So, I do this thing when I make eye contact with toddlers on the subway. I make a funny face and when the kid giggles and looks up at their mom/dad for acknowledgment of said silliness I drop the face and turn towards the window. The kids get confused because they think “I’m almost positive that that dude just made a funny face, but I’m only four. Perhaps I imagined it.” I like to think of it as helping kids question reality in my own small way. Plus, it’s super funny.
Not to equate small children and tourists, but a few years ago there was a film shoot here in Chicago for a movie called Public Enemies. The movie was directed by Michael Mann, whose unflinching commitment to portray John Dillinger’s life as mind-numbingly dull as possible was truly a masterstroke of genius. Anyway, the elevated subway lines were outfitted with antique subway trains for the shots of the movie that would involve that degree of historical accuracy. You never rode in these trains, but every now and then you’d see one slide by on its way to the shoot.
One night, in what some people might call a drunken stupor, I found myself riding the El back towards home. The only other people on the train with me were some Asian tourists. I knew they were tourists not because they were Asian, but because they all had cameras and were talking excitedly in a foreign language and comparing postcards of the Buckingham Fountain and other Chicago landmarks. As to how I knew they were Asian, let’s just call it a hunch.
As they huddled around each other one of the antique trains floated by us, lit with a warm glow that shone amber through the fog and gave the car an aura that made it seem to hover by the windows. Only one girl from the group of tourists saw this happen. She stood agog and watched mouth gaping as it drifted by and out of sight like Chicago’s own Flying Dutchman- a train cursed never to put into station.
The girl turned back to her friends and began chattering to them excitedly about what she had just witnessed: an apparition all-ablaze and not three feet away from them. She used sweeping hand motions to convey its size and speed. She imitated her reaction as it had sailed by them busy with their postcards. Her brethren looked at her and laughed. I could see her in the corner of my eye trying to make her case, frustrated at not being believed. In a moment of desperation she looked up at me, the only other person on the train car. I could feel her eyes boring into the side of my face pleading “Please, tell them you saw this.”
I continued to look out the window until my stop.
Pretty fucked up, right? I like to think that she went back home with her mind filled with thoughts of Chicago, a city where on a dark night one can see spectres looming out of the fog- ill fated to ride the rails until judgment day. To her, Chicago will forever be a place of big buildings, a mighty lake that stretches the eastern horizon and ghost trains that haunt our subways and neighborhoods. And when I hear the scream of the train late at night as it winds through the city screeching in the 3 a.m. blackness I believe her to be right. And that makes me really fucking happy.
written for dirtydirt magazine. you should check it out! gonna be dope!
So, I do this thing when I make eye contact with toddlers on the subway. I make a funny face and when the kid giggles and looks up at their mom/dad for acknowledgment of said silliness I drop the face and turn towards the window. The kids get confused because they think “I’m almost positive that that dude just made a funny face, but I’m only four. Perhaps I imagined it.” I like to think of it as helping kids question reality in my own small way. Plus, it’s super funny.
Not to equate small children and tourists, but a few years ago there was a film shoot here in Chicago for a movie called Public Enemies. The movie was directed by Michael Mann, whose unflinching commitment to portray John Dillinger’s life as mind-numbingly dull as possible was truly a masterstroke of genius. Anyway, the elevated subway lines were outfitted with antique subway trains for the shots of the movie that would involve that degree of historical accuracy. You never rode in these trains, but every now and then you’d see one slide by on its way to the shoot.
One night, in what some people might call a drunken stupor, I found myself riding the El back towards home. The only other people on the train with me were some Asian tourists. I knew they were tourists not because they were Asian, but because they all had cameras and were talking excitedly in a foreign language and comparing postcards of the Buckingham Fountain and other Chicago landmarks. As to how I knew they were Asian, let’s just call it a hunch.
As they huddled around each other one of the antique trains floated by us, lit with a warm glow that shone amber through the fog and gave the car an aura that made it seem to hover by the windows. Only one girl from the group of tourists saw this happen. She stood agog and watched mouth gaping as it drifted by and out of sight like Chicago’s own Flying Dutchman- a train cursed never to put into station.
The girl turned back to her friends and began chattering to them excitedly about what she had just witnessed: an apparition all-ablaze and not three feet away from them. She used sweeping hand motions to convey its size and speed. She imitated her reaction as it had sailed by them busy with their postcards. Her brethren looked at her and laughed. I could see her in the corner of my eye trying to make her case, frustrated at not being believed. In a moment of desperation she looked up at me, the only other person on the train car. I could feel her eyes boring into the side of my face pleading “Please, tell them you saw this.”
I continued to look out the window until my stop.
Pretty fucked up, right? I like to think that she went back home with her mind filled with thoughts of Chicago, a city where on a dark night one can see spectres looming out of the fog- ill fated to ride the rails until judgment day. To her, Chicago will forever be a place of big buildings, a mighty lake that stretches the eastern horizon and ghost trains that haunt our subways and neighborhoods. And when I hear the scream of the train late at night as it winds through the city screeching in the 3 a.m. blackness I believe her to be right. And that makes me really fucking happy.
written for dirtydirt magazine. you should check it out! gonna be dope!
