This encounter involved two friends of mine, a homeless man who I took the bus with and a fellow boxing coach. It constitutes a form of vigilante aggression that is as old as humanity, and which, when removed from the social equation because of intrusive hierarchal aggression or the proliferation of firearms in the hands of criminals among a disarmed population, leads to rampant violence against lone people, who, though defenseless, in traditional and feral societies, have, throughout most of history, been able to rely on the real or potential actions of male associates in the form of vengeance or retribution, to discourage attacks on their person. Today, the only people who benefit from this type of security are the women and children of men who are known violent psychopaths or established criminal leaders.

#48-06: night, seconds, first-person

“I was waiting for the bus on Eastern Avenue and this little street person [Spark] with his shopping cart; kind of wiry, red bandana, short-haired old person with a tan, was making comments about my body, wanting to touch me! I was very disgusted. Well, since he didn’t get the response he appeared to want he bumped me with his bag-person cart, and knocked me out into traffic in front of the bus! I was almost killed! I walked up the street.”

“Later on I told Raphael. The man has given me no more trouble and hasn’t tried to kill me with his bag-person cart.”

A week later my man Spark—who, on various occasions offered me a swig from his warm forty at the bus stop—was found jammed head first into his cart, with various head and face injuries. Witnessed told me that a Latino man was seen punching and kicking Spark minutes before the police arrived to remove Spark from his trusty conveyance.