Island City

On a large river, there is a city. Island City it is historically named. Once a proper little harbor town with a darling main street. Neon lights beckoning the wayfarers to small brothels, speakeasys, brewpubs and bowling alleys.

Getting there is easy. Visit highway 61 and turn to go over the dyke. You are on the island now. College town and hipsters abound. Roundabouts are new. You are waiting 50 minutes now for this train to pass that skirting the island.

Might as well eat here. Small local shops. Horrible coffee that is burnt. Something called a flaming rooster. Beer is here, aptly named Island City Brewing Company. Great progressive beer and you can sit outside. Oh look, by the train tracks. If you keep going on the dyke road you came to the island on and go over the bridge your in a different state. You are wanted in that state, so no taking the dyke road over the bridge.

There is a train bridge. You get out of your car and walk on that train bridge over to some smaller, boutique island of houseboats. Or are they boats that are houses? People live there clearly. Draft dodgers. No water piped to this houseboat island so how do they shower? Ah, the YMCA is in sight. Not a bad place to live, solar panels, shower a train bridge away, these hippies look like they wanna party. Maybe drink a beer and BBQ.

Time does not stop on the Island City. The sun is setting over the river and its time to revisit highway 61. You walk back over the train bridge and pile in your car and wait again for the 50 minute train to pass going the other way. Oh no, its stopped, now its going the other way. Stopped again. Maybe switching tracks?

48, 49, and 50 minutes go by. What's that over there on the other side of highway 61? As you cross the dyke road over some sort of lake, you are thinking of how good that beer was. You should ask the brewer for the recipe as a humble homebrewer yourself. Half way over the "lake", you turn into the visitor center.

You look at the lake and turn the car around. At the dyke road you pause and think right or left? How bad do I really want this recipe? Will the brewer give it to me? Was the brewer the skinny white guy with a mullet or a mullet and beard? You go right, back to the island.

The island isn't so bad. You could live there, but you know there is more out there. You go back to the brewery, and speak to the skinny white bearded mullet clad brewer. He gives you the recipe for a beer based on a color. Your ecstatic. Have a few more pints and drive home. The cute bartender you saw at the brewery was walking home so you pull over and offer her a ride. She said no thanks and inquired if you should be driving based on your number of pints. You say have a great night and drove home. An officer pulls you over in your driveway off the island.

You pass the field sobriety test, but since someone had called you as driving drunk you get arrested and hauled back to the nearest station. The nearest station is on the island. Wondering if you will ever get off the island, you lawyer up. You get to spend one night in a holding cell. You actually fall asleep on the cot. You have a fever dream of you working to build the dyke in the 1920s. Your cell mates are fellow workers. You awake to a baton nudging you and the officer saying, "your not getting off this island."