1,001 Chicago Afternoons

Of course the man with the neck tattoo of the Bacardi Rum bat logo was having a fight on his phone at the bus stop. » Read the rest of this entry «

“Bunny. Bunny,” the Metra conductor said in the controlled shout usually reserved for calls for tickets. “It’s a bunny.”

He was young and slim, cracked a smile as the commuters filed out of the train. » Read the rest of this entry «

Peace to the old man sipping drinks at the VFW bar.

And the bagpiper on the condo roof.

Peace to the newsman, chasing stories for cartoons.

Peace to the lady who jammed in Tunisia.

And peace to the one who makes really sexy ladies’ underthings. » Read the rest of this entry «

From the top of the Metra platform, the helicopter looked like it was hovering over the Best Buy.

It wasn’t of course. It was probably hovering over the highway, looking down on the early morning push of cars in and out of the city in a cold, snipping wind before the sun even has a chance to turn the purple sky sunrise orange.

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Everyone gathered on the damp gravel tensed as they heard the voice. » Read the rest of this entry «

So I was at the Grant Street Metro Transit station, waiting for the Blue Line to Fremont or, if the spirit moved me, hop over to the Black Line to Banacaville. » Read the rest of this entry «

It starts with the hands, hands with fingers twiddling around a strand of her black hair, hands inked themselves with a delicate network of henna, brown lace temporarily stained on the skin. Writing on the hands she writes with. She wears a black-and-white scarf checked with roughly the same pattern as the two chairs stationed by the frosted storefront windows. She wears a black hoodie with ?!? as the logo, three characters written as curlicued and intricate as anything that’s on those hennaed, twiddling, speaking hands. » Read the rest of this entry «

Her socks came up to her knees, culminating at the top with little gold embroidered bees advertising Jack Daniel’s Tennessee Honey liqueur.

The rest of her outfit — the short, short short-shorts, the too-tight shirt that said “Keeper,” the bee-embroidered headband and the amber-yellow nerd glasses — was advertising a few things, only one of which was booze.

“Whooo!” she yelled, dancing to the music and gyrating near but not touching the man in the tie and slacks. “I’m a baaaad influence!”

Under the glaring fluorescent light and the walls of phones and tablets of the Verizon place on Milwaukee, she danced to the in-store music. » Read the rest of this entry «

I went to a Jewish thing in Bucktown. It would have been an awesome story. » Read the rest of this entry «

I thought it was one of those smokeless ashtrays they hang on the outsides of bars, but caught myself before I burned some apartment dweller’s mail.

Knathan, as I call him, saw the whole thing.

“I used to be good about that, looking for places to throw them away,” he said. “Then I set a garbage can on fire outside of a Blockbuster.” » Read the rest of this entry «