From Kissed to Kissed Off

So, here I sit at the computer on the eve of the end of another wasted Only-Day-Off; still slightly hungover, mainly tired (strung out), and really bummed out.

The End:

I ended last night [last Friday night] (once again *sigh*) at the Mark II Lounge (#261). Sipping Old Style and having like the 6th shot of Jameson, I found myself wedged way-to-tightly between the waitress stand brass rail and some annoying "actor" ("I just got done shooting this really cool indie thing in Chicago" and "I have an agent, I don't need to talk to you"). I try and chat up the cute Polish waitress with the Marylin Monroe Mole above her lip, but sense instantly no-chance and decide to shut the fuck up before she tells me to "shut the fuck up." Freddie, the bar back, stops by and says hello and shakes my hand, then scampers off to collect shot glasses and the like, so that lifts my shitty mood a bit. LA Kat jabs me in the back and shouts above the barroom din, "so this is where you hide to escape me" and then turns back to the Heavy Mustachio dude I left her with at My Place (#266) and some young couple she started talking with. Someone flicks me in the back of the ear, I turn to see a huge Mexican Guy trying to order a Corona, and realize LA Kat most likely was the culprit. I knod at the Mexican Guy because we accidently make eye contact then turn back to the bar. Angie waves and says, "Hiya, Mac!" then rushes to the other end of the bar to take orders. I finish my Old Style, get another, glance at the clock 3:30, and try and make eye contact with LA Kat to no avail...this adventure is most likely over. Feeling crushed, I chug the Old Style, squeeze LA Kat on the shoulder, whisper (drunkenly shout) "have a good night," walk home feeling rejected and confused...

And very very very alone in the world.

The Beginning:

Sitting at the Mark II Lounge, maybe a month ago, minding my own business, I look over across the way toward the pool tables and see this pretty woman. She's got long black hair, shorter than me, brown cargo pants that fit relaxed (but show curves) and a tight orange t-shirt. She has her hand on her hip which is cocked a little to the side, and she's just sort of standing there smoking a cigarette and like surveying the scene. Her head pans kind of slowly left and right, observing and soaking in the few people millng around or sitting at tables. I take a mental note to keep an eye on her movements.

If this woman was placed in a large room of other woman or differing looks, styles, races, hair colors etc., my friends would have pointed at her, nudged me in the ribs, and said, "dude, she's totally 'your type.' Go talk to her!"

I continue sipping my beer and trading small talk with Hristo and Freddie. They're nice guys, and they seem to like my company as they usually hang out with me before the midnight hour rush in the bar keeps them busy.

I guess reading this guy's date should make feel better, sort of, maybe? (link shown by Fresh)

"People are afraid to merge..."

But at least Clay and Sean attempted, halfway.
Or is that worse, to only attempt halfway?

"[Chicago] is a Vampire..."

"[Bloc Party] is playing at the Whiskey tonight..."




"Don't you wish you could go back?"
"Go back where?
"I don't know, just back."

All he knew, at that moment, was that he was a 37 year old man, sitting on a stoop, drinking his 3rd beer, and it was dark out. The stoop light stopped working when the neighbors moved in a couple of years ago, and it never started working again after they left. Not after they left, or the Squatters for a few weeks after them left. The bulb is in the socket, but no electricity seems to enter.
In between brick walls, staring out into the street, he watched black boys on bicycles circling the block.
Over and over and over again.

He watched Mexican families walking slowly down the sidewalks, dragging folding chairs and toddler 3-wheelers, going home from a day and evening at the park.
He watched gangs of roving teenagers, all dressed the same in white t-shirts and jeans, roaming the streets, pissing on the lawn in front of him, passing joints, and starting fights.
He watched the police cruisers drving both ways on the one way street. Twerping the siren, and making the blue lights dance in the heavy hot night air.
No one greeted him, and only one out of, like,twenty replied if he greeted first.

He watched.
He watched.
He watched.

And felt nearly nothing.

