Charles helped the old crumb down to the Baltimore, County apartment building parking lot. At the open door of his big white working truck, Christos was conducting knucklehead business, speaking with one of the numerous men he coaches in fighting and manly concord. For Christos, it is not enough that you can fight, but that you will cooperate with fellow men in that prime activity and everything that underlies it, such as pouring concrete for the neighbor, grading the shared driveway for your neighbors, and going an hour out of your way on a supply run to pick up a tramp boxing coach/writer to help your men prepare for the ring. The intent, this week, is to sketch a boxing manual focused on bare knuckle methods. Christos is not a money fighter, although he has been offered prize fights; he’s a life fighter, practicing a style of life that rises in resistance to sloth rather than sinks into simpering existence.

On the way to his new home, ever under construction, as evidenced by the haul of solar panels, Christos takes me through a portion of West Baltimore where he grew up. I have only been to the Rolling Road, Catonsville, and Elicott City area on a dozen or so occasions, mostly fleeting. We stop by the Baltimore Judo Dojo where he trained as a youth, now some kind of supply house. As he gassed up at a Korean station, he meets Mike, the owner, a solid middle-aged martial artist he once trained with, who shakes my hand as he takes a customer’s Porsche for a test drive. A hoodrat crowds the stop light crossing, trying the stringy meat versus white guilt bully crossing bull parade. His dark face glowers and sinks as Christos pinches the curb, playing no such games.

“This is still a physically nice area. But the people have gone mostly liberal to gay, with all of the attendant bullshit. You can see by the high quality construction on large lots, that there is not an easy path to doing what was done in the rest of Baltimore, dropping in garden apartments to breed criminals. Even so, I can’t raise a family here, can’t even trust the law that I can defend my family without persecution—so off into the woods we go.”

A brief discussion of dealing with criminal ethnoproles brings to Christos’s rampant mind a training partner.

“I trained with this black guy [full name the author failed to recall], a good man, most humble, polite and respectful man you would want to know; an excellent Jiu Jitsu fighter, an excellent athlete. He was a black belt who I learned a lot from. After six months training he mentions that he wrote a book on Jiu Jitsu. I’m like, ‘You mean we have been training all this time, and now you finally bring that up? That’s usually the first thing someone says, that they wrote a book on this. That is how humble he is. He was a cop, retired, had a ton of experience, and asked me if I’d help do a self-defense lesson for women at a women’s shelter.’

“He knew my history, that I worked as a bouncer and bar tender. What I told the women was that when you feel that someone you just met—a stranger that just pops up on your radar that gives you the creeps—comes into your space, you look at them directly and say, ‘Hi, how are you today.’ That usually disarms criminals in process.’

I worked at a bar down in South Baltimore on Charles. It was like 2013. I had done bar tending. That’s how I went to Brazil; I’d tend bar, save money [sells a Harley and a Jeep one time, before leaving] then buy the plane ticket. Brazil is cheap, so you just need a few thousand for six months. I get there, dress like the owner, only 165 pounds, work the door. There is a fight every night, at least one, throwing these guys out. There are a few asshole white guys. But for the most part, its hood blacks causing all the trouble.

The cops come by one night, see my cauliflower ears—its funny, people see you with cauliflower ears and they think you can fight, always rate you way above what you are. They tell me that I can have all the fun I want, beating the shit out of these guys—so long as they don’t go to the hospital, that I’m doing their job. [1]

It just got stupid, throwing these guys out. So, I stopped letting them in. If you were a decent black dude that looked me in the eye and answered my question, you got in. But if you’re a hood dude who won’t make eye contact and won’t answer me, I throw your I.D. in the street and tell you to get lost. All fighting stopped. The bar tenders were thrilled. The guys that cause trouble, also don’t tip. Then another bouncer, a friend of mine, gets stabbed in the heart out on the street, walks off and dies. I could make more money tending bar in the county, a lot more. Why am I dealing with this? Eventually there will be a walk-up stabbing a drive-by shooting, from someone who is pissed at me. The owner offered me more money. But it wasn’t worth it. [2]

It was a good experience. I use a lot of what I learned in coaching and working event security for things I care about. I don’t even drink—why would I put my life on the line so that strangers can get safely drunk. Now, I coach men who are politically active. So I work event security, not like a bouncer, but in an advance capacity, making sure that there is not some nut with a gun looking to cause trouble.

…

Notes

1.) The South Baltimore police post is the smallest unit in Baltimore City and have a reputation for being polite to the high end gentry, curt with trash and rough on crime. Their sergeant used to watch Chuck and I spar at Riverside Park as his shift wound down. They do not want paperwork and do not want to be off the street at the hospital since theirs is a lightly staffed post as is.

2.) There is an extensive history of bouncer murders in Baltimore going back to about 1990.