Photograph by Frank Di Piazza
In 7 hours and 22 minutes of walking the Loop, I saw one staggeringly drunk woman, a wedding party, four paramedics, nine empty storefronts and five large men walking eight pit bulls. I spent $30, endured the western-setting sun in my eyes, counted 162 parking meters (some had been uprooted), passed two hookah bars and one cereal bar, and smelled countless sweaty people. I made five complete rounds, none choreographed, staying within the Loop confines—on Delmar moving east from Kingsland to just past Skinker, across the street and back on Delmar walking west. On this particular evening, Saturday, May 17, Wilco played its third of three shows at The Pageant, Washington University held its graduation and it was the first pleasant day of the year. My purpose was to walk, observe, take notes and participate. I carried small notecards in my back pocket but sometimes got lazy and used my arm. (I'm still working on washing it off.) I carried two pens, one notebook and a tape recorder, which I used three times (see 6:45 p.m., 7:28 p.m. and 8:45 p.m.). The following chronicle represents what I said, heard, saw, drank and tasted as I explored one of our city's most tourable stretches of street.
5:01 p.m.
My Traveling Companion ("TC") met me at the Milton and Zelda Epstein Memorial Plaza, catty-cornered from Cicero's. It is a small memorial—a fountain featuring a fat man in a raincoat, holding an umbrella. TC and I talked about it, then moved on to the topic of what I was actually going to do in the Loop that evening. I told him I didn't know what I was going to do.
5:28 p.m.
As we started walking east, we saw sidewalks packed with Wash. U. families—beaming graduates, proud parents—and younger people, most of them "tweens." Most of the tweens were dressed as if we were already halfway through summer—pink Lacoste shirts with khaki shorts and Sperry Top-Siders; tight white skirts with pinstripe tanks and lace-up sandals. In front of Vintage Vinyl, I ran into a high school student I had substitute-taught numerous times. Her outfit rivaled what Lindsay Lohan might wear to the MTV Movie Awards: low-cut top, breasts somewhat exposed, and a short skirt, buttocks somewhat exposed. I smiled at her and nodded; she did the same.
5:42 p.m.
We passed two children throwing a football on the sidewalk. "You kids are gonna hit someone," I told them as we walked past, wondering, quickly, just when I started speaking like a grandmother. By 6 p.m. we'd made it down to Skinker, then just past it, where several older men were trying to buy Wilco tickets from disaffected hipster kids on the street.
6:19 p.m.
We looped back on the north side of Delmar. TC had to leave, so I walked him to his car, where I saw the Loop legend many of us know as Crazy Mike. (Whether he's aware of this nickname is uncertain.) He's a thin black man of indeterminate age, with several facial piercings and a style rivaled by few. His outfits look expensive and carefully coordinated. The tops match the bottoms, the shoes match the hat, the belt matches the bandana and the headphones are a constant. He could very well be mistaken for a rapper. Almost every day he wanders around the Loop, half-dancing, half-talking, half-singing. The only thing you risk when you pass Mike is your personal space. He normally won't get aggressive, but he does threaten to invade—then usually invades—that 3 or 4 feet that people generally need when approached by a stranger. I've seen him pick up small children and toss them in the air while their parents stood there aghast. I've seen him wrap his arms around women he does not know. I've seen him sit down at tables with groups of people who have no idea who he is. I've seen him tap incessantly on windows to get the attention of a bartender inside. He's not merely on the verge of inappropriate human socializing; he's gone off the deep end, breaking every rule in the book.
"Watch this—he'll touch me," I quietly predicted to TC, as Crazy Mike came closer and closer.
And he did. Lightly, on the shoulder.
"Dude!" I yelped, surprising even myself. "Stop touching me!"
Crazy Mike didn't flinch; he just kept walking.
6:32 p.m.
Even without TC, I felt upbeat and outgoing and was genuinely enjoying myself. I noticed the Walk of Fame at my feet and read the entry: "Charles M. Russell." Never heard of him. I read on: "3.19.1864 … born in St. Louis … moved to Montana at age 15 to be a cowboy … an able storyteller … premier artist of the American West …" Huh. If I've never heard of Russell—and I haven't—does that make me a bad St. Louisan?
