Detroit — Met some friends for late-night eats after the Charli XCX concert in Detroit. It’s the last time I let a guy from Florida pick a diner in Detroit. 

I wasn’t able to attend the show, but some friends from college were traveling into town for the Dionysian festivities, and I was determined to see them, if only for a little while late that night. I got on I-75 heading south at 11:30 p.m. 

Midwestern cities are not sleepless, and finding a late night joint was not as easy as my friends hoped, but they soon selected a spot. I drove to meet them, maneuvering through city blocks temporarily taken over by crowds decked out in fishnet tights and chartreuse costumes, crowds brought to the city center from the suburbs. 

Glossy new-builds near the stadium gave way to empty lots and cracked asphalt, as I approached Legend’s Coney Island and parked. I walked under the faded sign and into a room of bright white tile, made whiter by the fluorescent overheads and my friends sitting in the pink plastic booths, sporting merch from the show.

I suggested we go to a nearby restaurant that might feel safer for a group of white middle-class youths, but they’d already ordered their food, so there we stayed. But we couldn’t shake the feeling that we shouldn’t be there, and, though nobody said it, we ate quickly and were getting up to leave after only 25 minutes. 

I walked them to their cars and bummed a menthol before they pulled away. Then a thin, black, homeless man with a crazy look in his eye came up to me and shouted, “I kill white boys like you!” 

I thought about this for a moment and replied “Okay, but what if I told you that I’m Mexican?” Immediately, confusion and suspicion washed over his face. He asked: “Full Mexican?” I had to confess then that no, it was only on my mother’s side.

As a peace offering, I offered him my lit menthol. The treaty was agreed upon, as he smiled and took it. He said to me, “You know, black people love menthols.” I laughed and asked him, “Am I Mexican enough to say that without being racist?” Then he laughed with me and said “It can’t be racist if it’s true!” 

I was curious about the “killing white boys” part of his introduction, and, since we had exchanged names and shared a cigarette, I asked him if what he had said was true. 

He said yes, but that he doesn’t really do that anymore. I expressed my relief. He then spoke about his mother and how she had tried to raise him right, but that he got into drugs and all sorts of trouble since then. He twitched all over while saying this; his right foot stomping hard and heel first into the cracked pavement, keeping a beat I did not know. He kept on repeating, “People aren’t raised right anymore.” It was an odd thing to hear fall from the mouth of a confessed murderer whose introduction, in my eyes anyway, read as a threat to do it again. 

I bid him goodnight and went over to my car. But the car didn’t start. 

So I walked back over to my new acquaintance and told him what happened and that I planned to try again in a few minutes. In the meantime, I asked, “So what do you do most days?” He told me that he “just hangs around” a lot and that he steals, “but only from people who don’t need it all that.” Robinhood and the poor he stole for, all wrapped in one guy.

A group of much younger men stood on the corner across the street, looking at us. Some of them were laughing, and some of them had an unmistakable meanness written all over their faces. My curiosity had just about expired, and my middle class sensibilities were kicking in. I turned to Robinhood saying, “I hope my car starts.” He told me, “You better pray.” 

I said I would and asked if he minded my doing it aloud. “Say one for me and you’re fine.” So I said two Hail Marys, one for the car and one for the killer. Before going to see if the prayer had worked, I gave the man some cash and told him, “You should buy some food, but if there’s any left over, you can save that for some more menthols.” He laughed hard, coughed, and shook my hand while wishing me luck.

The car started, and I was back in my comfy suburb by 1 a.m.

Caleb Wallace Holm is a contributing writer for Michigan Enjoyer. Follow him on X @calebwholm and Instagram @calebwallaceholm.