Walking was not an option. I was a 5’2” white girl traveling through downtown Baltimore City with two large duffel bags. While getting mugged and/or shot would be the cap to this whole travel experience, I was still in favor of not tempting fate. Besides, even though I knew the way from Penn Station to dad’s house – I’d printed out directions before I left home – I had no clue how long it would take me to walk there, and sleeping in a bed was climbing higher and higher on my list of priorities.
Outside, the air was hot and humid. Not as oppressive as New Orleans in the summer, but still, my aversion to walking was reinforced. There were five cabs, all colors of the rainbow, pulled up against the curb, waiting for fares. I lugged my bags to the one closest to me. It was purple and blatantly advertised the Ravens. Inside the station, I’d already been inundated with memorabilia of the local football team. May as well start getting used to it.
I climbed in the back, shoving my bags to the seat next to me. I told the cabbie where to go, checking my Google directions. the corner of Eastern Avenue and Highlandtown Ave. I could've given him the street address, but I considered it a common sense move to not tell strangers exactly where I lived. That corner would get me close enough, a few blocks away from my new home. Besides, he oozed sleaziness, from his greasy, nondescript hair color, to the gumball machine bling on his fingers. Not the kind of person I would give my address to if I was dying. I was grateful that the drive from Penn Station to Patterson Park was only 10-15 minutes. I settled back in my seat as we pulled away from the curb, let my mind wander as we got on the Jones Falls Expressway, and didn't realize until those 10-15 minutes were nearly up that we were driving in the wrong direction. I wasn’t totally sure where we were, but I was positive that my driver was going the wrong way. In fact, it looked like we were going West. He was driving me out of the city.
"Hey! Excuse me, but where are we going? Patterson Park is way back the other way. Hey! Are you listening to me? Turn around! This is the wrong way! HEY!" I reached over the seat to grab his shoulder and get his attention. There was no glass visor between us, like in most cabs I was used to, and I wanted to know where the Hell we were going.
When he turned to me, I cowered back into my seat. His eyes were white, no hint of iris or pupil, his lips were pulled back in a snarl. He growled at me and turned back to stare at the road. I was struck with the fear that he was going to keep on driving and I would reappear weeks later in a city morgue. Suddenly, he turned onto a side street, fishtailed to face the way he'd come, and stopped. The engine was still running, growling; with his hands gripping the wheel, he turned to me again. His eyes were still that horrifying, unblinking white. There was no way in Hell that I was going to wait around for him to start driving again.
I rushed from the cab, tripping over my feet on the way out the door, a bag in each hand. There was an ear splitting squeal of tires as the cabbie drove away. I stood in the middle of the street, slack-jawed and trembling, staring after my ride. What had just happened?
“Hey sweet chil’, need a hand?”
The warm, low voice came from the stoop behind me. A woman was sitting on the brick stairs of a row home, wrapped in a bathrobe and some flowered, pink slippers.
“Um, yeah." My voice shook I swallowed. "My cab driver, he started going the wrong way. When I told him so, he- he just stopped and threw me out here and … I have no clue where I am”
“Hmm. Gotta watch yo’self with the people in this city, honey. Lot a no good souls wandrin ‘round, makin’ trouble fo folks.” She got up from the steps and came to stand beside me. She put an arm around me and I smelled Jean Naté and cigarettes. "Now le'see. Where you headed to honeh?"
"Uh, Patterson Park. Eastern Ave," I added on hastily. Patterson Park was a big place and I didn't want to walk any farther than I absolutely had to.
"Oooh, honeh, you're in Dru Hill. You got quite a walk back east in this heat. Now le'see, wha's the quickest way home fo a pretty li'l thing like you? Hmmm." She stared off to the end of the street, her arm still wrapped around me.
"Do you know anyone with a car who could drive me down there? I mean, it's not that far of a drive...."
"Oh no, honeh," she huffed. "All I gots is my children, an trust meh, you don't want no ride from any a them." Her tone was bitter and angry, and I dropped the subject. Don't piss off the nice lady who might help get you home, I thought.
"Now, near as I can tell, the best way to get you where you wanna be is..." she rattled off a list of street names and turns. I asked her to repeat to three times as I scribbled it down on the back of my printout sheet. It was going to take at least two hours, considering the heat and my own lack of physical endurance, to get to dads' house.
"Okay, I think I have it all," I said, showing her the list of street names and turns she'd given me.
"Looks about right to me.You get on now and stick just to those roads. Even if ya think it's a short cut, there are parts a this city that jus' don't match up like they supposed to."
She patted me on the back and shoved me to the mouth of the road. I turned around, looking back to thank her, but she was gone. I guess she had gone back inside, though I hadn't heard a door close.... I started walking. It was only going to get hotter and I had a long way to go.
Almost as soon as started, I was panicking. What if I got lost? What if I got mugged or worse? What if mom had sent me to Baltimore, hoping to save me from danger, only to get the news that her daughter had been found dead in a gutter after being in Baltimore for a few hours? How pathetic. All this time I’d been hoping I’d die from something interesting, like a black hole caused by the Hadron Collider, or some hilarious accident involving super-heated marshmallow goo and inter-dimensional gods. It didn't help that on every street, men were grouped together, always turning to look at me as I passed. I'd hear shots pretty regularly and couldn't tell if they were gun shots or cars backfiring. I stayed panicked even after I was out of the ghettos and into Baltimore proper.
Of course, by the time I reached Eastern Avenue and the Inner Harbor, annoyance, frustration, pain, and exhaustion had overwhelmed my feelings of fear. It was indeed getting hotter. My duffel bags seemed to get heavier with every step and the straps were wearing my palms and shoulders raw. I'd thought of throwing them away half a dozen times. I didn't really need clothes, not in this heat. My arms ached and my jeans were plastered to my legs. From all the sweating, I was probably dehydrated. The massive headache I had was supporting that theory. The Harbor was packed with tourists who kept pushing me and jostling me and making me nearly drop my bags. I wanted to start beating people. With my bags. A swing to someones face, another to the groin, and hopefully knock them into the water where the sharks would get them. There were sharks in this harbor, right? In my head, there were sharks.
I stayed on the right side of the street, occasionally getting lucky enough to have shadow cover. The two hours we'd estimated had spawned into three and a half. I'd had to take lots of rests; to catch my breath, to cool down, to give my hands a break from carrying the duffel bags. Eastern Avenue seemed to go on forever and ever. I wanted to cry. I was never going to get home. But after that last stretch of Hell, I saw the park. Another couple of blocks took me to Highlandtown Ave and my dad's house, what used to be my grandparents home. The steps were no longer the pristine white marble they'd been during my Nonna's time. I doubted my dad would have the time or the inclination to scrub them every Sunday like she'd done. And the ivy over the door was longer and wilder. There wasn't much dad could be persuaded to care about, his mothers house included. I would feel sad about that after I'd slept.
I opened the door with a key he'd sent me. The inside of the house looked the same and different. Most of Nonna's china plates and fake flower arrangements had been moved. Not surprising at all. I closed the door behind me, dead-bolted it, and dragged my feet to the staircase. Beds were upstairs. My legs were trembling. On second thought, no stairs. I'd probably fall. I dropped my bags on the first step and turned to the living room where there was the familiar shape of Nonna's fat, overstuffed flowery couch, draped in a navy couch cover dad must've bought to negate the femininity. Whatever. It was there and it was soft. I fell into it. Welcome to Baltimore, I thought, sinking unto well earned sleep. Home sweet home.
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