Previously: I’m literally pissing my life away, America...By the time my dad was thirty-four, he had a wife, two kids, and a viable farm that he started from scratch…Ana’s dad — shit, I guess I’m older now than he ever was.
fernweh (fern-way) n.
1. An ache for distant places
2. Being homesick for anywhere but home
After lunch, Ana and I made plans to meet the following weekend. She was serious about helping the kid, I was serious about spending time with her, ergo, I was serious about helping the kid. She said she had plans with her mother later that day, so I left her in Pilsen and went back to Logan Square.
From the El station, I walked to the square and sat on the steps beneath the phallic Illinois Centennial Monument. On the steps with me were three men drinking from bottles wrapped in paper bags. They were arguing in slurred Spanish. On the sidewalk below were three skinny kids trying to do skateboard tricks. All three were shirtless and had cigarettes hanging from their lips. Over on the grass a family was having a picnic, two parents drinking wine and two girls arranging and rearranging the place settings. Every few minutes two gangbangers would ride by on tiny bikes, patrolling turf that they were only pretending still belonged to them. It ended up being hot that day, I was thinking of the sweat rolling down my back, in relation to the jacket I still had around my waist, when a welcome breeze blew an empty bag of Cheetos into my lap.
I stood to throw it away and saw Belmont sitting beside me. “How long have you — ?”
“I just got here. Now lemee ask you something.” Belmont pointed at my waist. “Why you got a jacket on a hot day like this?”
Though he didn’t say it, what I heard was Man, white folk, you got so much stuff, you just carry jackets for no good reason!
I shook my head, “You never know.”
Belmont thought about it for a second. “I guess that’s true.” He continued, “Looks like you was contemplatin’ somethin’.”
“Just thinking about what to do tomorrow,” I said, lying.
“Looked like more than that,” he replied, not fooled.
“Just thinking about what to do tomorrow and then every day of my life after that.”
Closer to the truth. I was thinking about whether I had a place in this park, in this city, in this world. It didn’t matter that I was there; I wasn’t affecting a thing. That park, the train, my job, it didn’t matter that I was there. A monkey could do my job (and do it better: a monkey would be more cheerful at least, and cheer counts for so very much), I’m just another face on the train, I walk down the street and I matter as much as the wrappers that blow around. Less. The wrappers at least get noticed, and there are special places for them. People see them, pick them up, carry them, put them to rest. I contributed nothing to the city. I stood on account of a wrapper. Nobody stood for me. I was an extra, Guy on Park Bench. Hell, not even credited. I was surplus. No one would notice if I left.
So why didn’t I leave? Why stay in Chicago? I stayed because I like walking on the lakefront path in January, I like standing on the overpass at the Ashland El stop and looking at the skyline at night, because sometimes I like feeling small and pointless, even though I hate feeling small and pointless. I stayed because I like biking through the empty industrial corridors that haven’t yet become the latest and greatest lofts and restaurants. I stayed because the only other option that even made a little sense was to move back home, such as it was, and that was no kind of option.
I waited for Belmont to speak. Maybe he had some advice, maybe he would drop some knowledge on me, take a long drink from his forty and deliver some kind of pearl of wisdom, set me on the right path with folksy aphorisms and then go on his mystical, magical way. I hoped for that to be true, much more than I care to admit.
“Me,” he said, face tilted toward the sun, “I’m finna get lit up. I like to drink too much! Know what I’m sayin’?”
I gave him a fist bump in reply. “I do,” I said, and then walked home.
Thank you for reading. Next week starts like this:
The two of us sat and stared.
Then Ana falls asleep and Jackson remembers someone from back home.