1,001 Chicago Afternoons

“Every night you’re sure to get Batman, Superman and Big Bird,” the cabbie with the mole said. “You get some characters. They’re usually good people, just crazy.”

The cabbie was taking me from one courthouse to another, from the Miesian glass-and-steel luxury of the downtown civil courthouse to the 26th and California criminal courthouse where murderers and thieves get taken away under chipping plaster. » Read the rest of this entry «

I call it Eagles weather because I don henleys. » Read the rest of this entry «

He was leaning against the Red Line train door that wouldn’t open in the direction of travel, smacking chewing gum, hoisting a backpack over his shoulder and wearing a full-length brown habit with knotted cord belt wrapped around his waist and dangling low from his right side. » Read the rest of this entry «

The No. 66 Chicago bus to Navy Pier wasn’t so packed the woman couldn’t find a seat.

She was short and middle aged, a bustle of blonde happy. Her hair was close-cropped in that fashion for women of her age and was being dyed tanner and tanner in an effort to keep up with the gray. She wore a striped sleeveless T-shirt and shorts, the gear of a woman out for a day of tourist fun. » Read the rest of this entry «

When the air roared, people looked up.

I saw men moving furniture who looked up. I saw people in one of those creepy vans where you assume the only purpose could be odd look up. I saw kids and granddads and hot moms look up because the air roared in anticipation.

Because it’s the air show. » Read the rest of this entry «

People sometimes ask me how I can commute 40 miles from Chicago to Aurora every day. *

I usually shrug and ask if they know of a newspaper job in Chicago. » Read the rest of this entry «

Chicago’s in a deep-bone hot, one that settles in. Some heats lay flat on you, but this one and the thick wind stirring it get inside you. You walk and move and realize later you’re fat with sweat.

And then the water bottle people come. » Read the rest of this entry «

Another day on the train, another eastward eve with a view by the window of all the fun I’m not having, all the spring I’m not enjoying. Skrkl-skrkl.

I’m tired of the day, tired of the job and tired of trying to stare at Virgil’s Georgics until the words make even the slightest bit of sense. Skrkl-skrkl. What made me think this was a train book? It’s a book for reading in an Italian villa while wearing a flowing, unbuttoned skrkl white man-blouse like Percy Bysshe AND WHAT IS THAT GODDAMNED SKRKL-SKRKL SOUND? » Read the rest of this entry «

“I went to this fucking barn dance last year, like over the summer. It was pretty tight.” » Read the rest of this entry «