Sweet Home Chicago

Author’s note:

Originally a series of posts on the late lamented writer’s website Open Salon this is one of, give or take, 25 chapters comprising what was variously entitled San Francisco Diaries, Blog Noir, or The California Dreamers Series. Sweet Home Chicago was presented in four posts which I have consolidated into one here. The main character Damon works for The Process distributing dream medallion dispensers up and down the San Francisco Peninsula. Based in San Francisco, The Process is owned and operated by The Benefactor who is attached to Damon’s sister. The company is part of a loosely connected amalgam of similar firms located in major cities throughout the USA. The medallions are activated by electrical impulses only in the areas serviced by the company. Damon was sent on a cross-country journey by the combined character of Miss Crimson/Miss Virginia who represents the younger and older version of the same person. In this chapter, he is returning east after several adventures in California. If any of the facts in these stories are indeed true, I can’t be sure. After all – it’s all a dream!

“All his life, he had wished and waited, and there had been no change except for the worse.” ― James T. Farrell, Studs Lonigan: A Trilogy

 

I drove straight through to the outskirts of Chicago despite the lingering soreness from the horse ride. The countryside streamed by unrelenting, late-winter dreadful, the road a song of tires from passing cars and trucks.

I stopped for quick stolen naps, and nervous restroom trips at weedy rest-stops amidst fellow road-zonked travelers. Guardrail gray skies threatened snow every day. I stayed ahead of the white stuff save for a sudden squall outside of Rapid City. Machine gun snow brought I-80 traffic to a halt. Cars and trucks encrusted with a wet driven snow were husks of white with little black spots where exhaust cut through the snow. I read Giants in the Earth during the stoppage and nodded off. The blast of a State Trooper’s car horn jolted me awake. I was catty parked on the soggy grass median with sparse traffic sloshing by, the snow all but vanished. I idiot-grinned to the stone-faced trooper and jerked back into the stream.

Just inside the Illinois line, I gassed up at a state roadside plaza. I phoned my sister in LA from an over-the-highway McDonalds. The Benefactor had not answered my calls for a couple of days. My sister told me that he had been arrested by the SFPD for running an unlicensed business. Strange, I thought, we had spent hours in line for licenses at City Hall.  As we spoke, I watched lines of vehicles wending east and west disappearing under the floor of the restaurant. I did my best to calm her with my small arsenal of inanities – “I’m sure it’s nothing. He’ll be out soon. Don’t worry.” Though we had never openly discussed the matter, I suspected that she shared my concerns about the dubious legality of the dream medallions. But if the authorities considered The Process as some sort of quackery, I could testify that it absolutely fucking worked!

Damn it anyway! I had wanted to see if I could hit him up for a quick loan to replenish my dwindling cash supply. I knew there was a Process franchise in Chicago; maybe I could do a few runs for the guy and earn some jack. I didn’t have enough to get to DC. I had to go to my next brilliant idea: find some temp work, sleep in the car.

I drove into the Southside. I had heard rumors of an Irish wing of my family living in Chicago. I figured they would have lived on the same streets as my childhood fictional hero Studs Lonigan – a guy who started with bright promise only to allow life’s challenges to beat him down to the level of a gutter bound drunk. In my imagination, Studs belonged to that lost clan. Kid’s gotta have someone to look up to.

My plan led me to the bleak offices of Barton Temporary Services.

A young woman sat at a desk behind a high counter. A phalanx of scruffians slouched on a wooden bench to her left. Since it was midmorning, I imagined the ragtag lot to have been the ones left behind, waiting on sick calls.

She deftly waved a pen between index fingers like a tightrope walker’s balancing pole. No greeting, just a frank look that took in my wrinkled road clothes. A nameplate on the counter read: Maureen O’Riordan. With a turn of her pen, she queried my purpose.

“I’m looking for some work.”

“Really?” Clearly, she enjoyed my discomfort. From the boys on the slab, dull eyes followed the exchange like Spring lambs watching a motorcycle race.

