2003.05.26,
Kansas City
St. Louis had produced a strange energy in my spirit. These
were places that I had only heard of, and now I was seeing
them up close. Verifying their existence. These back roads
and numbered racetracks represented the unknown, the
unconquered, the unseen... and I was grateful to experience
all of them, no matter how lame they actually were.
We left St. Louis during the late afternoon. I listened to
some sports radio to hear the Cardinals triumph over the Pirates.
Synchronicity again, why Pittsburgh, why now? Was
the old city calling out to us in a last desperate attempt at
reconciliation. Bah, it was too late. We saw a huge Buffy
billboard on the side of the highway. I nudged Amy and
pointed. She pretended that she wasn't interested.
We arrived in Kansas City late Sunday night, and traveled to a
commercial area known as Independence. We examined
our choices and decided that a Red Roof Inn was the best. I
waltzed into the lobby and crossed my fingers.
Our room was very nice. Much, much nicer than that shack in
Indianapolis. I was still making plans to execute that
Indiana scumsucker who charged me eighty dollars for that
terrible room. He'll get his one day.
The next morning we packed up and drove toward downtown. It was
a pretty boring looking place, and there were no people around.
Absolutely none, zero... as if a great plague had decimated the
population, and we strolled through like idiots wondering what
happened. I took some misguided turns and
ended up in what looked like a Spanish part of town. It was
kind of cool, the street signs seemed to be written in spanish
and the whole feel of the area was different. I saw a lot with
some graffiti but flew past it. I thought about turning back,
and Amy encouraged it, so I somehow managed to get the car
heading back in the other direction. We discovered
that it wasn't just a lot, it was an entire alleyway filled
with graffiti of all kinds. We walked
further down and even saw some people creating some new stuff.
