Yesterday I stopped by the local grocer to pick up some coconut water. As I left the store the people out in parcel pickup were standing and staring across the street. I should say that the men were staring. The female customers were busily loading their groceries.

Across the street was the snowball stand, which faces out of a second story window onto a deck which is accessed by walking up a staircase. There is also a picnic table on the broad sidewalk at ground level where the hair salon is—one of two on this single block of the secondary street that is Hamilton Avenue. There were perhaps 15 people being served or waiting their turn.

In the midst of this group, before the window on the deck, was a tiny three or four-year-old girl in tears. Towering over her, and bending over from the waist in her tight-fitting law enforcement uniform [I did not see an equipment belt, which made me think she was a Corrections Officer. But the patch, on a second take, looked to be a BPD patch. My eyes might have failed me here, so I am holding out the hope that she is a Maryland Corrections Officer and not a Baltimore City Police Officer.] was a giant of a woman, whose hips stood a head or more taller than the child and must have weighed 300 pounds. The off duty officer was screaming shrilly into the face of the crying child. The only command that could be made out was “shut-up!”

Jerold, the DVD vender, said, “What did she do for mamma to go off?”

Bill, the parcel pickup guy, answered, “Asked for marshmallow on her snowball, I think.”

The woman then screamed at the crying child, “Shut-up or I’ll whoop ya wit ma belt! Ya wan’ da belt!”

The child then wailed inconsolably which caused the mother to yank her by the arm off her feet [You know, if Batista or Brock Lesner did this to me, I’m sure it would dislocate my shoulder.], sat her back down behind her so that she was not screaming into the street but into the people ahead of her in line, and thundered some blubberous command that must have once been uttered by Cthulha himself from his eons-old abode.

Still the child cried, her little hand held tremblingly to her quivering mouth as tears rolled down over her chubby brown cheeks. The mother made one last thunderous demand for the crying to stop.

The crying did not stop.

The mother, still bent over on her mahogany piano legs, slapped the child’s face—which was not as large as her hand—so hard that the report echoed off of the grocery store, and could be heard 150 yards up the street where a white lady pushing a baby carriage across at the light turned and gazed at the source of the sound.

The child’s tears knocked from her face, and her little lungs momentarily paralyzed and unable to draw breath for another wail, she simply stemmed beneath her giant mammy, seemingly in shock.

Jerold, turned away as Bill morbidly stared and I walked off. As I walked toward the church lot Jerold’s chant went up rhythmically:

“Got yo DVDs hea,

Three fo twelve,

Nice en clea.

Da Rock, Poltagiest en Max da Hero Dog

Manufacturer quality clea,

Y’all,

Get ‘em right hea!”

And so we go about our way as tiny souls melt.