I’ve cleared my links folder from the weekend, have covered the Neanderthal News from the half dozen correspondents that emailed me this weekend. I’m wired on caffeine, 21 hours into my day and would like to shift gears, get out of commentary mode and prep my mind to finish Poet in the morning—speaking of which, I have to slow down and have but a single, lonely beer, that would probably prefer a friend or two.

Besides, I can’t write Poet without taking an asphalt walk.

It is a quiet evening in the wake of the rainy day—the 22nd out of 23-days that have rained—the sun already fallen behind the crack houses on Bayonne, furniture rotting in the dying sun on the lawns of the evicted.

I will not remain out after dark tonight. There has been too much gun-work here recently.

As I walk past the church where the yoga class and Narcotics Anonymous people congregate in far greater numbers than the Sunday congregation, I think of the two home buyers on my street that just gave up and let the bank take it, and Charlotte behind us who walked away from her house after her dog, Bingo—the white poodle who was afraid of white men—was taken for pit bull bait last year, Charlotte, the middle-aged black lady from rural Maryland who tried to make it in Baltimore and got chewed up and spit out, the black life that did not and does not matter to her liberal white masters.

At the corner of Bayonne and Harford, under the Mosca’s sub shop coke sign creaking in the wind, a carryout joint that closed in 1981 just before I came to town, and yet sits vacant, nervously sits an African man, eyes fixed intently on something down the street, a flavored cigarette between his lips and a handbag at his side.

The churchyard and back lot were deserted.

At the Ghetto Mart, I find 7 packs of Taylors pork roll [like Canadian bacon] for a dollar each and grab two 3-pound packs of burritos for a dollar each, a dollar bag of pretzels, and I’m in line behind a tremendously fat man in his mid thirties who has just checked out—and only has $76 on his independence card to cover his $105 bill. As he sweats a greasy river trying to salvage some sorrow-entombing carbohydrates, the cashier the next lane over takes my order and I’m out of there, headed to the liquor store that Inchon John gave up after last year’s Purge fried what was left of his nerves.

This joint has been taken over by the woman-hating, Hard-ass Hindu as I call him, a big, beefy man who refuses to acknowledge female customers or answer their questions, but will take their money. He has a high vantage behind the counter, rather than bunkered behind glass like John was, and his slight son in his mid 20s always paces the floor in front of the counter. The man has regarded me with decreasing levels of hate with every visit. He caters to the locals, an open jar of Magnum extra-large condoms for a dollar a piece, for those back alley dates, and has everything that Miller brews in the cooler along with the best selection of Steel Reserve fruit-flavored, mangina malt liquor I have seen.

I buy a National Bohemian 24 oz can and a Miller genuine Draft, and discover that he has expanded his margin on the mud beer and kept my grandfather’s beer as affordable as possible. I prefer National Boh, but I might watch Black Dynamite tonight and would like to have the proper beverage, so put down an extra buck for the MGD.

I have spent most of a month writing and training, staying off the street, just as most Hamilton residents now do. The Pizza Hut was hit on Friday by two gunmen. The 1-Eleven Grocery, run by a nice Hindu, has closed. The pawn shop is only open until five now. The phone store that got robbed last month is closed and has been replaced by a staffing agency, occupied by two large black girls in rolling chairs behind bare desks, behind a glass door with a sign hung announcing that they are not in.

A 25-year old Negro begins screaming [using variations of "Hey, You, stop!"] at me as I look around, checking the shops, to see who is in business. He must think I am actually new around here. As he closes in, screaming threats, I walk over to the Hamilton Tavern where a flaming queer is speaking with a pleasing hipstress as they smoke, both about 30-years-young. With a pretty face, no breasts to speak of, but a nice ass and thighs heroically jammed into her little sister’s jeans, she has her use. I walk slowly past, looking at her legs as the man behind me screams his commands for me to halt. I then stop and turn, so I can get a good look at her ass. She blushes and the faɡɡot tosses his cigarette in disgust and they both go inside. The Negro predator turns around and goes back whence he came, looking over his shoulder at me like I just turned into a walking sheet with pointy hood. Being an asshole is the best defense in the Manginasphere.

The Mixed-Race Sports Bar has doors open and is half full. I would like to go speak with Russ and Quinn but have writing to do.

The sun is down.

Two hoodrats rip by in a sports car.

Another street cretin, with a go-tee, blue shirt striped in white, and baggy jeans that are miraculously belted, walks towards me to ask me if I need ‘heron’ and the two hoodrats almost run him over and the tableau is broken.

The white people at the gas station, gassing up on their way home from their downtown jobs, are looking at the sunset glow fading behind the houses on Bayonne as if an army of vampires are about to streak into the sky.

The big fat white man in the open suit, foot up on the running board of his white SUV, looks at me with hate as if indicting me for being a stay-behind, white-trash pedestrian.

The black man in the polo shirt looks at the sidewalks for walkers and nods respectfully to me.

The tall blonde woman, nervously walking past the fat man to pay the Pakistanis for her gas, stops when she sees me staring at her. She has nice breasts, but they aren’t huge, so I only look for a three count. Once her breasts and I are done with our long distance relationship she walks on.

Mister Africa, with his bells, his canvas poncho, and his jobolo wood walking stick, strides across Bayonne and up the back way into the neighborhood, avoiding White Avenue. He changes his route up, waving with his still hand and grinning as he proceeds.

Daryl Shanks is twirling his umbrella as he passes my like I’m standing still with his long stride. He lives on my street and will be home by the time I turn the corner. I stop every twenty paces just to turn and gawk at this dying world, the usual overtime cop not in sight this night.

All of under-staffed Hamilton seems intent on getting home before nightfall.

As I pass the rib shack, two teenage wenches are walking toward me, the fat one with a six-month-old held in the crook of her arm, straddling her bicep with its stubby legs, facing her, as she screams in his face while crossing the street.

Once on White Avenue there are only a few souls to be seen, a man coming home from work, a would be rapper screaming about bitches and niggas from his 8-year-old voice box on the porch of his mother’s section 8 rental.

As I walk past the new house that the flipper actually sold to a hipster couple, an Asian man is emerging from a pizza delivery car looking like a skittish cat crossing the street and making sure to call me sir a few times as he moves with his head on a swivel, as have I.

This city is so different from 13 months ago that one can almost taste it. I would suspect myself of being superstitious if I did not have so much company. Every single person that I moved past that was not black acted like a hunted animal. The few non-criminal black men were extremely vigilant. The two thugs were fourth-string retards new to their work. The hoodrats driving the sports car looked 13 or 14.

If this was a medieval city as full of heretics as it is, and I were the Papal Legate standing beyond the breached wall with the Pope’s knights, I could easily imagine giving the order, “Kill them all. God will know His own.”