The midnight crawl
By Stephen Shupe, Jayplay writer
What happens in Lawrence between happy hour, last call and beyond, when consciousness fades and munchies run high? I decide to investigate and journey around town to late-night vendors, taking my abnormally large (at least for a sober guy) appetite with me.
12:50 a.m.
The trouble with delivering food in the middle of the night is that people black out. They'll return from the bars, call up an order, black out, order somewhere else and then black out again. The pizza guy will show up along with the sub guy, until there's four delivery guys out on the porch, demanding transaction. Josh Steward, Hayes senior, remembers showing up to deliver a Jimmy John's sub one night. Roommates opened the door to reveal Josh's customer stretched out on the couch, lying at the bottom of some inebriated abyss from which no shout or slap across the face would wake him. The roommates pilfered through his pockets, collecting money for the sub and a hand-some tip. For all Josh knew, they ate the guy's sandwich.
It's early in the morning on Sept. 11 and Bryan Adams is crooning over the PA system at Dillons, 1015 W. $23^{\mathrm{d}}$ Street. The tune is "Have You Ever Really Loved a Woman," the theme song to Don Juan DeMarco. I find Justin Schwarzer, Muscovah freshman, hanging out in the pastry section with some friends. All three look perfectly sober. Justin is buying a dozen donuts and some chocolate chip cookies while I pick up a copy of Rolling Stone, the one with Michael Moore in a Spartans cap on the cover. The employees look nonplussed as Justin and his friends skip
down the aisles. Justin tells me only Wal-Mart was open all night back home, and he likes visiting the all-night food houses in Lawrence - especially the Waffle House. Mmmm, I think. Waffle House.
1:10 a.m.
Instead of waffles I decide on pancakes and head to Perkins, 1711 W23rd St. When I walk in, a huge security guy dressed all in black is guarding the banana nut muffins. The manager shows me to a booth, passing two long tables of giggly Chinese kids speaking Mandarin. Like at Dillons, everyone is under 25, except for the four proletariats in the corner who talk about politics and working at a phone company. My waiter, a pleasant and soft-spoken kid named Reuben, brings me water, hash browns, sunny-side up eggs and pancakes, all for $4.99. I dig in and read about the delicious donuts in Moore's hometown of Flint, Mich., as Chinese girls pick fruit and bits of breakfast off their boyfriends' plates. Before paying, I approach one of the proletariats to inquire about his meal, but he eyes my copy of Rolling Stone and I chicken out. As I pay, an attractive couple in identical baseball caps heckles the manager about the smoking ban.
At Jimmy John's, 1447 W 23 $^{rd}$ St., Josh relates his travails in late-night delivery over a sign that reads "Please try not to
1:51 a.m.
smoke." Kids stumble in and order Italian Night Clubs and J.J.B.L.T.s. The employees at Jimmy John's call this time of night "the graveyard rush." Korey Norman, the assistant manager, recalls one night where this homeless guy had no money. The homeless guy ripped off his own fingernail with his teeth and bled into his sandwich so he wouldn't have to pay. "We usually don't give out anything free," Korey says. "But I'm not gonna let a guy go hungry if he bites off his nail for a sub."
2:07 a.m.
The bars are closed and half the drunks in town are at The Wheel, 507 W. $14^{\mathrm{th}}$ St. Sorority girls sit on the curb slurring into their cell phones as guys in red staff shirts sweep up the sidewalk. Greedy hands claw over the counter for slices of pepperoni and sausage on flimsy paper plates,
Photos by Ryan Howe
pumping back and forth like at a rock concert. I try to talk to a kid with green-striped socks and frizzy red hair who looks like Napoleon Dynamite, but the kid's not making much sense through his chomps. He's taller than me and the effect is like Charlie Brown talking to one of his teachers in those old cartoons, so I ditch Napoleon and grab a slice for the road.
2:22 a.m.
On the drive home I pass Burrito King at 9th and Illinois, where the cars in the drive-thru spill onto Illinois and threaten to back up the traffic headed east on 9th Street. Longhaired kids eat burritos under white umbrellas. It's the middle of the night, the pizza has been nibbled down to the crust and I'm starting to get jealous of these kids' alcohol-enhanced taste buds.
Student ID or Letter of Acceptance required.
KU students,
buy an iPod and a
PowerBook or iBook
and get $200 back.*
Authorized Campus Reseller
The Tech Shop
KU Bookstore
Level 2, Kansas Union
techshop@iku.edu 864-4640
*Buy an iPod and a PowerBook or iBook (excluding iPod mini and 12-inch iBook with CD-ROM) from a participating Authorized Campus Reseller between July 7 and September 25, 2004, and receive a $200 mail-in rebate. Terms and Conditions apply.
© 2004 Apple Computer, Inc. All rights reserved. Apple, the Apple logo, Apple Store, iBook, iPod, and PowerBook are trademarks of Apple Computer, Inc., registered in the U.S. and other countries.
8
Jayplay 9.23.04