Last night, 6-29-15, I boarded the bus and asked the driver if the new fare was $1.70. A racist to the core, she stared right through me, refusing to acknowledge my presence. I was the only white on the bus and it might be that she only stopped because I stepped out in front of her. I curled up and pressed my head to the window to sleep, two seats back from the aisle-facing bench seats that line the first quarter of the coach.

At Overlea High School two members of a drug gang I once observed and eavesdropped on at Middle River Park, boarded the bus with a third youth.

The leader was 5’ 8” & 120 pounds.

The third wheel was 5’ 5” & 105 pounds.

The ‘muscle’ stood 5’ 10” and went 140.

They were all narrow-shouldered and small-headed, and either 14 or 15 years old.

The third wheel shadowed the leader and was quiet.

After heading to the back of the bus they came back forward—I thought, because the girl three seats up to the left was real cute, at about 20. Most black youths would give that a try.

The leader sat down behind me and his shadow sat back one seat across the aisle—not a trouble making position.

The muscle then sat down with the leader, who said, “Is you gay niցցer!” and indignantly got up and sat across the aisle.

This was unusual, so I began to slowly swivel my head 45 degrees each way to catch their body language. I could see the guy behind me in the window, and the leader out of the corner of my eye.

The guy behind me motioned to me with his head, and the leader said, “You sure yo ain’t a gay dick-sucka, nigga?”

He was diverting the silent conversation away from messing with me, but the fool did not get it, so asked, “Yo, you got the time?” This is a common code for, “Let’s do this dude.”

The leader says, “Nigga, I ain’t neva given you the time ‘till you get yoself a watch.”

The pretty girl got off the bus and none of these boys even checked her out, which is extremely odd for black youth.

The larger kid motioned toward me again as I was checking out the little honey’s parting stride. The leader then kicked him in the hip with his heel.

“Nigga, you betta get a phone instead of a watch, nigga!” and kicked him in the ribs, the taller boy scooting back against the window.

The leader then said to the third wheel, "Shit, nigga get a phone en think he all dat, he be callin’ one night cryin’ 'Yo, its all Hannibal time up in hea!'”

Laughter filled the bus as the big boy hung his head and glared out the window.

The leader and his fool goon were one of a group of gangbangers meeting at Middle River Park in the morning over a year ago. These two where the connect boys, who brought dope out to Hawthorne from the city on the #23 and #24 during the day. Recently –since the riots—they have been boarding at Overlea High School after dark, a location formerly cruised by cops, but no longer. It is a 15 minute walk from Cedonia, a major drug market in Northeast Baltimore, connected to the Mondawmin riot scene and stash house hub by the #5 bus.

When I rose to offload at the major transfer point the leader got up to offload with me, keeping his distance. Then the big boy got up also, and the leader smacked his lips, walked to the back door, and said, “Fo real?”

When I stepped off the bus the tall boy stepped off behind me. I stepped out and pivoted so I could keep both of them in my peripheral vision. I was thinking lead right to the breast bone.

The tall idiot then asked the leader, “Got the time, yo?”

“Nigga this is not even yo stop—las’ bus a the night en you walkin’ dumbshit!”

I stepped off two paces and saw the big boy nod at me and point at the bus stop, which I appeared to be crossing to. The leader shook his head ‘no,’ as they followed me across.

Cops used to cruise this stop four times an hour. Now it is more like one every four hours. [In the year since police patrols have stopped altogether]

I usually walk straight through the lot behind the stop, but went to it, paused, stopped to see them pause, and then walked up around the sidewalk so I could keep an eye on them. The tall kid kept pointing at me and at the bus stop sign, and the leader blurted, “Nigga, is you retarded!? You see nigga, now yo dumbass walkin’ ta Fox Ridge.”

I crossed Old Eastern and walked on the side where the thicket is. As unlikely as an attack now was, if it came after this it would be serious, and I would want some time alone with my foe.

The idiot began walking out 702 to the apartment complex where I once delivered a lost wallet to a black man, who looked at me like I was insane.

The leader gave me a two block head start and stayed on the other side of the street. When he began to overtake me, even though he was 40 feet across the street, he turned up his head set so I could hear it. Even so, I still kept eye-balling him every ten steps. So he picked up his pace, much more spry than I, raised his hand like he was passing in traffic without signals, and walked past me as quick as he could—soon lost in the dark.

On my way back to the stop this morning three black men, passing me at different times, ranging in age from 30 to 60, greeted me with a “Good morning, sir.”

When I returned to the bus stop where that idiot thought he was going to try something with me, a 20 year old man got off the connecting bus, asked me about the schedule for the #55, and then asked me if I had a light. I told him, “No, I don’t smoke.”

He laughed and said, “I wish I was like you.”

He seemed unorganized, so I gave him the adjusted bus schedule, verbally.

When I offloaded in the city, the female driver and I had kind words for each other. I then passed a five year old being taken to the bus stop by his 13- year old brother. As I crested the top of the hill I found a wallet in the street, with a bank card, $25 dollars, the 13-year-old’s I.D. and a bus pass. I matched the address on the I.D. to a house nearby. As I walked up the stairs his mother opened the door, looking at the wallet and smiling. She thanked me, asked me if I lived in the area, and wished me a good day.

Last night I was shunned by a racist, and then considered as the object of a violent attack of some kind by one aspiring thug. Another thug vetoed the notion. Then, the next morning, I had six positive social experiences with black people.

This is my reality.

I am able to have positive interactions with many blacks because I devote myself to thwarting the few violent ones and am not projecting fear of, or animosity towards, blacks. Had I been less alert, I might have been the victim of the Knockout Game, or of a robbery. But I was not.

I accept the fact that I am a hunted man, and I hunt my hunters in turn. This has resulted in little acrimony where my enemies are concerned. I understand their ignorance, their hate, their cunning, their yearning to do something more meaningful than suck their mamma’s welfare tit. And, if one day, as I age, one of these punks kills me for my wallet, or just knocks me into a coma for kicks, that act will have had more meaning than all of the government bought soft drinks and toaster pastries I’ve sold as a grocer during these last 30-odd years. And of course, my getting done in for a wallet would be the kind of irony I like—having returned three African American wallets now.