(One-Sided)Rumble on Wabash

Stop me if I’ve told you this one before.

One gray and drab Sunday afternoon, my mother, my baby sister and I decide to go out for a nice family-style lunch at (the now defunct) Bennigan’s, our favorite restaurant of the moment.  We could have easily gone to the Bennigan’s located at Chicago Ridge Mall, which was literally a ten minute drive from home.  But we wanted to take an expedition, which led us to our second favorite Bennigan’s: downtown on the corner of Michigan and Adams.  The meal itself was pretty simple: it was delicious and I enjoyed the company of my family.

It was the trip home that would prove ZOMG! eventful.

We’re walking down Adams towards Wabash.  The street is otherwise empty except for a group of tourists/suburbanites who have reached the corner before us.  Everything around us was fairly silent; even the El tracks above Wabash were as quiet as a classroom on the day of the SATs.  While we’re waiting for the light to change for us to cross Wabash, an older man in a bright yellow coat starts to cross before the light officially changes, as there’s really no traffic to contend with.  By the time he reaches the middle of the street, the north/south light on Wabash turns red and this piece of shit car comes to a stop, much like he’s supposed to.  What happens next, however, defies explanation.

I don’t see it.  In fact, I don’t think anyone sees what Mr. Shit Car claims happened to spark the chain of events that would unfold.  But, I can guarantee that we all saw what happened next.  Before any of the rest of us on the corner could take a step out into the street, Mr. Shit Car gets out of his car, yells something inaudible to Mr. Yellow Coat, and proceeds to shove him HARD to the ground.  And then nothing.  Mr. Yellow Coat doesn’t move.  Mr. Shit Car proceeds to yell some more, something to the effect of “GET UP!  GET THE FUCK UP!”  But Mr. Yellow Coat wasn’t getting up.  And, though I can’t be entirely sure, it’s most likely because Mr. Yellow Coat is knocked out cold. 

Everyone standing on the corner is pretty much standing there in a “what the fuck did we just see?” silence.  However, aside from my mother, my sister and myself, no one was interested in finding out, as the crowd just crossed to the other side of Adams and then crossed Wabash and continued on their way.  Why do we stick around?  Well, we’re still trying to figure out WTF?  Also, I grew up around drama.  This was small potatoes to what I was used to.  Lastly, I wanted to make sure I didn’t just see a dude get fatally assaulted.

Not getting immediate results, Mr. Shit Car starts to turn Mr. Yellow Coat over- at least, he tries to.  When he can’t budge him, he yells out, “someone help me turn him over!”  To which my mother replies, “no one helped you push him down!”  So he finally successfully turns him over on his own and there is a considerable amount of blood on the front of his bright yellow coat.  This is when bravado gives way to “oh shit, what the fuck did I do?” mode.  Noticing this, his buddy gets out of the car and tells him that it’s time to go.  However, at the same time, a CTA employee, having witnessed the entire incident from the El platform above Wabash, yells down to Mr. Shit Car that she saw the whole thing and has already called the cops.  Freaking out, Mr. Shit Car yells out, “but he touched my car!  He hit my car!”  As I mentioned earlier, absolutely NO ONE saw this alleged assault on his automobile.  And, given the eerie silence of the day, we certainly might have heard him hit the car hard enough to warrant such a senseless attack.  This was clearly an instance of a dude in a shitty car with a shitty attitude whose day was about to get even shittier once the cops showed up.

As much as I wanted to see the rest unfold, my mother decided that my little sister had seen enough and that it was time to go home.  So, much like the group several minutes earlier, we crossed Adams, finally crossed Wabash, and walked towards State St. to take the Red Line home.

I never heard anything more about it.  It didn’t make the news and we were down in the subway before the cops arrived.  We could see Mr. Yellow Coat’s chest swell and fall, so we knew he was still breathing.  To this day, I hope Mr. Yellow Coat made a full recovery & that Mr. Shit Car got the justice he deserved.  There was no reason for such a violent display and I always use this incident as a reminder that human nature can be a cruel bitch sometimes and that “expect the unexpected” can be terrifyingly more than just a cliché.

