Mid-afternoon. You head to the TRAX station to take the train to The City Library. The sun is not overtly oppressive, but it does burn with a dry heat that reminds you that you live in a desert. The city has cleaned up the graffitti on the white plastic fence along the walkway to the station. Nobody has bothered to tag it since. They also pulled the thistles that were nearing six-feet tall. First train to arrive is the Blue Line, headed downtown and the Gateway Mall. Take it, and you’ll have to get off at Courthouse Station an walk a couple of blocks.
The library is an oasis of life in a city that dies on Sunday and resurrects on Monday. You return the book, and meander through the first floor browsing section. You consider buying a coffee, but don’t because you’d rather spend your money on beer.
Up the great glass elevator to the second floor. You scrunch your face at the body odor. In such close quarters with people who haven’t bathed since the last full moon. You browse the fiction despite already having more than enough to read. Old habit, old habit. Gravity tugs at your kneecaps and the arches of your feet. The clientele at the computer banks appears shabby as usual. Dirty baseball caps and droopy mustaches checking e-mails and Facebook, playing digital chess.
But you notice that people who look vaguely middle class occupy many of the colorful vinyl chairs. Not only that: they are reading books. The economy is bad. The library is free. A frail, twisted man with baggy denim shorts and a quasi-Hare Krishna haircut (sides shaved, crooked tuft on the dome, short braid in back) ambles through the stacks like a worn-out windup toy.
Outside, Phoebus has turned up the heat. You almost break a sweat, but instead of waiting for the train, you ramble through the desolate downtown sunday streets. At the Seven-Eleven they sell PBR tallboys for $0.20 more than anywhere else in town. Premium prices for bums who don’t have the stamina to walk four blocks to the liquor store. You buy two and stuff them in your backpack. There’s a black guy with short dreadlocks and a rolling carry-on bag who looks like he’s waiting for a flight. He stands near the counter, but buys nothing.
The sign at the Central Christian Church proclaims the following aphorism: “He who angers you, controls you.” The converse is also true, you think: “He who controls you, angers you.” What would Pastor Hank think about that?
This area is a bastion of blight and second-hand mid-century funk. The coffee shop is empty and pitiful, open and losing money. The art galleries are closed. The tropical plant store sells palms and orchids, but not on the lord’s day. Antique and thrift stores spin through various states of rise and decline. ”Closed on Sundays.” ”Space Available for Rent” echoes sign after sign after sign.
A record store is open. The only thing open. You opt not to enter, because you no longer own a phonograph. Haven’t for years.
The occasional car hisses by. A few occupy the diagonal parking spots in the middle of Broadway. Their owners are likely sitting in the mostly empty movie theater, you think.
You walk back to the Gallivan Trax Station. A Blue Line train comes shortly after you arrive. You take a seat among unemployed middle-aged men, and lovely female cyclists.
Time to head home.
