Chicago--Part 7

I slowly stood, suddenly feeling every eye on me.  Paul chose this moment to creep forward and pull the trashcan out of the center. 

            “In Leopold’s old life, he was a police officer.”  Solomon spoke to the group, but turned toward me.  “Would you like to tell us more about why you left that life to join us, Leopold?” 

            “I.  Uh.  Sure.”  I said feeling the blood race into my face.  Had I told him about being a cop?  “I joined the force a little bit after high school.  And everything seemed to be going great, until a little bit ago.  Someone killed an ex-girlfriend of mine.  Really brutally.  I mean, they tortured and…”  A couple people groaned, and someone gasped.  “Sorry.  I forget that others aren’t used to that kind of thing.”  I took a breath and tried to figure out where I was going with this.  “I don’t know.  I really wanted to catch that person.  I wanted to set things right.  And I couldn’t.” 

            I felt my hands clench and my body begin to sweat.  I hadn’t really talked about it, but I felt like I was about to let everything out.  I was suddenly back at the crime scene.  I could see her body wrenched apart.  Her body torn and broken, left lifeless.  The stomach that I had laid my head on as we talked about the future, was bruised and burnt.  The neck I kissed and tickled was swollen and scraped.  Her once-beautiful face was unrecognizable.  And the person who did this was out there still.

            “It made me feel so helpless that I could not help her.  That this woman I loved died and I was not there.  I mean, we had our problems.  I was not good for her.  We weren’t good for each other.  But that’s beside the point—“

            “Leopold.”  Solomon cut me off softly, and paused for a second.  “None of that matters.  As you will learn, that was you last life.  As we’ve all seen with James, that life is tough to give up.  But the first step is realizing, intellectually, that you are not your brother’s keeper.  You have years of training and instinct telling you otherwise, so this may be hard for you to accept.  But the truth of the situation is that the person who committed these regrettable acts, he is a symptom of the problems.  He is someone who has lost in the system of competition, and he is someone that could be saved if everyone would accept our teachings.”

            He looked knowingly in my eyes, as if he was waiting for my reaction.  I opened my mouth to speak, but could only stutter.  “I-I.  Mindy.”  Suddenly my throat clenched as if it would not allow any sound to get out.

            “You cared deeply for her.  But look at you now.  Look where your caring has brought you.  Look where your quest to catch this man has brought you.  It has brought you to misery.  It made you run from the city you called your home into a city with which you have no connection.”  He paused.  “But luckily it brought you here.  Where you can be healed.  Where you can be accepted.  Where you do not have to continue to compete.  Where you can lay that burden down.” 

            Standing there with everyone looking at me, I suddenly smiled. 

            Solomon returned my smile graciously.  “Freedom isn’t playing their rigged game, it’s accepting that you cannot win and therefore should not play.  Freedom is accepting your bondage, the role you can play here.  By accepting yourself as a member of this community, you are giving up all connections to the outside world.  You are a member of this group and nothing more.  You aren’t responsible for anyone else.  You don’t have to continually strive for more and lose.  The feelings of helplessness will subside, because here you are not trying to be anything other than a member of our community.  You can just relax and be.  Just be.” 

            I felt a flush in my cheeks.  I felt heat in my face and then it radiated down my spine and throughout my body.  My throat opened and I felt a sudden cooling sensation on my neck.  I looked around and saw every face smiling up at me. 

            “Can you accept that?”  Solomon asked.

            “I think I can,” I said quietly.

            “Good,” he said with a smile.

            That night, following a meal of an oatmeal-type sludge mixed with prunes (apparently staying regular is very important part of the group), we all went to bed silently.  There had been some idle chit chat, but no one spoke about what we saw at the offering.  It was hard for me to tell if this was a normal part of things or if this was different from the normal pace of things. 

            As I crawled into bed, I laid my head down still seeing James’s face as he watched his wife’s smiling face burn in the trash can.  I turned on my side and closed my eyes.  I took a deep breath and let it out, feeling happy to be in a place where I could forget about everything that had happened in Des Moines.  A new start, I thought as I drifted into the first deep sleep I could remember having in a long time. 

