Paradise

Aw, Christ.  Me and a couple of other folks were supposed to write about our favorite place that we've visited.  I flaked out.  Each of them flaked out.  We're all a buncha goddam flakes.  But who cares?  Better to unite against productivity with a couple of other lazy, procrastinating fuckers than to be the guy who never shows up and when he does he's all wasted.  

That said, our little writing group isn't a contest.  For what little I write, it's kinda nice to have some kind of parameters that I can bend if I feel like it but also have a little direction and encouragement.  Fuck.  I'll shut up about all that and start talking about my favorite place I've ever visited.  I've been a lot of places, but for some reason I'm gonna talk about Sioux City, Iowa.  Cos I liked that place.

I've only been to Sioux City twice.  And I've never actually been wandering around downtown and checking out the social scene.  Nor do I ever plan to.  I'd probably wind up being a weekly guest on COPS.  I spent all my time out in train yard world.  One gas station right across the road from the little Burlington Northern yard.  The whole train side of the little two-lane highway that headed towards town was a buncha weeds and bushes and train track nonsense.  

The side that the gas station was on had a sidewalk that nobody ever probably used unless they were in my situation, give or take.  On that side of the road was kinda seedy and light industrial.  There was at least one shady little motel and a bread distributor.  Other than that, who fuckin knows?  A buncha crummy buildings that you don't pay attention to.  About a half mile past all that Americana (the good Americana, the kind that makes you kinda miss the US if you leave), there was a McDonald's and probably some other garbage that's the America you're glad you fuckin left if you're fortunate enough to leave.

The time I'm thinking of, one of my dearest friends at the time and offhand probably my all-time favorite train-hopping buddy of mine had arrived in Sioux City.  Damn.  I gotta get to the story here.  And there is no story.  In a fuckin nutshell, the ladies that worked at the gas station were some really nice people.  It was pretty chilly in the mornings and once the sun went down.  They just gave us free coffee and hot dogs and didn't mind if we sat at one of the two tables for hours while we watched them make our train across the street.

And we had cigarettes.  And we could smoke in the gas station at the table while we drank our free coffee.  And we were really stoned.  That's because after walking around a bit, we had returned to the gas station and some guy walked outta the place and said,¨Where are you guys from?¨  We gave him a simplified story that involved mumbling a few names of cities, that we were waiting to catch a train to Minneapolis.  

Good enough for him.  He drove us back to a crappy little motel about a half a mile back and he gave us bonghits and a couple of lines of coke.  He told us to hang on while he took a shower real quick while me and Micah sat, stoned and letting the coke kick in, kinda revelling in this seemingly cosmic good luck.  When the dude got outta the shower he did another bong hit with us and pulled off about an eighth of weed out of a giant bag that he had stashed under the bed.  Then he got out his wallet and tossed one of the twenties that was in it on the table.  ¨Well, good luck, fellas,¨ he said.  ¨You guys wanna ride back up to the gas station?  I'll take you but I'm going the other way after that.¨

¨Naw, man,¨ we yammered as we both stood up and spun around in half-circles, patting our pockets and looking frantically around for anything we might be forgetting.  Not like we really had anything in the first place.  ¨Naw really, thanks a lot.  Nice to meetcha, blah blah blah,¨ we blathered as we backed outta the motel room door.

Right before we ran into the guy who took us back to where the weed was, we had returned to the gas station near the yard after having walked to the McDonald's a mile and a half back or so.  As soon as we had approached the McDonald's and were looking for snipes (cigarette butts that are long enough to relight), a woman in her 30's hollered at us from her car to ¨come here¨.  We walked over and she handed us a ten dollar bill and told us that she wanted us to get something to eat.  You'd think that would happen frequently if you were eating half-eaten burgers outta the trash all the time, but it doesn't.  

The lady was gonna sit in her car and eat her breakfast so we couldn't not get us some fuckin breakfast.  I gotta admit, we wouldn't have spent that dough on breakfast any other way.  But fuck it.  This broad was playing hardball.  Might as well get a couple of egg mcmuffins and some stupid tater cake things.  They're gross but holy shit they're fuckin good sometimes.  Especially if all you've been eating is squished up bread and peanut butter lately.  We wandered outta there with a buck and a half in our collective pocket and waved to the lady and thanked her again.  She could've been my mom.

We had managed to get a few snipes at the McDonald's and we still had some dough but not enough for smokes.  We figured we could probably beg another 50 cents or whatever to get a pack of Bugler once we got back to the gas station, though it doesn't do you a lot of good to piss off the employees of the place where you'd like to fill up water and use their bathroom or whatever other facilities you can take advantage of.  

We were full and the day was getting warm and pretty.  It was probably late September.  Not the last day of pleasant fall, but getting there.  We'd be okay.  The speed limit on that stretch of outter town highway had to be at least 45 mph, but some ratty-ass station wagon swerved over by the sidewalk and screeched to a halt.  He leaned over and rolled down the passenger-side window.  ¨YOU GUYS NEED SOME SMOKES?!!!¨, he bellowed as if we were all on our way to shoot some Viet Cong out of our chopper together.

¨SURE!!!¨, we shouted in near-unison.  ¨THAT'D BE GREAT!!!¨

¨COOL!!!  HERE YOU GO!!!  I GOTTA GO BEFORE THE COPS SHOW UP!!!!¨, he screamed as he gave us the kind of nod you get from an okay uncle who had fucked up and joined the Marines.  ¨GOOD LUCK!!!¨

We smiled and waved as he sped off.  I don't remember what we got, but we had two packs apiece.  And that's good enough for me.  Then we ran into the guy with the weed.

Once we got back to the gas station, we were stoned and armed with twenty-something bucks.  No convenience store worker can say shit if you got twenty bucks.  Fuck them.  But they were sweet as pie.  They refused to take our money.  We thanked them and sat awkwardly at the table as the shadows grew long.  It was only awkward for a bit.  Anytime we'd look up they'd smile and wave and ask us if we were doing okay.

And as we sat there watching the sun set in the west over the train yard that was far too small to pay for its' own police, I watched the pigeons gather to eat their dinner.  I'd always liked pigeons, had always felt sorry for them and for their plight.  They're like flying chickens.  They don't seem particularly bright.  And I'm no bird psychologist, but I'll go out on a limb here and say that pigeons are fuckin morons.  But goddammit, those fuckers survive even though they're the big joke of the bird world or something.

But you know what?  Not in Sioux City, Iowa they're not.  They may be pathetic when  they're bopping around eating wino puke and cigarette butts on the sidewalk, scraggly and lice-ridden.  But that's in the city.  And they still make it.  They're graceful when they fly.  Hell, a lot of birds look dopey when they walk.  The pigeons in Sioux City don't have to walk.  They just go to the quiet train yard and eat all the corn that falls out of the grain cars.  And there are piles of it everywhere.  

I dunno, I watched those birds being as beautiful and free as I've ever seen them, bowing to no one and it looked like they had found paradise.  Me and my brother had found it too, for a day.