I’ve seen the stories about rocking chairs
That sit on creaky wooden porches
That old people sit on, rocking
While smoking cigars
Or drinking iced tea
And thinking about the good old days

I see it in movies, these rocking chairs,
These old people, senile and content,
Or reflective and dissatisfied
At who they have become
At who they could have been,
And what they could have done.

I know a man with a rocking chair,
An old black man, with an old grudge,
Who used to yell at me, years ago,
When I walked by his house with my dog.
He would scream, “You better pick that shit up,
Partner,
Or I’ll cut off your fucking thumb.”

I laughed when he said it, just laughed,
And kept walking, and relayed the story
To everyone who would listen.
“And then he said, ‘Partner,’” I’d say,
And the room would be laughing,
I’d kill them, I thought, I’d kill with this story

So many things, in rocking chairs,
Are misinterpreted,
And I know this for a fact,
Because I have personally sat in one,
I rocked for hours,
And I thought about nothing
Except that warm summer breeze,
That erased all those regrets

I'm not really the religious-type, but even a paegan like myself will occassionally cross his hands and close his eyes and face Mecca when the situation presents itself. Tonight was one of those nights.

Katrina is heading toward New Orleans, and there doesn't seem much likelihood of the city evading her. Having lived there for three years, I've experienced several hurricane scares, but none of them severe enough for me to evacuate. I stayed in town and watched them take clockwise-turns to Alabama and the panhandle of Florida, drinking egregious amounts of beer and whiskey and dancing in the hard rain and moderate wind as the serious stuff was striking to the east. The parties were carefree and endless, lasting until nine, ten in the morning. During them, I frequently recited one of my favorite quotes from Woody Allen's "September" : "When God comes, I'll be ready. Pass me the vodka."Not that there wasn't damage. I saw my favorite tree on Perrier - an enormous, savage oak seemingly older than time, it's roots breaking and pushing up the concrete sidewalks built around it - fall onto the roof of a newly renovated house at the corner of State Street. My apartment - a lower level shithole with 6-1/2 foot ceilings and an incurable flea infestation - was mildy flooded after a hurricane-turned-tropical storm, and my bed (sans frame) and several personal items were ruined as a result. But the brunt of the storm hit our neighboring states, and the threat of total submersion was alleviated. So we drank and laughed and drank and laughed, enjoying our vacation days and loving our lives.

These kinds of parties will no doubt take place during Katrina, but I'm not so sure they are going to be so joyous. Instead, I have a feeling most eyes will be on The Weather Channel...until the power goes out. I've spent most of my evening on the phone with my loved ones in New Orleans, and most are currently driving along I-10 to get to Arkansas or Texas or Indianapolis or Lafayette, Louisiana. But a handful are staying there to see things out.

And for this, I cross my hands, and bow my head, and...

New Orleans - all Girls Gone Wild! and boob jokes aside - is a city of rich culture and limitless personality. It is one of the only major cities in the United States that has yet to become Starbucked and Applebeed to run-of-the-mill. It is also one of the poorest cities in the country, and if this hurricane strikes the way the meteorologists say it will, the damage will extend far beyond lost incomes and broken buildings. It has the capability to destroy an identity.

The city is the least-landlocked city in the country, sandwiched between the Mississippi River, Lake Pontchartrain, and the Gulf of Mexico. Category Four Hurricane? French Quarter and Central Business District are under 16-20 feet of water. Some of my friends will be drinking on the third-floor of a brick apartment complex when Katrina makes her entrance. Pass the vodka.

Suburban life had its advantages – particularly, financial ones – but since buying his first home 11 months prior, Dave hadn’t made it back to the city but three times (and all of those were for business). The suburb-to-city drive was reason enough to avoid the trip. No matter the time of day, traffic to Chicago was insufferable, and Dave was anything but a patient driver. He would always be the first to bang his fists against the steering wheel and scream at the windshield when a cab would cross three lanes at once, or when a sea of people would come to a halt in order to get a good, long glimpse of some tragic accident.
But today, Dave took it in stride, focusing on the music and the cigarettes and the weekend to come. He had made no plans for it; in fact, the only reason Dave was heading toward the city was that while apologizing to his fiancée, he got distracted and took the wrong exit. If not for his questionable act of selfishness and subsequent repentance, he would have been heading back to Barrington to mow the lawn (for the third time that week), sit on the couch, drink beer and watch television until he fell asleep. He thought about this, and said aloud, “A misunderstanding can be the difference between the ordinary and an adventure!” After finishing his first cigarette, he rolled down the rest of the windows and, to compensate for the noise of the wind and the traffic, he turned the stereo up full blast. The Grateful Dead came on, “Sugar Magnolia.” He sang along and danced (if you could call it that; it was more of a shifting and gyrating confined by seatbelt) to the music, and wondered about finding some pot to smoke in the city.