            Sometimes I am extremely stupid.  I’ve learned to accept that about myself, but I cannot say how it pops up will still surprise me.

Chicago--Part 6

The crowd thinned out at 11:30 AM, which seemed ungodly late for breakfast.  But young kids, had to be just out of college, were still sitting there playing with their pancakes and French toast.  They all wore sweat pants, the men had their baseball caps turned backward, covering their hair which had not been combed.  They wore jerseys, sweatshirts, and t-shirts, most of which were smudged with crusted ketchup and mustard.  The women all wore make-up, their hair done in pony-tails that tried to look casual.  I was pretty sure it was only Thursday, but these young people lounged like they had nowhere to be. 

            After the last of them left, we cleaned.  We cleaned the tables and walls with soapy wet rags.  We cleaned the floors with mops dosed with bleach.  We cleaned griddle with water and spatulas.  We cleaned the sidewalk outside with brooms and rakes, shoveling “unnecessary debris” into black trash bags.  We pulled the weeds that were barely budding from cracks in the sidewalks.  We cleaned the bathrooms.  We cleaned the simple table linens.  We cleaned the sparkling windows.  We cleaned and cleaned until every surface, sparkled, shined or shimmered.  All the work was done without any conversation, except for Stephen coming over to tell me to use more cleaning solvent and to work harder, quieter and faster. 

            And eventually, everyone came to a stop at pretty much the same time, except me.  I was still hauling garbage outside, when a couple more men came up to help me and we finished up.  Heading back from the dumpster behind the building, I said, “I’m famished, what’s for lunch?”

            The man next to me smiled, looked at my face and said, “Meditation,” without breaking his stride.  I rubbed my belly and followed the crowd as they lined up and headed downstairs into the basement.  Leaving the day’s sun, we filed past a thick door, down a set of stairs and into a room that was lit only by candles.  Already sitting in the front of the room was Solomon, who by the looks of things had been meditating for a while already.  He sat on a wooden chair, his arms rigidly bracing the rest of his body as it seemed to crumble against those arms.  I would’ve thought he was a corpse if not for the ropes of muscles that strained under his robe.  But hearing us approach, he seemed to stir.  His eyes slowly opened and his body seemed to come back to life. 

            “Apostles come to me.”  He said almost lazily.

            “We come thirsty for knowledge.  Thirsty for life.”  The rest of the group said united as I looked on.  I shifted again. 

            “Then sit and accept what the world willingly offers.”  Solomon shifted in his seat, and opened his arms to the room as if offering them the chairs that sat in a circle around the room.  I sat with everyone else, Candice took the seat to my right.  “Who has an offering?”

            The room sat silent for a moment until an older man began.  His quiet voice suddenly filled the room.  “I don’t really know how to say this.  Master Solomon, you have been so kind to me.  And I have been trying so hard.”

            “James,” Solomon started.  “You have no need to preface your offering.  You can say whatever you want here.  You know that.”

            “It’s just that I don’t think I’m doing very well here.  I don’t miss my life.  Ever since my wife died, I just.  Well, you know, sir.  You’ve been with me almost every day since then.  And most days have been great.  I love our work.  I love my place in this community.  I love not being a part of that painful, cruel world.  But today is the two year anniversary.  And I know I should have left all of that behind.  I know that her death is not a part of my life anymore.  I know our life, the life we were building was wrong.  It was based on competition and I’m not aching to go back to that.  But still, sir.  I ache.  I ache to feel her hand on my chest and to hear her soft snores when  I sleep.  I ache to hold her again, or to argue with her.  Or anything.  I just ache.” 

            There was a moment of silence as Solomon took in James’s words.  The moment stretched uncomfortably until Solomon rose.  He walked over to James, slowly, placing a hand on his shoulder.  He leaned in, wrapped his other arm around James and put his lips next to James’s ear.  Solomon stayed in that position closely and, from where I was, it was impossible to know whether Solomon was whispering or not.  But after a very long moment the two came apart.  James was wearing a contented smile on his face and mouthing appreciative words.

