1 St. Louis Blues<br >Click.<br > The TV set I d been staring at for twenty minutes suddenly<br >shut down， leaving me to search for quarters while checking my<br >watch. Seeing the time， I stopped checking the watch. Your time<br >is up， number three. At least mine was.<br > I looked up and pulled a face， picked up a can of crapawful<br > soda that I d bought twenty minutes ago， and tried it. Still<br > crapawful. I wasn t exactly comfortable either; the TV seats<br > the Greyhound Bus people had put into the various terminals，<br > including the St. Louis terminal， were designed to make you so<br > uncomfortable you didn t notice the crappy quality of the TV<br > signal.<br > Show-me. The goddamned show-me state. Missouri didn t<br > have much to show. I wasn t particularly interested in looking，<br > either. Area Fourteen had set one of his favorite midway contacts<br > on me， cloak and dagger and all， and I wasn t amused. Hc<br > refused to tell me why 1 was here， the assumption being I d be<br > able to pick up things for myself， looking at everything， rather<br > than having preconceptions.<br > So show me. Missouri.<br > I was approximately in the middle of the terminal， with a good<br > view all around of a modern gray-and-black urban plastic rat-<br > hole， Widc windows all along one side， ticket desks at the other，<br > exit way in the distance， at the bottom end. left luggage right<br > behind me lights way overhead， pillars at skewed intervals<br > from one end to the other， exit out to the buses back and on my<br > right. I d ahnost memorized the layout at the start. I d had to.<br > On my left， an alcove filled with pinball machines and<br > 1<br >