![]() He distributed them all over the west side of town rather in the way dogs mark trees. ![]() Everywhere you went you encountered telephone poles and road signs leaning dangerously in testimony to Mr. Piper was my parents' neighbor, a leering, cherry-faced idiot who was forever getting drunk and crashing his car into telephone poles. The only person I ever knew in Des Moines who wasn't serene was Mr. Everybody in Des Moines isstrangely serene. There's a New Jersey couple up the street from my parents' house whom you see wandering around from time to time looking faintly puzzled but strangely serene. People who have nothing to do with Des Moines drive in off the interstate, looking for gas or hamburgers, and stay forever. Outside town there is a big sign that says, WELCOME TO DES MOINES. This is because Des Moines is the most powerful hypnotic known to man. When you come from Des Moines you either accept the fact without question and settle down with a local girl named Bobbi and get a job at the Firestone factory and live there forever and ever, or you spend your adolescence moaning at length about what a dump it is and how you can't wait to get out, and then you settle down with a local girl named Bobbi and get a job at the Firestone factory and live there forever and ever. Bryson, Bill - The Lost Continent Travels in Small-Town America
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