It’s the night before Halloween and for some reason I am wandering around north Rodgers Park stoned and completely disoriented.
I had tried to take the train to avoid this kind of a mess but in the terminal I had dropped my phone, my wallet, walked up to the wrong platform, then retreated in disgrace. There was no way on Earth that I could possibly board a train in this condition. So I decided to just walk north.
My fingers fumble inside my jacket to see if the shake is still secure, still hidden. It is.
The last time that I had wandered aimlessly in Rogers Park for 4 hours I had seen many things, discovered whole new micro-neighborhoods, eaten exotic foods like Subway. Every time a man passed me on the sidewalk I had withdrawn into my coat; certain that he would snap his fingers to signal a gang of hoodlum ninjas to attack me all at once. But the blows never came. The ninjas remained hidden in their dark fantasy shadows.
Now I at least have a destination, but it requires me to walk through the 7th gate to Hell.
The original plan was to walk along the lakefront until I reached home in the suburbs. Who goes on long walks along the lake for no particular reason on the night before Halloween? I do. Earlier in the day I was tempted to chase a squirrel. Not to catch him or to eat him or anything a werewolf might do, just to enjoy the chase, the purity of the hunt, the joy of the pursuit. Now I can’t find a squirrel anywhere. Even they don’t come out in this neighborhood at night.
Glowing skulls in the bushes to my right.
Old Glory beaming in florescent light in a shop window.
A softball game! At last something to write about! This is the real purpose of this excursion: this random odyssey into urbania: to find a story to write about for Halloween. But the light to cross Broadway is so long that the game is over before I am able to reach the park. The teams lined up on the field to say “Good Game” several dozen times, then packed up their gear to leave.
Turn north once again.
Obama signs on many bumpers.
Have to remember not to get completely useless at tomorrow’s party. Have to be in good condition to report on the party in Grant Park, the celebration all over the city, the riots, the beatings, all the terrifying and thrilling possibilities that pass through my mind’s eye every time I see another poster.
I begin to think about all of the things I’ve written this election season, and that’s when I truly begin to succumb to the fear.
When it’s just you ranting about the wickedness of George W. for a dozen or so friends, there’s no risk. When it’s you saying we need to hang the last two Presidents and Federal Reserve Chairs in front of a daily audience of 1,000 readers, it’s a whole different ball game.
But the ball game in the park is over, the World Series has come to an end, and I don’t want to begin to entertain the morbid paranoid fantasies that come to mind when I think about the National Security Agency and what they will do to me if they ever get a hold of the things I’ve written. They already have it, I’m certain. It’s locked away in file in a warehouse full of file cabinets, buried in a bunker somewhere a mile beneath Washington D.C.
These are the kinds of things that make it hard for me to sleep.
Is this fear self-perpetuating? Or is there something in this crisp autumn air that drives people to dream about their innermost fears? Is north Rogers Park more than just a pocket of poverty and despair? Is it possible that some negative energy, some malign spirit has this area within its grasp? People have told me that it’s haunted. People have told me that the lake does strange things to the invisible energy fields in Rogers Park. These people did too many mushrooms during puberty.
Some people would say that it’s just a natural by-product of a society that feeds on terror and greed the way that I feed on Tostitos with a hint of Lime.
I’m hungry and thirsty but I’m too terrified to stop walking.
More Obama signs in my peripheral vision.
Some people would say that this man we are about to elect is the Antichrist. Maybe that’s why I’m scared. Maybe it’s just that it’s the night before Halloween and I have an overactive imagination. Maybe it’s the fact that no sane person should walk through north Rogers Park if you don’t live here on any night, let alone October 30th. Maybe it’s the fact that I had a job interview in the morning, wrote a scene with a woman overdosing on heroin in the afternoon, and smoked in the evening before wandering through this desolation.
i cannot say for sure.
How long have I been walking now? A mile and a half by the number of blocks. This usually takes me about 20 minutes, but I have no watch, and even if I had one it would do no good because time is meaningless to me in this state. I also have no clue how fast I’m walking.
Four police cars have passed me in the last minute or so. Three squad cars, one undercover. Each time they passed I felt a little jolt in my right side that must be my liver because I hear that’s where we all store our worries and our fears.
I have been very productive in the fall historically. I will finish my book before November 11th. This date has some significance but I don’t know what it is.
Left on Howard. Almost there. Just keep your head down.
A giant painting on a wall reads God Bless America in Spanish.
Someone runs past me, coming from behind. He was a blur of baggy pants, hoodies and gym shoes, all black. A wraith in human form, running from some unseen terror. As he passes by me his head turns and he looks into my eyes and instantly we are bonded: I can see the fear in his eyes, and he can see the fear in mine. What we are running from or running to, we do not know. He ducks into an alley to my left and disappears into the darkness of the night.
I hear police sirens somewhere behind me, but I don’t know which direction they’re coming from.
Something big is happening here, but I don’t know what it is.
I round the corner and finally find the entrance to the newly build L platform complete with bright lights, security cameras, and passengers. Under the glow of these lamps I finally start to feel safe. After I board my northbound train I start to breathe normally again. My reflection looks less like a caged animal and more like a burnt out college kid, but there’s still a lingering scent of terror in the air.
A newspaper is on the floor and I pick it up after dousing my hands in alcoholic gel. Keeps the germs away. Keeps me safe and healthy for 4 months running now, the longest streak that I can remember. After struggling with the sports section for 60 seconds I decide that one day I would like to read a newspaper, but first I need to learn how to unfold the damned things.
I should be comforted by the fact that I’ll be home in front of a large screen TV in 15 minutes, but I’m not. I shouldn’t be this afraid, but I am.
In less than a few hours, it will be midnight. It will be Halloween.
