The numbers of the feared.
- Shakespeare,King Henry the Fourth, Part II

Promise me that after I tell you Baltimore City has its own "rumor control hotline" you won't immediately dial up asking whether Nick and Jessica's relationship is on the rocks or if the mayor is planning a presidential run.

The business of controlling rumors sounds funny, but most cities have a phone number with recorded information about closings or hazardous situations. Many can be activated as full-service referral centers during times of disaster or unrest.

Baltimore has maintained live service of its phone line since 1968, the year the Martin Luther King Jr. assassination and the ensuing riots unsettled the nation and this city. It's part of the Community Education Division of the Baltimore Community Relations Commission, which, says supervisor Thomas Saunders, is the city's official agency for fighting discrimination and improving human relations.

Saunders started at Rumor Control in 1980 as a college intern. He found the job tied together aspects of his major in health administration with his minor in African-American studies. Today, only Saunders and co-worker Mark Fosler work the lines, but in the days following September 11 or the Rodney King verdict, there were six or more staff available around the clock. Although the city's website dryly notes that the numberis "to obtain factual information on emergency situations," the actual work done out of the office on North Charles Street is considerably more varied.

Individuals, usually about ten a day, call with questions ranging from the simple to the byzantine. Saunders and Fosler research each query by checking with the appropriate authorities before getting back to the caller. Often police or public works officials provide the answers on traffic or water quality, sinkholes or tunnel fires. However, Saunders also hears from folks concerned by rumors about themselves or baffled by "information" that's really more urban legend. "We don't deal with personal lives of celebrities or politicians or average citizens having a neighborhood dispute," Saunders says, "but I do listen to people and if I can, give them constructive advice."

People occasionally want to know if an e-mail forward is true: Have there really been cases of gang attacks prefaced by a certain type of headlight blink? Have giant rats been mistaken for dogs and kept as pets? Saunders says he likes researching urban rumors, in part because regional variations are so intriguing. For example, the Baltimore version of the "That's no Chihuahua, mister, that's a rat!" story almost always specifies that the critter in question is a Norwegian rat, rather than the Thai, Mexican or Egyptian pharaoh rats sometimes used in West Coast variants of the tale.

In 1986, the group Radio Executives of Baltimore conducted a test on consumer response to advertising by having seventeen Baltimore-area radio stations promote a "Loch Ness Mall" supposedly being built in the Inner Harbor. The "ad" promoted an underwater restaurant where diners could pick out dinner from the fish swimming by the windows. Rumor Control phones lit up with calls from would-be customers and miffed contractors wanting to know how they missed bidding on the project. Saunders interviewed the questioners to determine where the miscommunication occurred and was able to follow the faulty communication (or in this case, intentional hoaxing) through the radio stations and back to its originators.

In this age of propaganda and confusion, the idea of a line one can call to get the facts has enormous appeal. Saunders has a deep understanding of how misinformation works and is deft at identifying different types of gossip. He believes in "alleviating the fear that's based on uncertainty," he says. He also has a personal interest in the stories he hears. "I'm inquisitive." Saunders says. "When there's an interesting rumor I want to know, ‘Is there some truth to this?' I get a sense of how people think in the city. Regardless of how ridiculous I may think a given subject is, it gives me a good gauge of who's here."

- Miriam DesHarnais wrote about Locust Point in the January issue. She is working on a compilation zine called Library Urinal with Donny Smith. She is rumored to live in Hampden with her pet dog-rat, Bitey.