At the deserted intersection a most unusual sight met my eyes as I stepped down off the bus, a police cruiser with its lights on, two other cruisers lurking nearby, as if the cars were lions staking out a watering hole for prey.

Sure that my back was covered by the vigilant Baltimore County Cops, I peered ahead avidly into the darkness, paying more attention to my distant flanks than normal, certain that no violence was coming from my rear, unless the pigs came for me and that is not something I can defend against in any case.

As I came out on Old Eastern Avenue, across the street, approaching on the parallel sidewalk on the south side of the street is a 40 year old light heavyweight, a paleface with shaven head, smoking a cigarette, who walks with a red-headed giantess with blotched skin, both dressed in jeans and sweatshirts, considering me, talking about me and then looking down nervously at the cop cars. They decide to back up a few feet to the side street corner and sit and wait for whatever or whoever concerned them more than my presence. I could tell by his start across the street at me that he thought I was someone he should get closer to, why, I know not. But something she said stopped him. I did not read his body language as threatening.

As I hit my stride and the park opened up to my right there was a 25-year-old white woman with brown hair, smoking a cigarette and scrolling nervously on her smart phone. She was hiding behind the wrought iron park fence by a gap made by an errant car, I think. Behind her was a dark skinned black man of thirty, laying forward, straddled lazily across his BMX bike, asking something in a dejected tone, to which she said, scornfully, “Hold your horses! I’m doing the best I can, motherfucker!”

I walked on with both of these pairs left in my wake on either side of the street. Five minutes and almost a half mile later, I cop car blew by me from their direction, then two others. I looked over my shoulder and the mudshark and drone were now following me [not me, but their purpose, I’m sure] so I picked up the pace and got to work a little earlier.

There was no apparent communication or relationship between the two pairs, who did not even look at one another, although I suspect that fact to indicate that they had been interested in the same event or party, the cops giving

I suppose someone’s drug buy was interrupted, but who knows.