6:40 p.m.
Six stars later I began growing tired. I had never walked so slowly or so hunched over. A young man passed me—he smelled good—and asked what I was doing as I scribbled notes onto my folded notecards (warm from my pocket). I said I was writing. He said that he was a writer, too, and that his star was back there, motioning behind us. I nodded and looked back down at my feet.
6:42 p.m.
Total stargazing boredom had set in by the time I reached Archie Moore, a boxer. So I stopped. And walked into Cold Stone Creamery, one of the many un-Loop-like stores that have popped up in the past several months. A bit surprisingly, Loopers have welcomed it with open arms. I saw this as an opportunity to overcome some anxiety issues—with chains, ice cream and people who eat ice cream—and stood in the middle of the floor, arms crossed in my typical defensive manner. The one thing I couldn't take my eyes off of, and the thing that seemed most American, was the price listing: "Like It: $3.69. Love It: $4.29. Gotta Have It: $4.89." Ugh. After my social anxiety began its attack, I wove through the voracious crowd, upon whom I wished eternal brain freezes, and stepped outside, where it was warm and dairy-free.
6:45 p.m.
Bread Co. Two patio tables had been taken over by chess players, a match in progress at each one. I stood behind about eight other viewers and watched them go: back … and … forth, back … and … forth, like watching Ping-Pong. While watching the tables, I was immediately drawn in by a guy in his late twenties who I overheard say to his friend, "My favorite story is how I checkmated myself 'cause I was drunk." The sport suddenly became more interesting to me.
I fell into the rhythm of the game to the left of me. Grab a piece, place it on its next square, then hit the clock with the same hand. The swaps were fluid—a knight for a pawn, a rook for a bishop. Each clock was set to five minutes and ran down on your side once the opposing player hit his button. Tap, smack, tap, smack.
The players: a younger black man wearing baggy pants, a hooded sweatshirt, a ball cap, and gold and silver jewelry hanging from his ears, around his neck and on his wrists; and an older Russian man in his sixties wearing an A Bug's Life T-shirt and khaki pants. The former told the Russian, "Smile, baby, smile!" and "Did you say 'check it'?" and "That's crazy glue!" in a voice that grew increasingly louder. At one point he even stood up and shouted, "Lemme get some love!" The time on the clock ran out, and the Russian won, keeping whatever satisfaction he felt from the win neatly suppressed.
I floated up a question to no one in particular: "Why chess?"
"It's an addiction," responded a man in dreadlocks and fashionable sunglasses. "It's a free addiction."
Another game continued directly in front of us. One man's hand noticeably shook as he shielded his eyes from the sun and considered his next move. The clock was soundless, but I heard its seconds in my head. I looked on the ground at the carrying case for the portable board on which they were playing. It was a black canvas bag with one word—"Chess"—embroidered in cursive on its side.
7:20 p.m.
Two hours and 21 minutes in, I felt my first fade. I crossed the street to Starbucks—the only chain besides the Gap and Target that I have the patience to enter. I passed the resident guitar players speckling the patio and went into the small shop, where I was blasted with air-conditioned conformity. Grande soy latte, to go. I added some honey, climbed back over the musicians and crossed to Delmar's south side to walk eastward. I stumbled across the star of Susan Blow, who founded the first public kindergarten, making St. Louis' educational system a model for the rest of the nation.
7:26 p.m.
As I approached the Tivoli, I looked up at the cinema's marquee to see what was playing. Among the movies showing: "Twisted Baloons." Now, sometimes important things in life get overlooked. Like stop signs, for example. Or walk signals and open man holes. Or proper spellings of words like "balloon" on marquees of major, high-traffic theaters.
"Excuse me, ma'am," I said to the woman behind the Tivoli's box office. "Did you know that 'balloon' is spelled wrong up there?" She gave an inquisitive look and shook her head slowly. "Would you mind passing that along to someone in there?" I asked, gesturing to the theater's interior. She nodded. Civic duty done for the day.