North Side Mourning.

My next trip to Chicago’s North Side would come two months after 9/11.  The city (and the rest of the country) was understandably on edge and nervous about every move they made in the heart of the metropolis or on public transportation.  At the time I was working at the United Center and all of the events at the arena were cancelled for a month as it was assumed that people still needed time to feel comfortable gathering in large, confined spaces.  People in Chicago never stopped taking public transportation, as people still needed to get to work.  I, however, stopped going downtown to do any shopping or hanging out for that month as I just couldn’t bring myself to sit on the train, taking the Red Line down into the darkened tunnel, hoping and praying that a “problem with the tracks” was our only concern.

In November, a friend was going to the North Side to audition for a music video and, as it was a day off of school, asked if I would ride with her for moral support.  Having nothing else on the agenda, I readily agreed.

This day, November 12, 2001, couldn’t be a more wrong day for trying to alleviate my fears.

After riding the Red Line to the North/Clybourn stop, I accompanied my friend to the building where her audition was being held.  At the audition I was informed that, unless I was family or a parent, I wouldn’t be able to stay and wait for her.  I wished her good luck and headed back towards the train station.  I checked my phone and saw that my mother had called.  She left a message telling me that I needed to get home right away.  Confused, I continued to the train, not fully aware of the events unfolding in New York City that morning.  It was only when I happened to eavesdrop on a conversation taking place on the train that I felt afraid.  Why today?  I had finally worked up the courage to ride the train again.  Is this another attack?  Would they shut down services?  Would I be trapped on the train until it was safe?  I nervously listened to music on my Discman, half hearing the music, half listening for any announcement that may come over the intercom.  As the train proceeded along the route unfettered and deposited the remaining passengers at the final stop at 95th/Dan Ryan, I calmed down enough to ride the bus home and immerse myself in my music and completely forget the world- for a few minutes, at least.

Arriving home, I turned on the news and watched the coverage of the crash.  People were just starting to come around, to feel comfortable enough to fly again so close after 9/11 and then this.  Even though it was ruled an accident, we were all on edge.  So many of us were out, finally putting our lives back in order, learning how to relax and enjoy ourselves again, while the world was falling apart around us.  I remember feeling sadness & anger & frustration & a yearning to be a kid again, to be shielded from the pain of tragedy, to go to sleep and wake up and have everything back to normal again.

But it wasn’t back to normal.  So many lives were lost.  And I mourned.

My first day back at work was for a U2 concert.  To see so many people come out and say, “we’re not afraid”, to show up and gather for their mutual love of music- it helped to heal the fear and the sadness, in its own way.

I still have a little fear left in my heart, but I love to fly.  I love the Red Line.  I love going to concerts.  And I still love the North Side (and my home, the South Side).  Because I can’t predict the bad stuff; but I will surround myself with all of the good stuff (even if the “good stuff” involves a smelly train car…because I’ll take that as the smell of freedom…or something).

North Side Dreamin'...

My first time on the North Side of Chicago was during a trip to a reggae club.  I was 11 years old.

Let me explain.

In my childhood, I had never traveled north of the Loop in Chicago.  Any expeditions outside of the south side involved the Eisenhower, the Dan Ryan, the Bishop Ford…highways designed to take me outside of and around the city without having to actually suffer the stress of having to drive through it.  Of course it wasn’t me doing the driving, but rather my mother, but let’s not get into semantics.

Any trip involving driving through downtown Chicago was like an Alice in Wonderland moment for me.  The cars were different, the people were more diverse, the lights were brighter.  I remember riding along Michigan Avenue with my unfortunate step-mother and her pointing out a Porsche being driven by Scottie Pippen.  That red car is still tattooed on my brain.  We didn’t get too many celebrities driving flashy cars on the far south side of Chicago.  So it was a momentous event.

