Hero Jones and Cando Jackson had, from the dark shadows of the alley, waited and watched while this whiteman fussed with his deck furniture and otherwise confirmed his white privilege at the expense of untold generations of Jones Negroes. After the polar bear man was satisfied that all was in order for another day of the eternal Caucasian vacation, and went inside at 2:08 in the dark-ass morning, they followed, intent on breaking in, two strong-ass negroes on one weak-ass cracker. Then Hero Jones spied the camera, put his face right into, so as to form a portrait of mindless menace in the whiteman’s fragile memory, then covered the camera with his right hand as he tried the window.

Now, on the cusp of entry, on the verge of serving the sacred sacrament of agencyless black power, an ass-biting blast from the slave-ass past congealed the heroic blood in the righteous veins as two dogs raged across the ground floor of this nice-ass house, crashed against the interior of the window and bayed like the very hounds of hell. This brought up the race memory of Hero Jones and he turned and leaped like Uncle Tom Owens running from that Nazi Mustache Poleese trying to throw his black ass into the gas chambers of Anatarcticawitz. And when it came to hauling ass, Cando Jackson’s short, strong ass was not far behind.

At the end of the alley, Jamal the Hut, whose ass would never run nowhere, but was the best underage driver in the hood, swung into position with that chump-ass, job-slaving nigga’s car they jacked from his parking pad two hours ago, spun that bitch around, and the two thwarted heroes slid in as he peeled off.

And don’t you know, those houselights would pop on as they rode by, sure sign of white privilege infesting this area, because these whitemenz were so well of they could stay up looking for niggas into the small hours of the morning. Every one of these winding-ass side streets they went down, some cracker was clicking on his porch light—one cооn-ass house slave-nigga even had a flood light!

“This shid is all wrong you,” squeeled Jamal the Hut. “I told yo dumbass niggas that this Baltimore County joint was a setup—deze crackers even got niggas lookin’ out, like they lettin’ these bitchez move in as slaves en shit!”

“Oh snap,” yelled Cando, “Five ‘O yo!”

And there it was, a cop cruiser. So Jamal turned up the alley, banked around and damn if there was not another cop car coming head on. So they bailed, Cando scaling the hillside yard, Hero leaping the fence, like that runaway slave in Mandingo that ended up hanging in the chair after his ass were betrayed. He turned to see Jamal struggling to get his fat ass out from between the fence and the car door, momentarily considered doing some stupid white movie shit like rescuing his driver, and then the sound of the ghetto hawk, that Bro-hunting helicopter, swooped in overhead and he was off, a child of runaway instinct, his folk having run from the whiteman for so long that it just happened…

Back in Sandtown, home again in Freddie Gray Country, away from all that white privilege bullshit, Hero Jones was feeling like a whole box of Honeynut Cheerios, his lean, hard-running ass was that hungray!

In the back door he come, stepping over Uncle Joe’s piss-smelling self, sleeping on the doormat, to the cabinet for the Os, into the fridge for his baby sisters baby milk, which did taste sweeter to a hard running somebody than that grownup baby milk, especially when poured over this golden fruit in the golden box.

As Hero Jones munched away on this sweet on sweet treat, he heard the ominous creek of the floor boards behind him and turned with his back to the fridge to see Mamma, all 400 pounds of her angry self, standing with fists on hips in the kitchen doorway, glaring at him.

Remembering a promise, Hero swallowed hard, some baby milk dripping from his lip and Mamma went about it like she always do, “Nigga, where’s my muvafucin weed? Where’s my Little Debbie Swiss cake rolls, nigga?! On top of that, you drinkin’ you sista’s Enfamil!”

Hero put down the bowl and the spoon, put out his hands in a consoling manner, took a step forward and said, “Mamma, dey was popo on our ass—fuckin devil dogs, cracker planes in the sky—we…”

It didn’t hurt—in the brain that is—as much as it used to when he were a little chyle, but it really bothered him that every time she punched him in the chin while he was just explaining himself, he would go down, the legs would just fold.

Hero Jones was way passed the crying times, so just curled and covered while she kicked and stomped, never recalling if he had passed out or she had gassed out first.

At dawn, as Uncle Joe snored and the crows cawed out in the alley, he looked up to his sisters baby girl, sitting on his chest, eating a poptart, the crumbs falling on his neck. This comforted him and he drifted back to sleep, not waking up until he heard Mamma and the police above him and her saying, “I cain’t jus’ keep his ass locked up—look how big he is. Take his ass away fo all I care!”

He was cuffed and dragged out, trying to get his feet under him.

By the time he was being stuffed in the back of the car the police—a big nigga and mean-ass cracker—were joking about how those “warm and fuzzy” County Police just had to promise Jamal a burger and fries and he even gave them his address…

The black cop then said, “Hey, Richard, your dumb-ass is seventeen and you done fucked up in the County. Eighteen months, my friend. No City judge sending you back home today—you fuckin’ in fo it, son.”

And the chariot of inequity hauled off Hero Jones, the son of iniquity, into the arms of his true mother and his father too, The System. Like most heroes of his ilk, he had no idea that the he served a higher, sacred cause. But he’d be back on the streets one day, he promised himself, a big, mean-ass nigga laying it down in the hood like he should.

Recognizing and Surviving the Condition of Anarcho-Tyranny