife or a gun.

…

Oliver and Tees experiences have been shared multiple times by every b#$%^ dude I know who grew up in Baltimore City and these same predation issues have followed them as they have bettered their lives and moved into middle class suburban Baltimore County. Oliver has now moved into extreme rural Maryland to escape this and all of his neighbors are rednecks, hicks, farmers and land owners of pale sort. He hopes to never end up living in “that Baltimore Situation,” again.