7:28 p.m.
I crossed the street to say hi to a couple of friends I saw playing the board game Go at Meshuggah, an eclectic coffee shop that's been my favorite for a few years now. A band of young people in impish, smiling Guy Fawkes masks crossed the street up ahead, and I asked my pals if they knew what was up.
Charlie said the group was protesting the Church of Scientology. I waited for them to pass, and as they did, I asked, "Hey, can I ask you guys what you're doing?"
"We're protesting the Church of Scientology's practices, illegal and otherwise," a muffled, Australian voice told me from behind his disguise.
"Why the masks?"
"If we didn't, anyone who criticizes their religion in any way, if they find out who they are, they send private eyes after you, they send people around to your neighbors to tell them that you're a religious bigot."
Then came a different voice, an American one, whose speech was just as muffled and just as intelligent-sounding.
"We're not against the religion, we're against some of the evil things they do."
None of them were ex-Scientologists, which they told me many Scientologist-protesters are. They told me the niece of the president of the church was put into a work camp. "At this point it sounds like we're a bunch of conspiracy theorists, but it's true," one said. "It was on Nightline."
7:45 p.m.
At this point, I stopped believing everything they said.
"You can't walk in there and ask them what their religion is about," he continued. "They make you sit down, and they'll audit you. They ask you a whole bunch of questions, and they say, 'You're good, you feel any better now?' And so you keep coming back, taking more and more courses that cost more and more money, and you never know what their beliefs actually are until you've paid them like $300,000."
We talked for several more minutes, while I felt more and more absurd looking straight into the eyes of those devilish disguises. They began talking to two younger girls who were mostly intrigued by their masks, and I faded out of the picture slowly, pamphlets and a recorded conversation in hand.
8 p.m.
Drink break! Pin-Up Bowl. Glenlivet, neat. Took some notes, scanned the crowd, concluded I was having fun.
8:30 p.m.
Not quite halfway through the evening, I was feeling revitalized from the liquor. Outside of Saleem's, I ran into some friends, who invited me to join them for dinner. Internal conflict. Must continue my journey, I told myself. No time for friendly socialization. I declined and headed back to Bread Co., where the chess men were still at it; the ones who had been watching were now playing and vice versa. I listened to one guy tell his friend about a competition in Salt Lake City he participated in last fall with a team from school. It was a Bible-recitation conference where teams memorize passages from the Bible and must respond to questions referencing numbers, passage titles and specific details. This kid was majoring in something or other at Missouri Baptist, and at one point I heard him say his IQ, which I figured was high, because his friends were astounded.
8:45 p.m.
Outside Commerce Bank, on the corner of Leland and Delmar, I saw two men wearing T-shirts with graphics and words on them celebrating the arrival of certain comets to our solar system. They stood in front of a sign that read, "See Saturn Up Close!" and instructed people—young and old—as they looked through telescopes pointed skyward. The men—from the St. Louis Astronomical Society—told me that they often get together like this, even heading once a month into the country to have a "dark sky party" where they can view the stars with no surrounding light.
"What's your favorite constellation?" I asked one of them, as he set up the scope for me to look through. I am a closet astronomy geek, so I was curious if he would mention some obscure animal or god or shape that I had spent hours poring over as a kid.
"Easily Orion, because there are so many things in it to see," he told me. "There's a gas cloud, the nebula is unbelievably huge."
I didn't expect him to pick Orion—I thought that was a constellation only for novices.
"I'm going to show you Saturn," he continued.
While he fiddled with the telescope, I looked up at the sky in Saturn's direction and saw nothing more than a tiny speck of light, millions of miles away. He motioned that the scope was ready, so I looked through, only to see a small, white, filled-in outline of what looked to me like a computer rendering you would find in Microsoft Word's clip-art bank searching for "Saturn."
"Seriously?!" I screeched. "It looks like a computer icon."
"Yeah," he scoffed, rolling his eyes. "That's what I do—computers."
Sarcasm from a hobbied astronomer. I felt embarrassed to have made such a juvenile comment, but it really did look manipulated.
