I am back here in Chicago and it is a changed landscape. Storefronts bear different logos, carry new merchandise. Those remaining the same display their sufferance and stand nobler for it, as though they’ve been permitted to abide in my absence and therefore — although perhaps barely noticed before — have spawned dense meaning. Just in their existing.
Street corners are likewise changed and suddenly mystifying, beckoning wrong turns. Without much hesitation, I move my rental car in that direction as if that were the way, only to discover mere moments after turning that I’d been tricked. Diverted. Sentenced in a moment’s irrevocable decision to a time and energy consuming detour that will take me far out of my way. Inevitably, getting back on course again is slow and laden with traffic lights, all glowing red.
Driving in the city of Chicago is a frantic, angry thing. Distractions abound: honking horns, criss-crossing pedestrians, leaky, over-heating cars like bleeding animals in a herd. But there is a complex beauty in its madness. It’s a tapestry of sights, sounds, smells, textures, tones, frequencies – containing a range so vast one must stand way back to take it all in. A distance of approximately 1800 miles is required. That and a 15-month pause.
My previous failed attempts at returning to Chicago have proved sensible – there was a reason for my ambivalence. What brought me this time was the irresistible promise of payment. Recognition. Accolades for my bold and unregulated expression. The only nonfiction I’ve ever written was excerpted and published in a literary journal only to go on and win the prize for the best story therein. I was invited to receive this honor at the release party and to read from the work. I did that. I emerged with this bit of fruit: writing is the most wonderfully subversive way of getting at unallowable truths.
The time I spent on foot was the most enjoyable, taking these streets in stride. I ran the lakefront path like I used to and was reminded of marathon training, bicycle commuting, leisurely walks with dogs and sunglasses and bright, naïve smiles. Summers in Chicago are lovely things. I found the person I once was along that path and regarded her with bemusement. In all of her wry striving, she was merely a firefly in a jar – or better yet – a goldfish in a tank, mistaking the marbled stones and plastic kelp plants as fascinating artifacts from a recovered pirate ship. Seeing the gentle surge of bubbles rising to the surface as some great exhibition of ferocity.
But she was me. And I was doing the best that I could.
Later, as the sun started to descend and the city grew dark around the edges, light pooling on the thick slabs of concrete beneath my boots, I walked. From Lincoln Park to Andersonville, I found my rhythm and settled into the familiar, fevered atmosphere. On the way, I stopped in a tattoo place. There was a small crowd of people lined up at a gate, a barrier partitioning the tattoo parlor from the store around it. These people were watching a woman being tattooed as if it were a riveting show. I followed their gazes. The woman was seated astride a chair with her large breasts pressed against its padded back, exposing her bare back to the artist. Inky blood leaked from a series of Japanese characters that started at the base of her neck and extended out and down in an inverted ‘V’ over her shoulder blades.
The woman’s face was rough and worn, aged and relentlessly battered by a hard kind of living. The whole of her gave the tattoos a lacerated and mutilated appearance, black slashes branding her skin like hide. Stretching around her back from beneath her breasts were long, deep scars, presumably from a boob job gone wrong, as her bust was unnaturally large for her frame.
She shifted uneasily in her seat while the artist stood back, regarding his work. Watching people watching her and seeing her discomfort at the vulnerability under so many anonymous eyes, my heart broke a little. There was a tragic sadness about her, evident even before she looked at me with black eyes, empty vacuums, sucking and searching everywhere, in everyone for anything, any scrap. She was someone easy to leave. Easy to forget. And it showed. Unbearable. I turned and left the store.
I will not easily forget her.
Recent Comments