Chicago Prodigal

CHICAGO PRODIGAL

I am returned to Chicago, this City. A place I don’t want to gush about, like the better men and writers before me. I don’t want to sequalize either, sucking on the necks and hearts of the stories and legends of my culture. It is a shallow brew, a thin mixture to sip. We should be creating culture. Not squeezing its remains into a glass held by the shaking hand of man whose only identity is that tremor.


We are our own disease. We have been infested by the bacteria that once only polluted our veins. It is now all we are, how we refer and separate ourselves. It’s all about the support group. The cache of suffering. The celebrity of pain.


This is the land I tread, trod and jog on.

But this is not the city of Chicago.

I don’t know much about her yet. Hell, I just now saw here as a “ her”.

And you may disagree.



I came back to Chicago on Jan 31st. I left when I was a baby, so you can give me some credit for leaving against my will. I found it strange to discover that within a couple years of my birth, all of my family had moved from Chicago. And after about twenty years it is safe to say that any friends or acquaintences would be faded, dead or too different to deal with. As I sit here, I have not a single friend or family in the City of my birth. The hospital I was born in moved. I even looked up my parent’s old address, 922 West Montana. It no longer exists. There’s a newish looking building there now, and it bares the addresses of 920 and 924. 922 is gone.


So, as it is just lying around, I ‘ll go ahead and use it for a title.
Chicago had always been like OZ, I told myself when I was a kid. But I tended to make up most of the stuff I claimed to believe about myself. And no, that is not
healthy. It led to an Identity Crisis, a lot of wasted time and I wound hurting a lot of people who didn’t deserve it and almost destroyed myself.
It is accurate to say that i scaped myself down to one friend away from the grave or to the corner with a cup in my hand.


And look, I’m not going to lie here. I’ll tell the truth as it comes and takes the hits when y’all prove me wrong. All this stuff happened, and I really think this way. I’ll tell you what I think about this City, as I figure it out and try to resurrect my own life with it’s noble pulse.

My lie to myself about Chicago as Oz blistered up in my head when I walked past
the Oz Park tonight. And entire park dedicated to a movie. Not a General ,a
president or a benevolent rich bastard from the past, but a piece of entertainment. I stared at the statues of Dorothy and The Tinman, they were gravely captured, stentorian, jealous of those Generals they weren’t. But the point was valid. What if the park was dedicated to A Midsummer’s Night Dream by Shakespeare? I wouldn’t even have a glimmer of a snotty thought about it. I would be all gushy and how wonderful and how appropriate. But which work has
pleased people more? Has made more happiness?

Then in the middle of the playground I saw some teen boys filming themselves in
various death defying leaps. Jumping, bouncing and throwing themselves about and then rushing around the tiny little screen to see what it looked like. . . .for real.
Right next to them there was a basketball game going on in the dim light. Being from a small town,a big city basketball game has quite the cinematic flavor to it, it’s an icon, a sure sign of CITY. They were playing hard, swearing and boasting like I’ve read about in other guy’s stories about cities. That’s been a lot of my feelings lately. I am constantly turning the corner and seeing something beautiful, like in the movies, like on TV, but different as I am
choosing to be here, to live here. I seek to claim this city as mine, as it was when I came screaming into this world.

I won’t take the right to claim this place as my Hometown for granted. I am a writer, playwright and Improvisor, hence all these weird squiggles you are reading, and I want to show y’all. . .youse guys. . .what I can do. I feel childish, despite my 41 years, and enthusiastic beyond what my salt and pepper hair tells me to feel. And despite the lie my life was, I do like Mike Royko, red hots, having four seasons in a year. Not sure about the Cubs or White Sox issue yet, but the Blackhawks are my new team.


Can’t wait to meet you.

NEXT WEEK: ADVENTURES IN A CHICAGO HOSTEL!