Smile, Hon, You're in Baltimore! #13
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Table of
contents INTRODUCTION THE PRISONER OF VIOLETVILLE - Noam Sane THESE HANDS - Heck MY FRIEND FRANZ (NO ONE UNDERSTANDS HOW I FEEL) - Benn Ray RACONTEUR - E. Doyle-Gillespie THE LAST DATE - Alex Hewett MARILYN - Caryn Coyle 4:37 A.M. - S.J. Ferrandi CONVERSATION WITH A SNIPER - Joe Higler BALTIMOREANS THEN AND NOW - Judith Krummeck DISPLACED OR MISPLACED - Stacey A. Peterson I'M IN IT WITH YOU - Jonas Kyle-Sidell IMPORTANT WORDS - Holly Myers DEAR LADY ON THE METRO - Heck ONCE UPON - Sharon Goldner THE BACK-STEPS OF 4 A.M. - Sarah Jane Miller A RITE OF PASSAGE: SWIMMING IN THE HARBOR - Bill Hughes ANOTHER LIFE - Keith Berry PROMETHEUS' DAUGHTER - Otis James ON BALTIMORE STREET - Martha Gatewood NANCY IS WAITING - Jeffrey L. Shipley FLASH DEATH - Dee Smith ALARM - Wayne Countryman SUSPENDED - E. Doyle-Gillespie EXIT 38 - Allyson Leigh B MORE GIRL - Randy Brooks THE CLIFF - Ian Hochberg ON THE MOUND - Sarah Jane Miller STABBY THE CLOWN - Earl Crown I LIKE IT HERE. THINK I'LL STAY FOR AWHILE - Lisa Wiseman ABOUT THE CONTRIBUTORS INTRODUCTION: Seeing Red “Too long in the wasteland must’ve gone to my head…” - JAMES McMURTRY Some days I wonder if I should really like Baltimore as much as I do, given its penchant for violence and blight, the gross disparities between its haves and have-nots. Where one-fifth of the population lives below the poverty line. Where fear is too often confused for respect. Indeed, some days I wonder if I’ve here too long…most recently on a walk with the 4-year-old on the campus of George Washington University in Washington, D.C. - about 40 miles south of Baltimore - on the ninth anniversary of what has come to be known simply as “9/11”. His mother had business on the campus, so the boy and I went for a walk. I carried him on my shoulders, taking in the warm, late-summer sun…not unlike the weather on that morning of epic violence nearly a decade ago. “Dada,” said the boy. “Yes?” “What’s that red stuff on the sidewalk - blood?” I looked down at the splotched concrete - the fourth most-expensive sidewalk in American academia. I laughed. “No, sport,” I said. “That’s spray paint - probably for something the maintenance men are working on.” “Spray paint?” he mumbled incredulously. “It looks like blood.” I glanced once more at the red splotches, mulling the boy’s words, wondering if indeed I’ve been in Baltimore too long. Then I looked around us, and wondered exactly how much Baltimore had anything to do with it. “Yeah, kiddo,” I nodded as we moved on through the fourth most-expensive crowd in American academia, soaking up the last warm rays of summer before Nature shut off the heat. “I guess it sort of does...”
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