Last night at dusk two ebon youths tried to frighten me as they raced up and shouted on a Harm County side street.

I smiled and waved and they seemed put off by this and went off clowning more quietly.

When I passed them again they studiously ignored me.

Considering that this great, evil, slinking whore of a city has been my greatest muse and that my writing has been at low volume since returning from the Bereft Coast, I thought I’d get back in touch with the toothsome tart this morning and went for a stroll to the edge of her rancid precinct well before the Ebon Hour, which has, for a few years been 11:00 a.m., the post Purge ghetto work ethic extending from an hour before noon to an hour before dawn.

A citizen on patrol, a senior on a bike with yellow vest, was out deterring the still sleeping orcish raiders.

Walking through the Rec Center a mile north of the GMZ I located 5 drink bottles of various types dropped randomly in a stand around area under a tree and 5 Dorito bags dropped also, blown by the wind mostly down the hill, though one was anchored by an empty orange soda bottle to the place of conclave. By day this tree gives shade but by night it provides shadow as the adjacent athletic field is brightly lit. This pack-up occurred at the furthest distance from the brightly lit ball field as possible without bringing the players within sight of passing cars on the side street behind. This very spot has been the scene of one daylight stick up and one nocturnal shooting. All things considered, I think this is a parlay and pack-up point for sets working out of a long established subsidized housing complex a half mile south and 30 freshly rented section 8 dens a half mile north.

Someone was hunting last night and they were most likely less than 16, certainly younger than 18.

Negotiating asphalt river crossings is fraught with peril. After Portland’s motorists stopping to let me cross anywhere, I have to contend with Baltimore motorists not stopping for crosswalks or lights and actually speeding up to hit me as I scamper along between the white lines while the white man blinks on the crosswalk monitor and the rumbling SUVs and screeching sedans nearly clip my heels as they run red lights.

Skulking deeper into the human sewer I stand at the crossroads of the annexed ghetto, where 4 extensive shopping centers occupy four corners.

Southeast is the ebon shopping center, nearly empty at 9 a.m.

Northeast is the mixed shopping center, enjoying slight traffic.

Northwest is the majority ghost shopping center, bustling, the Starbucks and full service grocer doing banging gentrification business—for this area receives a household of hipster homesteaders for every household of ghetto spawn.

Southwest is the majority ebon shopping center, the Golden Arches drive-through occupied by some 20 cars, an ebon youth dressed all in black arguing seated on the curb with an ebony youthette dressed in yellow who is questioning him about a smart phone he is trying to open, to which he snarls, “Dats why I stoled it, bitch!”

A salt and pepper duo the salt shaker being semi-retarded and bobble-headed in his blue polo and the pepper maker obviously running shit, stood sentinel over the bank’s ATM—the bank being open with an active drive-through on the other side of the building just below the bank where I once took many a bus by night—stalking menacingly around the machine, seemingly waiting like lions at a waterhole for the dry-throated gazelles to stop for a drink.

The ebon hour is now 9 a.m. it seems, the hoodrat sense of urgency and dedication advancing beneath the shadow cast by the dying city down over the hill to the south, where the ebon police chief has been relieved to be replaced by a ghost slit police cheek in the wake of the ebon slit mayorethra being replaced by an ebon mayor… the seat of corruption ever seeking to cobble together a balanced face to cloak it’s corruption.

Something is astir in the bowels of Harm City, for of the 120 people reported killed in these first five months, with warming May the bloodiest month yet, with increased stabbings and asphixiations, three Hispanics have been killed in May alone, more than were slain in all of 2018. The national champions of the Murderbowl four years running are not only invading Harm County but they battling the invasion of their homeland, preparing, it seems, to make a home stand.

The phone rings and its Sensei Steve, “James LaFond, where on this earth are you?”

“In town.”

“Well, your replacement lost his job and your old room is open. It would be the perfect arrangement with you paying me rent for 12 months and stopping in a couple times a year.”

“Sounds like the perfect marriage. We could have made a go of it in Portland—but I’m committed to the vagabond course.”

“Okay, the good news is that karate is doing well and I have two young men who require your boxing expertise…”

And the knucklehead pilgrimage continues…