Tuesday, Nearly Midnight (Keep Chicago Weird)

Via Calumet 412

On the Green Line two men get on, I don't remember where. Somewhere past Central, heading downtown from the West Side. It might've been Laramie. They both sit in the aisle facing seats, one directly across from me, the other three seats to his right. One of them had a red, personal grocery-cart you only see old ladies, college kids in the South Loop, and bums with. A man that smelled like urine had already sat down next to me; we'd both of us got on at Harlem. Sadly, a man on the train who looks dirty and smells like piss is barely enough for me to think about; I kept my head buried in my book. City livin'.

So these two new men get on. The one that's across from me starts talking about someone who was hit by a train at 35th in Bronzeville. Then another was hit and killed on the West Side. When's he's not talking, he's snorting. He's trying to remember when it happened. Six, maybe five, four in the morning? More like 3 AM, he finally decided. The Green Line doesn't run that late, his friend said. After a minute of silence, he realized his faux pas. "I wasn't trying to contradict you," but Bum 1 turns away. He took out a pack of cigarettes. I think he was using the papers to roll a joint but I was engrossed in this book or at least tried to look like I was and make myself part of the background (as I typed all of this on my phone on the Blue Line a little while later, someone else has begun smoking cigarettes). 

Bum 2 turns to the urine soaked dude. "My man. We got the same hat." It was a black beanie apparently with a Nike logo . "Black folks don't wear this," he said. "Only white folks and Europeans. I got mine for 38.65. Almost 40 bucks I paid for this hat. Tell you what, jack. I'll buy yours offa you. Ten bucks?"

Urine offers a mumble-laugh. "You said it was almost 40."

 "15, man, I'll give you 15 for the hat." No response.
"25." Nothing.
"30." Nothing.
"35. Man, I'll give you 40." He keeps going til 50 and he still won't give up the hat. Meanwhile Bum 1 starts nodding off. Bum 2 does the same before waking up again. "I was just messing with you, man," he revealed to Urine, before giving some sound economic advice. "But if anyone ever offers you 50 bucks for a hat again, I don't care, you take it. You hear me?"

By the time I'm at Clark and Lake and close my book, all three of them are nodding off, like three tramps at the end of the first act in a Samuel Beckett play. Could you imagine the stories Beckett would write if he lived on the West Side of Chicago?

It was at Clark and Lake where I then met Portia. I held the door open for her behind me as I walked from the elevated platform to the subway to get to the Blue Line. She asked for my help with directions, which I love to do. She needed to get to the Greyhound Station. She thought Jackson and I thought Clinton, so we confirmed on a map at the station. Her car had been towed for a suspended license. She had long, curved nails with a curly purple and black and white pattern. She had a high but raspy voice. She was taller than me; she could have been a transvestite but I don't really know how to tell that shit and I hate to assume.

I noticed she was limping. She said she had an abscess in her foot. For some reason she was wearing a sandal on that foot, and her shoe and her phone was in her now towed-car. She asked if she could use my phone. She called a 414 number, which I now know to be southwestern Wisconsin, and asked if the person on the other end could pick her up at the Greyhound Station.

She ended her conversation by saying "I love you." I didn't want to eavesdrop, and her foot injury looked legit, but I didn't want my good intentions to be taken advantage of and and risk her stealing my phone. I gave a homeless man forty dollars once. It was my first week living in the city, aka, "easy target." I like to think of myself as skeptical, but I'm also a naive bleeding-heart, ready to help those who need it, probably stemming from a guilt about my background of privilege (both social and economic). He said he would return the money the next day at the exact same spot, in front of the MB bank at the northeast corner of State and Harrison. Like a jackass I showed up and waited ten minutes for him while he was probably strung out somewhere on the West Side at that point.

Portia got on a Forest Park bound train and I got on mine heading towards O'Hare. She promised to call me back to thank me, but she still never has.

Finally, my journey, after a shitty night at work, and a couple bizarre encounters on the train, the Blue Line reached Western. As I waited for the doors to open, he...he? No, She (the one smoking cigarettes from earlier) made a comment about my gloves since they have holes in them so I can use this stupid piece of touch-based technology. They were wasted and I couldn't wait to get off the train. I think She mumbled something about wishing She had a penis but the roar of the train drowned her out.

When I'd finally gotten off the train, the rain was just beginning its transition into snow. On the walk back to my apartment I thought about SXSW, and how Austinites want to kick yuppies out and to Keep Austin Weird and how in Portlandia, the intro shows grafitti that says Keep Portland Weird. What do the weirdos in Austin or Portland think about this? What does it mean to be weird? One time, a man hit a woman with a sock full of shit on the Blue Line. That's weird. Is that what Austin wants? Or is it only acceptable when artists and "artists" are weird? My friend Eric tattooed himself in front of an audience. That too is "weird." When is weird good and when is weird bad?

The "weird" vibe to the night didn't quite subside until I reached my quiet block in Bucktown where the only people that make any noise, the only people I have to worry about, are the ones I share a building with.