"He lives 2 doors down"

I hadn't seen my acquaintance from 3 doors down in many months. That's probably a good thing because most of the men in my bldg. sexually harrass me. So, when I saw him on my hall a few days ago I told him I hadn't seen him in a long time. Normally he's kind of "fake happy" Alot of the blacks are "high on God" "high on born again Christianity" I'd like to say. But he was in a severe depression.

He said: "I've been in a severe depression for a long time" I asked why. He said because my car was stolen. I thought that sounds like a familiar Balto. story. He said it was stolen from Greenmount Ave. I asked him if they found it or not and he said yes, they did, but then they impounded it and he can't afford to get it out of impound. (If he were a listener I would have told him how many times that's happened to me but he wasn't really listening to me, so I simply said that it sounds familiar.)

Yesterday, I was walking to Bagelo, and he was pulling up in his car. I congratulated him. He said he got the couple hundred together to get the car out of impound. We talked for almost 20 minutes and I was so happy that he hadn't sexually harrassed me. He said that it's not the first time his car's been stolen. He was at the gas station at harford and 25th and he was hijacked at gunpoint!

I told him that's why I stay out of the city. I also said that when I had a car there were only certain places I'd go with the car, and only certain gas stations I'd go to. I told him that my rule of thumb was, if it's a gas station where beggars approach me for money then that's a gas station I refuse to go to. I also told him that when I went to "church" in broad daylight in 3/03, I came out and they smashed out all of the windows of my Honda and stole everything off of my seats. I told him that I stopped going to that "church" and stopped going to the city!

When the conversation ended I started walking to Bagelo, and he yelled: "I like your walk!" I became immediately uncomfortable and self conscious. You shouldn't have to listen to that in your own apt. bldg. But what can I do?! That kind of behavior is completely ingrained in his culture. So I yelled back:

THAT'S WHAT THEY ALL SAY!