Ethnic situations with Latinos is not something that I encounter nearly as much as some of my readers on the Left Coast and in the Southpest. Hence I thought it fitting to tag this piece as a White Wednesday appendix. Currently my interactions with Hispanics are extremely convivial, as my son's favorite eateries which remain affordable to his low income parent, are all run by Spanish speaking immigrants who provide a level of customer service at discount diner prices that rivals that of the $200 a plate upscale Caucasian staffed steakhouse—to say nothing of the ebonically staffed fast food joints.

Some years back, perhaps ten, when I was still a skinny, grungy, long-haired, trench-coat wearing twerp with a razor who had made an art of intimidating gigantic black men, I found myself outside of my predatory skill set. I made it to the bus shelter at Light and Pratt, across from the Leg Mason Building in the biting cold. When I stepped under the shelter I noticed another occupant, a tiny Mexican woman who was ill-dressed in the cold, and looked fearfully at me. She pried herself out of the corner and stepped out into the cold so that she did not have to be under the shelter with me. I had forgotten, after decades in Baltimore City, that there were so many adults on the planet to whom I was a large person.

I felt terrible, stepped out from under the shelter, motioned to the seat with my left hand, and said, in my best Spanish, “Bwayn-oss Dee-ass” and smiled.

She smiled reluctantly with her already creased copper-colored cheeks, and took her seat as I stood out in the wind. I remember thinking she was pretty, and that she would look like she was fifty at forty, based on how her people worked in Baltimore: all shit jobs, out in the elements every time you went to work your shit job, etc.

Seven Mexican men then flowed around me like water around a pole, glaring at me threateningly. I backed against the outside shelter corner, brought my left hand out of my front flap pocket and rolled it so I could use it to stiff arm, check and sprawl, and flipped open the straight razor that I had palmed in my right pocket.

The tiny men, none of whom exceeded five feet and 120 pounds, formed a protective crescent around their ethnic property. I picked out the leader as he stepped into the center of the crescent with his hands in the side pockets of his denim jacket. We glared at each other and I snarled silently. I remember how I felt the cold on my gums when my nose crinkled and my lips curled.

I told a racist friend of mine about this lately and his response was, “Why were you even concerned with the mud woman? We should deport all of the alien scum!”

I disagree. The Mexicans provide easier targets for the dominant predators of Harm City, taking me off the ‘special of the day’ listing whenever they are around.

We just glared at each other until the #10 bus came. I would normally wait for the lady to board, but just shouldered past her and her escorts. While I was at the meter, putting in money, the leader stepped up next to me, as if he were working the security detail for an Aztec Princess, and looked fearfully at the bus load of large black men. He then smiled to me, nodded to them hopefully, and said…something that was submerged by my now audible snarl.

In those days, when I boarded a bus loaded with dangerous looking black dudes I always walked to the back and sat down with the worst ones. The Mexicans are generally afraid to get on the back deck, and like the bench seats facing the backdoor, or the bench seats up front. The front seats were loaded with black women. The rear side-facing bench seat was empty, as a big homeless slob had just vacated it. I moved back and stretched out, leaving just enough room for one Mexican. The little lady took that seat as her entourage milled tentatively around by the backdoor pole, glancing nervously up at the half-filled seating arrangement on the back deck, where every man there seemed to spread out a little more to challenge any attempted seat sharing.

My stop came before theirs, and I smiled at her as I shouldered her Lilliputian escorts out of the way, two heavy round heads bobbing from my canvas covered shoulders. I have rarely behaved so arrogantly. But I was trebly angry with the Mexican men for trying to intimidate me, suggesting by their actions that I was threatening a lone woman, and then seeking my protection against the blacks when we boarded the bus. At the time I had three Mexican friends; being the only man [white or black] I knew of in Baltimore that did not resent their presence. The assumption that I was some racist gringo angered me.

The enemy of my enemy is still my enemy.