As a pre-teen girl becoming increasingly into alternative culture (or, as my peers and friends would dub it, “white people stuff”) Chicago’s North Side held a special mythical place in my heart.  The North Side was where one could watch movies that weren’t readily available at my local Cinemark on 87^th and the Dan Ryan.  The North Side was where my favorite alternative bands were playing shows that I couldn’t attend.  The North Side was where people with funky hair and tattoos and cool jobs in bookstores and coffee shops lived.  The North Side represented everything I saw on MTV and wanted to be a part of.  Very few (read: none) of my friends shared my love of alternative culture.  My school friends watched The Real World and Road Rules because it was always on whenever they spent the night at my house.  My neighborhood friends quoted Alanis Morissette lyrics because I was always listening to her on my Discman.  Yet, I always felt surrounded by people who didn’t really “get” me.  My one ambition, other than becoming the girlfriend of a baseball player, was to live on the North Side with my alternative brethren and write about it for Chicago Magazine.

At the same time, the North Side frightened me.  What if they didn’t accept a black girl from the far south side?  Wouldn’t I stand out, with my Wal-Mart clothes and my Pippi Longstocking pigtails and my young age?  While I felt that the North Side was where I inevitably belonged, I also knew that I wouldn’t fit in. 

And so it remained a fantasy of mine- a daydream I would play out in my head day after day: my favorite band (most likely R.E.M. at the time), coming into town to play a gig at (insert North Side venue here).  Me, in the crowd, singing along with my alternative friends.  Us, being asked to hang out backstage.  Rock star events taking place thereafter. 

Without anyone to confirm or deny the actual existence of the North Side for me, I was able to keep this Xanadu image in my head.

And then, my mother took me there.  To probably the biggest identifier on the North Side.  No, not the reggae bar.  But, the reggae bar just happened to be less than a block away from Wrigley Field.

No, my mother wasn’t one of those irresponsible types- far from it, actually.  At the time, I was a straight-A student at my parochial school and well-liked by most everyone I encountered.  My mother worked hard to keep me in private school and would often go without just so my sister and I could have. 

As it happened, my mother’s childhood friend had a sister who owned said reggae bar and, during a visit to her friend’s house one evening, the friend remarked that she needed to visit her sister at work.  Why?  I don’t remember.  All I remember is that we were going for a ride, on a school night, and that was good enough for me.  Any opportunity to get out of the neighborhood was welcomed. 

And so we drove onto the Dan Ryan Expressway, passing all of the familiar landmarks: Comiskey Park, the Sears Tower, that fucked up entrance from the Dan Ryan to 290 (the Eisenhower), the Morton Salt factory with its familiar “when it rains, it pours” slogan glowing onto the highway.  I remember the rush of thinking, Wow, I wonder where we’re going!  I’d never seen that part of the expressway at night and since I knew we weren’t going out of town (as we usually do when that road is involved) I was doubly intrigued. 

We exited, a whirl of businesses and cars and apartments and houses and I knew nothing of my surroundings.  Finally we park on a random street and enter through the alley a dark, sort of depressing building with loudly blaring reggae music.  Obviously, being underaged, I can’t stay, so my mother ushers me quickly through the club to the front door.  Once outside, she points north and says, “there’s Wrigley Field.”  Oh so nonchalantly. 

I look and I see it.  The giant marquee.  That iconic stadium.  Well, I see part of it.  My mother lets me walk to the end of the block, the corner of Addison and Clark, so I can have a better view.  Wrigley Field.  Although I grew up on the South Side, I was semi-raised by my great-uncle, who was a hardcore Cubs fan.  But my father was an American League follower, so my heart was torn between two loyalties.  But to see Wrigley Field.  To have confirmation that I was finally on North Side soil.  My first kiss, my first “A”, my first roller coaster ride- nothing would ever compare to the rush I felt to finally be in the place I’d felt I belonged all along.  There was nothing special going on- no Cubs game, no concerts, no alternative people just hanging out.  It just felt different.  It felt right.  I felt happy.  My happiness lasted all of ten minutes as, much like Chicago’s south side, there were shady characters out and about and my mother needed to protect her curious and happy child.

