The hearing is pretty much gone, replaced with a throbbing drumbeat.

I watch the shadows at my feat as I walk down the middle of the street. The oblong moon is transiting from the eastern to southern sky, lighting the way so well that the street lights seem rude.

With my only true desire being the hitting of a backstreet homerun with that hickory T-cane, I know that it cannot be so. They never come for you when you want to go.

Arriving in pre-injury time at 10:14, angry over the fact that the sleep I'll need to fight off the thing growing in my head will bring back the gimp hip, I arrive at the bus stop. A small dark figure, hooded, menacing, packing a knife and blaring rap music from his neck-slung ear phones is there. This misbegotten bastard looks up at me, two teardrops tattooed under his left eye, silently claiming he has killed two people.

We glare savagely at each other and he retreats down to the bus stop sign, about 20 yards away.

Interesting. The bus driver resents stopping here, wants everyone packed up at the main stop a half mile down the way at Northern and Harford—but that's too dangerous.

A bigger, larger, full-prime buck walks down from Northern and Harford, alternately sprinting and looking over his shoulder, for some reason afraid of the main stop—as well he should be.

Damn, the sissy, same-race prey of my dark enemy have found my lonely spot.

The buck, sporting a designer Lincolnion beard, stops at the sign, looks at me standing at the end of the pad [Buses pull over on a concrete pad 20 yards long, otherwise they bank up the soft asphalt into hazardous ridgelines in warm weather. The bus will begin banking at the sign and pull up at the end of the pad where I stand—if the driver can be made to stop at this lonely spot.]

I cackle under my breath as my brain burns. These faɡɡots are fleeing their fellows, washing up on my pale little shore. I should be nice and suggest they stand with me so that the bus will pull over, for he will not stop for a person who neglects to position themselves on the curb at the end of the bus strip, nor will he stop for a paleface unless he is made to. But all I want out of life right now is for Teardrop to try an earn another tattoo at my expense—but he's not up to it.

Are they afraid of me or are they practicing herd segregation?

Are they really the subhuman animals of legend, able to sense, like a dog, when the whiteman loses his mind?

I'll find out on the other end of the line.

Two years ago next week, the black thugs of Baltimore defeated the uniformed blue thugs of Baltimore. And ever since the streets of city and county have become an open hunting zone from noon until dawn, the police officials simply telling everyone to stay inside. Two years into the hunt most young black men have disappeared from the nighttime bus stops, a clear sign that the easy white prey has been largely swept from the asphalt savannah and the rampant aggression of the thugs has turned in on their own with evermore virulence.

Well, even on the darkest of days, there is a bright spot.

The bus comes on, it soon apparent to us all that he will not pull over. The hoodrats begin yelping and screeching in dismay, to no avail.

This driver nearly trained, I no longer need to step in front of the bus and put out the white hand of power. At this point in his yielding the HAND is enough, and he stops on a dime, tossing his few mixed race passengers about, and eliciting grumbles of white favoritism and race betrayal from Little Teardrop and Black Abe.

As I board and put my money in, the two slick black ϲunts grumble behind me. When I take my seat they slink by avoiding eye-contact.

Bus dynamics have utterly changed by year two of the Hoodrat Apocalypse. The 20-25 young black men that occupied this bus for four years along this route have been reduced to one to five, on this night three, including my two reluctant dependents.

Ah, for the good old days, when I bussed it with people worthy of hate, people that should be feared. Gangs of upscale thugs out for sport no longer bus it, but take their parent's cars and spread terror that way.

But the question remains, was it race-based fear or herd selection that kept them at such a distance?

Yes, the olive-drab coat I wear is over 30 years old and hanging in shreds, but I don't even look healthy.

I can see the world clearly from within the pounding head, but fail to care and nod off to sleep.