Waking comes with trepidation, ‘who has voted and where are we going?’ Our die was cast, we were riding west once more.
Night watch over, we made good our escape down the corridors of the shabby (hotel) with its ‘behind closed door’ murmuring and the leftover stench of the previous evenings cigarettes. It was early, heading south through central, south-central then onward into the west. The sound of Banda echoing from the cantinas
Zombies. I’m not sure how else to describe it. The city canyons all echo and slow shuffle of random human detritus trapped and lost within their own altered realities. The stumbling, the aimless and the lost an every city tragedy that we have no current cure for.
We rode in silence as the heat built. Cloud and shade our welcome companion, surviving on Walgreens flavoured milk and frequent plunges into service stations for a welcome walk-in chiller and endless bottles of electrolytes. Impossible I thought, as whatever was going in certainly wasn’t coming out.
Asian Cajun
It became increasing clear we’d entered Little Saigon. Everything changed, from street signs, the vendors and traders who sat in the sidewalk shade selling locally grown produce. We made ‘Crawfish and Noodes’ at noon. Our pre-arranged sanctuary from the mid day sun.
We dove into plates of crab and Cajun crawfish, all washed down in an endless supply of sweet pickled lemon and soda. It was a special place, not so much for the cavernous interior, but more the waiting staff: Marcus, Kim and Harry. We exchanged story’s then swag before turning and making our way back to Zombieland.
Every day is a winding road of trails and turns untold. We witnessed plenty this day. There were local police pistols drawn, Brian, and yet another lost soul. This one serenading the oncoming traffic through a makeshift microphone – a paper cup and stick for a stand.
We called it just after five, as we collapsed in the shade of a multi-story parking lot close to downtown. Hear that said Horse… somewhere in the heat a car stereo crackled in the heat. It was Weezer’s El Scorcho.