“What do I have to do to get some work?”

“Fill this out.” Saucy. Efficient. Soft reddish-brown curls. Wide teasing eyes in a round face. The lambs shifted; a spot opened at the end of the bench.

I scratched information with one of those cruel half-pencils. The bench boys tilted right and listened in as she handled phone calls: “Not there? Yes, they had directions. Do you want two more? No, you won’t have to pay, it’s past the cutoff. Two?” You could hear the irritation in the squawking end of the receiver. She let him rail a little then brought them back to business. The bench got roomier with each call.

She laughed as she scanned my application.  “Writer? That’s your skill?”

“I can do whatever you got, but if there is something along those lines?”

“We send people out to clean up construction sites. What did you expect? This is a day labor office.”

“Well, you never know. Crazier things have happened.” I looked deep into her gray/blue eyes. There was a flicker of something. “But, as I said, I’m versatile.”

“I’m sure,” she said. “You do have a car, I see. That helps. Have you painted?”

“No, just a little writing.”

She flashed up from the sheet with bemused annoyance, “very funny. House painting, my brother has some contracts. He might need someone. Nothing permanent, right?”

“I’m a rover.”

“Can’t promise you anything. I’ll talk to him tonight. This, of course, is not through the firm here. It’s cash on the side.”

“Got it.”

“Mr. Walters, you didn’t list a phone.”

“I’m new here.”

“I’ll see him tonight. Why don’t you call me later.”? She slid over a folded piece of paper. “Call after 9:00.”

I secured a room at the Ambassador Arms Hotel. I paid a week in advance, nearly wiping out my funds. The desk guy was that same desk guy at all these hotels – bored, story-worn, and in a hurry to get back to the crossword – “You bought a hotel? I got an uncle who lives with Grandma, could use a job…” Dismal room, sun-worn shutters that snap back to the top if you don’t handle them just so, sheets and blankets scented with muscatel and unfiltered cigarettes, dressers with sagging drawers, toilet and sink barely running, everything crusted with decades of unspeakable stains. The great American flophouse.

Every town had hotels like this one. The ubiquity of these fleabags was almost as if they were a chain – a chain of dismal. I could write an ad for these guys: The Ambassador Arms Hotels, A Flair for Despair. You’ll come for the price; you’ll stay for the desolation. No trip is noteworthy without a creaking bed, squeaking mice, and clittering cockroaches. Our carefully selected staff will insult you and take your wadded cash while making you feel like the most worthless person in the world. Try an Executive Suite with your choice of a complimentary gas oven, loaded pistol, or a length of sturdy rope. Rooftop units too! At Ambassador Arms: you’ve arrived!

Beetle-Brow Gus did not let me down. The room was perfectly awful. Still, it beat sleeping in the car in this big strange city. I went to put my bag in the closet then thought better of it – no telling what lay behind the scuffed door.

I rinsed out some clothes in the bathroom sink and hung them over a sagging shower curtain rod. A crinkled yellowed plastic curtain was bunched against the spotted wall. I splashed myself at the sink – fuck the shower, no way was I going to get caught naked in this shit hole.

In the so-called lobby, there was a set of resident goons on a plastic sofa mooning at a barking TV high up on a shelf. I stepped around them to enter the cooling Chicago night. The songs had it right – that wind coming off that lake blew ice right through my thin clothes. I gratefully grabbed a counter seat at a steamy Greek diner. Greasy Gus slid me a molten cheeseburger on a chipped green plate. Came with a well-traveled pickle slice and a pile of, yes, chips. “No Pepsi, please. Just water.” I hurt the Greek’s feelings with that one, so I had him bring me a mug of coffee – just for show. An oil slick floated on top of the black liquid and moved languidly to the vibrations of the city.

