Getting There

     The Coffs drove JohnnyPotamus and Katie and I up to catch our bus. We arrived at Tower City in Cleveland (from the Akron area) at around 8-9ish. Cleveland is miserable, if you didn’t already know: it’s dull and grim and grungy, colored in shades of dust and rust and brown lake slime, with yellow-gray street lamps and low neon lights shining a sort of post-apocalyptic tinge. The fact that it was raining like goddamn Blade Runner didn’t improve things (except to set the dead and desolate mood a little more). Cleveland has the feeling of all hope lost - I could cast it as the refuge for the few people left after the end of the world, humanity’s last lonely gasp before dying, and it would require no real change. At least Akron, while by no means a proper city, has a bit of a hopeful feeling to it.
     Tower City itself - the mall portion - was pretty much closed, so most of the lights were off and stores were closed and locked. It’s the emptiest I’ve ever seen it (which doesn’t say a lot, since I’ve never seen it crowded). We hung out for a little while, before the Coffs took off and left us there. There was a drawing for a pink playhouse-slash-shed which you had to be over 21 to enter (since it was mostly just a way to collect numbers to bypass the Do Not Call registry).
     We hung out on the bench around a dancing-water fountain until a security guard kicked us off. After wandering around a bit, trying to find first a bench and then a restroom, we went to the top floor (where Megabus departs) and sat in the Hard Rock Café for a while. FYI, potato skins make sour cream inexplicably delicious. We tipped our waiter - Cory - with Cooookie Crisp (as well as money).
     Waiting for the bus was relatively uneventful. It was rainy and wet and, again, very apocalyptic. A silly hipster man flashed way more of his hairy stomach than anyone ever needed to see - fuzzy men + low rise pants + girly shirts = oh god why. The bus (a double-decker Megabus) came early, but didn’t open the doors until someone finally went over to check. The driver was a very tired, cranky man, who snapped at me when I couldn’t hear him over the rain, and came and bitched about how nobody reads the rules about one one piece of luggage and how it has to be checked and can’t be carried on, etc. (I checked the site a little bit ago - it doesn’t say anything about not being able to carry on a backpack.)
     We all slept most of the trip, after a bit of terror from being on the top of a double-decker bus in the rain on the highway. I got up at about 5am Eastern, and, not realizing we’d be arriving at 5:15 Central, went to the front window to wait out the rest of the ride. Seeing the city approaching from the height of a semi’s roof is pretty amazing; looking down at river and trains and slightly blurry waves of lights.
     The bus dropped us off at Union Station and took off as soon as people got their bags, leaving everyone slightly confused, because, you see, Union Station wasn’t actually open yet. Our plan had been to go in, get visitor passes, and ride buses or trains around the city until we could go over to our couch-host’s place sometime around noon. After getting very frustrated and bewildered, I ended up calling our host (about six hours early) and trying to work something out. I still feel very bad for waking her up, but I was totally panicked. Right after she told us what stop to get off at, the station opened, and we wandered in, trying to find maps and tickets. The information console was pretty much worthless, and we could find no useful maps, but Katie found the visitor pass vending machine. Some locals helped us out, and I called our host again, who offered to pick us up at the L stop (how sweet!).
     We made it there safely, got a little acquainted with our host, who went back to bed for a while (since she works this night), and we crashed for a for a few hours after a breakfast of leftover cheese and onion deep dish pizza.

Doing Things

     We woke back up at around noonish. We decided to go comics-shop hunting, and our host mentioned that since she had to go out for some errands anyway, she could drop us off at a really nice one - Chicago Comics. It’s over in/near the sort of hipster artfag district, which is totally okay by me. It’s huge, has a great array of mainstream superhero-y stuff, slightly alternative graphic fiction, and at least two shelves of zines. Also, they were playing Tom Waits (Orphans), which was completely and utterly wonderful. Though I wanted to buy pretty much everything there, I am poor, so I got myself the first American Elf collection, and Katie got me the first volume of Tank Girl for my birthday.
     Seriously, people, go to this store. It’s goddamn awesome. Go.
     We wandered around that general area for a while, stopping in at a bookstore (I don’t remember the name, but I got six great postcards to frame), and spent quite a bit of time (but no money) at Hollywood Mirror. Mostly just too broke, but it’s pretty neat. I didn’t care much for the no-photography signs - there’s really no reason for it! - but their good array of silly toys and decorations aren’t terribly overpriced (though I wouldn’t pay nearly that much for their clothes).
     We then tried to find a coffee shop, wandering into the Threadless store on the way. It’s a lot smaller than I expected. We can try the warehouse sometime in the next few days.
     The coffee shop, Intelligentsia, was okay. I got a so-so latte that tasted a little burned or something (it was fixed by adding more milk and a fuckload of sugar). We found out how to get back to an L station that would take us back to our host’s, and stopped into a record store on the way. I think I may have discovered some new music to check out when we return.

Getting Back

     The L is awesome, just to let you know. I’m from an area with very little public transportation, and no public rail system, so I’m far too entertained by the trains. We rode around for a while, making an impromptu stop at Millennium Park, and finally decided to head back so we could eat and play Thousand Blank White Cards.
     Three fried chicken TV dinners, the discovery that I forgot to bring our deck (we didn’t feel like going out to buy new index cards, either), and a bit of slightly spiked fruit punch later, and here I am, very tired and very happy. It’s wonderful what a change of scenery can do for someone - I didn’t even realize how miserable I was getting until I finally got out, and now I don’t really want to go back. I like my job, and I love my dog, and I don’t have the money to just take off - but those are the only things keeping me back in the Akron-Canton area for the near future. Columbus is good, but after being in a real City - a city with a capital C, a city with life and history and gay people and trains - I don’t know what I’m going to do when I get back. Try to make my town a little brighter and a little stranger, perhaps.

There are more colors than black and orange, people.

One bright day in the middle of the night
Two dead boys went out to fight
Back to back they faced each other
Drew their swords and shot each other
A deaf policeman heard that noise
He came and killed those two dead boys

I find the variations of the Two Dead Boys poem fascinating. Everyone who knows it knows a slightly different version, and it changes as it gets passed along (like traditional folk songs and poems - The Three Ravens/Twa Corbies is another one that interests me).
I’ve since added the lines “If you don’t believe this lie is true / Ask the blind man, he saw it too” to the end, after picking them up from other people’s versions.

I stand before you to sit behind you to tell you something I know nothing about.
There will be a gentlemen’s meeting for ladies only, so wear your best clothes if you have none.
Free admission, pay at the door; great seats, right on the floor!

I’m probably not remembering this right, but I’ve seen it as both a separate rhyme and as part of the Two Dead Boys.

Further reading: The British Columbia Folklore Society; or just google two dead boys for other people’s posts and sites about it.

Dr. McNinja (Halloween 2006)

Doctorow’s picture is the best one out there, sadly - the only other three we can find are:

(photographer[s] unknown)