I ran into Naymond just over a month ago, at the bus stop, a major transfer point. He was checking his watch. This fact alone indicated his age at 40-plus. Naymond is in fact 54 years of sorrow old. He is a tall man at six four and 240 pounds. He was dressed in blue jeans, biker boots and a T-shirt with attractive biker mammas silkscreened in tasteless poses. We were natural friends, as he was not drunk, or stoned, or smoking, yet still a womanizer: my universal cave-bro.

Thinking that he was worried about the bus schedule, there being none posted at this stop, I gave him the ETA, edited it for the after school traffic, updated it for the weather, and gave him a good idea of when he would be getting to work. Naymond was all-of-a-sudden relieved, and confided in me that being out of a car was "a bitch," but that being away from "the bitch" that he had let keep the car was worth the temporary tour as a mechanized infantryman along the Harm City DMZ, “Thanks brother. No offense but you look real, look like you can handle yourself, a white man that does not "fear the spear." [I never considered not quoting that line.] The last time I approached one of you stay-behind white dudes for info at the stop it turned into 'Fuck you.', ‘No, fuck you!, ‘No, fuck you sideways bro’, ‘No, I ain’t yer bro—so fuck you all the way to hell!’

Naymond shakes his head, “So there I am, a mile from here, fifty-fucking-three-and-a-half into the ground, facing off against old drunk Bruce the Douche, who’s so fuckin’ drunk he doesn’t remember we’re friends.”

Naymond rolls his eyes and looks around at the gathered bus patrons, pats his clip knife in the front pants pocket, “And we fuckin’ draw—these ghetto kids are bouncing out of the way like someone put crack in their potato chips. I’m thinkin’ to myself, ‘Fuck me. I’m in a knife fight in broad daylight—who the hell wins here?’”

Naymond then draws just his hand, making a knife out of it, and does a pretty nice saber shift in his biker boots with a rising diagonal forehand slash with his fingers, “It was crazy—no way was I standing or going for a stab. You carry this thing, work with it; trim your nails with it—then all of a sudden you need to know how far away this fuck is while he’s doing the real drunken monkey dance! Jesus Christ I was scared! Bruce is looping and reaching, bouncing off the goddamn mailbox and tries to fuckin’ stick it in me, and I’m like ‘Whoa, shit bro’ scraping by against the wall and cutting while this oreo cookie broad in a dress goes squealing to her knees cringing behind her purse.”

Naymond stops, his feet flexing in his boots like he is preparing to fence on a strip, and he looks at the fencing mask I’m carrying, “Yeah, imagine doing that shit here, in a crowd. I gladly left some shirt and skin on the brick and backed down the street just to keep any women or urchins from getting cut—now it’s the fuckin’ Pink Panther and I’m Peter Sellers commin’ home from work and Bruce is the fuckin’ Chinese cook. We’re still lurchin’ and slashin’, a miracle no one got cut. But shit, when that blade comes cuttin’ you don’t feel half-dead any more. Eventually, a half-block away from the stop, I skip back between two cars and his leg buckles on the curb—and down the road to the fuckin’ bar I went, brother! Fuck workin’ after that! I want to shit myself thinking about that two minutes of stupidity. Not a fuckin’ pig in sight—thank God for that.”

Naymond and I were grabbing different buses. He boarded his, and then I pulled out my pay stub envelope and started notating. By the time my bus showed up, I had a real knife fight in hand.

Thanks, Naymond.

James, 7/19/13

Moral Minority Survival at the End of Caucasian Time Paperback