The payphone at the Greek’s reeked of used perfume. The source: a row of pear-shapes perched at the counter blowing smoke and stirring chalky coffee their wares displayed like hams in a German butcher shop. A quarter slipped from my burger-slick fingers and clunked down the slot.

“Who?” she said with dancing eyes.

Twenty minutes later, I rocked to a stop and parked among cement chunks under a teetering El line.

At her apartment house, the back door was propped open like she said.

The Ambassador Arms is a great place to leave your shit, but you don’t want to sleep there.

Maureen’s building was old but well maintained. The carpeted hall was clean with cream-colored walls trimmed in dark oak. A lingering scent of lemon oil polish and cleaning agents muted the usual cooking odors of an apartment hall. I read the brass plates on dark doors and stopped at 210.

She opened the door silently. Behind her, a softly lit living room with expensive brushed leather furniture, a gleaming upright piano, and light soul music emanating from a nice stereo. She led me to a small table in a clean, roomy kitchen. She poured beers into frosted glasses.

“Nice place, the temp business must be good to you.”

“Yes, it is,” soft eyes gave a non-answer. Maureen never would reveal much, she gave vague and bland answers to the usual getting-to-know-you chatter. I heard the tone of promise in her voice, and I saw a sweep of ivory skin from a baby blue cashmere to matching willing eyes in her glowing face. She had the kind of eyes that launch symphonies. Those eyes said everything I wanted to hear that night and every night after.

The prelude was conversation over sipped beers and music “easy like Sunday morning.” Later, a series of soft sighs, muted wonder, and unfolding desire tossed until early light curled through curtains around closed blinds. I knew I had to leave without her saying so.

The city changed in the few blocks I walked to my car. The change was stark. Orderly shrubs and spotless sidewalks became cracked, uneven walkways edged by scrawny bushes that trapped blowing trash. Doorways and dark corners became more shadowy and sinister.

I quick-stepped to the Aspen. Maureen had given me another slip of paper with an address where I was to meet her brother and his paint crew. I had a couple of hours to kill, so I went back to the hotel to change clothes and grab some nervous shuteye.

In the light of day, the goon squad from the previous evening turned out to be some old pensioners riding the vinyl while waiting for the local saloon to open. A TV whirred a test pattern while the old boys passed around Tribune sections. They looked at each other and me grinning knowingly.

The place was not all that intimidating in the morning light. In my room, I sat in a shaky cloth upholstered chair and nodded.

I found the paint crew gathered outside a large house. They were easy to spot with their white paint-stained overalls. They were listening to a sharp-dressed young man. He was laying out a work plan as I joined them.

“Get the front room done so I can show the old lady what we’re planning to do. Make it nice. No mess, clean up right away. I’m back at 2:00.”

Some of the men held coffee cups. They all smoked.

“Put out the heaters before you go in that house.” He thrust his hand to me. A black onyx ring on his little finger, “Maureen sent you, right?”

I wobbled at the end of the vigorous shake, “Yes, she did.”

“You’re the type. Here’s what I’m going to need from you. Some days you work with the crew here. Other days, like the rest of this week, you drive for me.” He yelled to one of the men, “Hey, Kenny, come here. Here’s your new guy.’

Kenny nodded and went back to the house, a dirty short towel hung from the back of his coveralls.

“Kenny’s like that, a man of few words. You’ll only be with them a day or two. You’ll be driving most days.”

In the Aspen? I thought. I couldn’t see the guy dressed the way he was in that car.

“Naw, I got a Caddy for wheels.  My regular guy’s laid up for a couple weeks or so. You need temp work – I need a guy.  Looks like a happy marriage. You can handle the wheel? Right?” His biting Chi accent hurled by me like a flurry of head bound fastballs.

“I can handle the assignment. I drove a cab in DC.” That probably meant nothing to him, but if you can make money with a cab in DC, you have serious driving chops. He seemed to like my answer.

“Walters, I’m Tommy.” Walters was okay with me. Any more Kennys, Tommys, and Dannys around, we might have enough boys to make a tree fort. These Irish.

