A Walk Around the Block

WICHITA, Kan. - I can't walk anywhere here in Kansas.

This evening, after a large meal of pasta, sausage and garlic bread, I felt like taking a stroll. "Helping digestion," is what my parents would call it. Many evenings they take a two or three mile jaunt after the dinner; I wanted to do the same tonight.

But where to go? To the north of my small apartment complex is a gold-plated car wash and a string of abandoned lots. Half a mile that way there's a train crossing, and this time of night there's a chance of a 20-minute train will be creeping by.

To the east is a Sonic, a drive-in-but-not-thru restaurant, and a number of homes with weeds coming through the driveway and scary teenaged men sitting in the driveways.

To the west is an industrial park. The business I'm most familiar with there is the gun range, where I went for an article a couple weeks ago. I'm not sure if I'd want to run into the clientèle there off-work.

The south of my apartment is the most strange, because it's the site of a large, mostly empty strip mall. The highlight there is Micol & Janets, a local bar where Micol leads the house band and six to eight pickup trucks are parked outside every night after 11 p.m. There's also a strip club.

You might gather from this last paragraph that I don't live in a particularly good part of Wichita. It's scruffy, working class and there's a fair amount of crime. People on the street next door were setting off fireworks well into August. There's been a shooting, a couple stabbings and robberies just in the time that I've been here. It's not necessarily the place where I want to be loafing around after dark.

Just the act of walking seems to be a slap in the face here in Wichita. The districts are spread out, with very little public transportation linking them. There isn't a bus on Sundays. The 11th Commandment here might as well be "Thou shalt own a car, so thou can drive thouself to church."

One incident confirms this city's love of cars more than anything else. A couple weeks ago, I was out with some friends on a Saturday night at a bar. I wasn't driving, so I had a few beers. We came home around 2 a.m., courtesy of a friend who volunteered to be the designated driver.

Safely inside my apartment, I decided that I couldn't sleep quite yet. I wanted a snack, so I headed across the street to QuikTrip. I went on foot, not only because the nearest location is across the street, but because I was a little tipsy. I bought a bag of Doritos, and was just finishing crossing the street back to my house when a couple of men in a large SUV came roaring down the other side of the road.

"Get a car, you faggot!" they screamed, and then headed on down the street.

Tonight I'm driving to the gym, where I'll walk on the treadmill.