to pick them up for an AIDS-ridden grope. The slaughterhouses just across the river from St. Louis were also a grim attraction. Anything dealing with death and urban decay was an object of fascination, but we were always safe from the real lessons inside our locked luxury car. We typically ended our Saturday-night fun with pizza and beer back at the hotel anywhere from 4 AM to 6 AM on Sunday morning. Sometimes there was hot, sweaty sex, and wed fall asleep exhausted.

Rising on Sunday afternoon, wed play some more and then drive two hours south to the gritty rural redneck town of Chester, Illinois. Its only claims to fame are a statue honoring the creator of the Popeye cartoon, a grim fortress for the criminally insane, andin an earlier footnote.

The Menard Correctional Center is a century-old brick maximum-security monstrosity on the banks of the Mississippi River. Menard serves as one of two Illinois death rows and is also a maximum-security prison for several hundred other felons. We had to be there early Monday morning and could stay until 2:30 PM. Visitors pass through a guardhouse where they must remove all metal items and store them in lockers. Shoes are x-rayed and a quick patdown done before a guard accompanies the visitors through a half dozen gates and iron doors to a cafeteria. A guard watches closely while visitors buy food, cigarettes and snacks from vending machines. The goodies are stacked on trays which visitors carry through another half dozen barriers to the death row