JoJo is a local lady who has taken the bus with me on occasion. Recently, with the spate of attacks on women by male youths, she requested that I occasionally stop by the bus stop she uses in my neighborhood. She gave me the times of her work commutes. She reasoned that If she was seen even occasionally with such a disreputable Urban Neanderthal as myself, that any hoodlums who might be tempted to plan her demise might think again.
The other day I skulked on up to her first stop on the way home. She had purchased a sports drink and peanuts for me so I felt compelled to break out the bus ticket and see her all the way home, across all three stops. She is an older lady who can’t manage the two mile walk across town, so spends over an hour in an L-shaped commute: two short walks, two waiting periods, and two short bus sides.
At the first stop I stood and she sat.
At the second stop, in a high-crime locale where thugs have shot it out with cops, I sat down next to her and another lady, an elderly widow, who sat next to a woman and her two children. Then a group of five teen age boys began swaggering in our direction. They did not appear to be genuine criminals, just wannabe tough guys.
When they reached bum-rush range I stood and walked over toward the light pole by the curb, so I had something to put my back to that I could not be pinned against. I then began planning my attack. I decided to sink a right to the body of the tall kid and spear the eyes of the muscle guy, then imagined various target-of-opportunity scenarios. I was not considering self-defense. I don’t believe in self-defense. I was simply mulling over my attack options; options which were not put into effect, as the youths did not trouble JoJo.
The boys were then joined by two others, discussed ‘banking some niggas down da way’, and were off about their violent business. After the bus picked us up JoJo said, “I noticed you stood up when those boys came by. Was that because you thought they were up to no good?”
“I never sit in the presence of an able-bodied male who I do not trust—ever; unless it is on the bus, which does not count as sitting because you can use the bus’ energy to launch an attack from a seated position if you time the banking, acceleration, and braking.”
“You made me nervous at first, when you stood and started to pace. But then they gathered away from the bench instead of strutting around like they usually do, and I felt safe. I had such a nice time talking with Mrs. Gans. She just lost her husband and still has such a good spirit.”
We were soon offloading at a drug-corner. The thug standing there sized me up and I returned the favor with a truce nod, which he confirmed with his own. This is a common body sign used by blacks in Baltimore that says, ‘We’re enemies, but not now.’ It is typically used by criminals as a sign of temporary respect when they are with their female non-combatants or attending church or funeral services, or when the ultimate enemy—the cops—are about in force. A truce nod does not mean 'I am tougher than you' or 'I want to be your friend', both of which signals will get you in deep in a hurry.
I walked JoJo back into her neighborhood past one crack den and a vacant. The rest of the area was pretty nice away from the main road. She asked me to sit out on the steps with her for a while with the following explanation, concerning her roommate’s children, “You see that pasty white fаggot in that minivan, pulling through the four-way?”
I dead-locked the fat man in the eyes as he cruised by.
“That pervert, and three other white perverts, cruise this neighborhood looking for kids to molest right about now when school starts to let out. That’s why I sit out here and give those fuckers the eye. I probably can’t handle those punks on the bus stop. But I have a butcher knife by the door. If any of these perverts stops to talk to a kid around here his head is getting pinned to the dashboard.”
I finished my drink and said, “Well, it looks like you’ve got this situation under control. I need to start hoofing it home.”
This is the kind of self-policing that men in traditional cultures and in low income areas have typically done. It has largely eroded in suburban America, no matter the ethnicity of the residents. The violence of our blooming narcostate should usher in its return. It won’t happen though, until women like JoJo speak up and call the men in their lives down off of the degendered fence they have been shunted off to.
