Stop 13436
By Raymond Moylan
Stop 13436 was awarded the 2020 second prize in creative nonfiction by the Saint Louis University Library Associates.
The waxed metal seating of a bus stop plays host to dispersed iotas of frost not yet banded together to make a layer. Nonetheless, they dampen the seat of my jeans and invite a new sensitivity to a chill as I skim over free newspaper stands. A passing couple strides by whose held hands and hastened speech betray a curiosity with my slumped presence on the bench. Their conversation carries with it the urgency of a delayed credit card payment or uneasy first meeting of family members. They take it now along the crosswalk to a different stop.
Complaint: 20-003768; Crime: 95100; Description: STALKING (HARRASSMENT ONLY, NO THREAT); ILEADStreet: LINDELL BLVD; Neighborhood: 38; XCoord: 891587.9; YCoord: 102243.
A service van idles at the red light; rusted hubcaps wheeze at the light change; it rolls forward, lurching over an outcropping of knuckled pavement. The arched path of a station wagon’s acceleration through the intersection belies an unnecessary rapidity. Its whipped right turn oozes a trail like an oil slick behind the speeding Volvo. The approach of a boxy frame quickens my pulse. A nearing MetroBus dares to expose my intentions: an anxious ethnographer not quite equipped to pay the two-dollar fare.
Complaint: 20-001141; Crime: 115200; Description: FRAUD-STEALING BY DECEIT/UNDER $150; ILEADStreet: LINDELL BLVD; Neighborhood: 38; LocationName: WALGREENS; XCoord: 891989.3; YCoord: 1022016.
Monochrome sky drapes the stop and its two occupants in a gray duvet. Having each exited the vocational academy, they wait for Bus 10 or 58X or 410X. An embattled yellow sign warns the stop to be a drug-free school zone. Does this mean they’ll board the bus to ferry to another locale allegedly less drug free?
Complaint: 20-004126; ADDRESS: COTE BRILLIANTE AVE / N VANDEVENTER AVE; CHRGDESC: 1 POSSESS CONTROL SUB EXCEPT 35 G OR LESS MARIJUANA/SYNTH CANN 2 POSSESS
MARIJUANA/SYNTHETIC CANNABINOID 11-35 GRAMS; #1 Victim, State of Mo, Victim Injuries: None.
Opposite facing the bus stop is a triangular inlet segmented by asphalt splinters in wanton directions. A round plate of ice rests edged by thirty-three degree water; the precarity of its floating position shown by vibrating ripples. It’s an earthy inlet with twenty-one trees of varying heights and an unvarying dearth of leaves. Instead, dangling gumballs and hibernating buds droop over four aging wooden benches. Their brittle crossmembers wince when pedestrians pause to rest.
Complaint: 20-004642; Crime: 266999; Description: PUBLIC ORDER-OTHR UNSPC PBLC ORDER VIOLATION; ILEADStreet: LINDELL BLVD; Neighborhood: 38; LocationComment: #NAME?; XCoord: 892104.8; YCoord: 1022153.
The turf of my inlet is plumped by a perimeter of sidewalk and curb before dropping six inches in elevation to a blacktop bedrock. The green space resting above skew roadways prompts me to wonder how soil could have preceded the streets now so firmly outlining the pathways of passing cars. A benevolent Earth giant, trowel in hand, must have eked out this inlet. Facing protestations from his urban colleagues, he designated a quaint reminder of the prairie, smoothing a stratum of clay over the preexistent Pangean pavement.
Complaint: 20-004137; Crime: 142320; Description: DESTRUCTION OF PROPERTY-MALICIOUS/PRIV PROP; ILEADStreet: LINDELL BLVD; Neighborhood: 38; LocationComment: APT 5D; XCoord: 892113.6; YCoord: 1021985.
Newsprint upholsters the damp benches when I return to the stop, and flurries drift through a pensive afternoon. Their headlines and stories melt into each other as pages become more and more translucent. Ideas drip gradually onto the sidewalk and gather in the gutter, irrigating the avenue as they mingle with mathematical proofs and philosophical arguments bound in the snowmelt runoff from a university uphill. Dialogic streams trickle down the grade.
until a tire propels one droplet to be caught in the wheel well of a rusting van emblazoned with the First Baptist Church. Perhaps, with the heat of the neighboring exhaust pipe, the thought will vaporize and be carried aloft on a westerly wind into Illinois. Else, it may remain a passenger on the church van to condensate into an upcoming sermon.
Complaint: 19-063239; Crime: 265321; Description: LEAVING SCENE OF ACCIDENT; ILEADStreet: S VANDEVENTER AVE; Neighborhood: 38; XCoord: 893826.1; YCoord: 1020467.
