This past Tuesday, on a nice, balmy, winter afternoon, I was driving to dinner with a lady friend when we saw that three pig wagons had a car pulled over. We ended up stopped at the light at Northern and Harford and I rolled down my window to listen, ten feet from the bust site.
I was immediately reminded of Robert E. Howard’s story Worms of the Earth, in which a Pictish barbarian is crucified by local Roman officials, bringing down the wrath of the Pictish King, Bran Mak Morn.
Well, Nero the Pict, up there on the other side of Yo Adrian’s Invisible Wall, they got one of your Pennsylvania boys, who committed the crime of driving into a mixed-race Baltimore neighborhood with PA license plates. I know one PA construction worker who spent 40 days in the Baltimore City jail over a simple traffic violation.
The 30-year-old bearded, paleface was handcuffed on the curb as drug deals occurred across the street between blacks in front of the nail solon, where a friend of mine once told me the smell of pot bricks stored there for distribution was so strong it burned his eyes!
Hoodrats are prowling around in twos, carrying skateboards, not riding them.
Two traditional drug set lookouts on bicycles are circling the scene.
Maybe this was their “connect,” a medium-sized fish, the mule for The Man.
The only paleface civilian on the street is cuffed, his wallet and I.D. open and scattered on the curb as he talks to the skinny drug task force cop who has a 50K pickup truck that looks like it belongs on an NFL commercial.
The other, stocky, white drug task force cop is standing over the Pict [he is pale and tattooed and from up north] and speaks with the regular black patrol cop about the latest piece of tactical equipment. This task force cop has a black escalade. [These are vehicles confiscated after drug arrests.]
The lead pig is asking pointed and leading questions over and over again to the guy on the curb, who is explaining over and over again that he drove to Baltimore to visit a friend. His car is a low-end five-year-old sedan.
The pig wasn’t having it.
My lady friend is angry over the fact that thugs—who openly hunt us on the street, who stop heading toward her when they hear the locks on her car door click, who all of a sudden turn away from me when I stop and look at them—are consistently ignored by cops while white guys are arrested three times more often in this neighborhood.
I tried to explain to her that any arrest, leading to a conviction or not, that is written up as a drug bust, even if this guy just has a joint or pain pill on him and is released the next day, goes towards the next federal drug war grant, so is a priority. There are no federal grants for protecting citizens from criminals spawned by this very same drug war.
The spiral must continue.
One note for people on prescription medication:
If you take one or two dosses of medicine to work in your pocket or purse, and get pulled over for any minor reason, you may very well be arrested for having undocumented drugs on you. I have seen it happen many times. Unfortunately, this means you have to carry your prescription bottle with your address and name on it, which means if you get mugged they now know where you live and have information to assist in identity theft. Also, if your coworkers know you are on medication they can steal your entire prescription, which has become very common in supermarkets.
Lord James,
You have found my missing servant!!! I sent him on a mission to collect a prosciutto and mozzarella sandwich from Mastelleone's and a buxom Persian wench from The House of Kabob...
I pray that he is not still rotting in Central Booking. Pict's are not in common currency there. Guess I will have to summon ye old "Big Boyz" yet again to post ransom. You should have seen what your blue devils did to the last guy that I sent for jerk chicken, ox-tail and a side of nubile Nubian Princess in Park Heights...
On a serious note: Since moving north of Yo' Hadrians Wall there is not a snowballs chance in hell that I (a paleface dirt bag with an old beat up pickup) would venture forth into many places in Baltimore rocking the reverse curse of Ham and outta state tags. Surprised that the piggies have expanded their po' white dragnet outta the true hood' into the Hamilton area.
Cops were bad enough living on West Baltimore street circa 98'...Hell, I had MD tags back then. However, I couldn't shake the "reverse curse".
I noticed Oh King, by the insolent look in his eyes, that he must have been one of your uncultivated knaves. Additionally, he possessed the humor for which your house is noted, even joking with his captor about the quality of his vehicle.
If you might regal me one day, so that I may pass on your lore to our far flung paleface readers, how about a brief history of the honors heaped upon your person by the praetorians of Harm City?
Dude, the wenches of the Persians that eat at the house of kabob are stunning. I do believe that four of the five best looking women in Baltimore dine there regularly, with the fifth being the niece of the owner of a Middle River eatery from Latina America who looks like a six foot tall Selma Hyack.