I spotted the car. Hard to miss as it gleamed with that deep sheen of a weekly wax. I parked my car “around the corner” per Tommy. I settled into the soft appointed seat, messed with a variety of controls to get everything exactly right. We made rounds, mostly bars, some with Gentlemen Only signs. Each stop about fifteen minutes and conversation in the car limited to directions from the backseat where Tommy fumbled with manila folders as we drove. The vehicle was equipped with a phone. Tommy cradled the thing and yammered on it between stops. Bits of his conversations floated to the front, but I tried to not listen.

A big shined up car like Tommy’s has a sort of power on the streets. Other drivers give way. You park anywhere like a delivery van. At the stops, I read the newspaper during the wait.

Tommy had the same coloring as Maureen, but the resemblance ended there. His face was chiseled hawk handsome. A jutting jaw and long curly hair combed back. He projected intensity but was soft-spoken. I was grateful as in my sleep-deprived state, I would have been bothered – I didn’t want to spend the day with a guy who looked like the woman I slept with the night before.

The first week was all driving, no painting.

Every night, except Saturday, I slipped in the back door at Maureen’s.

I got to know the lobby lizards a lot better and found them to be nice guys. In turn, they caught on fast to me. When I hustled out at night, a couple of the red-skinned coots would render unsolicited advice followed by a chorus of hacked cackles: “Bring flowers.” “Always say you’re sorry.” “You don’t think you were the first, do you?”

As the old boys grew on me, I began to look forward to our morning ritual. I listened and took their advice. At Maureen’s, I was sorry for something nightly. The rheumy old guys were making the place a little more tolerable. “Stay adrift of Gus.” My morning shuteye progressed to the bed. But I kept clothes on, slept on top of the spread, one eye on the door.

I brought her flowers. I bought a dozen from a street vendor outside of the Greek’s. The vendor was a middle-aged white woman dressed hippie style: round glasses, long hair parted in the middle, and a flower print frock.  She smiled pleasantly and said, “God bless.”

Maureen laughed at the gesture. She placed them in a vase on the piano. The blessing from the hippie woman did not extend to the roses as the flowers weren’t there the next night. But I was – night after night. Except for Saturdays and Sunday afternoons, those were for family, she said.

Each night it was a contest to find parking then a walk through the doomed-world neighborhood two blocks away. I tried to walk fast and look broke. The next morning was a slightly less terrorizing repeat. “You’d walk through hell to get there, wouldn’t you?” said one of the coots.

In the realm of the transient, the second time you do something, you’ve done that thing forever. I was now a regular. Sundays I rode the vinyl with the coots sharing take-out from the Greek’s and the Tribune Sunday. I caught up on sleep, this City of Broad Shoulders was wearing me out.

That second Sunday, I spotted a Process ad in the classifieds. The carefully worded ad was placed in the Personals and crafted to appeal to the target client. The ads were written to entice the adventurous with a price tag that would weed out the unfit. I remembered that the Benefactor said the Midwest guy was a Kraut – Heinrich or something. Ironic, as The Benefactor was Jewish.

I sat in the room propped up against the creaking headboard with the lumpy pillow for support. I was in a stare-down with a pigeon on the speckled window ledge. The fucker was watching me eat Ritz crackers dipped in peanut butter while I read An American Tragedy. The damn bird won. To get rid of him, I worked the window open and dropped a handful of crackers to the ground. He gave a little victory dance and fluttered to the alley to claim his tribute. I watched the pigeon action through the grime-streaked glass and thought:  I heard Tommy ask for a Heinrich on that car phone a few times.

Kenny handed me a pair of overalls. I switched to an old pair of shoes from the trunk. I stoked a Camel I bummed from one of the boys. We passed around a pint of Old Grand-Dad as Kenny handed out assignments. He put me on trim with Phil.