            As Solomon turned, James left the room quickly.  “The words I shared with James were for him alone.  But his predicament is like what many of you are dealing with, I believe.  James is dealing with problems that continue to follow him from his former life.  He has tried to detach from that world, but has found that harder than he expected.”  Solomon strode slowly back to his chair at the front of the room, but continued to stand.  After taking a couple deep breathes, he spoke again, his back still toward us. 

            “We all had lives before we came here.  None of us are free of the baggage the world heaps on all of us as we progress from youth into adulthood, and as we try to become that elusive something.  That something that  will give us everything we want.  Whether it’s becoming a great husband, or getting that great job.  Of finding the perfect house in the perfect neighborhood.  There’s always that something you’re supposed to get.  And what happens when you get that elusive something?  You start to concentrate on getting the thing that comes after it.  You’ve got a spouse?  Now you need a house.  Then a baby.  Then another baby.  But first you need a good job, which will lead you to another job, and then another.  You’re on the treadmill, being pushed through life.  You can’t choose the next job, because you bought the bigger house, so you need to take the one that pays the most.  Not to mention that being paid more is a big stroke to your ego.  But you’re all here because you know how hard—cruel in fact—that life is.”

            He fell silent again as footsteps could be heard coming down the steps.  James came back inside holding something in his hand.  “What we seek to teach, to instill in you, is the ability to choose to get off.  You all have the ability to make that choice.  It is hard, no doubt.  It requires a great deal of discipline.  It requires learning how to live, and part of that learning process is sacrifice.  To fulfill his offering, James has decided to show us all about sacrifice.”  

            James came to the center of the circle and held out his hand.  Solomon turned around and signaled with his left hand.  Paul came forward with a metal trashcan.  “James, tell us all what it is you’ve brought before us.”

            “I brought,” James started with a huff of energy, “a photograph.  My last photograph of my wife.”

            Two chairs away, a woman gasped, but Solomon held up his hand to calm her. 

            “I know Rebecca.  You were all told when you joined that you had to give up all your connections to the outside world.  This includes photographs of loved ones.  James and I have talked about it, and I have known for a while that he harbored this picture.  And I allowed it, hoping that James would soon become ready to give it up.  And tonight, I believe James is ready to take that step here with all of us.” 

              While Solomon spoke, Paul set the trashcan beside James and handed him a box of matches. 

            “Is that right James,” Solomon continued.  “Are you ready tonight to leave your last connection to the world behind?”

            “I am, sir.”  James said with a small crack in his voice.  He had retracted his left hand to his chest, holding the picture close to him.  He looked down at it and ran his the index finger of his right hand over the surface, the box of matches held in by his remaining fingers.  His eyes began to well up, but James bent at his knees and gently laid the picture in the bottom of the basket.  His shaking hands pulled out a match and struck the match once, then twice, then a third time before fire jumped from the end with crack.  His hand fumbled with the matchstick for a couple seconds before the ignited match seemed to fall.  Smoke almost immediately rose from the trashcan as a tear fell from James’s face onto the cement floor below.

            “James, you may sit now.  Thank you for giving to this community.  Thank you for completely embracing your new start.  It is not easy to accept.  After a lifetime of being told to compete, to accumulate friends and other things, but the truth is that life only brings misery.”  The room sat quietly, as most watched as the smoke slowly ebbed and then stopped.  Finally Solomon spoke again.  “Most of you know we have a new member.  Leopold, please stand.”  

This had to be good.

Chicago--Part 5

“Excuse me?” I said to Candice as she continued flipping pancakes.  She stacked three large golden discs and put them on a plate behind her.  The plate was taken away almost as quickly as she put it down. 

            “Come on Leopold, no one’s here because their other life was happy.”  She gave me a quick look.  “It’s a woman, am I right?”  She paused as if to let me answer, but continued, “It’s always a woman with guys your age.”

            “It’s not a woman,” I said half-heartedly, shifting my weight.

            She smiled.  “I see.  Very believable.”  She poured a couple more batter into discs on the hot surface.  “Well, if you’re not going to tell me what it is you’re running from, I won’t tell you what I’m running from.”  She flipped a couple more pancakes.  “Pour some batter over there.  That’s your side, over here is mine.”

            I followed her directions, not sure of what to say.  After a long pause, I decided to say, “I mean, it’s not just a woman.”

