Andrew, a real estate lawyer, was coming home from work, just like his neighbor who was gunned down in the same week in the upscale, gentrification zone of Federal Hill, when he was shocked by the command of “Yo” by a Reparations Recover Agent, whose two fellow agents were flanking him, one bringing a knife up menacingly from his pocket.

Andrew cringed and said, “Please, please—” and was pushed to the pavement by unfriendly hands as his knee scraped on concrete and his backside felt the unyielding bottom stair of the as yet unknown neighbor’s front steps.

Shaking with fear, his hands out in front of him, opening his mouth to beg for his life, Andrew was cruelly cut off by the words of his Ghost Guilt Case Officer, “Give it da fuck up!”

With those words a window next door closed, a car door across the street unopened as its owner drove off rather than make their way to their front door in a Reparations Recovery Collection Zone, and he wailed incoherently as his pockets were turned inside out, his suit jacket was mussed up and torn and sneakers and fists began to strike. He was soon in tears as he sprawled in a half fetal position, but relieved that the ordeal was over, already rehearsing his credit card call, the knife blade still to his throat.

Then he realized it was not over, as the knife hovered over his throat like the Sword of Domocles and the blatantly abusive NGO operatives recreationally kicked him and laughed, reveling in their sadistic dispensation.

Andrew reported the crime to police and one of the neighbors did give a statement. But when he read The Baltimore Sun, all Andrew found concerning violence was a story by a history professor justifying his treatment in intergenerational grounds, as 4 pages were devoted to the lynching of black men by white men 100 and more years ago.