Nanowrimo -21

It all moves so fast. And I’m used to fast by now, I do drive, after all. But there’s so much of it, in every direction the eyes turn. Highways pump masses of cars along like mechanical arteries. Planes descend overhead at regular intervals like artificial eagles coming home to roost. The train whizzes along, making a blur of objects in the foreground. A knot is forming in my gut as the grey mass of city takes over the landscape around us. I can feel the immense density of its humanity. Millions of thoughts, feelings, hopes, despairs, little deaths, all mush and press and layer and inter-fold upon one another. The air itself feels pasty and hard to breathe.

“I don’t like big cities.” I confess to Jack.

“I know. But it’s a necessary evil for continuing our adventure, mum.”

He seems awfully chipper about all of this. What is he up to? “Do you like it here?”

“I like what I can get here.” I glance over at his grin & it’s slightly reassuring.

Once exit the train station downtown, everyone seems to be in such a terrible hurry; in a hurry to wind through the rat’s maze of their own making. Jack grabs my arm as my head starts to bob and follow each manic passerby.

“This way” and he heads me down a street and up a set of stairs. Above the street trains clatter and screech along on elevated tracks. Whoever thought this up had no consideration whatsoever for the humans who would inhabit this space. This is the city of machines and one must lend one’s body and time to the machine that they may survive, get what one needs and get out with a margin of life left.

At the top of the stairs we are greeted by turnstiles barring our entry onto the train’s platform. I step over to a booth where a woman sits behind thick glass and ask for a ticket. At first she ignores me. Then she shouts something to me that is incomprehensible through the barrier between us. Several confused looks and “I can’t hear you’s” later she points to a machine behind me which dispenses passes for riding. Why do they have someone sitting in a booth if there is no need to sell tickets? We dicker over the machine for a few minutes.

“I thought you said you had been here before!”

“I was, but they changed the system since I was here. Last time they just took cash.”

“Do you know where to go once we get in?”

“Yeah I’m pretty sure. They haven’t changed the train lines around really for decades.”

“When is the last time you were here?”

“The early 90’s. It sure has cleaned up since then!”

This is clean? I want to ask out loud but I stop myself. No sense starting trouble now. “Where are we going, by the way?”

“South side.”

“South side of Chicago.”

“Yup.”

“You are dragging me to the South Side of Chicago, as written about in such fine tomes as ‘Ain’t No Makin’ It’ and ‘Chicago’? That south side?”

“Will you quit worrying? Jeees! Mum you are starting to be a real drag. We will be fine.”

“I’d rather be a drag than in the hot seat. Sometimes being a drag is just plain being the smart one. Look at us, Jack! We’re among the whitest of the white on Earth. We don’t belong on the South side of Chicago, not if it’s anything like what I’ve heard about.”

“I can’t believe you are such a racist! YOU! How can you hold race up to make such a big difference when you yourself were born so terribly different with a trait no one can see on your skin!”

“I’m not talking race. I’m talking territory. I’m talking about culture. We are invaders and we are going to be walking targets!”

“For what? What? What could possibly hurt you?”

I hold my tongue. We’re already on a southbound train. The question is more one of ‘whom could we possibly hurt’? I look out the window of the elevated car as it rocks along the tracks. Directly below us houses, squeezed together cheek by jowel, pass by. Laundry hangs off ropes tied across back porches. Toys lay strewn in backyards left deserted by winter. The train turns briefly and I see my own reflection in the glass mapped across the skyline. It’s so easy to end up entirely alone in a maze this jammed with people. From a distance the tall buildings of downtown remind me of a Jewish cemetery with all of its headstones packed together tight.

We get off at 47th street and start heading down a street filled with bedraggled remains of once fine houses and floating bits of trash. Then I see them. Mile after mile of homogenous concrete buildings stretch north to south. There’s a sinister nature in their lack of diversity. Character is not given through artistry or architecture but through the scars each edifice has earned. Burn marks streak the sides of one building. Windows are broken, façades pocked with bullet marks on another. Each looks like a whole lot of the bad life beat it up and left a nasty bruise.

“C’mon” Jack grabs my arm and heads toward it.

“I am NOT going in there!”

“Well you’ll be in bigger shit if I leave you standing out here on your own! Now come on!” This time he seizes my elbow in a most unforgiving vice and I lurch along behind him, whingeing all the way. “Look, we want passports, right? Well the type of people who make nice passports for people who aren’t nice do not live in bloody Lincoln Park. They live here. Welcome to the projects.”

He is hell bent on aiming us into one of the buildings when a tall, black man with a shifty gaze steps in front of us. Under his breath Jack warns “not a word out of you.”