            “Ahh,” she said.  “You’re a complicated guy, then.”

            “Not complicated, just not simple.”

            “I see.”  Her voice gave nothing away, and silence settled again over us as we each worked our side of the griddle.  I flipped over a couple cakes, seeing their golden-brown side signaling that they were almost perfectly done.  “Nice,” she said taking note of my work. 

            “So how does this work?  Do you always do this, or do you move after a while?”

            “Move up?”

            “Yeah.”

            “Like promoted?”

            “I guess.”

            “You -are- new,” she said with a smile.  “Be glad I heard you say that and not Stephen, because he would give you a 20 minute lecture on everyone’s place in society and how this isn’t society, only he wouldn’t say it that nicely.  See Leopold, there is nothing to be promoted to.  There is no up.  There is no down.  There is just the job you do.  We’re all part of the system here and we all fit in.  If you’re not good at this, then they’ll find you something else you can be good at.”

            “But don’t you get tired of doing the same thing all the time?”

            “Why would I?”  She said glancing over my shoulder, before turning back to the griddle with the faint hint of something running across her face.

            “Hey there,” I heard a second before feeling a solid hand on my shoulder.  Turning I saw the perfect, broad, white grin that would become so familiar to me.  I stepped back instinctively, but felt his other hand grab my other shoulder. “My name is Solomon.  I heard Paul brought in a new guy and I wanted to welcome here myself.”

            “Hi.  I guess I’m Leopold,” I said extending my right hand.  His hands stayed on my shoulder, as if he didn’t notice my extended hand.  I shifted the weight in my legs, but his hands held me firmly in place.  His smile grew even broader.

            “It is an adjustment being here.  We know that.  You’re still a child of the outside world, but you’ve taken a good first step by being here.  You have accepted help and by accepting help, you have started on your journey toward enlightenment and freedom.” 

            “Thanks?”  I meant it to come out with more sureness, but I couldn’t keep myself from staring into the deep blue eyes of this man as he stood there, holding me still and looking me over as if he understood me already.

            “I know in your time of introduction, you will feel pressure to introduce yourself by talking about what you’ve done in the past.  Who you were.  What you did.  That sort of thing.  And if that’s what you want to do, that’s fine—as long as you understand that what you’re telling everyone is the life you are leaving behind.  The skin you’re shedding on your path to becoming you anew.”

            “Okay.”  I said, unable to lower my eyes from his seemingly unblinking eyes.  I was sure his eyes went on forever, with wisdom and power undulating underneath the deep blue.    

            “Great.”  He turned his head to Candice, but held my shoulders in place.  “Candice, how are you today?”

            “I am good Master Solomon.”  She didn’t turn from the griddle, staring intently at the pancakes for any sign that they needed to be turned or taken and served.  “Thank you for asking.”  Her voice seemed different, like it could break off as it was coming out of her mouth and shatter as it hit the clean, tiled floor beneath our feet.

            Turning back to me, Solomon smiled again, his face giving no clue how he felt about their interaction.  “I hope you enjoy your time here.  If you have any questions, please feel free to ask me.  Or anyone.  We’re all equal here.”  His hands left my shoulders and I suddenly noticed my back straighten, leaving Solomon about three inches shorter than me.  He walked away slowly, making his way to others throughout the restaurant.  I watched him as he greeted everyone in the restaurant, slowly talking to anyone he came across—the smile never leaving his face.

            “You gonna faint or something?” Candice’s voice called me back from wherever my mind had swum to. 

            “That guy is…” I just trailed away, not finding the word I wanted. 

            “He definitely is.”  Candice let out a breath of air that sounded like she had been holding in for a long time.  “Are you gonna jump in here?”

            “Yeah,” I said, stepping back to the griddle and flipping a couple pancakes that now looked a little browner than would be considered ideal.  “Sorry about that.”  I let a couple beats pass trying to form the question.  Eventually, I just settled on, “so what’s his deal?”

            Candice looked at me out of the sides of her eyes, not turning her head fully to me.  She spoke carefully, “Master Solomon is the head of this order.  He teaches us and guides us.  He’s the reason most of us are here.”