An hour later, Dave was on the North Side, trying to find a place to park. As bad as the drive to the city was, parking was always the worst, particularly on a Friday night when the Cubs were about to play a night game. Parking after a commute is like running a marathon, tying for first place and then running a bonus mile to determine a clear winner. But with the inexplicable euphoria Dave was experiencing, even that didn’t faze him, and after only five minutes of scanning the metered parking, he spotted a car pulling out of a spot immediately in front of his favorite coffee shop. It was destiny. Dave practically jumped out of the car, ripped off his ridiculous “Republican head-set,” and began filling the meter with enough quarters to make it until 6:30, when the spot was officially free. He trotted into the café; there was no line.
“I’ll have a…hmmm.” He scanned the menu for a second, but his eyes kept falling back on the girl behind the counter. She was very young and very thin and very happy with her body, unabashedly allowing the nipples of her small, unconstrained breasts to push against the material of the worn pink tee-shirt that read, “I Blew the GOP.” Her greenish-blue hair was tied in pig tails, and the bullring in her nose looked heavy enough to make her wobble like a weeble. Dave recalled a number of women whom he always wanted to fuck but never had the balls to talk to. He talked to this one, though. “What should I get?”
The girl shrugged.
“What’s good here?”
“Coffee.”
“In a coffee shop?”
“Believe it or not.”
“I used to come in here all the time a couple years ago. I always got the same thing, but the caffeine would kill me if I drank it now.”
“We can make everything decaf,” the girl said mockingly. “You know, for pussies.”
“Or old men,” Dave laughed.
“”You’re so old.”
“I’m twenty-seven.”
“Well, I’m twenty-two, and I’m young. I don’t see a whole lot of difference in five years.”
“Yeah, well you’d be surprised.”
“It seems like the only difference is the clothes,” she said. Another girl who seemed to be a carbon copy of her came up and whispered something into her ear and walked away, giggling.
Dave looked down at his brown, polished dress shoes and Dockers and tucked in, blue and white pin-striped button-down. “Was she making fun of my clothes, too?” Dave asked, untucking the shirt.
“She said you were cute,” she said, matter-of-factly.
“Sure she did.” Dave felt himself blushing, which was always a problem he had. As a blue-eyed, blonde-haired descendent of Danes, Dave turned as red as a stop sign.
“She did,” the girl continued. “She’s always had a thing for old men.”
“Good one. I deserve that. Alright, I’ll have a big latte with an extra double-shot of espresso.”
“How are you ever going to sleep tonight?” She lowered her head and raised her brow and tightened her lips, like an exasperated mother. Dave, not fully recovered from the first blush, blushed again.
“I don’t plan on sleeping, if you know what I mean.” Dave thought about saying this, but he didn’t. Instead, he said, “I guess I’ll have to balance it out with a healthy dose of whiskey.”
“There you go!” she said, banging the metal espresso filter against the counter to get the old grounds out. “You’re getting younger by the second.”

When the girl brought him his drink in a comically over-sized ceramic bowl with no handle, Dave shook his head and snickered.
“Bigger than you remember it?” she asked.
“No, no. I was thinking about something else. I’m sorry.”
“Don’t apologize. What were you thinking about?”
“The first time I ever came here,” he said, using both hands to pick up the bowl and take a sip. “It was like, four and a half years ago. I was hungover as shit, and I ordered this exact drink, and when the guy – Paul was his name – when Paul handed it to me, I dropped it. The place was packed, there were like, fifteen people in line, and the cup shattered, and its contents, hot as hell, went everywhere, burning peoples’ legs, staining their skirts and jeans. It was awful. One of the most embarrassing moments of my life.”
“You’re fucking kidding me!” she exclaimed, genuinely excited. “Paul tells that story all the time! And you’re the guy!”
“Paul still works here?!”
“Listen, not all people sell out!” she said, harshly. Dave stared at her, unable to speak. Sell out? Did I sell out? The previous two years suddenly flew by him in a pristine rush: bussing tables, waiting tables, tending bar, staying out all night drinking and partying, meeting beautiful women, one-night stands, painting whenever he had the chance. Painting. His major in college. His first show – a complete failure. Painting less. Meeting Deborah. Getting a “real job.” Moving to the suburbs. Buying a home.
“I’m, well, ummm…” he stuttered.
“I’m just kidding!” the girl said, leaning over the bar and touching Dave lightly on his forearm. “I have no idea who Paul is. Jesus, you take things too seriously.”
Dave smiled meekly. “How much do I owe you?”
“What’s your name?” the girl asked.
“Umm,” Dave was a bit taken aback. Why? Because she asked him his name? We’ve been talking for five minutes, and I gets shell-shocked when she asks me my name? What’s wrong with me? “Dave.”
“I’m Joey. You owe $3.52.”
“Is that all?”
“Employee discount,” she smiled.
Dave gave her a five-dollar bill. “Joey, do you have a pencil and a piece of paper that I could borrow?”
She took the money, handed him the change and gave him the pen and his receipt.
“Do you have anything, umm, bigger?” He shook the receipt.
“I thought you were going to write down a phone number for me, like all the other old men.” She was killing him, absolutely killing him. “Hold on a second.”
Dave was in a long, continuous state of blush, and he watched her as she walked into the storage area. He threw the change from the five into the empty glass jar labeled “Even Drunk Monkeys Tip.” Joey returned with a sketch book and a carpenter’s pencil. “You going to write me a poem or draw me a picture?”
“Who says I’m going to do either?”
“Well, pages don’t get torn from my sketch pads, so whatever it is, don’t do anything you’ll regret.”
“I’ll keep that in mind,” Dave said, suddenly feeling the pressure to produce something great. “Maybe I’ll just use the receipt, then.”
“Well, it’s one or the other. Anyway, thanks for the tip,” she said, shaking the jar, and walked to the back.

