Marc
If you take North Avenue in Bradley and head out over the Interstate 57 overpass, you can see the commercial airliners begin to line up for their descent into O'hare Airport. On a clear night, you can see them stretch out towards each horizon, over the cornfields east of town.
There are four hotels by the mall, just off of Route 50. Not cheap motels, like most people would think, but nicer hotels -- midrange hotels, where you can at least expect clean sheets and HBO. Hotels you probably wouldn't expect to find in such a (seemingly) small location.
Whether you'll believe it or not, there are only two bars in Bourbonnais proper. One, TJ's, a place I used to frequent as a kid, on my bike, but they never let us in. The other, RD's, right next door. The parking lot seemed to be completely full by ten o'clock. They both close at two.
Just like the substantial number of bars in Bradley and Kankakee, many times the multiple of two. Apparently people start off in Bourbonnais, and head towards Kankakee to finish the night. They then play this strange cat and mouse game with the police on the drive back to Bourbonnais, on the surface streets, past all the closed fast food restaurants, and failing family businesses.
It feels, at least to me, like this conglomeration of townships (heretofore known as this town) is slowly being erased from my memory. The connections are becoming faulty, and the more and more I look at things, the less I feel apart of them. I sit at bars, and I don't recognize faces right off the bat, but slowly work my way up to trying to figure out names, and finally to just kind of staring at the wall, having recalled most everyone in the bar, and where they were from, and who they used to date, and taking notes on who's gained weight, and who's lost weight, and who is now dating whom, and it just gets so boring after a while. I have about three beers, drawn out by conversation with my two girls [one who still lives there, and one who is deeply imbedded in always coming home to see her niece], and we look at each other after the third one, and say, basically, "let's get the hell out of here".
If you take North Avenue in Bradley and head out over the Interstate 57 overpass, you can see the commercial airliners begin to line up for their descent into O'hare Airport. On a clear night, you can see them stretch out towards each horizon, over the cornfields east of town.
There are four hotels by the mall, just off of Route 50. Not cheap motels, like most people would think, but nicer hotels -- midrange hotels, where you can at least expect clean sheets and HBO. Hotels you probably wouldn't expect to find in such a (seemingly) small location.
Whether you'll believe it or not, there are only two bars in Bourbonnais proper. One, TJ's, a place I used to frequent as a kid, on my bike, but they never let us in. The other, RD's, right next door. The parking lot seemed to be completely full by ten o'clock. They both close at two.
Just like the substantial number of bars in Bradley and Kankakee, many times the multiple of two. Apparently people start off in Bourbonnais, and head towards Kankakee to finish the night. They then play this strange cat and mouse game with the police on the drive back to Bourbonnais, on the surface streets, past all the closed fast food restaurants, and failing family businesses.
It feels, at least to me, like this conglomeration of townships (heretofore known as this town) is slowly being erased from my memory. The connections are becoming faulty, and the more and more I look at things, the less I feel apart of them. I sit at bars, and I don't recognize faces right off the bat, but slowly work my way up to trying to figure out names, and finally to just kind of staring at the wall, having recalled most everyone in the bar, and where they were from, and who they used to date, and taking notes on who's gained weight, and who's lost weight, and who is now dating whom, and it just gets so boring after a while. I have about three beers, drawn out by conversation with my two girls [one who still lives there, and one who is deeply imbedded in always coming home to see her niece], and we look at each other after the third one, and say, basically, "let's get the hell out of here".
0 Comments:
Post a Comment
<< Home