            “I see.”  I said trying to digest the change in her mood.  “And you…think he’s all right?”

            She smacked her spatula down on the griddle and turned fully to look at me.  Her cheeks were flushed.  “That sausage is burned.  I told you to watch the sausage.”  She put her hands at her sides and bent her head forward murmuring something.

            “I’m sorry, I—“  Her hand shot up, ending an inch from my lips.  Her palm was callused and strong.  I got the message and shut my mouth. 

            “I am sorry for my reaction.”  She said in a stiff, quiet voice.  “I know the competitive impulse pushed me to that place.  I am still working on controlling that part of me.  I did not mean for you to feel looked down on or out of place.”  She looked up, her mouth pulled tight.  “I have been here so long, but there are still those things I have trouble controlling.”  A beat passed. 

            I stepped back to the griddle and pushed the sausage over, so the links turned.   Their charred sides faced up, hiding the tender, uncooked parts.

Chapter 4--Chicago

It was late, so I was shown into a large room on the second floor of the place.  There were drapes drawn across the windows to drown out the little remnants of daylight that remained after this long day.  As I went in, I could not see where I was headed.

            “The bunk in the far right corner is open.”  I heard him whisper.  “See you in the morning, when the work starts.”  And with that I heard his footsteps as he headed downstairs.  I stood for a minute as my eyes adjusted to the darkness, before I stepped toward the corner.  My foot landed on something soft, but nothing yelled, so I continued to the corner.  As I got closer to the corner, I could see the wooden frames of two bunks, with three beds each, standing perpendicular to each other.  There were lumps in all but the top-most bunk on the one farthest from me, so I quietly slipped out of all of my clothes except my boxers and slipped under the coarse sheet.  The mattress was, if I’m going to be nice about it, firm.  If I weren’t going to be nice, I’d say “concrete”.  There was no pillow and I struggled all night to get comfortable.  My body tossed and turned all night trying to pound some comfort either out of or into the mattress.  Finally, I think the battling numbed me enough that I could fool myself into thinking I was comfortable and I nodded off. 

            What seemed like twenty minutes later, I was awoken by the loud thudding of people jumping off their bunks and the clatter of people piling out of the room.  The door shut with a finality as the last person made their way out.  The drapes covering the windows barely held out the light of what seemed to me to be an early morning sun.  I opened my eyes and watched as about thirty people filed out of the room, and I was left alone.  I sat still for a minute considering whether I should get up and follow them, but I nodded off to sleep before I could make up my mind. 

            I had just resumed the recurring dream I’d had since the death of Mindy James when I heard the door creak open slowly.  I turned and saw two men standing there looking directly at me. 

            “Well, come on,” said a man who reminded me of an old dog who had been out on the street to long—rough around the edges, fierce, not to be messed with.  As I was thinking this, he approached the bed and reached up.  Instinctively I sat up, putting my legs between him and me.  “It’s time to work,” he growled up at me. 

            I threw off the sheet and jumped down.  The second man, who had remained at the door, howled and spun around.  Shocked, I started to walk toward him, but the first man grabbed my shoulder and spun me around.  “What the hell are you wearing?”  He spoke averting his eyes from me.

            “Boxers,” I said with a shake of my head.

            “Not allowed,” he said.

            “Not allowed?”

            “Not allowed,” he repeated. 

            “I heard you, I just don’t understand.”

            “What’s not to understand?  If you’re going to be here, you can’t wear those.”

            “Okay.  Well, I’m not just gonna let my junk hang loose.”

            His head snapped to mine quickly.  “And you cannot be this crass.  Honestly, I don’t know where Paul found you, but if you can’t conform, you won’t stay here long.”  He stared at me a second, and I couldn’t decide whether he wanted a reply or not.  Finally he said, “Calvin, go get a pair of shorts for Leopold, here.  And the rest of what he’ll need.”

            “Yes, Stephen,” said the now less-shocked man, who I guess is Calvin.

            “Why did you call me Leopold?  My name is [gumshoe].”  I said, feeling a trickle of sweat run down my back.  I was starting to think I had made a mistake. 

