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The third photo down on the three Goggle Earth pictures that grace our Harm City Travel Guide is the remains of a Dindu wake. This photo was pulled from West Baltimore—if I recall correctly, south of Park Heights and West of Liberty Heights, not far from Wabash. The really chilling thing about it was the children walking by with their school backpacks on the next street up. This little area featured streets that were not all running at right angles. The scene of this killing took place on a narrow sidewalk next to the barred window on the long blind side of a building that may be a residence or a business but seems to be both. The street was narrow. The shirt proclaimed the glorious Hip Hop persona of the slain Dindu. The obligatory funerary balloons—which no city supermarket can afford to let run out of stock less they be considered racist—proclaim love for the fallen. I was once accused of being a racist store manager for not having funerary balloons and cards for sale. Most importantly—and, one might surmise, most pleasing to the ghost of the departed—were displayed the collection of malt liquor and liquor bottles, including some high-end vodka, which are not fully visible in the cropped version of the photo. By the way, "O say can you flee!" was Charles' flight of Wagnerian lyric. A Hoodrat Halloween: The Legend of Reggiemon Thom https://www.amazon.com/Hoodrat-Halloween-Legend-Reggiemon-Thom/dp/1518791018/ref=sr_1_55?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1475376391&sr=1-55&keywords=james+lafond |
'O Say Can You Flee!'
The Story Behind the Photo
© 2016 James LaFond
OCT/1/16
beasts of arуas
on combat
son of a lesser god
fiction anthology one
triumph
all-power-fighting
your trojan whorse
the combat space
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James:
Funerary balloons! Who knew?
I'm speechless.
One can only wonder, what next?
In future, I can see a chair of dindu anthropology, at some university. Or antisociality, perhaps.
What is next, Unka Bernie...
Is funerary twerking!