May 13th, 2013 § permalink
The ‘L’ track above would have been rumbling had a train been going by.
The streets would have been filled with honks and exhaust had it not been a Sunday.
It would have been dark had there been any clouds.
But instead, on this non-rumbling, non-honking, non-dark slip of the street below the actual loop that gives the downtown its nickname, a little girl was doubled over to shout at a pigeon. » Read the rest of this entry «
May 10th, 2013 § permalink
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 «
May 8th, 2013 § permalink
Some days you mop. You have to mop. The floor is filthy and has little bits of things caked here and there. Sort of… gummy specks? » Read the rest of this entry «
May 6th, 2013 § permalink
In a room the size of a hundred smaller ones, among carpeting and columns that screamed high tea, I stood inches from an Ivan Albright while a trumpeter diddled in the background. » Read the rest of this entry «
May 3rd, 2013 § permalink
She was a little punk type, tattoos and a veiled anger. I could see in her eyes how much she hated this world. I could see in her eyes how much she loved it.
I could see in her eyes how afraid she was of me.
May 1st, 2013 § permalink
Huddling from the wind in a doorway across from a transient hotel in the northern tip of Boystown, I pressed the second-floor buzzer.
A giggling pixie of a young woman opened the door and wordlessly flitted upstairs for me to follow. Pausing only to peek back and giggle, she gamboled up the stairs, finally gesturing me to walk through a doorway. » Read the rest of this entry «
April 29th, 2013 § permalink
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 «
April 26th, 2013 § permalink
We weren’t close.
We didn’t have a special mentoring relationship.
I taught a 101-level public speaking class you put off taking for four years. You would ask if we could go home early for the day. You did that a lot. » Read the rest of this entry «
April 24th, 2013 § permalink
Four days a week for the past two years, he’s stood in front of an underground bar just off Michigan Avenue.
Yes, he said. He has seen some crazy stuff.
“Crazy is just the half of it,” he said with a sideways smirk and a thick South Side accent. “I’ve got a college education and this is what I ended up doing.” » Read the rest of this entry «
April 22nd, 2013 § permalink
“And then when you’re in the hospital, I’d put a coffin in there as a joke,” a voice said.
“There’ll be no joke, because I’ll kill you when I get out,” a second responded.
“You will have a heart problem worry like that,” a third voice said.
They were teen boys on the bus, sitting in the back, laughing and threatening each other as teen boys who really like each other do. » Read the rest of this entry «
