On the first cold weekday night of this lame autumn, I boarded the #55 east to Middle River, from Hamilton/Parkville through Overlea, Fullerton, Rosedale and Essex.

Two police cruisers had just sped silently toward Overlea Station, a spare chunk of the West Baltimore Ghetto about a quarter mile square transplanted along the #15 bus line. Before the April Race Purge and Riots the #55 bus normally accommodated exactly half its capacity, 24 passengers. It now typically only carries nine at night. As I boarded the driver looked away from me, white passengers no longer being welcome on MTA buses at night, for the very logical reason, that the only whites still taking the bus at night in Baltimore, are usually insane or homeless or both, and in times of unrest the whites will be attacked, putting the black bus driver on the horns of a dilemma, to be a savage or to be a traitor.

It occurs to me that the nine of us are, quite literally, nothing, nothing but shadows rolling through a sleeping city. We are far more alone than we realize. There are no potential friends on the near horizon.

Last April, during the media circus around the riots, an emergency room surgeon I am acquainted with treated 14 lone white males that had been hunted, clubbed, bricked, batted and stomped on bus stops in Rosedale by packs of adult black men, mostly using vehicles to access prey. Police did not respond to these cases as the medical—law-enforcement interface is only triggered by rapes, stabbings, and shootings that end up in the ER. Lone white men such as myself are now extremely rare on the buses at night.

Overlea was a mess, with two ambulances, a handful of pork-mobiles, and three buses stuck at the #15 turn around. An MTA cop [a black woman] showed up, talked to the standard issue pigs and advised the bus driver on his detour, which would take him back 15 minutes two the #19 line. As I listened, a violent criminal who I have seen beat a man on a stop before, began grumbling under his breath. Another patron offloaded. It became apparent that the driver and the MTA cop, like most Black Baltimoreans, do not know their way around Baltimore, other than on the bus routes, and have no appreciation of the terrain or urban overlay.

As the driver pulled off, the surely man in the back began to insist, loudly, abrasively, with profanity, that the driver make a right into the neighborhood, that he knew the way through the side streets. One responsibility of a detouring driver is to cut the fewest number of stops out, so as to strand the minimum number of people, especially since this was the last bus of the night. Homeboy behind me could care less how many of his “bruthas” were left stranded in the cold and having to walk eight miles home. The bus driver apologized, saying he had to follow the officer’s directions.

The women were getting nervous about the thug in the back and the driver was not confident, so I walked up to him and said in a low tone, “The only secondary through-street north of Northern Parkway is Moyer. Take that, and make your right onto Taylor there. It will cut ten minutes off. This is a ridge line to our left that has a mile of fenced state facility on top of it. None of the side streets are through streets.”

In most cases, when a bus has to detour, a white male city resident that actually knows something about the urban geography will serve as a guide, as I did so here. I usually leave it to another white guy. But, I seem to be the last of a dwindling breed. The detour went smoothly and we picked up two stranded black men, one of whom ran a half mile uphill to catch the bus, and both of whom the thug behind me would have gladly left on foot.

The drive was uneventful.

When my stop came up, the driver thanked me and wished me a good night, and I ignored him, walking off through the park. With the thug I snubbed getting off behind me I needed to demonstrate that I am a callous and uncaring person, just as willing to treat the bus driver as a subhuman as he is, in order to avoid any venting confrontation or opportunistic crime directed at me.

When in urban areas, if you must ask directions, do not ask a black man under 60, and seek out a white fellow if possible. Not only do most urbanites not know their way around their own city, the best way to get yourself targeted in such an environment is to make it known that you are lost. Simply appearing to know where you are going derails up to a half of opportunistic attacks on your person.