I received a phone call from Baltimore this morning, as the Bereft Coast sun shone warmly on the garage door. It was about the “polar vortex” gripping the Leased Coast in a deep chill that shall hopefully herald the return of Ice overthrowing our Shivilization of Vice. Rather than repeat Niki saying, “I said” and “he said,” I will reconstruct the scene as an accurate fiction from Nightfall on Baltimore Street, in front of the Central BPD Precinct, on the fallen afternoon of January 30 2019, as related to me by phone this morning as pretty little Miss Niki drove to work…

Niki shivered behind her scarf against the biting cold as her amber eyes darted this way and that for ghostly crackheads, zombie dopefiends, rapist Mexican illegals and human trafficking ebony warriors—all of the many shades of dread that circle the police precinct in the business district, picking off the slow, the weak and the meek from among the business folk escaping to shitliburbia as night comes down.

Yolanda Bonnet had off today, and without her pistol-packing home-girl Miss Niki despaired of making it to the parking garage ramp, where the Pakistani attendant could be trusted to drive off any pursuing predators.

“Miss Nik—I gotch you gir’. You good,” came the comforting voice of her protector, a man who once defeated three Mexican attackers, killing one, and since his beating the resulting murder rap thanks to a ghost man’s smart phone video of his defensive action, has devoted himself to defending the dainty women of the sissy race who saved him from Baltimore’s Mսlatto Law Enforcement Mafia.

“Thank you, Mister Mohamed” she shivered, as the elderly man with the permanent tan, no front teeth and Mexican-killing hands big enough to palm a basketball of old put one arm behind her shoulders as a kind of psychic cradle, not touching her brushed coat with his greasy sleeve, extended the other hand forward upon his long arm and dispensed his stentorian commands:

“Lady commin’ through!”

“Make way, Ham Slice!”

“Bitch—you too!”

“Don’t you dare, fool!”

“Not today, junky—move on now!”

“In yo simple dreams, son—step da fuck off!”

“Sorry, Ma’am, gots ta speak so dey can undastan’’

“Shew, git—ya’all git ta da gutta where you come from!”

And so it went, a parade of shambling, half-whispered jeers, hungry eyes thirsting for the dainty lady’s scarf, her coat, her purse, her soft throat and much worse, until, finally the ancient ebony protector of the soft ghost folk of Baltimore Street towered over her at the base of the parking garage ramp and extended one open hand like a jinni declaring an oasis road for a lost desert soul, “Dare you go, Miss Nik.”

She felt so bad, knowing that the only decent man in this indecent city was going to be huddled in a concrete doorway tonight, old and alone against the cold.

“I’d like to give you some money for a hot meal, Mister Mohamed.”

“Oh no you don’t, Miss Nik. You know I tax you men folk.”

“Mister Mohamed, please promise me you’ll stay warm tonight. It’s going to be five degrees.”

“Don’ you worry, Miss Nik. I like it cold—only time it quiet ‘nough fo peace o’ mine. Fiends ‘ill all be huddlin’ unda dey rags, hoppers be up inside.”

“Thank you, Mister Mohamed.”

“God bress, Miss Nik!”

Even Hell can have a hero.