“Danny, you’re with Phil today. He’s a little crude and rude, but ain’t no better painter around than him. Get past the language and attitude, and you can learn a few things.”  Then he goes into a story – I guess I have one of those faces. “Don’t piss him off, and it’s easy to piss him off, you’ll see. Listen to him, do what he asks. That’s it. One Saturday, him and Danny O’Neill did Tommy a favor and did a one-room job for a rich lady up on Michigan. A woman wants her dining room painted for Thanksgiving coming up the next week. Her and Phil did not get along. Right off, she’s on him for trailing cigarette smoke into the house. He starts to say he snubbed it out outside, but she won’t let him finish. Says she can smell smoke if you’re in a car a block away. Every time Phil tries to explain, she’s on another blue streak about it. This goes on two or three times, and then Phil clams up and takes it. Danny O laid down drop cloths while Phil tapes. Soon as the battle-ax goes out shopping, Phil grabs a big wineglass from the china cabinet – one of them big snifters. He pisses in it and dumps it out into the paint bucket and stirs it in. Puts the goddamn glass right back into the cabinet. They did the job and were picking up the drop cloths and shit when the biddy comes in. She likes it – “Oh, wonderful, I love the smell of fresh paint!” She tips ’em five each – five dollars for working a Saturday. “Everybody will love the new look. Dusty Ochre is perfect for the dining room!” “I’ll drink to that,” Phil says as they walked out.”

Phil was a beer-bellied, balding, florid man around thirty who was none too pleased to get handed the newbie. He spat a piece of tobacco and glared at Kenny. I was on the crew.

Phil, a master of the expletive, gruffly took me to a large room that had a bank of windows. He field-stripped his Camel before entering the home and parked it in his puffy lips. The room was big enough for a cotillion or a meeting of waxy Republicans. I counted ten large windows that I had to “cut” for Phil, or he would be “really mad” or something. He faded into another part of the house to help the “goddamn Indian,” whoever that was.

I was left alone in the big room. I could hear the goddamns and fuckings from distant parts of the old mansion. The room was empty. Canvas drop cloths covered most of the floor, sheets covered furniture pressed into the center of the room. A patina of dust was over everything and hung in the dry, hot air. The furnace was cranking full blast–to dry things faster, I imagined.

I cracked open a can of paint that Phil had pointed to. Next to the can a brush that I had no idea what to do with. I held it and stared at the windows. Outside bare tree limbs waved in a mist over brown grass.

“You want to keep that brush wet. That’s the secret. And have a good brush. That looks like a good one. I like a filbert made with horsehair for trim, but I think you’re okay with a slanted brush like that.”

A pasty dust-covered man sat on a sheet in an armed dining room chair. Dressed in painter’s clothes, he had a body like Phil’s with a tired, needy face. A lit cigarette dangled from his mouth. Strangely there was no odor from the smoke.

“What he wants is for you to paint the trim so he can roll the walls faster. I would hit the floorboard first, then the windows. If you keep that brush loaded, you can go a lot faster. Lot faster. That’ll keep you jake. I broke in like that, cuttin’ trim with my dad and brothers. Don’t worry about spills and splashes, that brush you got there won’t drip much, and you got your drop-cloth.”

His voice modified to a wistful tone, “You really like her, don’t you? So pretty she is. Never did get married myself. Came close, so close, but couldn’t quite do it.”

His eyes glistened through the dusty white face like a seal pup in a snowstorm. Something or someone had hurt the poor bastard. He looked outside the windows and chatted on about schoolboy triumphs and life’s big disappointments. He kept giving me pointers on the paint job. Eventually, I got the hang of it. My arm was tiring. I was looking forward to lunch. Maybe I’d cadge another smoke and a swig of that Grand-Dad.

“Who are you fucking talking to?” Phil was checking in on me.

“The guy in the chair there.”

“There ain’t no one in this goddamn room but you. Hey, you got the windows done? Now there’s a big fucking surprise.”

