Having arrived to work bemused by the lack of traffic, cops, and bus passengers, I was wondering what this meant. I had gotten a drive to work from Daniel on Monday so had not been in position to observe this slice of my world a full two weeks after the purge and riots supposedly ended. I would find out on Thursday morning that virtually no school students—college, county, or city—were using the bus, or had, since the affair ended. Only in the later days of the riots were they using the buses. Now I seem to be viewing a different way of life, an absence of mass transit use after dark and by students.

About 1 a.m., two hours early, Boomy, the Nigerian cab driver, who saved ‘the blonde woman of the yuppies’ from two different gangs of rampaging black men 16 days ago, came by the dairy case and said, “Good evening, Sir.”

I then asked him a few questions and he was off and running in his engaging style.

“Sir, I have lost sixty percent of my business since the riots—those fool people attacking the police as if that will make a good end. The interesting thing is that my associates and relatives, they all saw it coming. I knew that these men had left over the course of March and April, saying that they were at high risk among your violent niցցers. We of Nigeria, Sir, come here as men of God under Jesus to make our bread and serve your people in doing so. We come legal. We come with money. We invest. We work.”

“If I may, Sir [looks up with open hand], hand to God, I mean no disrespect, and am blessed to come to your homeland. But your niցցers, Sir, they are spoiled and need to be gathered up and shipped back to Africa, where they should be exchanged for good black men and women. The government spoils your niցցers, so that all they know is to take. This was the predicament of my associates, eight men in all, of good Nigerian stock.

“They are the younger men, I the elder. They service the general population and tourists. I service the yuppies and the tourists. The one young fellow—a good family man of hard toil, like a son to me—he told me, ‘Boomy, I must leave. The blacks are threatening us. You know what this means. They take the good blacks down and run us off, and then they go after the whites—just as it always is in Africa. Then, after the whites with money are scared away, there is no work left.’

“And so it is now. He called me from Houston, and other of our associates called me from the towns they have moved to. They wanted to know if I was still here, still alive in Baltimore. Thank God I do not live in Baltimore, but out here in the suburbs. Is this not why you live here, Sir, out of the city?”

[I inform him of my low rent urban location.]

“Oh, Sir, with kindness and respect, I say to you that the city is not worthy of your residence. But I see you are straight-backed. Be careful. Look at the video I took, Sir. [Shows smart phone video of 21 boarded up shops in the Fell’s Point neighborhood.] Take precautions in your travels, Sir, so that we do not lose you.”

[I speak to him about the glamour photo of the mayor at Jimmy’s Diner in Fells Point.]

“Sir, with respect, your mayor is not a good woman. She is a racist whore. I go to City Hall every month to pay my taxes. The mayor instituted a tax of twenty five cents for every fare. I fill out my paperwork and take it to City Hall. I wait behind one lady, and then get to the counter. The lady is this wide, Sir, six hundred pounds! Polite and well-dressed, Sir, but six hundred pounds. The office is full of big black women dressed in finery. She taps away at her keyboard with her oriental fingernails, and says, ‘May I help you?’

"I comply, present my log, she gives me my tax bill, and I take it to the cashier. In the meantime this man in a suit comes in, dressed like James Bond, Sir, a black man in a well-heeled suit. He carries a large case. As I approach the cashier this man is selling her cakes—a half a cake for three dollars—strawberry, lemon, chocolate, and all of the women, including the supervisor, are all coming over to buy their cake. Now this man, dressed like that, selling cakes, makes one wonder if strawberry is marijuana, lemon cocaine, and chocolate heroin! It was a thing of astonishment to see.

“Finally, I make my payment, and return to have my receipt stamped, and there she is, six-hundred pounds, making love to her strawberry cake, and making me wait for another hour while she loves over it and buys more, from this unlikely man in a suit. That, Sir, is your city government. Eating cake like Marie Antoinette as the ashes of your city’s hope smolder!

"The city has been set back with a terrible blow, and I may not be able to continue on here. The man at the hotel downtown who I contract with, he has lost four—four, Sir—conventions. The tourists are not coming. Thankfully I also service the yuppies of Fell’s Point and Canton: Mister Yuppie going to and from his cigar shop and whiskey bar, Mrs. Yuppie going to her salon and bistro.

“All else that is left is the homeboys, with their hands in their pockets asking for a ride as if they are prepared for robbery. If I refuse to pick them up they will toss the stone like they did to my associates. So I say, ‘Look friend, I am on a call, but I am calling you a cab right now, see?’ and I make the call as I pull off, giving him the wink of friendship, knowing that he would rob at gunpoint or stone me at the first opportunity. Then, when out of range, I tell the dispatcher not to make the pickup, that it is too dangerous.”

“It is a dangerous town, more so than before the riots. Sir, it is rough out there! My associates saw the writing on the wall and made an exodus. I remain hanging on—thanks to Jesus above—through my yuppie customers. But if the tourists do not return, perhaps I must leave.”

In order to stay out of the ever mobile Boned Zone, wherever you reside, speaking to mass transit and cab operators is an excellent source of intelligence. Cabs are as often used by wounded crime victims—those still ambulatory—as are ambulances. For one thing they are quicker and cheaper. Gathering intelligence is the first step toward forming an action plan. Begin with those who work in close proximity to crime, and preferably in the business of operating the type of transportation used by the light guerilla infantry that constitute the purge strike teams in America’s urban centers. Other good sources of info are security guards and managers at local retail outlets which see a lot of traffic, such as liquor stores, drug stores, convenience stores and supermarkets.