“If I could speak with Jesus I would have to ask him one thing: when those Romans were nailing you up, did you really look to heaven and say, ‘Father, forgive them for they know not what they do?’ Or did you look at the one driving the spike and say, ‘Dad, get that one!’”

-Malcolm Est.

“Five-o-three p.m., in the Month of Hell, in The Hairy Armpit of the East Coast, on the seventh day, of the eight month, of the sixth year, before my Exodus—Pharaoh let my hammer-toes go!”

And so Barney Mancuso, homicide detective of the Baltimore City Police Department, serenaded himself and the invisible guardians of his particular purgatory, as he stepped out onto the pristine sidewalk, not yet pasted to brown goo by hoodrat spit and ho-girl bubblegum, but still possessed of the clean chalklike quality of finished concrete. He straightened his back up and listened to the steel rod that bolted his lumbar vertebrae together pop back in place as he downed the other half of that soda bottle full of Margarita.

"Six years, eight months, and seven days before retirement. Then I might abide out here in The People’s Republic of Baltimore County.”

He stood a little straighter now, fantasies of actually making it to retirement having washed some of the cares away from his care-worn mind, and began to toss the empty bottle in the gutter. He caught himself as an older Korean woman walked by snarling her disgust at his ‘littering in progress.’

Barney saluted the passing woman and limped over to the trash bin, which had not only been inexplicably placed along with its fellows at regular intervals, but had also been emptied, rather than residing beneath a heap of garbage, lonely and forsaken in the ghetto, as it surely would if born to the City rather than the County.

He was halfway between the courthouse and the Central Library, if one measured ‘halfway’ as being at the point of an imaginary L that connected the two locations on the mental map of Towson Maryland that were of note to him. He began strolling toward the library, where Mary worked, when he saw the silent flash of a responding police cruiser to his right, one block northwest. He instinctively began to walk toward the cruiser light in the sweltering afternoon sun.

His fat ass began to waddle a little faster so the pain would drive the contemplation of his emotional cowardice from his merely buzzed mind.

The cruiser was no longer visible around the corner, on the street parallel with York Road, where the Old Battle Axe slaved away for her book-pushing masters in that weird-ass 1960s travesty of science-fiction architecture that was now thankfully blocked from sight by some less offensive concrete edifice.

A smile creased his face when he turned the corner and saw Jeff, in his SWAT duds, ineffectively questioning some wannabe gangbanger who was cuffed on the curb. Up the way EMTs were putting his accomplice back together before shipment to Saint Joseph’s. A uniform was standing back eying the crying boy—who had apparently pissed his expensive colored underwear and beltless blue jeans—with humor laced with a dash of manly disgust.

Barney cleared his throat and nodded to the uniform, “Officer”, then flashed his I.D. at all three of them, as he addressed his former coworker, from the days, decades gone now, when they were hustling pizzas for that goddamned Greek in Highlandtown, while they both prepared for a run at their perspective law enforcement careers. Jeff, built like Mister Goddamn Roid-banging America, nodded with an unforgiving twitch of the mouth at his gut.

That was it. It was on. Barney could not hold back! “Good afternoon Officer Douchebag. The ‘Real Police,’ from the ‘Real Baltimore,’ are here in an advisory capacity. I didn’t know that Baltimore County Special Weapons and Tactics were required to take down purse snatchers—or was it littering?”

Jeff smiled and barked as the uniform shuffled uneasily, “Fuck you, you fat piece-of-macaroni-and-cheese-eating-shit!”

The middle-class wannabe hoodrat was now shitting himself, as he found himself sitting beneath a real, heartless, City Police. Jeff hugged him across the shoulders and then patted his gut. He then wrapped his arm around Barney’s aching neck and pulled him toward the uniform, speaking with a conspiratorial tone, “Barne, before that next Philly cheese-steak dies a horrible death, how about a little help here?”

Barney shrugged affirmatively, and Jeff grinned at the uniform as he whispered, “It sounds like a vigilante case, black-on-black non-crime, and home boy is not talking—scared to death.”

Barney’s jaw dropped, “No shit, you mean the African American Justice System somehow survived the eighties and is alive and well out here, in Whitebreadistan?”

Jeff nudged him. “I shit you not brother.”

Barney knew exactly what to do and went right to it, taking out his cuffs and making like he was going to effect an illegal change of prisoners as he approached the shivering boy. He kneeled down painfully before the suspect/victim and began, “Okay Piss Stain, if you are straight with me and give old Officer Douchebag here, in his Homeland Security outfit, the information his dumb, unable-to-solve-a-crime-ass needs, I will not tell the homeboys down at Central Booking that you pissed yourself when you got arrested.”