I was not inclined to argue about the guy in the chair with the raspy-voiced Phil. Let the rummy have his day. It all could be some dance between the two of them. He was right though, the guy on the chair was indeed not there at present, and it dawned. Having learned that The Process was somewhere on the fringe with these Chicago guys, I was not too shocked to have the literary figure of Studs Lonigan give me painting pointers. Studs would always give you a day’s work.

A familiar restlessness settled in. I thought about the Heinrich thing. Had I been dosed in Tommy’s car? This phantom Studs. The pigeon. Was Maureen even real?

Kenny, the foreman, came into the room. He was noticeably irritated. “Just off the phone with Tommy. The bitch doesn’t like the color in the big room. Philly, you and this guy head back there and pitch in. Fuck!” He slammed his hand on one of the covered pieces for emphasis. A small foil packet flew from his top shirt pocket across the room and slid over the canvas near my feet. I saw it was a Process medallion packet. The top was folded over, it had been opened. I hoped the medallion was used up. He bent over by me to retrieve the thing. “Got lucky, Philly, you remember what that was like?” he said.

“You reuse your rubbers? That thing was open.”

“No, it’s not what you think. Don’t worry about it. Get going on the job. You and this guy.” He was positioned with his back to me. Kenny and his boys had been painting in the adjacent room.

Later, at Maureen’s, she and I sat on the leather sofa in her living room with the patio door open. The night was warm, and the cool lake breezes were refreshing. The air disturbed the drapes and rustled magazines on her coffee table. We sipped wine and listened to Scheherazade on her nice stereo.

“I want to be with you like a normal people, out in the daylight. Coming around here late at night is a little weird and very scary.”

“Enjoy what you have. Don’t you like this? My family is strange, but they are important to me. They wouldn’t understand me being with you. Not yet. Give me some time.” She turned to me on the sofa and nestled close. ” And you do like this…” She slipped to the floor; her hair trailed down my arm.

She had a way of ending conversations, changing the topic. I didn’t press, I did not want to appear needy. Questions danced in the air like the weak stars above the city. I believed a relationship this intense deserved some sort of light of day status.

My time in Chicago was running short. But there had not been one night that I did not want to make the dangerous walk to get to her. The drone work of painting allowed me to think of her all day. The only break was the time with the characters around the creaky hotel neighborhood.

By the third week, I was on a first-name basis with the geezers, half of whom were named Pat or a variation thereof. Their bloodshot Irish eyes would light up whenever they saw me. Waxing merry, they wanted to know the latest: “You see her again?” “Did you pass anyone on the way out?”. Their barbs were kind, I laughed along with them. In the aggregate of years that these fools had spent living, I was sure they had seen it all. I felt at home in the rat trap, the odd encounter in the stifling halls became less troubling as I learned from the coots who the real horrors were. At the Ambassador Arms, each door closed on a life story written in rap sheets, tattoos, and worry marks. When you did the side-step in the halls–the feeling was mutual.

On the off days, I walked never-ending city blocks. I remembered one of the coots saying, “why don’t you find out where she lives?”

I got old Gus to grudgingly hand me a faded White Pages from behind the desk. I flicked through the pages that had that same old ashtray smell that the rest of the place had.

As it turned out, on Friday, I was pulled from the paint crew–much to my relief. Tommy shouted my name and waved me over to the black car. He dipped in and out of the passenger side; he was carrying on a phone conversation. He cupped the fat end of the tan phone, “lose the overalls. You’re with me today. Breaks your heart, don’t it?”

As we settled into the comfortably appointed upholstery, he snapped off some quick directions. He gave the phone a hard look as it jangled. “Biggest mistake of my life.”

I was feeling loose on what could have well been my last day, “what’s that?”

He answered as if talking to himself, “giving her this number.”