            “That may have been your name, but now it’s Leopold.  I don’t know why they don’t put all of this stuff in the intro tour, but this is basic stuff here.”  He took a deep breath and let it out as Calvin came back with a stack of clothes, on top of which were a pair of underwear.  They would be called “tighty-whities”, except they were a deep shade of brown.

            “I don’t think these will be very flattering to my body-type,” I said holding them in my hand.

            “Humor.  That’s good.  Put them on and we can make with the laughy-laughy.”  I pulled off my boxers and tossed them on the floor.  It was then that I noticed my clothes from yesterday had been taken.

            “My clothes are gone.”

            “The clothes of the outside world have been taken.  You’re here now and you’ll dress appropriately.”  I was starting to see that Stephen was kind of a dick, but I put on the clothes without saying anything else.  “Fine,” he said after I had finished.  “We’re going to start you on the griddle.  Can you handle that?”

            “Uh.  Sure.”  I said, following him as he started walking out of the room.  We went down a different staircase than the one I had climbed the night before.  It led down to the kitchen where the people I had presumably slept next to last night were running around like a well-oiled machine.  There were people who were chopping, stirring, mixing, and shredding; eggs were being beaten and fried; pancakes were being poured and flipped; bacon was being grilled and turned; and omelets were being folded and plated.  Waiters, walking in small, quick steps, were taking plates out to customers.  There was some conversation, but it was in hushed tones.

            I stood on the last step for a second, before I realized Stephen had continued forward, and was still giving me instructions.  I hopped down and caught up.  “Our mornings are pretty regimented, but that’s how we like it.  No time for shenanigans.  No time for trouble.  We make breakfast.  We close.  We spend our time considering the world around us.”  He stopped and turned as we reached the griddle.  “This is Candice,” he said pointing to the woman who monitoring the pancakes.  “She will show you what you need to know.”  He looked me over, shook his head and walked away without another word. 

            I turned to Candice, “So…” I trailed off.

            “You probably know how to make pancakes.  You pour from this thingy over here.  You wait until you see bubbles coming through, then you flip it over.  And then you wait for a second or two, and then you take it off.”  She said, without looking up at me.  “The sausage over there, you just have to turn it every once in a while and don’t let it burn.  No one likes burnt sausage.”

            “My name is [gumshoe],” I said as I picked up a spatula.

            “I was told to call you Leopold,” she said glancing at me out of the side of her eye.  “So, what are you running away from?”

Chapter 3--Chicago

The man didn’t have a shaved head, or have on clothes that one would consider odd.  In fact, he was dressed in a nice pair of khaki pants and a polo—an authentic, very expensive polo.  He had short hair that he parted in what would I thought was almost conservative.  He was somewhere north of forty years old, but it was hard for me to pin down.  His hair had some gray spattering in the dirty-red it had been, and his hands had the weathered look of someone who worked outside and who maybe had worked with raw materials.  I imagined him as a crafter of wood, bending and shaping it into something useful or artistic.

I’d walked next to him down Addison away from Wrigley Field and the bars that surrounded it, past Southport and a large Catholic church that had buildings on both sides of the street.  We crossed Lincoln Ave., went under another branch of the El, and crossed Damen Ave. before we turned south.  I spent whole walk listening him talk.  He started out by telling me a story.

            “I was once lost, like you are now.  I used to work in this world,” he said as he almost shrugged at the buildings that crouched behind the small green lawns.  “I went to a job and worked hard.  I had a wife and child.  I did all of the things that would make me a good citizen.  Paid my taxes, volunteered my time, voted.  In short, I was a good person, but something was missing, and I couldn’t figure out what it was.  You know,” he said pausing to look at me out of the side of his eye.  After seeing I was following along with him, he started again.  “There’s a bar, not too far from here, just south a bit, that I used to go to a lot.  Not proud of it, but that’s how I was.  In the bar there are pictures hanging on the wall of great writers.  Hemmingway, Faulkner, Twain.  But the one I always noticed the most was James Joyce.  I’ve always loved Joyce.  Read Ulysses, Dubliners, and Portrait of an Artist in college.  Changed my life.  I thought for the better, but…well.  Reading those books made me think I could be a great writer too.  So every day, after working my day job, I’d go to that bar with my notebook and stare at the pictures and wait for that great idea.  I was gonna write my own Ulysses.  And I was going to be celebrated and loved.  It was silly, wasn’t it?  But I don’t regret that time.  I guess that was the best I could do at the time.

