Thursday at One I crutched from the Brickmouse House to the bus stop. There were two hood rats and a junky doing some kind of business. At the stop. When I arrived they took whatever they were doing back into the neighborhood.

The Overlea bus came and let off one young lady, a nice pretty milk chocolate, who saw me admiring her form and waved, smiling from under her wavy hair, “Good afternoon.”

The State Center bus came and disgorged a family, a tall, blond woman, much worn and weathered, a muscular Jamaican man with braids and two very pretty mixed children. Mom wrangled the 2 year old and 3 year old as Dad deployed the large baby stroller. The children were loaded and Mom began to push as Dad looked at me and said, “Good afternoon, Sir.”

“Hi,” I chirped, unused to such a civil Baltimore.

Next came a tragedy: 5’ 8”, 145 pounds, athletic buxom, her hair braided in a close coif showing off her golden brown face which had lost known of their high African cheek bones—a very pretty, athletic girl in Johns Hopkins Medical Medical Blue. This woman should be draped in silks and gold, serving banana beer and Moroccan wine to some prince of Senegal. Yet she is in Baltimore city, waiting for the bus, so she can shepherd the informative sick up the meatchute of souls. She looked at me, stepped slightly away from the stop and said, “Good afternoon, Sir,” motioning for me to take the position to load first, as I had been trying to do for her.

“Mornin’” Miss I chirped, off by over an hour…

She smiled, a sad smile of compassion as she saw my eye patch, crutches and backpack. This woman was one point less beautiful than Halley Barry in her youth, was perhaps 25, and was built like an ebony Artimus, athletic tending towards the motherly make.

The bus meter was out of order, so I put my $5 away.

More businesses are vacant or boarded up than in 2023.

There were no men on the bus, which had 25 occupants, back to normal pre-shamdemic levels. Bus service has expanded directly to Whitemarsh.The number of buses have increased. Lines have been extended. The bus is occupied by women from 18 to 60, going to afternoon jobs or having finished their day shifts. All of these are pleasant mannered African Americans, facebooking and gossiping, discussing rising prices “and all the shit done been dumped in the Harbor under the Key Bridge,” as their copious bling jangled and their gold framed smartphones struggled to remain in their manicured hands.

The young Hopkins Beauty, hovered around me ready to catch me if I fell and stood beside me as I was seated on the rocking bus. She stood next to me and looked to check my status like she was my nurse.

Less trash—much less trash is preseant in Northeast Baltimore and the Overlea, Fullerton, Rosedale and Essex areas of Baltimore County. [1]

Ten teen youths, all males, get on at Steemmrs Run. Eastern and Stememrs is still baorded up and inactive commercial real estate, within 200 yards of the largeset Baltimore County Police barracks. The Yutish tribesmen of old have been replaced by lighter, more feminine, gossippy, tik tok using smartphone zombies… just like the women on the bus. This is paradise. The chronological analogues of these fellows from 10, 20 and 30 years ago, in Essex would have started pickinga fight with any able man and humiliating elders like me.

As I write, before taking the buses out of town, Megan and Georgia are watching TV in the enxt room:

The news is carrying a story about Mayor Brandon Scott declaring that too much medical relief funds are going to “white grant organizations.”

There is also the news that Homeland Security, the FBI, Google, The NFL and the Boyscouts of America are combining forces to address child traficking and sexual abuse of children.

Car jacking, shooting and stabbing reports on the TV, Saturaday morning, as I write this, help me still believe in Baltimore… and the type 2 diabetes sing along comemrcial is on, all is well with pharmaceutical hell.

Offloading at the goodwill store, that used to be a supermarket under three banners, the increase in Latinos and Africans has rendered this intersection busy for the first time in 20 years, and much more polite. Crutching across the bustling lot, inhabited by all races, including some other crackers, the cool, cloudy day was pierced by a few sunny rays.

Three young people, obsessed with their phones, praying into the mesmeristic Allmind, glance at my progress and submit again to their hypnosis.

The Orange bus pulls up and I see that the single fare is $2 and a day pass is, I forget, I will be reminded in an hour. The driver, a large, pleasant, light skinned African American, stops me as I take out my two dollars, while crutching aboard, “Sir, would you like me to issue you a handicapped pass?”

Pride interceded, “No, thank you, Sir.”

The $2 slid into the functioning meter, the driver waits for me to seat and I head down to Rolling Mill and Eastern, where I limp off as some spry young cacker hauls a box of belongings, covered under the drizzle, upon the bus. The driver, in university American English says, “Take care, Sir.”

“Have a nice day, Sir,” I rejoin.

It takes this lame old cracker 30 minutes to make the quarter mile back into Colgate, to where these two pleasant ladies await to check on my well being:

Megan: “Baby, have you eaten today?”

“No.”

Georgia: “Good Lord, no wonder he is so skinny—he might blow away!”

Megan: “Asshole! It’s after Three. Sit down, we have some pot roast tough as leather you should be able to gnaw through—no one else will touch it.”

It was mighty tasty, but took some chewing. That must have been a milked out dairy cow that was forced to walk to the slaughter yard.

I feel so old as I write, 20 minutes form leaving for Harford County.

When I get to Mom’s I will relate the strange impressions of this migratory space had by car with Vaxx Zombie De Gualle yesterday, Friday, the day after my arrival and before my exit.

Time to back up this file and crutch off into the murky sunrise.

8:33, Saturday, 4/20/24

…

Notes

-1. Overlea and Rosedale are neaighborhoods that straddle the City/County line.