honest about their handicaps, and even the most dimwitted of mooks in the lunch hour crowds would understand their pain.
I wonder if people like Laurie Dann, who killed a kid in a Winnetka preschool in May, or this guy the newspapers call The American Dream, he runs around with a heating pad for a cape and stops people from littering—do people like this do the bad or do the good because their lives are filled with chronic pain and they only have one kind of release?
My journals are my release. Fate is cruel.
* * *
“I don’t know why Mom Winona wouldn’t let me put on Crime Story last night,” Wally Grogan was saying as he walked with Eddy Diedzek past the Baptist church on Clark Street. “I mean, so Torello’s always shooting people! I know it’s not real, Jeez Louise! Except for the parts where Luca hits a lady.”
“Maybe she won’t let you watch ‘cause she thinks you’re a little peenie-boy,” Eddy returned, ready to fend off his friend’s blows.
“No, you dork.” The two ten-year-olds stopped to wave hello to the Rev. Marvin, the pastor of the church. Mom Winona said it was always a good idea to talk to men of the church, unless they were sidewalk preachers. Marvin Melone—his full name was hand-painted on the sign above the door—gave out the best candy at Halloween; the boys would say hello to him every day for that reason alone.
“Stay bundled up, boys!” The reverend admonished, as he walked up the front steps. “Even though you’ve only got another block, it only takes a second to get sick!”
“Yessir.” Both boys made a show of pulling their red scarves closer around their collars when they passed the church.
“Hey, let’s do that song we learned at school,” Eddy suggested.
“Which song?”
“You know, ‘Skokie’s Got Rhythm’.”
“You start.” Wally kicked a rusted can from the sidewalk to the street.
“Skokie’s got rhythm, rhythm all over, boom, check it out, boom boom, check it out,” Eddy did a kiddie version bump-and-grind. The song they sung in class was done round robin style, with Skokie being substituted with each classmate’s name. “Wally’s got rhythm.”
Just then, Eddy stepped onto a square of sidewalk that had the cement company’s name on it. Wally caught it.
“STINKFISH!” He bellowed, startling Eddy into looking down to see the box that read YURKES AND SONS, 1965. And the pile of frozen vomit beside it.
Wally, capering with his shadow, bumped into Eddy.
Chapter Six
“The hell, you say!” Frank Haid had given the matter some thought and decided to confront the man with honesty and sincerity. Robert Dolezal was going for none of it. ”What, you think I’ve got a deuce on me? Gonna roll me, are you?”
Haid had waited in the grey-white mist that was Chicago twilight for three separate nights that week. He couldn’t ask the strip joint owner about the suffering man; on the street, everybody looked out for the other guy. It wasn’t like this years ago. Father had told him that, once upon a time, when all the Old Style signs read ZIMNE PIWO and you could fall asleep on the El and actually wake up to tell the story, once upon a faraway time, you had as much on the guy next door as he had on you.
Haid didn’t have much to offer anybody, let alone the next guy. So he offered the black-bearded man in the chair honesty.
He had stayed a good distance behind the man, not wanting to draw attention. North Clark Street was no longer the Skid Row that it was during the seventies, but it was still deserted. Only diehards for the sexually perverse came down to the leather shops or to see the female impersonators at The Baton.
The man wheeled north to Ontario, then turned toward the lakefront. The guy had perseverance, that was for sure. And Haid was right about the guy being a vet; he had an olive-on-white sticker on the back of the chair’s headrest. MEKONG RIVER YACHT CLUB. Certainly he’d seen enough of all this world could show
I wonder if people like Laurie Dann, who killed a kid in a Winnetka preschool in May, or this guy the newspapers call The American Dream, he runs around with a heating pad for a cape and stops people from littering—do people like this do the bad or do the good because their lives are filled with chronic pain and they only have one kind of release?
My journals are my release. Fate is cruel.
* * *
“I don’t know why Mom Winona wouldn’t let me put on Crime Story last night,” Wally Grogan was saying as he walked with Eddy Diedzek past the Baptist church on Clark Street. “I mean, so Torello’s always shooting people! I know it’s not real, Jeez Louise! Except for the parts where Luca hits a lady.”
“Maybe she won’t let you watch ‘cause she thinks you’re a little peenie-boy,” Eddy returned, ready to fend off his friend’s blows.
“No, you dork.” The two ten-year-olds stopped to wave hello to the Rev. Marvin, the pastor of the church. Mom Winona said it was always a good idea to talk to men of the church, unless they were sidewalk preachers. Marvin Melone—his full name was hand-painted on the sign above the door—gave out the best candy at Halloween; the boys would say hello to him every day for that reason alone.
“Stay bundled up, boys!” The reverend admonished, as he walked up the front steps. “Even though you’ve only got another block, it only takes a second to get sick!”
“Yessir.” Both boys made a show of pulling their red scarves closer around their collars when they passed the church.
“Hey, let’s do that song we learned at school,” Eddy suggested.
“Which song?”
“You know, ‘Skokie’s Got Rhythm’.”
“You start.” Wally kicked a rusted can from the sidewalk to the street.
“Skokie’s got rhythm, rhythm all over, boom, check it out, boom boom, check it out,” Eddy did a kiddie version bump-and-grind. The song they sung in class was done round robin style, with Skokie being substituted with each classmate’s name. “Wally’s got rhythm.”
Just then, Eddy stepped onto a square of sidewalk that had the cement company’s name on it. Wally caught it.
“STINKFISH!” He bellowed, startling Eddy into looking down to see the box that read YURKES AND SONS, 1965. And the pile of frozen vomit beside it.
Wally, capering with his shadow, bumped into Eddy.
Chapter Six
“The hell, you say!” Frank Haid had given the matter some thought and decided to confront the man with honesty and sincerity. Robert Dolezal was going for none of it. ”What, you think I’ve got a deuce on me? Gonna roll me, are you?”
Haid had waited in the grey-white mist that was Chicago twilight for three separate nights that week. He couldn’t ask the strip joint owner about the suffering man; on the street, everybody looked out for the other guy. It wasn’t like this years ago. Father had told him that, once upon a time, when all the Old Style signs read ZIMNE PIWO and you could fall asleep on the El and actually wake up to tell the story, once upon a faraway time, you had as much on the guy next door as he had on you.
Haid didn’t have much to offer anybody, let alone the next guy. So he offered the black-bearded man in the chair honesty.
He had stayed a good distance behind the man, not wanting to draw attention. North Clark Street was no longer the Skid Row that it was during the seventies, but it was still deserted. Only diehards for the sexually perverse came down to the leather shops or to see the female impersonators at The Baton.
The man wheeled north to Ontario, then turned toward the lakefront. The guy had perseverance, that was for sure. And Haid was right about the guy being a vet; he had an olive-on-white sticker on the back of the chair’s headrest. MEKONG RIVER YACHT CLUB. Certainly he’d seen enough of all this world could show
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