While speaking with my agent yesterday I mentioned that I was going to take off writing on Saturday, and then wakeup this morning and write a piece I really felt good about, because it would be my 1,000th post since 2011 when Charles set up the site. He said, “Fruit of The Deceiver—that’s your best serial. Do one of those and make it a big deal. It is a big deal, ‘Who’s going to stop this guy from writing’, kind of big deal.

I took this advice to heart and then decided to go one better—to see if some criminal volunteer would ‘stop this guy from writing’. Since this all began with Harm City, I decided to get mugged, and then write about that.

It is the first week of mugging season. By summer the sidewalks of Hamilton by night will be like a post-apocalyptic flick filmed in Jamaica. Last year the two types of attackers were car-borne squads of black men, and groups of black youth on foot. Both predators select prey that use the highly visible bank ATM on the corner, and then patronize a drinking establishment, carryout joint, the liquor store, or the supermarket. The victims in this 50% white/50% black area were all white except for one old black lady, and generally alone. 11 of the 14 victims I know of from 2014 were low income lone white males. I should be on the short list.

I dress lightly so that I can be seen to be unarmed.

I walk to the ATM and empty it without checking to see if I am being watched.

I now have my choice of bars.

If I use the white stoner bar I might be assumed to be a narc and avoided.

If I use the black pickup bar I might end up walking home with a large black woman and thus frightening off the hunters. The sacrifices I make for research!

If I use the hipster microbrew bar I will emerge broke and not have enough money to buy a bag of groceries, which is part of my plan to make me a likelier target.

This leaves the middle-aged mixed-race working-class sports bar, conveniently located next door to the barber shop patronized by the adult drive-up muggers, and across the street from the cell phone store patronized by the youth muggers. It also features a two-foot wide access alley that stretches 90 feet into a vacant lot! This is ideal. Violent crime here I come.

The bar is packed. The dozen white alcoholics sit in the front so that they can get smashed and stagger a mere ten feet to the front walk to smoke and access their vehicles. The blacks prefer the rear area of the bar as they use the pool tables and poker machines and like to eat while they drink. The bar serves no food, but does provide folding picnic tables, paper plates, napkins, and flatware. The median age is 55, putting me on the young side. All of the patrons are employed or retired, most in government jobs with fair pay and excellent benefits, making this a weekend spot, not a nightly watering hole. I speak with three coaches I know who have their Saturday drink there.

Mister Al, my former employee, is there to remind everyone that I was once an employer before I dropped out. The reviled Spike Lee look alike is drinking in the corner. Michael Clark Duncan’s out of work stunt double is banging back beer and getting wider. Before he sits next to the tennis coach who I am speaking with about his short story collection, he says, “Brother, if you want to get out of this seat after I sit, you need to pull that leg out before I sit."

The coach pulls his right leg from between the two stools as the 500 pound man engulfed the vacated space.

There are a number of men I do not know. I notice that there are party favors about, tray after tray of aluminum foil covered delectables, and a number of nicely dressed—in dresses I might add—black ladies carrying in many more trays of macaroni & cheese, fried chicken, homemade this and that, and bags of presents. Damn, nobody would be getting hit leaving here tonight. I decide on 4 beers and out. Black criminals generally avoid hitting venues catering to black family gatherings.

Just as I ordered the last beer a white patron, an alcoholic who I really dislike, though I hide it, slides by and complains about how loud the blacks are. The bar population is now about 12 white and 50 black, oh, and me. The barmaid, who is glad to get the business, shakes her head and says, “She’s such a bitter racist. But really, what gives with the black adult birthday parties? It’s quite a thing now."

She is pulled away by business, but a large drunk lady looming next to me wants an answer.

I wax anthropological at the bar. “When I was a child, only kids had birthday parties. An adult would only have one to celebrate a milestone like retirement, or when my Great Grandpa made it to eighty. The celebration of a birthday is traditionally a way to include a person in the family or community who is not yet fully vested, or is feeling put apart by age and the loss of peers. When I was in my twenties I noticed that blacks liked to take off work for their birthday as it was—in many families—considered a minor holiday. I suspect this had to do with maintaining cultural cohesion as a minority, and shoring up self-esteem for people who have traditionally felt that they were not of consequence to the greater society. I tie this in with a much higher rate of church attendance among blacks, even of the criminal class.

“It is no longer a black thing. They led a cultural trend. Societies in decline emulate the lower class. It is now commonplace for adults to have birthday parties in the white community. Taking off work for your birthday has taken on the aspect of an entitlement across the cultural landscape. This marks a sea-change in our modern materialistic society and I compare it to the huge number of church holidays in the middle-ages—a hundred-and-seventy-four I think. At the time the average person was entirely disenfranchised, and had no hope of attaining a better station in life. The church held out two soothing antidotes to this creeping ennui, in order to keep the populace productive enough to fulfill its drudgery role: festivals, essentially day long parties, and a promise of eternal paradise after death. I see this making of every adult birthday an occasion for celebration, as a way people are trying to rescue their sense of family and community in the face of our dehumanizing monetized society—”

The lady cut me off abruptly, apparently satisfied with the portion of the answer thus far given. “You know sweetie that my tits will hang all the way down to your knees.”

I suddenly have some groceries to purchase. I submit to a voluminous hug, and, on my way out, spot the birthday girl, and say, “Happy birthday miss.”

She is so pleased her cheeks fairly radiate joy as she says, “Why thank you so much sir!” This is an important event for her.

I burden myself with a 3-pound bag of groceries, including an ergonomically bottled beverage which I intend to weaponize if beset by enemies. I up the ante by stopping at the pizzeria and ordering a shrimp [pronounced ‘skrimps’ in the ghetto] stromboli. Surely no hungry hoodrat would miss the opportunity to relieve me off this tasty morsel.

Darkness is falling and the barber shop is closed.

Two youths with hands in their pockets approach me and walked around me. I turn to look at them as they turn to look at me. They do not follow.

As I near the ATM one youth who is watching it begins to follow me. I turn and regard him as I scan his background for any accomplices, and we both cross the street. He is apparently a street dealer based on his subsequent movements as I walk up the street.

I turn down my street to find it dark and deserted and make my way home to the old orchard house.

Well folks, I tried, but Saturday night, May 3rd turned out to be a good night not to get mugged in the Hamilton neighborhood of Harm City. But I’m sure, that as soon as these hoodrats shake off the lethargic effects of their long winter’s hibernation, that ‘it will be on’ as they say in the city.