Outside of the café, there were no tables, just a long row of chairs chained together by a thick, steel-coiled wire. Most of them were occupied by homeless people and hippies and aging punk rockers who didn’t buy anything from the café, but sat there and bummed cigarettes and talked disparagingly about sellouts like Dave Baer. Dave picked a seat next to an old man smoking a cigar and reading the Red Eye, a popular Chicago weekly. The man was wearing a large straw hat with a rainbow-pattern band, a white seersucker suit with a tropical shirt beneath it. And open-toed sandals. His ivory-colored cane set between his chair and Dave’s.
Dave sat down in the chair and groaned in discomfort. As a patio-furniture salesman, he saw chairs differently than he had two years prior. They were welded instead of jointed, which is a plus, but the welding was subpar, and the armrests were too close to each other, and the three thin strips of steel that represented the actual sitting area were too far apart; a child could fall through them. A set of six of them would probably sell for around $52.25 to major retailers like Wal-Mart and Home Depot, who would sell them at $19.95 a piece. Dave felt like punching himself in the face for thinking about this, but he couldn’t help it; it was 50-60 hours of his life each week.
Heart pounding, he opened up the sketch pad and looked at the drawing on the first page. A naked couple embracing, post-coitus, on a bed. The sheets were crumpled on the floor and articles of clothing were strewn in various places around the filthy bedroom, most notably the panties on the door knob. The man was on his stomach with his right arm draped over the woman’s body, his right hand stroking her hair. Her left breast, small and firm with a large nipple, was exposed, as was the hair above her vagina. The woman was clearly a self-rendering, while only the cheek and brow of the man were visible. Five years ago, Dave thought, it could have been him.
Aroused by her having allowed for him to see this picture, Dave badly wanted to analyze the rest of them, but chose not to. He decided to turn to the very last page, which he knew would be empty, and draw his own sketch before looking at the rest of hers. Sort of a carrot and stick strategy; work and reward.
But when he pressed the carpenter’s pencil to the paper for the first time, he realized he hadn’t done anything creatively – unless you count the finely-manicured lawn – since he bought the house. Now, he didn’t even know where to begin.
So he lit a cigarette, closed his eyes, and tried to clear his head. But not twenty-seconds into this – what can you call it? Meditation? Cleansing? – his chi was disturbed.
“It sure is a nice change, isn’t it?” It was the voice of the old man. He was talking, of course, about the weather. The entire country had been hit by an intense heat wave, with heat indexes in the 100s for three weeks in a row. But a non-threatening tropical storm in the gulf came and went, and the rain that came with it started cooling everything down. The old man was right: this was the most beautiful day in July, with temperatures hitting their ceiling at eighty-five degrees; by now, it was around seventy, with that fickle Chicago wind blowing as steadily as an oscillating fan.
But Dave, in his state, didn’t have any idea what the man was talking about. “A nice change?”
“The weather. It’s cooled down!”
“Oh!” Dave laughed. “Sorry, I was a bit distracted. Yes, you’re right. Absolutely beautiful.”
“In San Diego, it’s like this every day of the year.”
“Is that where you’re from?”
“I have family there, but I live here. I’ve always lived here.”
“We could use some more San Diego weather, that’s for sure.”
“There’s been so much death,” the man said.
“Yeah, I’ve heard about that.”
“97 dead already, from heatstroke.”
“Thank God it’s cooler now.”
“It’ll get hot again,” the man said, still smiling and shaking his head slightly.
“Well, let’s pray it doesn’t.”
“Oh it will. I read it in the paper. I could be the next to go.”
“Don’t say that!” Dave said, gripping the man’s shoulder encouragingly. “You look like you’re in better health than I am! Heck, I could be the next one! Anyone could.”
“You’re young, you’re virile. You’ve got your whole life ahead of you.”
“Sure I do, but you do, too. Right?”
“I’ve got death, you’ve got life.”
“No, just think about it,” Dave said, trying his best to sound optimistically philosophical. “All you have left is life. If you don’t live it to the fullest, if you do nothing but dwell on death, than you might as well be dead already.”
“I haven’t fucked in five years,” the man said, suddenly with an intensity that hadn’t been in his voice before.
“Well, it’s been a while for me, too,” Dave lied.
“I’ve got a lot of money.”
“Well, you should go out and spend it! C’est la vie, right?”
“Are you an artist?”
“Yes, well, no. Not any more.” Dave reflexively hung his head a bit.
“I saw what you’d drawn,” he said. “It’s quite good, if you don’t mind me saying so.”
“Oh, this?” Dave looked down at the sketch pad. “No, no. This isn’t mine.”
“Don’t be so modest,” he said, and reached over and touched Dave’s hand and rubbed it. Dave didn’t want to cause the man any distress, so he didn’t move it. “I know a lot of people in the art community. I could probably get some of these on display.”
“These pictures aren’t mine,” Dave said, growing increasingly uncomfortable by the man’s hand touching his.
“Artists can always use money, can’t they?” The old man gripped Dave’s hand, and finally, Dave yanked it away.
“Listen, sir,” Dave said firmly, shifting in the tight steel chair. “I’m not interested.”
“I’ll blow you for two-thousand dollars!” the man blurted out. “You don’t have to do anything, just let me blow you!”
Dave jumped out of his seat and went back inside the café, clumsily spilling the better half of his drink on the concrete. He heard the man saying something and heard the non-conformists laugh as the door was closing. Joey was at the counter, helping a new customer, and didn’t look at Dave when he walked past. He picked one of the empty couches in the back of the café and sat down and opened to the blank page. He stared into it and laughed and without thinking, drew a thin, vertical line down the center of the page, breaking it into two parts. On the left side of the page, he started to draw Joey, starting with the pig-tails, which he rendered by slashing the pencil in a sloppy oval on the top of the page. Then, instead of putting the facial features in, drew a series of feet on the bottom of the page, one set representing hers, with the untied Pumas, heels together and toes pointing in opposite directions, forming a V, and five other sets – to a much smaller scale, about a quarter as large as the Pumas – of other people that faced in different directions. High-heels, two sets of matching His and Her tennis shoes, sandals, and those obnoxious bodybuilder shoes with the heavily weighted toes. Then, he worked up, drawing the little people first – a plain, well-dressed single girl, a young, professional heterosexual couple donning golf clothes, and an old man in a seersucker suit and straw hat (with the sandals) talking to a shirtless, muscular young man (with the bodybuilding shoes). Next, he started on her, drawing her legs and then a short skirt and the thin tee-shirt and then, her face, which he hid mostly with shadows in order to cover up his inability to effectively render her features.
On the opposite side of the page, he drew the same basic picture, only its negative, with five tall people and one much smaller. The five tall people were just blow-ups of the little people on the left-side of the page; the smaller person, however, was of himself, Dave Baer. Wearing the same clothes he was wearing right then, with the shirt tucked in. He didn’t sign the picture, but wrote, on the bottom of it, in small, thin, under case lettering, “a nice change…”
He decided not to look at the rest of her drawings once he was finished; he thought it to be an invasion of privacy.

