“I’m not trying to deceive. This is where my wedding ring goes. But it’s so big people comment on it and I leave it home after Thanksgiving until New Years. I’m not about to lose my life over no ring. You know how it is around here come December—they will take what you have or kill you.”

-Lithe woman in tights and leather coat at the grocery Store, 12/11/18

“I didn’t have Yolanda Bonnet with me when I headed for the parking garage. But I figured with the police precinct right there and it being broad daylight, I’d be okay. Then I saw these two Mexicans walking towards me and looked around for Mister Mohamed [the homeless Mexican killer who beat to death one of the three Mexicans who attacked him in 2017 and protects ladies from bandits] and he was nowhere to be seen, so I crossed the street. Then they crossed after me and changed direction and started to follow. I walked faster and they walked faster. So I took off my heels and ran and they ran. I banged on the attendant’s door and he came out and charged down at the two Mexicans and they ran away.

“So at work the next day, I told Yolanda and she was like, ‘I know girlfriend! We need some fuckin’ men up in here! I left my gun at home and it’s like them niggas can smell it! These two niggas—my own fuckin’ kind—came after me like fiends in World War Z, chased my ass right past the poleese. A bitch has gotta be strapped come Chrismisstime. We gotta team up en get a manshield.’”

“Speaking of which, my boyfriend took his son to the Ravens game and parks at Howard and Saratoga and walks by this crowd of people and they notice his $300 dollar shoes and Rolex and they start chasing him down Howard Street and he’s got to tuck his boy under his arm like he’s a football and go for it. Could you please go with us to see the Christmas lights in Hamden so he doesn’t get us all mugged for his shoes? He doesn’t have a clue.

“You hear that, Emma, Pops is going to be our guide and protector in the City.

“Yay,” said the little one, and an hour later, as Niki drove her boyfriend’s Beamer through the hood [now a place of terror for him since his gauntlet run down nighted Howard Street] and the author corrected the GPS numerous times to keep from going through NO GO Zones, her boyfriend looked out the window at the packs of drug dealers, dice-rollers, drunks, hoodlums and gang bangers as we banked off Edison Highway onto Erdman heading west as if he were Dante glimpsing visons of infernal damnation and said numbly, “You mean those turns we didn’t take would have been worse?”

Nikki and Pops burst into laughter until 3-year-old Emma threatened us with timeout…

-12/17/18

Nice Day for a Funeral

Big Ron's Baltimore: A Working Man's View of Urban Blight