"Computer icons don't give me chills," he said.
I smiled. As he fixed up the telescope for me to look up-close at the moon's surface, I considered joining the society so that I, too, could educate the general public on the phantasm that is space.
I leaned over to look in the scope, taking a minute to focus on the cratered surface.
"Oh my God …" I muttered.
9 p.m.
I walked past the Tivoli again, 90 minutes since my last trip by. The marquee now read: "Twisted Balloons."
9:05 p.m.
Crossing again at Skinker, I walked west toward the Delmar Lounge, where I saw my pal Blake Ashby—former candidate for the presidency on the Independent ticket and resident Loopy. I also saw Crazy Mike, standing friend-close with a man who appeared not to know him.
9:08 p.m.
I noticed Gyo Obata's star at my feet outside Foot Locker. An architect, Obata designed the Union Station renovation and the National Air and Space Museum. I recalled that I know a relative of his from South City who makes hats and plays wicked folk music. People often think his name is Jen, but it's Gen with a hard G. I made a note to myself on my folded piece of index card to order a hat and buy his CD.
9:10 p.m.
Quick drink-Glenlivet, neat, and a water, no ice—at Blueberry Hill, where I took the opportunity to consolidate my notes. I remained standing at the bar, wrapped up in filling my notebook with the shorthand from my arm and the notecards. Out of the corner of my eye I saw a man, visage full of interest, look at me and my notebook. I knew it was coming. It happens all the time. Every time I dare work at a bar (where I can, oddly enough, concentrate better than at my own apartment), some cocky man thinks he'll be suave and hit on the geeky girl with her uni-ball roller pen and Moleskine. Wait for it. Wait for it …
"May I ask what it is you're doing?"
Bingo!
"I'm writing," I said dryly, without looking up at him.
"Are you transferring your thoughts into something more … more … "
Ugh. Go away.
"Sure, I guess so," I said, still making no eye contact.
I exited the building, drink undrunk, and immediately ran into Beatle Bob, another Loopy whose demeanor is much less imposing, but equally as fascinating as that of Crazy Mike. Bob tends to be seen mostly at concerts, dancing in the front row. He won't talk unless he's talked to. He's tall, with a Beatles-esque haircut, and wears vintage suit jackets, pants and shoes. We've met nearly five times, but he's met almost everyone nearly five times, so I didn't hold it against him that he acted like we were strangers.
"Going to Wilco tonight, Beatle Bob?" I asked as he stood on the corner, looking around sort of confused.
"No, I went last night," he said. "I'm going to see The Iguanas tonight—I've been following them longer than Wilco."
"What are they like?"
"Tex-Mex, funky pop, from New Orleans. They're great."
"Awesome," I said. "Well, enjoy the show!"
"Thanks! It was great to see you!"
9:38 p.m.
Three teens sat in tutus outside the Shell station at Skinker and Delmar. I decided at this moment that I should wander the Loop for countless hours every weekend, assignment or no assignment.
9:40 p.m.
Four and a half hours in. Wow. I passed a friend, a writer for the Riverfront Times, whom I'll call RFT, and his friend, whom I'll call the Poet in Paisley. We exchanged niceties, then RFT came with me to satisfy my craving for a Thai iced tea from Thai Pizza Co. They were nearing closing time, but I convinced them to serve me a cup. We walked past the back door of the Delmar Lounge, where Blake and a lady friend were eating dinner. I slipped a hand through the gate and took a photo.
10:00 p.m.
Now's when the Loop's makeup begins to change. Families have headed home, tweens have gone off to slumber parties with their fellow tweens, and the conservative parents of Wash. U. grads start to nod off after a glass of wine at Riddles. Out come the people with no curfews, those wanting to pre-party before they hit up the "real" clubs and middle-aged single women wanting to feel as if they've still "got it."
10:01 p.m.
I gazed some more at the Walk of Fame stars and considered the fact that there are about 120 of these things throughout the Loop, spaced approximately 12 steps apart. That's 1,440 steps to make one loop through the Loop. If I made five rounds, that's 7,200 steps. That's more than 3½ miles ... I think.
