"Baltimore's Unofficial Red light District"

At one time I had the privilege of living in the Baltimore st. Patterson Park neighborhood! This was between 2006 & 2008! This area was being gentrified! You know like when people with a little money decide to live in the city! Raising the property value and pushing the original inhabitants out because they can no longer afford the increase in property taxes or their landlord will sell to developers and then they still gotta get the fuck out! Myself, I was rooming with three others over on the South West side, like Lombard st. and M.L.K. Jr. blvd, right across from University Hospital! They all decided to move to the Patterson Pk/Canton area and your boy not really having a plan decided to move with them!

 When we first moved in and all of the times we came to see the home with the Realtor, were at certain scheduled times! Everything looked real nice but I eventually came to find out that this whole area was a Ho stroll! A notorious area synonymous w/prostitution & Drugs! With the block I was living on as Ho Central and the drugs only being a little further down the street on the next block, past Fairmont ave! It was like a Merry Go Round of Ho's Cocaine & Heroin! So one time our Neighborhood decided to have a "Take Back the Night" Community Watch Event! Baltimore Mayor, Martin O'Malley was going to make a appearance support our Block Party Cookout, to discourage Drug Associated Crime and Prostitution! (I know!;-), I'm a Big Fucking Hypocrite!!!;-)

 So O'Malleys assistant arrived first, enjoying the Cookout and giving us current ETA's on O'Malleys Arrival! As all this is developing, on this particular early evening, Every Ho and Crackhead Prostitute was out there on both corners that night Tricking(prostituting)! So I'm saying to myself and my roommates like, "Yo this might be a bad look for the Mayor cause these Ho's ain't stopping no matter who shows up tonight! To be honest we probably should have stopped the Cookout cause it was a lot of Tricks and a lot of Ho's out there doing their thing! They weren't showing us any respect, as if this was acceptable behavior! All the indifference that is projected from and normally attributed to the decent and upstanding! In this neighborhood everything was the opposite! This place was a Bizarro World!  A strange paradox, everything was backwards and dysfunctional here! Where most neighborhoods would have embraced a positive change and City Hall encouragement! This neighborhood resented its new pioneers! Like the Indians ultimately resented its New World Settlers! Like a compromised immune system, rejecting a antiviral load! I mean it was like at least Ten Ho's out there and they were getting it in, racing to car windows, like a track meet! Mass production,assembly line, industrial like precision!  They had a runner for drugs, dealers on speed dial and they even had a Crackhead Ho's assistant! Doing the leg work for the Drug deals! I couldn't call him their pimp cause, that would be disrespectful to any Sober, hard working Ho manager or Pimp! Also attributing more value and skill to what service he was actually providing for these ladies! An I've seen the Movies and HBO Specials, Pimping & Ho Managing ain't easy!!! As we try to ignore this shameless behavior the cars and pick/up trucks are pulling up in a high volume! At the top of  Baltimore st. and Montford ave., one Ho jumps in the front seat, they pull off driving to the end of the block of Montford ave. or next block and park, negotiating the "BJ", and then he drops them back off $20 Dollars Richer for Drugs! Soon to be followed by another and another and another! This was like a parade of custom cars and Ho's! A ho's full service express lane! The next thing I know the community harmony is interrupted by the call of a loud raspy shrill pitched voice,"JAY!!! JAY!!! COME ON, WE NEED YOU TO MAKE A RUN FOR US!!! Jay collects all the money from all the Ho's, it's time to get some drugs for everybody! They pool their money together to get a volume discount on the drug deals! Jay will make the run so none of the Ho's have to miss any of the tricks who are still coming like Hoeing is going out of style! By Pooling their money they'll get extra drugs for their bucks, if they would all go and purchase as individually, they would get what you pay for! It's Ten of them out there selling their bodies now and they've given Jay at least $200! So whoever they're dealing with will probably throw in a extra five to six Pills(drugs)!Jay can go to two different sources striking the same deal, he looks seasoned enough and probably gets ten extra pills! Jay soon returns and now they're all going on Break in a narrow alley way very visible from the cook out, as Jay stands watch! Yes, can you believe this shit, they've all having a designated Ho break! In the Alley right across from the Cookout!

