Issues of Race must be handled with great delicacy in a city like Baltimore. This can be a dangerous place for a tall, skinny white kid on LSD. So when this stocky, young black man decided that he didn't really appreciate the way I was acting, an untimely and gruesome Death suddenly became a very realistic prospect in my mind. Of course, a brain under the influence of powerful psychotics is in no condition to properly interpret distress siganls from the body.
 
I smiled and laughed as he charged me... which, ironically, may have saved my Life. A savage Blood knows how to deal with any kind of behavior you can throw at him: Fear, Anger, Confusion... but Laughter? How does one react to a person who laughs freely in the face of Death? Surely he must have thought I was some sort of deranged Lunatic, fresh out of a high-security penetentary.

He was a noble savage of the South Americas. I was Hernan Cortes. He could have fleeced the skin from my bones with a single motion... but he didn't. Something about my beard... my pale skin... my erratic behavior... instilled Awe into this man, if not Fear. The Mayans, the Aztecs, and the Incas believed the Spanish were Gods among Men... it still vexes historians... the idea that 200 Spanish conquistadores could wipe out three Civilizations, 40,000 people, in just a few days...

TO BE CONTINUED