            “But now I know better.”  He looked at me and I noticed his eyes were the color of charred wood.  He waited for me, and I, not knowing what else to do, nodded.  “I’m not going to be a great writer.  And I had to accept that I wouldn’t be great at anything, just like the vast majority of the people in this world.”  He paused to let that sink in.  “And there is nothing wrong with that.  A lot of people keep trying to climb up and do better, and we don’t judge them.  They’re doing the best they can, and there’s something noble about that.

            “But what we do is, in my opinion, a more noble pursuit.  We have disengaged from that world in order to become better people.” We reached Roscoe St. and turned to the west walking by a number of hip bars and restaurants, as he continued his speech.  “We are a small group of people, sort of a family, who seek enlightenment through reflection and by working our simple trade.  You see, the world out here,” he said waving his hand at the buildings, many of which were new condominium buildings with businesses on the first floor, “is corrupt.  It’s corrupt and it’s ugly.  So we’ve formed a retreat from its influence.”

            He stopped in front of what used to be a two-story home.  A banner hung from the windows on the second floor that said, “Victory’s Griddle.”  He stepped to the door and opened it, revealing an entryway that seemed inviting and accessible.  Hardwood floors lined the area and led to a counter with a cash register sitting prominently on top.  “Come on in.”

            “This is a restaurant.”  I said somewhat confused.  He walked inside and I found myself following.

            “It is.  As I was saying we work a simple trade.  We run a restaurant that serves food, primarily breakfast, but we will be expanding into lunch soon, to the people who live and work in this neighborhood.”  He ran his hand over the counter.  “I’m not telling you this is a glamorous life.  Not luxurious.  It is work, but it’s work that leads toward something great—acceptance of who you are, not who you could be.  You won’t find pie in the sky on our menu.”  He smiled and gave a knowing wink.  “So, how does that sound to you?”

            “What?”  My voice cracked.

            “Do you want to work here with us?  Do you want to accept yourself as you are right now?”

            “I—“

            “Aren’t you tired of being told you can be better?  Aren’t you tired of trying so hard to work on everything?  Think about it.  You have to work on your marriage, your relationship, your job—everything.  And if those are wrong, or if you have the wrong car, haircut, or clothes, they judge you.  ‘You’re different,’ they say.  ‘Defective’.  ‘Bad’.  Whatever.  They label you and set you aside from their race up the ladder that leads nowhere.  Course they don’t know it leads nowhere, but that’s fine.  What I’m offering you is a chance to detach from the hold they have on you.  I’m offering you freedom from the concerns of their world and acceptance in a more fulfilling one.  I’m offering you the chance to choose a family who will support you and work with you as you become a better you.” 

            And I agreed.  Let it never be said that I was unwilling to make a huge, life-altering mistake on a moment’s notice.

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.”

Chapter 1

Chicago started as an escape.  Well, it started as San Francisco, but became Chicago.  You’ll see.

Mindy James, my ex-girlfriend, had been killed a couple weeks before and Des Moines had been too much after that.  The job—finding her killer--seemed like the only thing that mattered.  Friends--the few that I had--and family faded into the background as I focused on retribution.  But, as you might expect, the anger and depression made me sloppy.  Mindy and I had been in a relationship that had ended in tears, bruises and a police report that I hid from the rest of the officers investigating her death and the series of similar murders that happened around the same time.  And that’s how my career as a Des Moines Police Officer ended.  It had been coming for a while before that, though.  Years of dealing with people on both sides of the problem had gutted the parts of the job I liked, leaving just the husk.  It’s easy to hate the thieves and pimps and the myriad other people who act to make the city a worse place to live.  But after years of working, I found myself hating the victims too.  Not that they were at fault for their suffering, but the way they would look at me—their eyes teary and red, or hard and expecting, or angry, or disappointed—it stopped making me feel like I was helping.  It made me feel like I was just someone taking an order, same as anyone at a fast food shop. 

