1,001 Chicago Afternoons

“Why do you call him Uncle Go Paul? He’s Uncle Paul because his name is Paul and he’s our uncle,” the older said to the younger. “He’s Uncle Go Paul because we go places with him,” the younger replied. I was touched. But not enough to get let them get a second thing of candy [...]

In the hot summer sun, among the women walking around wearing rainbows and the occasional completely waxed man wearing nothing but skin-tight boxer briefs and a smile, the old man wore a suit.

Two young women with rolling carts walked up at the O’Hare Blue Line station. They wore fresh smiles and gabbed happily in an Asian language I didn’t know. “Does this go downtown? To the Forest Park?” one asked, pointing at the nearby car. “Yes,” I said. “It does.” Tag, I thought to myself as I [...]

“Mind if I take a picture of you for a Polish newspaper? You have the most amazing mustache. The Germans don’t have handlebar mustaches and they should. You would think they would have handlebar mustaches, but they don’t. You have the most amazing mustache and I would love to take a picture of it for [...]

Cannibals, I kept thinking. They have to be cannibals. The lady was worried our dinner companions would be boring or might give us food poisoning, but I knew better. They planned to feed us of the longpig. These are the thoughts as you walk to a house to eat with a total stranger.

You can tell the neighborhood has gone up in the world because they no longer use the bulletproof lazy susan to hand over the sandwiches.