A few minutes later we were back in the car and heading back to our south side home.  And I spent the entire ride back smiling.  It would be years before I would make it back north (try seven years) but my curiosity had been satisfied (in my mind) and I knew that, if I wanted to go, the North Side was easily and readily available.  It really existed; I was there.  And it felt right.

Of course, when 18-yr-old me made it back, I had a rougher, less magical time…

Bad Decisions, Worst Influence

My alma mater is small.  How small?  Try 2,700 students (undergrad AND grad) small.  Nestled in a historically beautiful (and expensive) neighborhood, just a block from the city’s downtown, it was cozy and very comfortable (in its own way).  The school was all about forging connections.  Like it or not, you were going to get to know your peers.  For lack of trying on my part, I was accepted, full scholarship, through early admissions to this lovely institution.  Having been turned down by the school I actually wanted (Vanderbilt) and being told by my mother that my second choice was not an option (UC- Santa Barbara), I let my alma mater (we’ll call it Not Vanderbilt College) know that yes, I would be seeing them in August.

A few weeks later I received a letter stating that my presence would be required at a weekend-long summer orientation.  At said orientation, I would meet my roommate (the worst possible match in history…even after I filled out their version of an e-Harmony profile), meet my other peers in the class of 2006 and schedule my classes.  What they didn’t say, however, was that this weekend was basically going to feel like a summer camp that your parents signed you up for and didn’t tell you about until they were driving you to the bus depot.

Eager to meet my roommate, I arrived at Not Vanderbilt (how I got there, I honestly have no idea…car?  train?  teleport?) with my overnight bag and my enthusiasm to make new college friends so we could have adventures just like the ones captured in the pamphlets and catalogues I memorized from Actual Vanderbilt.  After checking in and depositing my items in the residence hall (we’ll call it Pete Seeger Hall), I reported to an area where I met my roommate.  The first (or second) question she asked me was about whether or not I went to church.  I’m not opposed to religion.  As a Catholic, I like church from time to time.  However, I wasn’t there for church chat.  I was there for college hi-jinx.  So we’re going to skip right over my history with my ill-matched roommate, as it is quite the story for another day.

After escaping from my roommate, we were placed into orientation groups, where we would do idiotic ice breakers and what the group leaders (upper-classmen) perceived to be bond-building exercises.  After refusing to take part in these rituals, along with my future best friend- My Lady…one of the only reasons I survived freshman year and my terrible roommate- we were finally released and allowed to mingle in our own non-forced way.  Sitting in front of Pete Seeger Hall was a petite girl with a pixie hair cut smoking with the upper-classmen.  She, like myself and my Lady, stood out from the Glee Club orientation crew.  She had a vibe, a sort of “I don’t give a fuck” attitude about her, without coming off as cocky or conceited.  She flirted, she rebuffed, she accepted, she ignored.  She was a force.  And, as we would later find out, she was a big fan of Wilson Phillips.  So, we’ll call her Carnie. 

Carnie was from downstate Illinois: the other side of the Mississippi River, near enough to East St. Louis to feel tough but far enough away to feel safe.  She had a talent for showing off both sides of that personality: sassy with people who are easily threatened, but soft when her toughness is challenged.  But we liked her nonetheless.  Possibly because we disliked most everyone else.

Suddenly feeling hungry (or adventurous), we decided to take a stroll to the downtown area.  About a block away from the intersection of, oh, “Franklin and Detroit”, we come across three gentlemen who are not the most attractive people in the…well, they just weren’t attractive, but Carnie saw something in them.  Something no one else saw or wanted to see.  But when she decided to flirt back, we figured we should stick around just to make sure she stays out of trouble. 

