This past Friday afternoon, at 4:10 p.m., I was walking away from the liquor store in Baynesville, after coaching Mister Ben for an hour at the school. He gave me an extra twenty, so I bought some high-end microwbrew from Pottstown PA, and was looking forward to enjoying a few with a friend, before taking my pre-work nap.
I passed the row of brick-faced duplex rentals, a tiny transplanted ghetto setting where an unemployed adult black man between 30 and 60 sits on each porch and never give me any cause for concern. These are guys produced by the worst ghettos in Baltimore, City, who somehow survived and are hoping to quietly end their days out here in the County. A large man of about my age, but much more worn and droopy-eyed, held up a big hand and said, in a slurred, but kindly voice, “Have a blessed day, Sir.”
The street I am walking along leads back to the gas station, liquor store and bus stop, and joins Loch Raven Blvd. at the Whiz carwash, across the street from the Raven Inn, where I met Uncle Bernie for a burger yesterday. This side street is the tap that empties the pedestrian elements of the neighborhood onto the main drag. The fact that this liquor store is doing well a quarter mile from the biggest and best liquor store in Maryland, is proof positive that very many of these row houses have been rented by pedestrians and mass transit users. Their single serve selection is twice normal for a County outlet. The numerous for sale signs by white owners are the rest of the proof. I advised my son against buying this far out, and he purchased a place in an area that has been bypassed by this a mile down the road.
Approaching me on the sidewalk are three 17-year-old, innocent, unarmed, black youths, all standing over six feet, and all fit. One is walking behind and two are walking in front. I move to the right side of the sidewalk and continue, not wanting to waste the $12 six pack of cans on one of those unworthy skulls, as it is intended to degrade the contents of my own skull.
Instead of going single file as I switch the beer bag to the right hand, they spread out, shoulder to shoulder, with the most muscular boy, that was in back, walking in the grass to my right, meaning I’ve got to climb the bank to the left or go out into the street to the right, or go through.
I’m going through. My shoulder height is perfect for a butt into a solar plexus of these tall, slim hoodrats, who are well-dressed, gaudily-shoed, and smart-phoned up to $400, wearing gold chains, and speaking standard English?
These are wannabe gees, middleclass suburban kids who have imbibed the media worship of ghetto blacks and want that status for themselves. The real ghetto guys are sitting up on the porches shaking their heads, looking at a local reenactment of the type of behavior they have recently fled—waiting for them to show up, and then drive off the white people they hoped to live with, because white people do not attack you!
I only know this because the Jesus-guy on the porch groans at the aggressive pack formation in response to my courtesy.
My eyes are on the chests, open wide behind my sunglasses to detect elbow movement. If an elbow moves my left shoulder goes into the center solar plexus and I break through and flail with the six-pack of cans in the plastic sack. If this fails, I have a knife.
Just as my right shoulder is about to hit the muscle guy in the wind, he loses his cool and skips like a faɡɡot between me and the middle guy, even giving a girly "woo-woo" sound—from Shaft to Peter Pan in one second.
Dude, on behalf of masculine kind, that was embarrassing. I’d respect you more if you had tried to punch me.
In Habitat Hoodrat it’s raining sissies again.
Perhaps I’ll befriend one of these ex-criminals on the rental porches and exchange a cold one for a story one Friday afternoon, and talk about the bad old days, back when a homeboy had the balls to go through with a bad idea.
This is James “Still the White Devil” LaFond, reporting on the Harm City infestation.
It is spreading but weak. A few tough white cells might be all you need in the absence of a federally approved vaϲϲine.
Hamilton, Northeast Baltimore, 3/21/16