There were four people in line when Dave went to return the sketch book, and Joey was working the register while the other girl made the drinks. Dave waited in line, with the book, hoping to discuss it with Joey, but a group of five people entered the café and got in line behind him, and he knew she would be busy.
“Joey,” he said, reaching over the counter with the book, “I’ve got to get out of here. Too much caffeine.”
“A poem or a picture?” she asked, smiling distractedly while punching some buttons on the register.
“Both, kind of,” he said.
“Well hold on a few minutes,” she said. “I’m getting off at seven.”
It was six-twenty four. “I’ve really gotta get a drink.”
“Well, do you know where the L & L is? On Clark and Belmont?”
“Yes!” Dave said excitedly. “It’s my all-time favorite.”
“Meet me there at seven-fifteen.”
“Done,” Dave said. “I’ll see you there.”
He started walking out, when Joey stopped him, “Wait! You forgot this,” she said, holding up the sketch book.
“I didn’t want to take your book. Bring it with you.”
“No, I want to make sure you’re actually going to show up,” she said. “I mean, you wouldn’t steal my flesh and blood, would you?”
Dave smiled and took the book and left the café, quickly crossing the street so not to have to confront the old man.

The L & L was the same as it always was. Same juke box, same tables, same dark, smoky décor, same bartender, same monthly special (12 oz. PBR cans for $1.50 had been the “monthly special” for four solid years), same homeless black man asleep on a table. James, his name was; he used to be an organizer for the Democratic Party, but then he got more and more into booze, lost his job, same old story. Dave had spoken to him often, the man sputtering his stories of the Dukakis campaign while drinking 40s of Budweiser that he’d bring in from the street; the bartenders at the L & L never seemed to care much, as he was basically a fixture of the bar, like the jukebox or the tables or the four chandelier lights that hung orange and dull above them.
“How are you, Joyce?” Dave said to the fifty-year old woman stocking beer bottles in the glass refrigerators behind the bar.
“Dave,” she said, smiling that big yellow smile, “it’s been a while!”
“I’m in Barrington, now.”
“You must be married,” she said, rolling her eyes.
“What makes you say that?”
“A single person would never leave this city,” she said, coughing.
Dave nodded solemnly.
“What can I get you?”
“Don’t tell me you don’t remember,” Dave said, slightly hurt by the possibility of her forgetting his usual drink.
“Who knows?” she said, mockingly. “You move to the suburbs, you might be drinking Cosmopolitans or something by now.”
“Yeah, yeah. Just pour me some whiskey.”
She poured two shots of Maker’s and a Maker’s on the rocks and handed Dave one of the shots and the rocks glass. “The shots are on me,” she said, raising the other shot glass in the air. They touched glasses and did the shot and Dave chased his with his cocktail.
“Thank you, my dear,” he said, and opened the sketch pad.
“You’re still doing art, huh?”
“Oh, yeah. Well, this isn’t mine. Do you know, umm, Joey from Intelligentsia?
“Cute girl? Thin? Fucked up hair?”
“That’s her.”
“She’s a regular,” Joyce said, returning to her stocking. “Good girl.”
“It’s her book.”
“Ahh,” Joyce said, and disappeared to the back room.
Dave opened the book and turned to the first page, the one with the naked Joey and the naked man on top of Joey. Then he remembered the promise he made to himself not to look through the rest of the book until she arrived and had seen the sketch he drew for her. He looked over her drawing a bit more, looked mostly at the naked Joey, and then closed it.
Above the bar, there were two 25” televisions – one of which had a broken tube that spilled a reddish tint over the top left corner of the screen – and both were showing the Cubs game. It was the fifth inning, and the Cubs were down 1-0 to the Astros, with Greg Maddux on the mound; damned if we couldn’t score a couple runs to support him, Dave thought. In the middle of a pennant race, and we forget how to swing the bat. He watched Maddux retire the side, and then watched Matt Morris take down the heart of the Cubs order with nine pitches, and he lowered his head in disgust. Before this season, Dave watched every pitch of every Cubs game, would follow the stories and the stats in the Trib, would scour the internet for trade rumors and game notes and player splits. But this season – two years after their famous collapse in the NLCS – he had problems stomaching it, and decided to let the game play out without watching it. Finding no one at the bar to talk to, Dave decided to take a seat at the table with James.
“How are you sir?” he said, patting James on the shoulder to rouse him. “How’s life been.”
“A fucking joy,” James said, rubbing his eyes and dropping the swill from his devoured 40 down his throat, staring at Dave with a faint sense of recognition. “I know you?”
“Dave,” he said, extending his hand. Knowing James was like knowing an Alzheimer’s patient; he knew he should know you, but could never quite figure out why. “We met a few times, a couple years back. You used to work for the Democratic party, right?”