Maybe a little fear, when the boys grouped up in front of him, asking for a cigarette.
Maybe a little anger, when he heard how all these kids talked to each other. Their voices sounded like violence, even when speaking "sweet nothings" that "hey girl!" they run across on the corner.
Maybe a little nostalgia, when the mind wanders to different times, different places.
Maybe a little regret, when watching the glowing ember flicked down the stairs into the darkness, onto the thin film of sewage on the concrete from the last big rain.
Maybe a little sad yearning, when he sees the couples walking under the streetlights and whispering leaves.
Maybe a little boredom at the way this whole thing turned out.

"The billboard said, 'Disappear Here.'"

At least I only got mugged...

Some poor guy just got shot in the street, across from bedroom window. And, once again, I thought the shots were M-80s. Two rang out in rapid succession, followed by around five to seven in a slower, steadier pace.



A couple of days after this, I ran into the HHUN (who moved) at The Bank; she said she knew this guy. He got hit in the neck, and is now paralyzed from the neck/top of the chest down.

Jesus! Seriously; at least I only got mugged!!!



Two detectives in black bullet-proof vests and jeans found two guns in an alley 3 houses west of the shooting. At least, those won't fall into another asshole's hands or be found by some little kid. I don't know if they had any real leads, but it felt like a lot of people called right after it happened; four police cars showed up just at the moment 911 answered my call. No matter what people say, the police have always arrived quickly the 3 or four times I've called them about something.



The silver (albeit oh-so-shallow of me)-lining is: I met another Hottie Hispanic woman (HHUN #2) from the next building over as my neighbors and I gawked the scene.

Yo! (Former) Complex Carrie! You know Rachael S.?????

Okay, people, take care, and keep for heads down!

Hanging with Crackhos

It's been a strange and pathetic few weeks.

I've been getting to know the drug-addled street-wise blurry-vision racing-heart underbelly of my neighborhood a little. Four o'clock in the morning conversations are crazy.

The Mark II Lounge, should be renamed The Mac II Living Room.

Isabella at Gallagher's spoke to me last Friday (she speaks English, someone lied to me!). What did she say? Um, the memory is bathed in beer and Jameson, and it's a little vague.

Fucked up at work way too many times. Showed up hours late to both jobs at least twice each. And fucked up big time today at The Bank...apparently I overstepped my boundary of authority; however, I think I cleared it up fifteen minutes later. Hopefully.

I can't go into details, as some are incriminating and (like I said) pathetic, vile, depressing, and just out and out disappointing to myself...yet, an adventure.

I know have more than one Secret, I'll be keeping it to myself.

Hello to Karin, Vernon, Shaolin, and Camilla. See you all on Clark Street after hours, eh?

Good night.

Love Thy Neighbor(hood)

It's going to be a long hot summer, and I may become a cat on a hot tin roof.

After a sober Saturday night (my date? meet? non-date? fell through due to a mysteriously reoccurring flat tire on her car), I awoke refreshed on Sunday and actually made it to the part-time job ON TIME (to much noting and joking by crew and management alike). The day flew by quickly with low sales and high traffic. I left tired yet slightly upbeat, and made it home fully intending on only checking emails, YIMing Flat Tire Woman, and reading old issues of The New Yorker to the sound of classical music.

I started out on track, and then the track exploded.

I made the mistake of cracking open an Old Style which quickly led to a second and 3rd as my neighbor and the HHUN (Hot Hispanic Upstairs Neighbor) started a verbal throw-down outside my kitchen door. I've mentioned before the neighbor woman has the volume capacity of 100 Marshall Amp Full Stacks turned to Eleven, but I think I failed to mention the HHUN equals, nay, nearly rivals this quality...with a Puerto Rican linguistic twist (you should hear how she verbally bullies her beautiful ginger dog).

So, anyway, I think I've informed you about my theory of the Marshall Amp woman's dealing in The Weed (if she don't deal, she sure as hell smokes it! You can nearly taste that greenish swampy sweet shit coming up the sidewalk to the gate most evenings). Well the HHUN smokes up a lot, too; usually in her biggass banana hummer outside my kitchen window on sunny days. And they hangout together a lot; I can hear them laughing and swearing through the kitchen window and facing two front doors. And both their buzzers ring like 20 times a day/night people popping in for 10 minutes and then leave. Or sometimes I hear HHUN yell into Marshall's window "hello" or "unlock your door" various type things.

But tonight, HHUN and Marshal Amp re-enacted an Urban Hatfield and McCoys on the stoop.

