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cops anywhere on the platform. Crap.
    “You are the problem here! Its people like you that started all this; brought us all down to your third world standards!” the rich white lady was yelling with her finger still inches in front of his face. Jack’s palms were out trying to calm the racist barrage being directed at him, but she was on a roll and not easing up.
    He might have been a five foot tall midget, but the guy had worked his butt off every day of his life and had been a high school wrestling coach to boot. He could have handled any bar fight with ease, and he was also way too nice of a guy to verbally put her in her place. I wasn’t.
    “Hey lady,” I approached briskly, “back off!”
    I heard the steps of heavy boots behind me and knew that Blake was right on my tail for support.
    She paused just long enough to see that I was one of “her people” and tried appealing to the white pride I was supposed to have.
    “I’m sick of these slime ball greasers having their way with everything, thinking there’re no rules because they're in some gang!” she proclaimed loudly and half turned to me. I didn’t stop my momentum when I reached the small crowd and bulled right through the line of people to meet her face to face.
    “Hey man you can’t just…” I heard someone say, then the voice stopped short as Blake reached whoever it was that was trying to get involved. I had seen before the look that I knew he must have on his face, because whoever the interloper was, they shut up very quickly without another word as soon as he reached them.
    Getting right in the lady’s face, I raised my voice loud enough that I was sure everyone in earshot could clearly hear me.
    “I have lived here my whole life and this man was here before you or me. It wasn’t immigrants that took us down; it was white assholes like you! Elitist, arrogant, self-righteous, entitled pieces of shit with no sense of personal responsibility. That’s what brought us to where we are! Not the hard working, law abiding families, no matter where they came from. And where the hell are you from? How long have you lived here? What have you done for this town? This community? This country?!”
    Man was I glad I had the little bit of public speaking ability that I had or else I would have just sounded like a real ass.
    Jack placed a hand on my shoulder to back me off and it worked right up until the lady’s hand darted into her purse. I reached out in a quick and satisfying swipe and she dropped her bag in outright nervous fear of me. I kicked the expensive looking purse open to see what she was after and small can of pepper spray rolled across the concrete. “Yep, if you can’t attack the message, attack the messenger, great.” I stared into her wide, beady eyes.
    Blake’s nod brought the small and increasingly hostile sounding crowd that was gathering to my attention as he took a step to have a cleaner line of sight, and escape, of the area. I noticed that he had opened his jacket back up just enough to access a pistol secured covertly on his waistline. As intended, he looked non-threatening enough, but was ready to rain hell if it was needed.
    I took a step back and nodded to the purse, allowing the lady to bend down and quickly grab her belongings then stomp off to go find a security guard or someone else to fight her battles for her.
    “Thank you. I didn’t expect to see a friendly face around here,” Jack said then nodded his hello to Blake as well.
    “Jack, you know…” I started to say, but he beat me to it.
    “I’m leaving this place, meeting my family down south,” he stated flatly.   
    “This is your place, bring them here, you belong here,” I tried to tell him, knowing all along that I was talking to a man that had already made up his mind to go. He was leaving his home to be with what was left of his family, and being here apparently didn’t seem to fit in with anyone’s plans anymore.
    The crowd’s murmurs were ever