Stop 13436 was awarded the 2020 second prize in creative nonfiction by the Saint Louis University Library Associates.
The waxed metal seating of a bus stop plays host to dispersed iotas of frost not yet banded together to make a layer. Nonetheless, they dampen the seat of my jeans and invite a new sensitivity to a chill as I skim over free newspaper stands. A passing couple strides by whose held hands and hastened speech betray a curiosity with my slumped presence on the bench. Their conversation carries with it the urgency of a delayed credit card payment or uneasy first meeting of family members. They take it now along the crosswalk to a different stop.
Complaint: 20-003768; Crime: 95100; Description: STALKING (HARRASSMENT ONLY, NO THREAT); ILEADStreet: LINDELL BLVD; Neighborhood: 38; XCoord: 891587.9; YCoord: 102243.
A service van idles at the red light; rusted hubcaps wheeze at the light change; it rolls forward, lurching over an outcropping of knuckled pavement. The arched path of a station wagon’s acceleration through the intersection belies an unnecessary rapidity. Its whipped right turn oozes a trail like an oil slick behind the speeding Volvo. The approach of a boxy frame quickens my pulse. A nearing MetroBus dares to expose my intentions: an anxious ethnographer not quite equipped to pay the two-dollar fare.
Complaint: 20-001141; Crime: 115200; Description: FRAUD-STEALING BY DECEIT/UNDER $150; ILEADStreet: LINDELL BLVD; Neighborhood: 38; LocationName: WALGREENS; XCoord: 891989.3; YCoord: 1022016.
Monochrome sky drapes the stop and its two occupants in a gray duvet. Having each exited the vocational academy, they wait for Bus 10 or 58X or 410X. An embattled yellow sign warns the stop to be a drug-free school zone. Does this mean they’ll board the bus to ferry to another locale allegedly less drug free?
Complaint: 20-004126; ADDRESS: COTE BRILLIANTE AVE / N VANDEVENTER AVE; CHRGDESC: 1 POSSESS CONTROL SUB EXCEPT 35 G OR LESS MARIJUANA/SYNTH CANN 2 POSSESS
MARIJUANA/SYNTHETIC CANNABINOID 11-35 GRAMS; #1 Victim, State of Mo, Victim Injuries: None.
Opposite facing the bus stop is a triangular inlet segmented by asphalt splinters in wanton directions. A round plate of ice rests edged by thirty-three degree water; the precarity of its floating position shown by vibrating ripples. It’s an earthy inlet with twenty-one trees of varying heights and an unvarying dearth of leaves. Instead, dangling gumballs and hibernating buds droop over four aging wooden benches. Their brittle crossmembers wince when pedestrians pause to rest.
Complaint: 20-004642; Crime: 266999; Description: PUBLIC ORDER-OTHR UNSPC PBLC ORDER VIOLATION; ILEADStreet: LINDELL BLVD; Neighborhood: 38; LocationComment: #NAME?; XCoord: 892104.8; YCoord: 1022153.
The turf of my inlet is plumped by a perimeter of sidewalk and curb before dropping six inches in elevation to a blacktop bedrock. The green space resting above skew roadways prompts me to wonder how soil could have preceded the streets now so firmly outlining the pathways of passing cars. A benevolent Earth giant, trowel in hand, must have eked out this inlet. Facing protestations from his urban colleagues, he designated a quaint reminder of the prairie, smoothing a stratum of clay over the preexistent Pangean pavement.
Complaint: 20-004137; Crime: 142320; Description: DESTRUCTION OF PROPERTY-MALICIOUS/PRIV PROP; ILEADStreet: LINDELL BLVD; Neighborhood: 38; LocationComment: APT 5D; XCoord: 892113.6; YCoord: 1021985.
Newsprint upholsters the damp benches when I return to the stop, and flurries drift through a pensive afternoon. Their headlines and stories melt into each other as pages become more and more translucent. Ideas drip gradually onto the sidewalk and gather in the gutter, irrigating the avenue as they mingle with mathematical proofs and philosophical arguments bound in the snowmelt runoff from a university uphill. Dialogic streams trickle down the grade.
until a tire propels one droplet to be caught in the wheel well of a rusting van emblazoned with the First Baptist Church. Perhaps, with the heat of the neighboring exhaust pipe, the thought will vaporize and be carried aloft on a westerly wind into Illinois. Else, it may remain a passenger on the church van to condensate into an upcoming sermon.
Complaint: 19-063239; Crime: 265321; Description: LEAVING SCENE OF ACCIDENT; ILEADStreet: S VANDEVENTER AVE; Neighborhood: 38; XCoord: 893826.1; YCoord: 1020467.