“ w’chu wawn?” He never quite opens his eyes more than halfway and seems most intent about chewing on the toothpick in his mouth. But with arms folded and legs in colossus stride, it’s clear there’s no getting past this man. Man? Upon closer inspection he looks like more of a very tall boy.

“Looking for Stubs.” Is all Jack says.

“What bidness you got wid Stubs?”

“Private business. He’s usually quite pleased to see me.”

“We don’ like folks just comin on in here that don’ belong here.” He looks us over good, giving us his best evil eye and persistently chewing that stupid toothpick. I want to yank it out of his mouth and order him to pull his pants up. Maybe Jack’s right. I am a racist.

“Perhaps you could tell Stubs that ‘Jack Black’ is here?”

“Whatin-a hell kinda name i-zat? ‘Jack Black’! Donchu come roun here makin like you is all gangsta and shit. I look like yo foo? I look like I your messenger o’ sompin? Who you think you is comin in here treating me like a nigga?? You think ah’m yo nigga mista white an’ mighty?”

I’m way too old to put up with his lip. “Hey! Who asked you to step in our way, you moron!” I shout. “You own this place that you can stand in front of the door like a troll or are you just bored? If this is your turf then why don’t you get busy and start fixing it up?”

His jaw drops only briefly before he pulls a revolver from the front of his pants yelling “BITCH!” I don’t know where the speed or gumption comes from but I lunge forward and grab the wrist of the gun arm, pull him toward me and set fangs into him. I don’t go in deep enough to drink, just to put in the first shot of venom. He drops to the concrete like a lump. I keep the gun.

“After that cry-baby act I didn’t think you had it in you.” Jack crouches next to the body to examine the boy. “Nice work! Very neat. And to think you were scared.”

“Eh… He had a shitty gun-hand. Kids these days! They expect that fancy high-powered, semi-automatic assault weapon to do all the work for them. Not a one of them learns to handle a gun with a real fighter’s grace. Shame what things come to.” Lying on the ground without his tough expression, I can see he’s actually quite a handsome young man, almost beautiful. But here he is, in this giant concrete filing cabinet where the government stuffs people it can’t understand.

“How long do you think he’ll be out? How much did you shoot in there?”

“Enough to leave him looking like a helpless girl on the ground for a few hours. Now, we got someone to see here or not?”

Stubs home, or cell, depending on your perspective, is piled high with ledgers, paper stocks, and computers of all different models. The clatter, whiz and hum of printers emanates from another room. A few dim fluorescents hang from the ceiling. Most of the light in the room is emitted by spot lights that hover over desks with lenses attached to their necks.

“That you Jack Black?” A voice calls out as we let ourselves in. In the kitchen, fixing some tea is a portly old man in long underwear and pants held up with suspenders over the top. As he turns I see spectacles, with a jewelers’ lens attached, balancing on his nose. He looks like an African-American Santa. “I heard that commotion and I figured it was you. Someone giving you trouble out there?”

“Nooo sir, not at all. Just a fine lad trying to protect the door is all.”

“Oh, that be Elmur. Didn’t hurt him too bad did you?” And he chuckles.

“I didn’t touch a hair on his head. But mummy here kicked his ass!”

“yo muthuh?” And old Stubs bends over in a laugh that sounds more like a cough. “Ha haa! That is jus’ too good! Now whut chew come on over to see Stubs fo?”

“Well, we, my mother and I, need some identification.”

“m-HM! I see I see. Where you goin off to this time?”

I almost volunteer an answer to his question when I realize that honesty is probably not a good idea here. I hold back and decide to let Jack do the talking. I’ll stick to the fighting!

“Oh all around. Mexico, Cuba, maybe off to the Carribean.”

“Ha! You won’t make it out of Tiajuana! Alrighty then. You need passports and what else?

“Driver’s license” Jack offers.

“And birth certificates” I add on. Hey if this guy is that good, why not?

A few hours later and some less some gold, we each emerge with our new identities in hand. My new passport rests inside my shirt, bearing my new name “Eleanor McClean”. That was Gabriel’s name and I do sometimes miss wearing it.

“Hm. Irish. Well, if anyones can pull dat one off its you, ma’am!” was Stubs final call on the monicker.

Jack had wanted me to give up ‘Eleanor’ as well, but he also knew better than to fight me on it. Showing his own flair, Jack became “Blake Breton”.

“May I continue to simply call you ‘Jack’?”

Outside the afternoon is wearing on. The season is starting to relent and the few patches of what passes for grass squish under our feet. School is out for the day and throngs of children rush past, making all sorts of noise and chatter. From the herd wafts a scent of sweat and fried food.

Just then we notice another sullen figure coming up behind them. Walking slow with his head down, he’s the real reason we’re here.