The boy was not as stupid as most of the hoodrats that Barney dealt with, but was more afraid by an order of magnitude. He did attempt to put up a front though. “Central what? Shoot, I’m goin’ ta County Lockup—ain’ no City Nigga!”

Barney patted him on the shoulder, dangled his cuffs, and reached for the uniform’s key which was being handed to Jeff.

“Listen, son, I have a quintuple homicide—that’s five dead dudes—down in the City that I’m calling in a favor for with old Jeff here. There was a witness, fits your description, down to the piss stains. But, if you don’t know shit, you don’t know shit.”

He then stood, painfully leveling his hips, and took the key from Jeff. “Thanks man. Don’t worry. By the time the BGF whores him out to the male corrections staff and Abe beats his ass in—”

The boy was now running his mouth like an auctioneer trying to sell his way out of hell, “Freakin' ‘Captain Black America’. Frightenin’ as shit yo! Blacula en whatnot!”

The uniform was taking notes already, as the boy continued frantically, “Fuckin’ snapped Deavion’s legs, yo! While his big black scary ass was still haulin.’ I tried to roll out. I can run, here me? Den I heard 'is hard high-steppin—the Devil comin’ for my soul, yo. I look aroun', en his eyes—his eyes, yo—white diamonds with black points! Yo, offica, I lucky I did not shit on myself too. He put the voodoo shit in my soul and dropped me with them evil eyes I’m tellin’ you. I am not making this shit up!” the boy pleaded, as he looked up at their incredulous faces.

Barney handed the key back to Jeff and clipped his own cuffs in their case as a chill, a familiar chill that he had sometimes felt before at such serendipitous moments, crawled ever so slowly down his spine to his fat lopsided ass. He then pulled out his pen and began to write on the back of his hand. This always freaked out the perps and made them more compliant. He then kneeled on his left knee and softened his voice, “I believe you, man. No shit. So you are telling me that we actually have some Black Superman running around squashing little hoodlums like you?”

“You got it, Big City. Dude even has a name—talkin’ about eatin souls en shit. Yo, that is wrong. You done, you done. Ain’t sposed ta be no commin’ affer yo ass in da whereva afta en eatin’ yo soul!”

Barney was now in coddling mode. “Okay, Son, I absolutely believe you. I can tell you now, that we’re cool, and you can stay with Officer Douchebag here and stay in his Mary Poppin’s excuse for a jail. But seriously, I believe you are going to help me bring a real bad, ‘Big City’ Killer—killer of boys like you—to justice. I just need a description now, and then officer Douchebag and the Douchebag PD will get some sissy to draw a picture of this guy later. If you cooperate, you are good to go. Your maimed and confused homeboy in the ambo can take the fall for the smash and grab.”

The kid was all in a hurry to unburden himself and yammered as fast as Barney could mark the back of his hand and wrist with inked shorthand, “A tight end, like one of them muscular whiteboys like dat Greg somebody dat dat faɡɡot Brady throw to up in New England, but black like he straight up out of Africa. He didn’t have no Nigerian voice though. He was like old school preacher type of talk. Wore black boots—army boots, strapped high, en ran in a black jogging suit with one of them French hats that kine a slant. His hands was huge, bigess hands I eva seen on any size man. It was his eyes though, en his voice, a voice like, like, deep; deep en hard—I will not testify against his ass in open court—you have ta dispose me. I’m tellin’ ya, he got some voodoo shit with him.”

Barney got is voice to that ultra smooth level, as if a fifth of vodka was in his rearview, “You said he had a name—actually named himself?”

“Yesn sir. He called himself Arbese Comma. If ya aks me, it should be ‘Arbese Explanation-mark!’”

Barney patted him on the shoulder and stepped off with Jeff as the uniform pocketed his notepad and began to process the punk. Jeff was incredulous as he spoke low, “That kid was absolutely telling the truth—and scared shitless. Black Superman in Towson? WTF!”

Barney grinned and put away his pen, just then noting the second sweat of the day running down over his gut under his stale button shirt and tie. He then patted Jeff on the shoulder and quipped, “And ‘Big City’ is on his trail!”

Jeff smiled and stepped back. “More like ‘Big Shitty’. You look like hell, Bro. You should come to the gym.”

Barney just tipped his non-existent hat, smiled, and walked off, speaking into the hot August sky, “I’ll be in touch Jeff.”