But let me back up:
So, I crack a beer and glance out the living room window to see what appears to be a group of 10 Birchwood/Wollcott Boys sprinting and yelling down the street in their requisite white t-shirts and blue jeans. I go to the window in time to see five Mexican men and two Mexican women chasing the guys, swinging fucking baseball bats and bike chains!

Um, WTF?

The Mexicans stop on the corner by my bedroom window, shouting at the white T-shirts disappearing toward Howard, calling on their cell phones "policia!" or yelling "get tu carro, whey!" A couple of cars pull up, and a few of the guys get in and they peel off after the black guys while the rest mill around the intersection or head past my kitchen window in serious Seek and Destroy mode. A guy carrying a brick walks down the middle of the street, shifting on slightly to the side as the 2 cop cruisers and one paddy wagon are now sweeping through the neighborhood (again, again, again) trying to triangulate the Birchwood/Wolcott Boys into a trap. I stand at the kitchen window, sipping a beer (nothing good on TV tonight anyway) and listen to Marshall Amp and her boys friends talk about what's going on. Turns out the B/W Boys jumped and beat up the Mexican corn pushcart vendor at the park, thinking he was a Latin King, and they were giving payback for one of their own getting beat down last week. We learn this from one of the Mexicans (the nephew of the victim) who came into the gate and was chilling on the porch with Marshall Amp's group; he didn't want to get in trouble with the patrolling cops since he was carrying the aluminum bat and all.

It quiets down again. The Mexican goes back on the search with his friends, and some of the guys hanging out go for a walk. I go back to the computer to finish deleting spam.

"Fuck you, bitch! Don't go yelling into my window like that! This may be the motherfucking ghetto, but you ain't got to act motherfucking ghetto, bitch!"

And thus begins the aforementioned Feuding Neighbors. Soon there is a group of boys hanging out on the porch and outside the gate to watch the Rogers Park Smack Down.

What I learned in following 30 minutes or so:

HHUN:

• has had 5 abortions.
• is a stripper (Must. Find. Out. Where.)
• stomps around upstairs in 10 inch heels
• fucks a lot of men
• these men leave drunk at 8 in the morning (which I actually found out from Marshall Amp yelling at one of the drunk guys outside my bedroom window at 8 in the morning)
• these "drunk stupid motherfuckers" are always ringing the wrong bell and demand Marshall Amp "let them the fuck in."
• the two of them had gotten drunk earlier this afternoon.
• is nineteen (?).
• likes to Marshall hear her have loud sex in the bedroom above her.

Marshall Amp:

• is a "dirty ass nigger."
• is a "broke ass bitch in a one-bedroom with two kids and mom."
• doesn't have a job (I think she's actually a night nurse).
• "likes drama."
• is a Drama Queen who is "always yelling at your kids, the kids across the street, and everyone on the sidewalk 'cause you like motherfucking DRAMA, bitch!"
• needs to "shut the fuck up!"
• can't keep her man (husband moved out months ago), can't get a man, and can't please a man.

Finally, most of the crowd dispersed. The cop cars disappeared. And I went inside, slightly buzzed, and in no mood to read a New Yorker.

So I went to Gallagher's (#265); it'd been a long while since I've visited. I stumble across the muddy park, stopping briefly to chat with the paddy wagon set up there still for the Mexican/B/W Boys incident. I tell them what little I know, and that I'm sure they never hear it, but they are appreciated. We wish each other a good night, and I hit Clark Street.

I'm zoning out, thinking about the recent events, and walk past the bar door.

"Hey, Mac, where you going, man?"

It's Dave, one of the bouncers. He's talking on a cell phone, leaning against a car. We shake hands trade hellos etc. He's asks me where I been and tells me it's dead as hell in there, but will get better soon.

I go in and take a seat at the bar. It's just me, two male customers, and the full crew of Bar Girls. Tanya and Bianney aren't working, Nachos brother is manning the bar. I ask Raul about them, and says, "I don't know. Vacation, maybe?"

