Dead and Dead Again: Kansas City Quarantine Read Free

parents had done for
several decades, perhaps even centuries.
    “Well, yes. Yes I am,” he laughed
and she joined him, happy he was finally able to show at least some emotion on one of the greatest days of the city’s history.
    Trip Grissom was not a sociable
person. He had a small group of friends and was generally unconcerned with the
rest of the universe. He did smoke a little weed, and that would only be
technically not-entirely-legal for a few more months, when the new Show-Me
Cannabis Law or whatever they had named it officially took full effect. Usually
a little smoke made him pretty calm and incredibly funny, but not today. Sarah
studied him nervously, noticing a controlled tightness around nervous eyes,
which jumped about, refusing to meet her own.
    Seeing him so uncharacteristically introspective
on the most momentous day of the city was making her uneasy. Her mind already
bothered by some unfathomable, ominous thing looming over them—and her
intuition was rarely wrong—the time had arrived to confront the issue. Please
don’t let him be dumping me, she begged the universe. She steeled her
nerves and asked anyway, knowing the universe persistently prepared its plans
without need or desire of her input, approval, or even basic understanding. “Trip,
is there something you want to talk about?” she asked, a frown of concern
quickly narrowing her eyes and stealing the dimples from her pouty red lips.
    Is there something I want to
talk about? Yes!   His mind screamed. There was something he wanted to talk
about, alright. But now that the day had come, he had no idea how he was going
to do it. He’d made a deal with himself that if the Royals won the World Series
again and the Chiefs won a playoff game last year, he’d ask her to marry him.
In normal sick and twisted fashion of the universe, seemingly every professional
and semi-pro sports team in Kansas City had won their prospective championships—except
for the Chiefs who had, however, won that first playoffs game before being
eliminated the following week—and most teams were well on their way to repeats.
But he had reneged on his private promises and now the Chiefs were undefeated
into October this year and the Royals had again won the World Series. The city
had decided to throw the biggest parade in history to celebrate all Kansas City sports and today was that day.
    Every major network and news outlet
was covering the events. Half of the country could care less what happened in
KC, but the rest of the nation loved a good party. Everyone wanted to get into
the act. In preparation for the event, the population of the Kansas City
Metropolis had seemed to triple over night, and may have actually done so.  This
fine morning people lined the streets from the river downtown on the east side
of Main Street all the way south through downtown to the fountain-filled
Country Club Plaza before the path cut west through the Plaza for about a mile
on Emanuel Cleaver Blvd. The lively and lengthy parade followed that path to
Madison Avenue, then turned north up to Westport road, and juked east to Broadway,
only four blocks over from Main. From there the route stretched all the way back
to the river again. Anyone missing something on the Main Street route could
just jog over to Broadway and see it again…if they could find an open spot to
squeeze into on the crowded sidewalks.
    The sheer number of parade entries
and goers and the unending revelry that had continued since the game seven
victory had made this week seem like Mardi Gras, Thanksgiving, Christmas and
the Fourth all rolled into one celebration. Every high school, non-profit
organization and booster club that had connections with city sports in any
capacity was there in force, along with many that had no business there at all.
Most of the Holiday floats from the bigger city parades were present as well.
Unfortunately for many, the power infrastructure in KC was mostly above-ground
so none of the famous