Compared to my stiff-wheeled Aspen, Tommy’s car was a dream to handle. I was noticing slight vibrations as if an electric current pulsed through the steering wheel. The scenery seemed to flash by faster than the car was moving. The rearview mirror danced; at stoplights, I noticed a maroon Aspen following. Tommy was agitated on the phone. He barked directions. We pulled up in front of the temp agency where Maureen worked.

I waited a few minutes before I ducked in to say hello. The usual assortment of job seekers fidgeted on the wooden slab. She sat regally–phone at ear. There was a palpable tension in the office. A doe-eyed supplicant on the bench cast a glance from me to an open door. I caught the vibe. Maureen gave me a startled look and looked to the half-opened door. She signaled with her graceful hands for me to get outside.

I leaned against the fender. She darted from the building. “What are you doing, coming in like that?”

“I had no idea there was anything wrong with that.”

“I work with my family. They can’t see me upset.”

“I didn’t know you got upset. Why?”

“Nothing. Just that seeing you in there…”

“No big deal. Your brother brought us around here. I just stopped in.”

“I know, I know. It’s, uh, I’ll explain later.” She stepped briskly back to the front door.

“I’ll see you tonight,” I called after her.

“Okay.” At the door she mouthed I love you. “Call first,” she said.

Returning to the hotel, I shot a “hey, ho” to the parlor coots and caught a nap. Tommy had paid me in hundreds. I had reached my goal of building some resources to continue east. I would let the Benefactor deal with his situation in California and leave him on the backburner. I could see that The Process was up and running here in Chicago, so whatever was going on in San Francisco was a local problem. I was confident the Benefactor could handle the authorities so that by the time I got back, there would be work for me.

The pull of the strange but powerful relationship with Maureen was difficult to imagine ending by simply leaving. I needed to talk to her. The short time we had spent on the subject had not answered my concerns. She had overtaken my thoughts, and that had helped me keep the increasing Process effects under control. The wait until 9 pm, the usual appointed hour, was agonizing.

I ventured outside for a phone – way too much of this drama had been played out in front of the hotel residents. The city was in a grumbling, uncaring bustle. Maureen did not answer. I drove closer to her building and called from a street corner phone booth. I tried several times. A woman materialized on the other side of the phone booth glass. She insisted with demanding snappish eyes and tapped a watch buried in ample arm flesh. I held my ground for five more attempts but finally relinquished the phone. The woman huffed past me in a cloud of soapy perfume and icy irritation. She nestled into the booth and latched onto the receiver like a seagull on a sack of French fries–phone time was over.

I drove aimlessly in the Aspen. I cruised by her apartment building. I checked the back door – locked. I hoped she was alright; there was no reason to think otherwise.  I knew she was a little miffed that I had shown up at the office, but I could not see her being angry enough to slam the door on me. The pressure built as I faced the decision.

That Saturday daytime was spent in fitful naps mixed with trips to the lobby phone and packing the Aspen. I was paid through the next week, but I didn’t want my meager belongings subjected to the whims of gloomy Gus– “He’ll lock your shit up and make you pay all kinds of fees to get it back for no reason.” According to the rumors, there were bags of treasure left behind and guarded zealously by the acerbic proprietor.

One of the old-timers posited that if the damsel had family distress, perhaps she could be found at the family home. The idea of creeping around the city spying on a girlfriend was not too appealing, but I had nothing else to do. Maybe there was something I could do to help her. “Yes, maybe,” said the old boy.

I scoured for O’Riordans in the musty phone book that Gus smacked down on the counter as he farted. I moved quickly over to the payphone. I recalled a street name from driving Tommy there. He had run into a tidy house for a few minutes and emerged with a slice of jelly toast. He didn’t elaborate upon entering the car – an incessantly talking man of few words. I saw a cluster of O’Riordans on that same street and took a chance. I drove through the solid workingman, edge-of-the-city neighborhood with its manicured lawns and waxed cars at the curb. I checked the rearview mirror where I saw Studs morosely watching the neat homes pass by. He did not offer much; just sat there smoking that endless cigarette. I cruised the street without thinking I would find anything. I saw a church and guessed it to be the family church.