I spend the most of the night drinking alone at the bar, eyeing Isabella and the not so friendly Bar Girl, who actually smiles and says hi once as she orders her table's Modellos. Later, I switch my view to that one hot looking Latina I see here now and then; the one people say is actually a tranny. I've seen her at The Mark II Lounge (#261) occasionally, Freddie said he thinks she's a man, too. Whatever, she's got a Hot Eye-candy Body, and her friend she's with is especially soft on the eyes, so I let my beer-sodden eyes float over to their table a lot.

I'm remembering why I haven't come here lately: expensive, none of the hotties speak English, and it's a total Sausage Fest. And that's when Melinda (?) sits down next to me. She's one of the more cuter Bar Girls, and, rumor has it, sleeps with Raul. So we chat for a bit, exchange names, I tease her that Raul's her boyfriend ("no, no, no. He's old man."), and, weirdly, she doesn't ask me to buy her a glass of ice-down beer they get served. I get the unnerving vibe that Raul has decided to pimp her out to me, or maybe told her to talk to the lonely-looking geeky white guy, so I don't push anything. I just drink and make small talk. 3;20 rolls around and the announcement is made over the PA, and all the Bar Girls rush for the closet to get coats and leave. I say good-night to Dave, and walk Melinda to her car because Dave said there was a fight going on by it (nothing), then head home.

Sleep.

[update from half and hour ago: Marshall Amp and the HHUN just got into it again on the stoop. This time it escalated to a physical fight "bitch broke my nail!" Apparently, Marshall Amp and her kids were sitting on the stoop when HHUN dumped mop water over the side of the upstairs stoop. No one got hit with the water, but this was enough to set them off. Oh, for the love of God...]

Summer Heats Up Neighborhood, Part II

I'm in a couple of those moments at The Bank where you find yourself taking a stand. I'm trying to argue points and define my position, and I suddenly find myself in a meeting in The Gopher Hole with my two top management team, Harley A and The Castro.

I don't do well in these kinds of positions: my lips tremble, I lose my train of thought, my arguments get out of focus, I lean toward arguing The Big Picture instead of sticking to the details at hand, and I sound emotional. Throw on the fact that I was aware of the meeting until an hour or so ahead of time (plenty of time to prepare while running around and babysitting the bankers, no?) and I'd finished my fourth or fifth cup of coffee, and, according to Harley A (whom I find to not be a totally creditable source), I came across a little abstract and crazed.

I've been hiding out in The Hole for as much as possible and while continue to do so in the weeks ahead.

And then I come home, park the car, and step in dried paint on the sidewalk...do a double-take, and realize it's the blood from the other day. I'm strangely torn as I look down at the splattery oddly V-shaped smear of reddish-brown between total sadness and total apathy. In a way, this split of emotion makes me feel even worse...like I've lost something very important that makes up a "good person."

I walk to my back door, and say hello to my neighbor through their open door. They shout the usual, "Hi Neighbor!" (I don't think they know my real name after two years), and then proceed to tell me I just missed another shooting...6 shots this time compared to 3 last time.

Great.

Later that night, anesthetized with Jameson, I suddenly hear Hot Hispanic Upstairs Neighbor yelling for my direct neighbors. Through the kitchen window, both eavesdropping and later actual conversation with the mother, it turned out the 15 year old son had gotten stopped by detectives and they patted him down. I agreed with her shouting out at the neighborhood (and the lady has the volume of twenty Marshall Full stacks) that this was bullshit. Busting a 15 year old boy on the way to the store for ice cream, drug dealers all around (especially up on Birchwood and Wollcot by the school) and the cops gotta fuck with a little boy. And then she went the "if it was a white boy, this wouldn't have happened!" And as I normally don't like that kind of argument, in this case/neighborhood, I grudgedly admitted she was right. (Fresh! Remember when we were driving and the cops flashed the cop searchlight into the car at the stop sigh, then shut it off for no apparent reason? We laughed.."Ah, just a couple crackers, let 'em go."

And today, I look out the window, and there's a flickering blaze of blue flashing light up the other street. Five cop cruisers and two detective cars clogging up the street in front of that condo that always has an ambulance show up to it.

It's going to be a long ass summer isn't it?

Summer heats up neighborhood

What I thought were 3 M-80s outside my window, turned out to be a story I will may not be telling my parents.

They aren't big fans of the city-life as it is.

(Crawling to bed now, staying away from the windows)