As the sun began to fall earlier this evening I mused over my failure to find Crazy Mark, or even to determine if he is alive. I never knew his last name. Knowing my chances to be slim, and having discovered that all of the characters I knew once upon a time are too down and out to patronize bars, I decided on combining my search with a survey of what I call marginal spaces: vacant lots, vacant houses, defunct businesses, alleys, and sidewalk doorways.
At 6:40 I headed out of Hamilton, down the ridgeline that is White Avenue, which turns into a flood-prone gully as one reaches Cedonia and heads down to the Western Shore of the Bay.
As the last day turn people returned from work I checked out the vacant lot between White and the dead end where the section eight apartments are nestled like a brick canker sore behind the old frame houses down above U.S. Route #1 where Gardenville and Overlea meet, in the very neighborhood where I once managed the local supermarket. This lot was once a launching point for hoodrat attacks, but is now a place were 12-year-olds ride their bikes and behave reasonably well.
I stopped into the Hub and bought a six of cheap beer. The purpose was to have a reason to be walking through the neighborhood, to appear to be headed to my home from the main drag, not snooping, which is what I was doing. The beer also gave me something to share with whatever bums I might meet along the way, or friends I might stop in to visit. It also gave me a single shot flail, something to whack a person with while I pulled out my shank, a dull pointed stabbing implement that I had picked up out of the gutter this morning on White Avenue where road construction is currently underway, and which I kept in the front pocket of my cargo shorts.
I walked over to Sunny’s to see that they had a deal on knives, folders that were dumped in a bucket on the counter. You could buy one for $7 or two for $10.
Across the street was a white hooker, a black pimp, and three white drunks living on old living room furniture on the sidewalk. On a porch above the side walk sat a fat white woman surrounded by heaped junk, appliances, kitchen furniture and boxes.
I hadn’t seen Megan in a while and figured I could show up at her place and have a beer on the porch while I rested up before my walk back from Cedonia. As I walked through Cedonia I only saw one stoned white teen and his black companion, both of whom were angry about something. There were three missing dog posters on the various light and telephone poles.
Megan was in the mood for a beer, and kept me sitting on the porch until we had had two apiece. She needed to vent about her daughter’s fiancé quitting his job and wanting to be Joey Homemaker since the birth of her granddaughter. She now finds herself supporting a 31 year old man who is angling for a lifetime disability pension for a wrist complaint…
At 9:30 I headed home under the clear sky and the crescent moon, in a cool night breeze. I was really enjoying the serene walk with the music of the crickets under the old trees as I crossed Greenhill and looked left and right. To my left I could see the house where I first rented an apartment in 1983.
To my right were the figures of four innocent unarmed black youths, dinking liquor and smoking. One said, “Get his ass!” as two ran me down, from twenty yards away. I had been walking in the middle of the street to give myself time to react and did so, by ducking left, putting my back to a white van, drawing my shank, and continuing down the street toward Route #1.
I was now under a street light and they could see something in my hand. The leader, about six feet tall with a high fade cut, called his dogs off, and they halted. He then sent two into a house a few doors behind me and I picked up my pace headed for the main street. I passed a well-groomed bald black man of about 30 sitting in a luxury sedan observing the activity.
When I got to the back of the fire station across from Sunny’s a petite black girl was walking into the unlit alley by herself, looking over her shoulder at me. All but one of the foremen drives a pickup to the firehouse.
I ran across Route #1, through the Crown Station parking lot, up the alley behind RJ’s house, and out onto the terrace across from Aldo’s house. When I looked down White to Route #1 I saw the boy with the fade and the other older boy following me. In also saw Aldo across the street. Aldo is an interesting dude who had been stabbed numerous times, once carried his brother’s dead body away from the scene of an ambush in El Salvador, and seems to have a special case of Negro immunity.
I decide to go have a beer with Aldo, and Adriane, both men who once worked for me. Adriane was as drunk as he was the day I fired him, and was still wearing the company cap—a hat he has never replaced these 7 years. The thugs stood off and observed, not approaching Aldo’s property, where he stood on the front lawn under the American flag five feet from White Avenue. Adriane is a tall, thin redbone black man without any front teeth who could be sixty.
We all shook hands and I asked about the whereabouts of Crazy Mark.
Adriane said, “Man, I seen that dude lass month. He was livin’ in the vacant next door to ma sista. You loogin’ ta kill da dude or sometin’?”
“No man, just wanted to talk to him.”
“Shea—mos’ folks loogin’ ta kill his ass or arrest him if dey da po-leese .”
Aldo looked long ways down the street at the two thugs, snickered, laughed at the sky, looked at them again, and then said, “Back in the day, from about ninety-eight to two-thousand-for, we called him Porch. He used to ask old people if he could sleep on their porch in return for doing chores. Of course he would eventually rip them off, get arrested, do six months in jail, and then get out to repeat. This was before he started living in vacant. I haven’t seen him in years.’
Adriane cracked open another 24 ounce beer and said, “Sheea, he aroun’ built like Jimmy now, slimmed down some around the shoulders from the caveman days—he loogin’ good enough, jus thinner, but not skinny like my weak ass.”
I shook hands with Aldo and Adriane again and was invited to this Saturday’s front lawn cookout. The thugz down the way were still hanging back by the church looking at us. When I walked off they crossed the street and began following me on that side.
I pulled out the shank, walked as fast as I could up and across Walther as they followed. They did not follow across Walther Boulevard, as if an invisible force field or curse was holding them back, and I made my way back here by 10:03.
can you describe your shank? How do you keep it in your pants?
This was a short length [seven inches] of rusty steel pipe that had deteriorated on the crumped end into a kind of jagged point. I picked it up out of the gutter and dropped it back in the gutter. There has been road and water system work on the streets in my area for over a year now, and the place is a gold mine of cast off scraps.
It was kept in the front slant pocket of my cargo shorts, a two finger thick length protruding from the pocket for me to grab with my pinky and ring fingers.
Why not just carry a knife? Did you sharpen the shank?
Numerous cases in Maryland have shown a propensity for the liberal judiciary to cite carrying a knife into danger as a premeditated decision to use it. Also, I know three men who have spent the week or weekend in jail for having case cutters and pen knives on them. Yeah, the CC throws it out, but you have already lost a week's pay and had to fight thugs every day outnumbered 30-1.
Freddie Gray basically got killed because the pigs found a knife on him.
In my home I'm loaded with blades, my favorite being a Western brand bowie.
I did nothing to modify it as that shows intent. I am far more afraid of the system than the savages. I have KO'd tough men with rolled up circulars, penny savers and magazines, and they were wearing fencing masks in some cases. I just figured I'd bury some rusted metal into some homeboy's face, and then pull out an ink pen and shove that somewhere else.
thanks.