“Yes! Of course I did!”
“You need a drink, James?”
“Sure, I’ll have a…I don’t know, a rum and coke.”
“How bought a shot of whiskey to start?”
“Sounds good,” James said. “But none of that cheap stuff! I can’t drink that well shit, makes my, ummm…my stomach all…” and he waved his hands wildly in the air, showing what the cheap shit did to him.
“I hear that,” Dave said, and picked up his drink and went back to the bar, finishing it as he waited for Joyce to get to him.
“Already another?”
“Yeah, and I wanted to get a shot for myself and James. Oh, and a rum and coke.”
“I feel so sorry for him,” Joyce said, pulling out two fresh shot glasses. “Not like the other drunks in here. He had a good job – a meaningful job – a wife and a baby boy and everything.”
“No shit? I knew about the job, but…”
“Yeah, he never talks about the wife. He was campaigning for Clinton, back in 1992, and he was on the road for three weeks, driving all over Indiana to win support.”
“What a waste of time that is, Indiana.”
“Well, he was trying at least,” she said, pushing the shots to Dave. “Anyway, he came home a couple days earlier than expected, to surprise her, and she was screwing his brother.”
“No.”
“Yeah, she was screwing him, and James went ballistic, just beating the shit out of his brother while his wife was screaming and the baby was crying in the other room and he just beat the hell out of him, to an inch of his life.”
“Oh my God,” Dave said, drinking one of the shots, almost as reflex.
“Then he turned on his wife and started yelling at her, calling her a bitch and a whore, because she was. Never laid a finger on her, but she reported him and he went to jail for six months and came out and had lost custody and wasn’t allowed to see the child or anything, and he couldn’t get a job, even though he had a college degree and a good resume. He was just another violent black guy, you know. No one wanted to touch him.”
“Unfuckingbelievable. I always just thought…”
“Yeah, well, that’s when he started coming in here, and he’s just gotten worse and worse.”
Dave just stared, couldn’t say a word. She filled up the empty shot glass and made the other two drinks and pushed them toward Dave.
James’ hand shook as they were clanking their shot glasses together. They talked for ten minutes about the Democratic Party, and the state that it was in, and he could see that James kept up with things, followed it in the papers. He knew about the state of the UN and the insurgencies in Iraq, always ending his thoughts with, “that fucking president.” James fell asleep after he finished his cocktail.

Dave woke up the next morning with Joey in his arms. He looked around the bedroom, and identified it as the one from the picture, with articles of clothing strewn everywhere and all. But they weren’t his clothes, because he was still wearing them; Joey was in pajama bottoms and the thin pink tee-shirt. As he delicately eased himself off of her, though, he noticed the paint. He was covered in it. All over his hands, his shirt, his pants. Dotted onto his dress shoes. Green and black and orange and fuchsia and a hundred others. Everything was ruined. He smiled a hung-over smile, and carefully turned the knob to the bedroom so he could use the bathroom. He stared into the mirror and looked at his hair, wild from the night and from sleep, tiny splashes of paint caked into it. He made himself smile. He made himself frown. He scrubbed his hands violently, but he knew he’d need a steel brush to get it all out.
In the living room, two easels stood back to back, the hardwood floor covered with stained sheets, and some things started coming back to him. He had kissed her, for one. And he had drawn her, and she him. He looked at his painting. Joey was in the foreground, sitting at a table in the L & L, with her elbows on the table and her fists on her chin. Behind her, a black man was standing on a chair, holding a microphone, smiling a big, happy smile, his right fist raised triumphantly in the air.

Dave flagged a cab to take him back to his car, which had four tickets on it. He groaned as he pulled them off, knowing there was no way out of paying the $200 in fines. As he was driving down Addison to get onto the freeway, he heard a buzzing. It was his cell phone, vibrating in the cupholder. He had left it there all night, and he had messages.

Sitting in my living room,
A message pops up,
And I'm talking to friends
Without hearing their voices

Lying on my bed,
Minutes before slumber,
I pick up my mail,
Without lifting my feet

Sleeping at night,
three o'clock in the morning,
the cat hits a button,
And a message appears

What would I do,
if I needed to function,
Without this fantastic
Wireless devise?

I'd be forced to imagine
What life would be like
With this fantastic
Wireless devise.

Jessica, I worked through this about five times, and I can't get it where I want it. I'm sick of spending time on the story, but I'd still like it to end up alright. So what I'm saying is: give me advise!

Anyway, it is what it is, full of faults and embarrassments, but such is life.

