It was fairly hot. This has been a mild Baltimore summer, with not yet a night hot enough to be uncomfortable out of doors. I was wearing a black ski cap and jeans.

I was walking out Harford Road to meet Jason, a fellow writer who wanted some advice on his current project. As I approached the city-county line, a half block north of the Harford House Bar and a block south of Racers Bar and Grill, I noticed a street-walker in front of the funeral home just north of the Harford House, on the right [east] side of the road, where I was walking on the sidewalk.

She was in the street thumbing a ride and yelling to the passing cars, smiling even, ten feet out from the gutter, in the right hand drive lane. Basically, this was an offer to run her over or pick her up.

The cars zoomed by.

She became angry and started doing Rockette style high kicks. I was amazed at her lithe crack-whore athleticism as her feet alternately rose above her head, her ankles next to her ears.

I was now close enough to see that she was about 5', 8” and 120, athletically built. Her hair was straight, brown and feather-light and tied back—not so appealing. I could not see her face yet with these weak eyes. She had a nice store-bought rack—seeming to be surgical enhancement C-cups, possibly provided by the old man who eventually kicked her to this curb.

She switched to the far lane and started thumbing and kicking there. She was wearing sneakers, very short cutoff jeans and a tight gray T-shirt.

No one was stopping for her. They even rudely swerved around and sped up. I could not hear what she was saying.

She was now five doors down from Racers, almost to Anthony Goh's Wushu school, across the street from the Shopping Center that is split by the Baltimore City-County Line. On the corner she stood, screaming something, then turned away from traffic, and now pulled down her pants, showing off her pale, muscular posterior, bisected by a pink G-string.

People drove by more quickly.

Rednecks in pickup trucks—gone!

Retired dudes in desperate need of a blow job—no, not today!

Young black men who will usually fuck anything, driving by in their sporty sedans—Oh Helll No!!!

There was something about this bitch that was scaring away the typical clientele.

Thus spurned, the wild thing spied me and began walking across the street to me, across four lanes. An older women seeing my peril, stopped her turn into the shopping center right there at the Baltimore pillar and waved me across so I could keep away from the soiled maiden of woe.

I made it across the drive to the sidewalk and heard the hoarse female voice, “Hey there!”

I looked to the left and she was standing on the center line waving, and I put up the open hand of friendship and said nothing.

She then shouted, “I love you!”

I looked to see that she had her knees slightly bent and was holding her left fist up in the air. When we made eye contact she said, “Please say you love me!”

I kept walking and said nothing and she walked diagonally across two lanes of traffic to intercept me. I could never out pace this bitch with my hernias, short legs and years dragging me down.

In the face she looked like 30 going on 40, definitely sporting the coke-shore, tweaker look that carves pretty girls into evil queans before forty. There was a grayness across her otherwise blue eyes.

She walked in front of me haughtily and snarled, “You are ignoring me!”

She circled behind me and began following asking me many things that I did not bother hearing as I weighed my options in case of contact. She was trying to get me to speak to her. I did not break my rules of unengagement and stayed silent, thinking to myself, “Is this it? If she kicks my ass I'm going to stab her to death and if I kick her ass the cops will shoot me. Really, it can't be a giant negro?—is this really it—this the final plunge into infamy, dragged to hell by a crackwhore?”

She then says, with a tone that bespoke a marked intelligence, “Let me ask you something: Why are you so dark-complected?”

She got me. I could not help myself, and laughed out loud.

She then triumphantly announced, “Got ya—knew you were ignoring me. You know I'm fun. Why keep walking away? Why does this have to be Mister Mean day?”

Then, as I walked past the bank and she walked circles around me, parading her very fit form, a $70,000 red pickup truck rolled through the bank drive thru with two men in it and she perked up, “Hey Baby, don't go!” and forgot me like a bad dream and made right for the welcoming door of her savior of the day.

Whew!

I have rarely felt more relieved.