Chapter 2--Chicago

            Sorry about the delay.  Technical difficulties, which should not happen again.  

            I didn’t really have anywhere to go, and, surprisingly enough, I didn’t really have a lot of money to spend on a hotel.  What I did have now was one hell of an appetite.  I’d stopped once for gas and picked up a couple sticks of beef jerky, but that was not enough to really tide me over.  I pulled off the interstate onto Western Avenue, and headed what I thought was north.  I traveled through a neighborhood unlike what I’d seen in Des Moines.  Homes and apartment buildings piled close to the street, set back only by the sidewalk and a small front yard.  I drove past a street where a large Puerto Rican flag sculpture spanned the street.  I saw small grocery stores and restaurants.  A high school with metal detectors at the doors.  I toured through this foreign territory for a while before  got turned around and somehow ended up in downtown Chicago.  At what had to be rush hour.  I had never been to Chicago before.  I’d never left the state of Iowa.  So, this was a change.

            Throngs of people walked the sidewalks.  Well, maybe not throngs, but a lot of people.  More than I was used to seeing in Des Moines.  And there were restaurants, little corner places that looked like they were owned and ran by people who lived above them.  Street lights lined the broad streets that were full of angry honking people in a rush to get somewhere.  As I sat there in my small compact car, I wondered where everyone was headed.  The car ahead of me was driven by a larger gentleman who was slamming his fist on the steering wheel as he yelled out the window.  The woman in the cab next to me was pointing repeatedly as the driver tried to wave in reassurance to her, but she didn’t seem calm.  And the buildings shot out of the ground into the sky casting shadows that the streetlights could barely hold at bay. 

            I followed the involuntary caravan of cars as they headed north onto Lakeshore drive.  The cool fall air had set up residence here, as I could tell from the colors flashing through the leaves of the trees—some of which were already littering the lawn that lay between the road and Lake Michigan.  After about an hour, I made it past three exits and got off.  I had no idea where I was heading, but my stomach was telling me it needed to be a place that served food.  It was time to get out and tour this alien landscape.

            I made my way to the intersection of Broadway and Belmont, found a space and proceeded to parallel park.  It only took me ten minutes and three attempts, but I managed to squeeze my compact car into a space a mini-van had just pulled out of.  Apparently, even my police training hadn’t prepared me for parallel parking in a city as cars bear down on you, threatening to take your spot if you can’t get take it. 

            But after that ordeal, I shut off my car, opened the door and stepped out into the cool fall weather.  My stiff legs enjoyed the feeling of freedom as I shut and locked the car and began to walk down the street.  For the moment, I forgot my stomach’s demands and walked north, past the chain drug store and past the storefront window with people running on treadmills and the many little shops with shiny bobbles.  I stared in the windows, walking slowly as people passed me quickly moving decidedly toward the places their lives were taking them. 

            Finally, at a street called Cornelia, my stomach re-asserted itself and I ducked into “Fast and Fresh”, a small restaurant on the corner.  I ordered a sandwich and some fries from the man behind the counter.  He was a short man, brown, unkempt hair and from his accent I would guess he was from Eastern Europe somewhere.  He shuffled a cup over to me and I filled it with some much needed caffeine and at down.  The café was empty except for me, the guy behind the counter and a mother sitting with two children, helping them with their homework.  The kids, a boy and a girl, were both elementary school age and they both appeared to be working on math.  The man brought my food and went and sat with the family.  I ate my food quietly, enjoying the feeling of family in the restaurant, even if I was only doing so by extension.  Watching them working together on their homework made me feel pangs in my stomach and I finished up my food quickly, stopping only to refill my cup before I walking out.  I glanced over my shoulder as the father patted his son on the shoulder and offered a congratulations in a soft, but certainly foreign language.

            Out in the street, I continued north until I hit Addison.  There was a small, beautiful church, that if I saw it alone in a picture, I would’ve assumed was from the middle of Iowa.  It was unassuming and had originally been white, but was now soiled with the dust and dirt of the city going about its business.  I turned left and headed toward the one thing I thought I might recognize around here. 

            I’d been watching Cubs games on TV since I could remember.  In fact, if things had turned out differently, I might have turned into a Cubs fan.  Luckily for me, though, I was saved from that fate by a father who loved the St. Louis Cardinals.  Even if I question some of the other things he gave me in childhood, I can always feel good about that.  Still as I passed under the El, I thought about how I thought seeing Wrigley for the first time would be amazing.  People don’t always realize that the Cubs’ top minor league team is in Des Moines, so I saw Gregg Maddux, Mark Grace, and a bunch of other people before the people of Chicago made them into heroes or goats, or whatever they do here.  But when I got to the stadium, I was almost overwhelmed by how small it is.  I walked around the square block it’s situated on and amused myself with the thought that it must be October, because the stadium was empty.

            As I walked down Clark to complete my circuit, I saw him.  I should have known from the way that others avoided him that he was trouble.  You can’t always trust the knowledge of the mass of people, but sometimes the wisdom of random people on the street is right on.  But as I approached the corner of Addison and Clark, he approached me with his hand out.
            “Do you know where you’re headed?”  Normally, this type of question would’ve been greeted with some sarcastic quip, but the events of the past weeks had thrown me off.  And I realized as I replied that I hadn’t talked to anyone for anything other than to order some form of liquor, for a long time.

            “I don’t,” I said as my voice quivered and the street lights flicked to life on the block south of us.  He thrust his hand out further and I shook it, letting go just as the lights on our block came to life.

            “It’s a wise man who can admit he is lost.”  He said with a shy, unassuming smile.  “You can stay with me.  Come along.”