Jessica, you who destroy that
Hope that lies
In the hearts of men
Or in the hearts of
Anyone who has felt…

He’s stuck there in part because he’s getting ahead of himself with the entire The Jessica nonsense, but also because he’s staring, through the window, at a hysterical, albeit quite attractive, young woman pointing her purple umbrella at something a ways down on Clark Street. He decided, finally, to go outside and see what the hell she was pointing at.
The woman, drenched in down from neck to ankles, yells to the short, muscular man who walked briskly behind her, “Can you believe that?!”
“Believe what, Heather? I saw nothing!” he sounded impatient. “What did you see?”
“That car! That - ” she waved her hands and worked her head, searching for the words. “That…hit and run!”
“I missed it, I guess.”
“You missed it?! We both have eyes on our faces, Reginald, and I thought they were looking in the same direction.”
“What were?”
“Our eyes, you idiot!” Reginald shrugged again. She kept staring at the traffic ahead, and noticed that it had come to a standstill. She doesn’t think about anything before she finds her feet moving and her umbrella swinging and her mouth saying, “Come on, Reginald,” and Reginald shuffles quickly behind her, and the poet and his backpack, heavy from The Jessica, goes right along with them.
The poet, we’ll call him Lenin, though I haven’t the faintest idea of his actual name, wondered how the hell Heather could have seen such a heinous crime and Reginald not take in a thing. Reginald was wondering the exact same thing. He’d heard that city people were more self-involved, less community-oriented, but he couldn’t believe that Heather was the only person on the block who had the good heart to protect the Innocent and expose the Guilty. While the men were wondering, Heather was writing down the plate number, and traffic didn’t show any signs of moving.
“Go knock on the window,” Heather pulled Reginald’s arm.
“I didn’t see anything Heather. What do you want me to say?”
“Reginald Leopold Harrison!” she yelled, drawing laughs from some punk rock kids loitering on the sidewalk, amused by both the ridiculous name and the excessively critical use of it, as if the nine syllables were an indictment. “How can you be so…so…” She searched for the perfect insult. Reginald didn’t let her find it.
“Well, you’re coming with me.”
“Fine.” She smiled and nodded her head once, saying “and there you have it” without actually saying it.
“Which car is it?” Reginald asked, honestly.
“My God, Reginald.” She pointed at the white sedan flashing its left turn signal. She led, hurriedly, while Reginald’s short, thick legs moved in slow, full-reaching strokes, like a gymnast warming up to do the splits. He hoped beyond hope that the car would turn and speed away. But Clark was a veritable parking lot. Reginald had never seen traffic like this in his life, and it was two in the afternoon, on a Saturday! Before he knew it, Heather was knocking on the window, and he was right beside her.
Lenin, meanwhile, took out his cell phone, which had been disconnected for over three months due to lack of payment. He had been carrying it around in hopes that it might inexplicably ring, that the cellular gods would have pity on him and let a call get through. Today, the gods slept, but the antiquated flip-phone finally served a purpose, as Lenin leaned against a telephone pole and pretended to have a serious conversation with a lover, with Jessica, while he watched, riveted, as a young, tuxedoed black man rolled down the window. His radio was blasting Mahler’s Seventh, which he immediately muted.
“Directions?” he said, not so much as a question but as a sort of banal reality of his existence. He said it in a tone that made Lenin believe it would be followed with “story of my life…”
“What?” Heather said.
“Where do you need to go?”
“What?”
“Do – you – need – dir-ections?” the man enunciated each syllable, loudly, figuring Heather’s misunderstanding to be based in her inability to comprehend Black Speak.
“No!” Heather replied shrilly. “I’d like you to pull over and answer some questions for me and my boyfriend.”
“What are you talking about?” The man, incredulous.
“I saw what you did back there.”
The man looked over his shoulder. “What I did?”
“Your little boom-boom?”
“My little – ” he looked back again, his nose flaring out, his eyes squinting from the sun and from annoyance. Finally, he said…nothing. He turned his music back up. Loud. He rolled up the window. He probably adjusted the heater, as it was quite cold outside. He shook his head and smiled the smile of a man falsely accused of who knows what, an indignant smirk of disbelief. Lenin imagined him mouthing the words “Stupid bumpkins.”
“Can you believe that? He just – ”
“Are you positive that what you saw was actually – ”
“Yes! My God, Reginald! Yes! Go get him.” She waved her umbrella like a purple baton.
“Traffic’s moving. He’ll be moving soon.” He pointed at the car. “Look, he’s gone. He’s going.”
“He’s turning left. We can catch him.”
“We won’t catch him, Heather.”
But Heather ignored him and ran across the street without obeying the first rule every child learns in life – or maybe the third, right behind the Golden Rule and the one requesting you not sprint with scissors. She didn’t look both ways before crossing. Despite her inability to adhere to it, she made it safely across, and started quickly up an alley to cut the Crown Victoria off. Reginald ran to catch up.

Lenin felt guilty, and he decided not to continue following (stalking?). What was the point? In what realm did his curiosity lie? Was it attraction? He assumed that in some elementary way it must be attraction, but to whom? The girl? Not his type. Too prissy, too insistent, too overbearing. The Meathead? Lenin wasn’t interested in men, one way or the other. Ever since middle school, he never had a single male friend. He simply connected better with women, content to spend nights talking about love and relationships with girlfriends and Girlfriends Proper; he couldn’t care less about sports or cars or any of the other stuff typical men discuss over beer and cigars. It was an act of absolute self-defiance for him to get a job in construction, in which every one of his co-workers was a man, and every single one of them loved every single thing Lenin was so ambivalent toward.
So what was it about this couple, this meathead and this pushy, nagging woman, that inspired him to follow? He couldn’t come up with anything, but even as he was wondering, he found himself walking, and then sprinting down the alleyway, blindly following two tourists who had no navigational skills in a city he’d lived in all his life.