10:02 p.m.
I returned to Pin-Up, this time to see a friend working the door. We sat there in silence mostly, as I began winding down quite rapidly. I stared at my watch: only five hours in. Five deaf people walked in, scrambling for their IDs, then moving their hands rapidly at each other, perhaps commenting on my hat or the smell of the place or what they had for dinner. I felt left out.
10:32 p.m.
The Pin-Up has eight lanes, and on one of them I saw a friend from college bowling away with some pals—all security guards—from a hotel where she just started working. As we talked, I munched on banana chips I found deep in my messenger bag. I watched them bowl.
10:44 p.m.
I somehow got a second wind, so I went back out onto the street, where someone immediately called out my plaid Converse high-tops: "Nice Chucks."
10:46 p.m.
Passed Blake again and showed him the photo of himself. After parting ways with him, I thought, Maybe that was kind of creepy.
11:00 p.m.
My third and final Crazy Mike sighting. This one was more exciting. The cute U. City cop who's always out on the weekends and his squad-car partner (who's not too bad looking, either) pulled over into oncoming traffic, lights ablaze, and beckoned to Mike, who was hounding people on the sidewalk outside Saleem's. "It's the same shit every night, Mike," one officer said. "People keep callin' on you …" I veered around the corner and stood against a wall, still within earshot of their conversation, but hidden enough. I pretended to be texting. An inconspicuous front, as most people "my age" spend most of their time doing just that. I left when I could no longer hear what they were saying.
11:15 p.m.
At the hot dog stand at Eastgate and Delmar, I contemplated ending my night. I was tired, so I sat down on a small stump just across from the man selling wieners. I wasn't hungry, but ordered a hot dog—mustard, celery salt—anyway. I exchanged small talk with the man at the cart while inhaling my delicious, scalding-hot dog.
11:17 p.m.
The Wilco show started letting out down the street. Sidewalks began to flood with hipsters, aged 18 to 32. I nodded at a few I knew before I saw an ex-boyfriend saunter down the street, holding hands with a girl whose description fit that of someone he once claimed to despise—eyeliner, mascara, well-manicured hair, short shorts, tank top. He didn't see me on my stump.
"Anyone want a hot dog?" he inquired, cockily, of his gang.
"Hi, Jack," I said.
"What's up," he said impersonally, without missing a beat. (It wasn't a question.)
I smiled at the irony, heart smooshed just a wee little bit, and grew more tired.
11:25 p.m.
My phone rang-a call from RFT, notifying me of a "drunken Iranian princess" dancing at Blueberry Hill. There was no time to get more information—I saw this as an opportunity and ran down the street, feeling as if I had just received a lead on breaking news from my editor back at The Daily Planet.
11:27 p.m.
She was, in fact, dancing. With the Poet in Paisley. Blake was also there. So was the man who hit on me earlier with his comment about me "transferring my thoughts." Ordering a drink was out of the question at this point, as my eyelids were already too heavy.
12:00 a.m.
It was midnight when I left Blue Hill. I was stuffed from the hot dog. I was sick of seeing the same people over and over. I wanted bed. Or a chair. Just sleep …
12:14 a.m.
Three dozen or so young people had gathered near Jimmy John's. They weren't really doing anything. They were just hanging out. Not being loud or obnoxious or threatening. Just hanging.
Vintage Vinyl was closing for the night.
Not one family could be seen wandering the strip.
Starbucks employees were cleaning up inside.
No Beatle Bob.
No Crazy Mike.
No Blake Ashby.
I passed Bread Co. on the way to my car and saw two chess players leaning intently over a table, their minds and hearts still in it.
12:22 a.m.
I arrived, safely, at my car, index cards tightly folded in my back pocket, indecipherable jots shrouding my left arm and my mind racing with the events of the past 7 hours and 22 minutes. As I neared my car, I searched for some finality, an ending thought or moment that would bring this night to a close. But I couldn't find one. This must be because the Loop itself has no finality, no finish line. A loop, by its very shape, has no end.
