Spending countless hours exploring the streets of the KC metro area, I encounter all kinds of interesting people and see things in more detail and with more intimacy than most anyone else. I think this relationship with the city is why I love it so much and feel as if I'm connected with it.
In a string of a week, two experiences are leading me to believe that KC needs more lovin'.
The first occured on the Fairfax bridge crossing the Missouri River from the bottoms of KCK to the floodplain of Riverside, near the Argosy casino. This bridge gets my heartrate up everytime, mostly because it scares the crap out of me. It is narrow, spans the wide river and is completely unlit. The edges are low barricades designed to stop cars from plumeting into the muddy Mo, but it looks like they'd stop my bike and I'd flop right off and take an extremely high dive if one of the always-speeding cars decided to crowd me.
So, needless to say, I didn't need anything else distracting me on the bridge.
As I approached the apex of the bridge the other night, I noticed a homeless man crossing and coming in my direction. I thought nothing of it as I pass transients all over the place, especially because I love exploring blighted areas and railroad corridors. I moved to give this guy space as I approached. When I was even with him, he stopped, lunged at me and screamed this sage advice:
"Get fucked!"
I'm sure I probably looked a little underloved with that look of hasty anxiety crossing the bridge, so I understand completely why he was worried about me.
Really, the state of the homeless is sad. Conservatives scream "get a job" and then move to the suburbs where they are out of the sight of the problem. Most of these people that I've talked to probably couldn't get a job. They need help. They are all mentally ill, sometimes completely unaware of their surroundings. Guess what, though -- care for our mentally ill isn't an issue that garners a lot of political traction, so our cities will keep hiding our crazy homeless. I guess that is okay, as long as they keep giving me good advice.
On a side note, DO NOT GIVE MONEY TO PANHANDLERS. It exacerbates the problem, encourages their confrontational behavior and keeps them coming, which drives away visitors in areas that need the support. If you feel guilty, give to homeless charities.
----
The other repressed citizen of our great city was a little more traditional. I was making my way down Main in the Crossroads after a long ride exploring KCK, avoiding the Fairfax bridge and checking out the sprawling Cerner campus for the first time, and I was on my homestretch. Speaking of Cerner, did they really have to take up THAT MUCH space that close to the heart of the city? That could have been developed into dense housing and retail, but instead you climb your way through a labryinth where every building is several hundred feet from the next, connected by winding roads. This place is worse than Sprint considering the employment numbers. Cool looking buildings, though.
Anyway, I digress. So, I'm rolling down to a red light at 18th and Main when a group of people leaving Bar Natasha is crossing the street. One of the girls, who is clearly the most hobbled by the tasty libations available at Natasha, greets me with a sultry "hey, biker boy". She then goes on to tell me that she is feeling very neglected in the "boobie region". In the unlikely event that I had forgotten what boobies were (not the case), she gestured to the aforementioned boobie region, ensuring that the boobies had my undivided attention.
I inquired as to why she felt so neglected and she responded that nobody had been touching them. While I wish I would have come up with a smooth response like "you are quite lovely, I'm sure EVERYONE is wanting to touch them," I simply muttered "are they supposed to be?" Good one.
At that point, her friends, who were clearly annoyed with her, encouraged me to ride away quickly, so I did.
I wish you the best of luck, boobie girl. Thanks for bringing life to the streets of downtown KC on a weeknight.
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2 comments:
you have got to be kidding me @ boobie girl, bikerboy.
and we can thank ronald reagan for keeping the homeless always with us. i can only hope that he had early onset of Alzheimer's disease when he deregulated mental health services. ironic, isn't it?
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