“He’ll be surprised to see us,” Heather said, breathlessly.
“What actually happened, Heather?” Reginald asked. “I didn’t see any damage on his car at all.”
“He was parked on the street,” she paused and took a heavy breath, “and he was leaving the spot.”
“Okay.”
“And then he hit the car in front of him, backed up,” pause, for breath or for effect, “and hit the car behind him! Can you believe that, Reginald?”
“Oh my God,” Reginald managed, under his breath.
“I know! He didn’t get out to check the damage, he didn’t leave a note, no insurance information. I mean, I don’t know how people do things in the city, but it’s just common courtesy.”
“Heather, that’s what bumpers are for.”
But Heather wasn’t at all interested in hearing about the mechanical or safety features of the automobile. A car hit two other cars, and that car, a white Crown Victoria, was maybe one hundred feet away, and coming closer. “Here he comes, Reginald!”
“Heather, traffic is really moving. He’s not just going to pull over to the side of the road when he sees you.”
“Oh, he’ll stop,” she said it with a poorly delivered line in a big budget action movie. Reginald blushed. He had no idea what she had in mind. Was she assuming that he would be impressed with her persistence and would slam on his breaks, put on the flashers and get out and apologize profusely? Was she going to jump in front of the car in hopes that he has astounding reaction time and anti-lock brakes? The car was getting closer and closer, and Reginald prepared himself for anything. Finally, as the white car was with say fifteen, twenty feet, Heather lunged forward. But she didn’t jump in front of traffic. Instead, she cocked her shoulder and threw the umbrella at the speeding Crown Victoria. But she didn’t compensate for the fact that she was aiming at a moving target, and the umbrella landed with a thud on the concrete, five feet behind the white Ford. A half second later, it was run over by an SUV. Defeated, Heather watched the car drive away, honking his horn and triumphantly waving his left arm out of the window.
“I’m calling the police,” Heather said, reaching in her purse for her cell phone.
“Should we see if the umbrellas alright?”
“The umbrella is not our concern right now, Reginald.”
“Okay,” Reginald acquiesced. “Umm, shouldn’t we go back to the spot of the, umm, the accident?”
“Good idea,” she said, suddenly perky. “We can assess the damage.” She dialed 911 and started back up with the quick pace.
“911 emergency, how can I help you?”
“I’d like to report a hit and run.”
“Okay, was anyone hurt in the accident?”
“No, the two cars that were hit were parked and no one was inside them.”
“Where did the accident occur?”
“Umm…it was on…I’m from Kansas, ma’am, I don’t know the street names.”
“How am I supposed to – ”
“I know, just a second,” she said, covering the phone. “Reginald, where are we?”
“Right now we’re – ”
“No, the accident, where was that?”
“Clark Street.”
“Clark Street, ma’am.”
“Clark Street goes through the entire city. What is the address?”
“It’s by the Starbucks.”
“There are half a million Starbucks in Chicago. I need an address.”
“It’s by the Starbucks on Clark St.”
“I need an address.”
“Okay, one second!”
“Let me remind you that this is 911 emergency.”
“I’m sorry! We’re walking back there now.”
“How badly is your car damaged?”
“It’s not my car. I’m just trying to be a good samar – ”
“Did you get the license plate number?”
“Yes!”
“Give me that number, would you please?”
“It’s, hold on…it’s in my purse.” Heavy breathing on the other side of the line. The operator was tired of this emergency, ready to move on to another, more efficient one. “It’s 568-0251.”
“Illinois plates?”
“I…think….but – ”
“You didn’t record the state of the plates.”
“I didn’t even think about it.”
“What was the make and model of the car?”
“It was white, and…Reginald, what was the make and model of the car?”
“2002 Ford Crown Victoria.”
“2002 Ford Crown Victoria.”
“Limited edition,” Reginald added, and Heather repeated him for the benefit of the Operator (and Justice).
“Thank you. Have you arrived at the scene of the accident?”
They had. It was the 1200 block of Clark, and Heather told the operator as much.
“Is there anything else?”
“Yes, the driver was black,” Heather said, “and he was wearing a tuxedo. He must have been a waiter or an usher or something.”
“Anything else?”
“He was listening to rap music.
“Anything else?”
“No.”
“Thank you for your help. A car will be out shortly to investigate the accident.” Click.