            I still remember the last night as a cop.  I was sat down, and there was a lot of yelling.  There’s some dispute about whether I was fired or I quit.  Not that it matters at this point, but I still contend I quit.  I slid the gun across the Lieutenant’s desk, happy to be free from the weight of it.  The badge, however, slipped from my hand almost the way breath seems to slip from my lungs—without effort or thought.  As the Lieutenant closed his hand around that shining shield, the room seemed to darken.  I didn’t know why—especially after the way the last couple months of alienating pretty much everyone in my life.  My partner suspected me of murder.  My best friend wanted to believe in me, but he wasn’t sure after my erratic actions.  And the woman I had once thought I loved was dead.  And I didn’t have a dog, so I was alone.  Alone, but I felt free—at least that’s what I told myself.

That night I came home angry.  I stopped to get a bottle of cheap whiskey a couple blocks from the apartment I rented.  I left my car in the parking lot and started to walk home with the bottle.  By the time I was home, I’d drained the whiskey and was trying to remember if there was anything else at home.  I found a couple odd beers in the fridge and opened one up before heading to the closet and pulling out a suitcase.  I tore the drawers out from my dresser and dumped the contents into the suitcase, zipped it shut and sat on the bed and started to cry.  The tears were warm and smelled of whiskey and as I sat there, I could feel the morning’s headache start to crawl into the sides of my head.  “Always have to pay for the stupid shit you do,” I muttered to myself as I snuck under the covers and waited to fall asleep.  It was a long wait with the last couple months sitting on my chest, but finally the night was shrouded by a foggy state, which I guessed was sleep. 

            I awoke in vomit, as the sunlight streamed through the window splitting the room, and my head.  Dust motes played in the light playfully and for a minute I smiled at the beauty, before my stomach lurched and I threw up again.  I climbed out of bed and clumsily brushed the cold vomit from my mouth and chest as I sat up and looked at the mess I’d made.  I picked the suitcase off the bed and stood it by the closet door as I went to the bathroom holding my head and barely making it to the toilet in time for another round of sickness.  The next few mornings started about the same way.  And the days passed as you might expect, I’d watch TV during the day, nursing myself back to a state resembling humanity.  I’d get calls from my former partner that I wouldn’t answer—her voice on the answering machine seemed genuinely concerned, but she never dropped by to check on me.  I would tell myself this was the last day of this bullshit—now I needed to figure out what the hell to do with myself.  But I always ended up passing a bar or liquor store and stumbling home and waking up with a headache that was more excruciating than the day before.  Some days the headache was joined by bruises and scrapes that I couldn’t explain until I would try to enter a bar either later that night or soon after and the bartender would explain to me, usually rather colorfully, that I was no longer allowed to enter that establishment.

            And then, one day as I was watching Price is Right sucking down some orange juice and trying to decide if I was going to be able to keep down some breakfast, I got up out of the chair, picked up the suitcase and got into the Toyota that I’d bought a year before.  I was going west—the decision was made.  San Francisco maybe.  I’d wanted to visit since reading the Maltese Falcon.  San Francisco would be good for me.  No more snowy winters.  New people.  No family.  No partners.  No expectations.  Just a warmer climate with some sun and the ocean.  I had never seen the ocean, couldn’t imagine something so massive.  I tried to imagine myself sitting on a beach staring as far as I could across the ocean—straight into eternity, maybe—but my mind couldn’t picture anything larger than Lake Ahquabi.  Yes, San Francisco was the place for this defrocked police officer, I thought as I took a right onto I-80.

I was smiling suddenly.  San Francisco was going to be great.  It was exactly what I needed, I thought to myself and flipped on the radio.   “Ain’t got no cash, ain’t got no style.  Ain’t got no girl to make you smile.  Don’t worry.  Be happy.”  I smashed my hand into the radio five times, before the music stopped.  It was also then that I noticed the sign that said I was 6 miles from Grinnell.  I was headed the wrong way.  I entertained the thought of turning around at Grinnell, but I didn’t want to see Des Moines again, so I kept on going.

            Five and a half hours later, I found myself in Chicago.