Being a primate and having a deep racial memory concerned with being ambushed, at night, at the watering hole, and especially near bushes, carries its burden of vigilance.

Is not bush the root word for ambush and ambuscade?

I hope so, for my muse’s sake.

In any case, as the anniversary of last year’s purge draws nigh and the full moon climbed high in the sky, cabbies were scarce, the bus was nearly empty, and the young, polite driver was speeding through the route, sweat beading on his bald forehead as he hunched over the wheel, not stopping unless a passenger stepped out in the street, leaving some brother behind above Overlea Station—which can be viewed via the dad for the defunct bar next to the actual Overlea bus Station, via the link below.

I offload at Stemmers Run and Old Eastern Avenue, which can be viewed via the following link: [Read the reviews of the thrift store situated at the mass transit hub, which has not seen a cop from the precinct 1/4 mile up the road for an entire year.]

I stepped off with a Caucasian-Asian metro-sexual who walked over to the #23 stop and a 20-year-old fast food worker, a short chocolate woman in tan pants, who crossed the street to the stop I walk past to head to work. It seemed like there was someone there beside her so I walked wide, checking on the two figures waiting nervously for their sedans or cabs behind me, a big fat white boy and a big, black retail clerk woman of perhaps 25.

As I made my way behind the stop into the darkened lot, I heard something rustle behind me and thought that I might have to draw my knife, that the end of the safari had come.

I looked right into the eyes of the fast food girl, whose face shined ebony in the silvery moonglow and ankles seemed bound in—no, not Tarl Cabot’s slave-girl bindings, but her tan pants, as her butt wiggled back under the bushes while she relieved herself, looking me in the eyes with all of the cerebral alacrity of a frog soaking up moonrays.

Off I walked, before the breeze shifted in my direction.

An hour later, at work, I said hello to Grant, a cab driver who used to play for the NBA in the 1970s, and who had another hard night driving criminals and other idiots around town. He had this to say about post purge Baltimore, “Brother, they might be –so-called—my kind, but kind they are not and I’m not having them. I hate this town now. As soon as my son gets drafted, I’ll move to whatever city he plays for. If the NBA passes on him and he goes to Europe, so be it. If get out of this town I’m not coming back.”