 They could have stopped or tried to mask their blatant and vulgar behavior! Instead they had no shame! Though you could see the shame in their faces and the tightness in each expression as they sold their souls in front of a neighborhood audience! With every Turn and Trick we point, whisper and frowned in disapproval at the Ho's and Tricks! They, the Ho's look just as displeased with us, expressions turned down and annoyed! I guess they just wanted to Ho in peace! This is truly an example of it's easier to do your dirt in the dark than to do your dirt in the light! We should have stopped our event, we had children with us, families, clowns, balloons and games! A real family community affair! I guess we were hoping for the best possible outcome like the positive resolution in a good hood movie! (Stop Hoeing Ho's it brings down property value and perpetuates low self esteem and false female stereotypes amongst young women! Thanks community we didn't know, but now we do! An knowing is half the battle, G.I. HO!!!!) Then everyone come together over hotdogs and burgers continuing the block party with Mayor and the camera does a Arial fade out! We were going to save them Hoes! We soon came to realize that we were wrong, it wasn't going working out! With all these Ho's out here, this just was not a conducive family friendly environment! I guess some addictive patterns are just as hard to change as the actual change of the addicted person! This block had been abandoned for a long time before it was targeted for Regime change! An a few new doors, porches and sand blasted exposed red brick was going to change anything! The Ho's come in and out of jail and they haven't heard things have changed or hadn't had a lot of options and the tricks will come to see if  Hoeing truly is dead in the new Patterson park or bitches are just scared! Apparently these Ho's are not scared!!! Open air drug markets, Addicted female population and a history of vacant neighborhoods! Pussy's for sale!

 The mayor's security shows up to scout out the event activity and the area before the mayor arrives! Its straight out of the Men in Black/Secret Service Handbook! But the Ho's & Johns are not being discouraged by any of this political presence! So as I look up the street and I see two limo's go pass Baltimore st. Going south on Patterson Pk! I say, "There goes the mayor!!!"  Everyone gets excited and frenzied up!!! Even the Ho's are like "The Mayor is Coming, but in B-more we were on first name basis with our mayor, so it's more like, "O'Malley Coming Y'all!!!, O'Malley Coming!!!" All of a sudden the Ho's are all racing out the alley, High on Crack & Heroin, fixing themselves up in peoples car parking mirrors! People like,"Get the fuck off my mirrors" Ho's like,"We sorry we didn't know these were your Cars!" As if  that point is in question as to what makes a difference! Who the car actually belongs to and as if the Mayor is gonna be checking for Ho's!!! I'm beginning to get excited too!!!;-) Just then I notice the Security clutching their ear/pieces and then whispering to the Mayor's assistant! The Mayor Assistant is coming toward us all with the look of a juror about to announce the verdict in the O.J. Simpson trial! "EVERYONE THE MAYOR WILL NOT BE ABLE TO ATTEND THIS EVENT TONIGHT, BUT WISHES YOU ALL HIS BEST AND MUCH SUCCESS! Apparently the Mayor had another pressing engagement that he must have just remembered as he drove pass the Cookout  and realized he would not be able to attend our event that night! It was Fucked up though, because we are all not stupid, we had all just seen the Mayor's Motorcade ride pass us, going down the other street! Some people even made jokes about it,"O'Malley must have changed his mind and decided to go to the Canton Square  Block Party!;-) I can't knock him though that would have been a fucked up Photo Opportunity! The Mayor being photographed at a Community Cookout thats being plagued by a Open Air Prostitution Funded Drug Ring!!! With the Ho's now turning their full attention and groupie like admiration to the Mayor as they take a break from turning tricks! But Hey, The Ho's took Time from their busy schedules to accommodate the Mayor, So the Mayor Could have at least taken some time from his schedule to accommodate them!!!  Besides, Ho's must also be constituents too, in some kind of way!!!

Later on living in this area became a big problem for me and my crack cocaine addiction! Leading to me being Voted Out of the "Real World Baltimore House"!;-) Having the people who I attended the cook out with and was a good neighbor to viewing and treating me like I was a neighborhood undesirable! Like we all no longer knew each other as neighbors or had been formally introduced! So to the Community, I just couldn't handle it, it was just too many Ho's and too many drugs coming right  to your doorstep!!! It was like a small Amsterdam almost! I was the wrong person to be in this kind of neighborhood and this eventually becoming a convenient spring board for me, propelling my drug use from Powder Cocaine to Crack!!! It was fun at first, living in Baltimore's Unofficial Red light District, then I got sloppy and my friends had to turn me out to the streets! They came back periodically to try to salvage the old me but I continued to let them down frequently, always returning to the Ho's and the Crack Pipe! Some of them even have tried to assume some of the blame or responsibility for moving us all into a 24hr Crack Car Wash! That's kind of Witty, 24hr Crack Car Wash, get it get it!!!(cars/fallacio/constant)  It's not their fault, I chose to stop sniffing cane w/friend socially! Then Graduating to the pipe, Ain't nobody's fault, Ain't nobody play me, I played Myself! Yes, I am romancing drug use in this Post a little and that they say it's a warning sign of a possible ensuing relapse! But I realize the danger of what I'm doing, I just got some stories to tell!!!