Almost immediately we see that these guys are going to be bad news.  I don’t know what it was, but I think it was the words “Indiana”, “Wal-Mart parking lot” and “B96 Summer Bash.”  More coherently, they proceeded to tell us a story about how they had come into town from Indiana and were on their way to the B96 Summer Bash and, not being the type to bother with things like “reserving hotel rooms,” they were planning on finding a Wal-Mart and sleeping in the parking lot.

For reasons completely unknown to My Lady and I, this does not deter Carnie in the least.  She only steps up her flirting game.  She had taken a particular shining to the leader of the pack, who wore a shirt with only 25% of the buttons on his shirt buttoned up.  She was especially fond of his baby-smooth hairless chest, as she continually rubbed his chest and reminded us of how nice and smooth it was.

Then Carnie and Hairless Chest discover something they have in common: cigarettes and the fact that they are both low on them.  Using her charms and a dash of desperation, Carnie persuades Hairless Chest (with a seductive well-timed chest rub) to drive her to the nearest gas station in order to obtain more cigarettes.  Hairless chest really doesn’t want to.  Something about “gas money”, but he eventually agrees, thanks to the magic hands.

This is where our complete breakdown of common sense occurs.  We know that perhaps going for a ride with random boys during the nighttime is something our parents would advise against.  But we decide, eh, why not an adventure?  However, upon seeing the van (yes, van) we were to be riding in…well, if it weren’t for the fact that we didn’t want to just leave Carnie by herself with some dirty Indiana boys, we would have said “no thanks” and bid them boys a fucking adieu. 

Let’s talk about their dirty dirty van.  It was a conversion van, a family vehicle that under normal circumstances would seat a family of seven comfortably.  When put in the hands of dirty Indiana boys, we were lucky to find a corner of a seat that we felt safe sitting on.  Every seating surface was seriously covered in clothes and paper and food wrappers and general crud.  Aside from wondering how three boys were conceiving that they would be able to sleep in here, we had no idea how six of us would be able to ride in here without catching a serious case of scabies.  Somehow, someway, we manage it, but only by the grace of God.

There’s very little I remember about the trip to the gas station, other than the fact that if you honked the horn, the volume on the radio adjusted.

Dirty, dirty Indiana van.

After driving us back to the campus, when we’re ready to finally send these boys on their way, Carnie does something that will set the ball rolling on a series of bad decisions that will continue well into our first semester of freshman year: she invites Hairless Chest and his crew to sleep in the dorms so that they don’t have to sleep in the van.  Now, keep in mind that at this point, we’ve only known these boys for, oh, an HOUR.  And already she’s inviting strangers into a dorm that’s being shared with many other people who probably would not appreciate the intrusion.  I strike down that idea, as I would not be sharing my room with a dirty Indiana boy.  If she wanted to house three boys, that’d be up to her.  I wouldn’t appreciate it, but I’d be sure to keep my door locked until sun-up. 

Eventually, cooler heads prevail and surprisingly, the Indiana boys are the ones who turn down the invite and go on their dirty way.

This incident will foreshadow a future problem with Carnie where she will invite another (even more unsavory and criminal) boy to stay for DAYS in the all-girls dorm, which brings much-deserved wrath and venom from the residents.  But that’s another story for another reality/talk show.

The next day, there wasn’t a shower hot enough to scrub the dirty Indiana van from my skin.  We never heard from them again (thank goodness) and by the next day Carnie didn’t even care or seem to remember anything about them.  It was just the first of many adventures we would have with Carnie during our short time as friends (she only lasted one term…for a variety of reasons).  And looking back on it, I’m actually grateful that the night ended incident free, as I broke one of the very rules that parents are forever stressing to their kids.  I might not have made it to my first day of college because I ignored some pretty basic common sense.

But then, I wouldn’t have obtained a story to tell you fine people.  So getting into that gross gross van worked out for everyone.