When they finally arrived back at the place where the accident had occurred, the two victim cars were still parked there. Another car, a large black SUV, had taken the Crown Victoria’s place. It set so closely to the two victim cars that it nearly touched both of them, and the front driver’s side end of the SUV need to be angled out into the road in order to fit at all. Heather surveyed the damage: on the fender of the car in back – a black Pontiac Grand Am, there was a small, thin streak of white paint; the license plate of the front car was slightly dented. It was only now that Lenin discovered his car to be one of the damaged vehicles.
“See!” Heather said. “There’s damage!”
Reginald said nothing, just nodded. Or maybe it was more of a shiver. “It’s freezing.”
“It’s not that cold.”
“You have a scarf. You have a heavy jacket. You have the hat and the gloves. I’m wearing a fucking – .” Heather glared at him accusingly. “A, umm, a freaking…sorry. I’m wearing a windbreaker!”
“It’s not my fault that you came to the Windy City unprepared.”
“It’s the end of April!”
“I told you time and time again, ‘Pack for anything, Reginald. With all the water and everything, Chicago can be all kinds of different temperatures.’ Didn’t I, now, Reginald?”
“Can we please sit inside?”
“We’re waiting out here,” she said decisively.
“Heather.” Reginald whined.
“Do whatever you want, Reginald. I’m going to sit out here and wait.” She held her chin high, her lips tight and proud.
“I’m going to pi-, I mean, use the bathroom and get some coffee. Do you want some coffee?”
“Get me a cup of decaf,” she said coldly, her eyes darting from person to person to person. Surely one of them, she thinks, one of them is the owner of one of these cars. Sure enough, as Reginald walks into the coffee shop and wanders to the counter to obtain the key to the bathroom, a 30-something man with a long, nappy beard approaches her.
“Hello,” Lenin said quietly, touching Heather’s shoulder with his fingertip, to get her attention.
Heather jumped back, moved her hands in front of her body. “Didn’t you see me?” Heather continued to back away, looking into the coffee shop for Reginald.
“I was out here.”
“O – kay,” Heather said, slowly moving toward the coffee shop,
“I saw you follow that car!” he spurted out to ensure Heather didn’t run off.
Heather stopped backpedaling, and said excitedly, “You mean you saw the accident too?!”
“No, I didn’t see anything.”
“I guess no one saw it but me.”
“This is my car,” Lenin said ashamedly, under his breath.
“What?”
“It’s my car, this one,” he pointed to the front car.
Her face lit up like the Northern skies, a burst of joy and color that represented the fulfillment of her good deed. “Look what he did to it! Look at the dent!”
“Yeah, it’s, umm,” Lenin stammered over his words for two reasons. First, it had been quite some time since he had last spoken to a beautiful woman, and he was seeing something new in this previously calloused and insistent Heather: something soft and pure, something happy. Seeing her smile made him blush and forget, for a second or two, that he was supposed to be unhappy. Second, that dent had been there for three and a half years, and he could see absolutely no new damage to the bumper of his car.
“It’s terrible is what it is!” Heather said emphatically. “It’s horrible to think of what people have the capacity to do.”
“I agree,” Lenin said.
“They’re going to catch this guy.”
“I’m not so sure that the police are going to go after him.”
“No, I gave them the license plate number. They’ve got it on record. It’s only a matter of time before they…” Her voice trailed off as she saw the owner of the Grand Am unlock the passenger door to put shopping bags inside. “It’s the other party!”
“Excuse me, sir,” Heather said giddily. The man was tall, clean-shaven, thin, handsome.
“Yes.”
“Someone hit your car!” she smiled.
“What?! Where?” the man asked, looking around for signs of damage.
“In the front there. You see that streak of paint?” The man looked at it, shook his head, laughed out loud. Heather reached out to him and lightly grabbed his forearm, massaging it gently. “But don’t worry! The police are on the way.”
“The police?”
“Yes, I called them ten minutes ago,” she smiled again. “And I got the guy’s license plate number. He was a black guy in a tuxedo.”
“Look,” the man continued shaking his head. “What’s your name?”
“Heather Amber Smith.”
“Well, Heather Amber Smith,” he smiled, she smiled, and he continued, “my friends call me JMC, and I certainly appreciate the act of good will.”
“Well I believe it’s our responsibility,” she said, reaching for his forearm again, “to do something when we see something unjust.”
“And that’s commendable. But this paint has been on this car for eight months. There’s no new damage.”
“But, his car was white.”
“Well, that may be, but I don’t think we can…”
“Well, there was damage done to his car,” she said, pointing at Lenin, who slouched, eyes on the ground, behind them. “Right?”
Lenin shook his head. “My plate’s always been like that, Heather.”
Heather’s face became red. “You mean there’s…”
JMC lightly grabbed both of her wrists with both hands and shook them lightly. “Heather Amber Smith, you have done a good deed. But this is a good thing. There’s no damage. Nothing bad game of this. Would you be happier if these cars had thousands of dollars worth of repairs ahead of them?”
Heather thought about it and shook her head, staring like Lenin at the ground. “I just wanted to be a good person.”
“Look up at me, Heather,” he said. “Look in my eyes. You’re a very good person. You’re an excellent person. And to repay you for your kind, kind act.”
“I couldn’t possibly take…”
Lenin threw his bag, overflowing with The Jessica, into his car and backed up so quickly he had to brake hard, causing the car to lunge forward and himself to slam into the steering wheel. Heather and JMC jumped back and JMC started yelling at Lenin and Heather kept crying. Lenin squealed out of the spot and sped down the road. In his rear window, he saw and Heather and the man, staring at his car, and behind them, he saw police lights flashing, and he knew they were not for him.
He wondered where Reginald was during all this, and thought about the fate of the driver of the Crown Victoria. Perhaps somewhere in the city of Chicago, a black man is being pulled over for a hit and run. There’s no damage to his vehicle, but the police decide to take him in for questioning. They cuff him in front of an opera house, where he was waiting for the valet to park the car. He’s going to miss the Verdi. Meanwhile, old white women in fur coats, smoking Virginia Slim 100s under terrace, shake their heads and mutter under their breaths, “You can never trust the help.”

"Human suffering doesn't sell in Kansas City."
"They want laughs in Kansas City! They've been working in the wheat fields all day!"
- from Stardust Memories