“St. Anthony of Padua Church Welcomes You to Worship”–a sign on the swath of ground in front read. “I should stop in and see if old St Anthony could help me get to my right mind,” I said into the rectangle. In the reflection, Studs nodded.

Though it was past the time of Evening Mass, one of the church’s door stood open at the top of a set of cement stairs. I pulled my rig into a commodious gravel parking area. I backed into the last space; trees and unkempt shrubbery shadowed the space. I needed to stretch my legs.

In the backseat, Studs now had company, a thin young woman in evening clothes. Her face bore the polite disdain of one who has been coaxed into a most uncomfortable and unseemly situation. Her hair was set in the bobbed curl look of her times. She held a cigarette holder, a rose-colored ember. Mouth pursed with disgust, she turned her gaze to the branches sliding on the car windows next to her bored face.

Studs wore an overcoat over dress clothes with a paddy cap rakishly cocked. The painter’s ever-present cigarette added a second, angrier glow. I held his mooning eye for a moment in the mirror. Wherever he was planning to take the dish, he needed to be nimble, and he needed to do some convincing. I started to leave, and an appreciative wolfish smile creased Studs’ puffy countenance. He offered some advice, “Go on inside, brother. That’s St Anthony in there, he’ll help you find your way.”

The Finder of Lost Things could be the ticket. I took the steps two at a time. Crossing the threshold onto stone tiles, the air changed to a tombstone-cold, pungent sharpness in which lingered the nervous breaths of shifting youth, reverential penitents, and loyal worshippers shuddering under the mysterious words of shrouded, guarded men.

A group of people clustered by the altar rail. They spoke in hushed tones and wore casual clothes. I took them to be a wedding party on a practice run.

It’s called a rehearsal – a vital part of the marriage ceremony. The families get to know each other in a relaxed manner. The padre wanted to insert some muscle memory in the groom who may become stage-struck or show up drunk at the main event. Can’t have a vengeful bride and her clan on his ass, God forbid!

I stood behind a glass wall that separated the vestibule from the knave. I listed nervously as memories of Sundays praying for the “Ite Missa est” washed over me. Studs had reappeared. He sat, back in overalls, on a long table set with programs and brochures. His short stubby legs swung back and forth over the stone floor tiles. He grinned and offered me whiskey from a fat-necked brown bottle.

A statue of St Anthony was off to the side. I moved near it away from the light that poured in from the center of the church. Humorously, there was a shelf in the wall next to the Saint with hats and gloves left behind by worshippers.

Clicks from shoes, purses, and keys echoed in the high-ceilinged knave. The statue stared at the cross behind the altar. From the shadows, I viewed the scene. A priest dressed in his collar with a colorful sweater addressed the group of ten or so. His words met with relaxed laughter as he coaxed the bridegroom to stand next to him. The nerve-racking round of phone calls I had overheard in the car made sense as Tommy stood next to the padre. He was grinning back to the relatives and buddies. I had been in a couple of weddings, and I knew those boys were half drunk and having great fun at Tommy’s expense. The best was waiting in the night for their hapless victim. Tommy looked away from his chums and listened as the priest now called the bride up.

A thunderbolt of psychedelic colors shot through the knave as I gasped. Jesus’ gaze moved earthward, and his cross wavered like a teacup in a hurricane. St Anthony shushed me, and Studs cackled as a shyly beaming Maureen O’Riordan ascended to the altar. “His fucking sister!” I spat. I kicked the base of the statue. “Go on home,” the Saint hissed.

The eyes of the party turned to the vestibule. They could not see me as the lights were reflected from the glass wall. I bolted through a side door. A pigeon fluttered and took off in front of me. A maroon Aspen idled at the curb; its dome light on and two chunky blond figures hunched over a clipboard. I ran to the sidewalk. I kept running for blocks. Several minutes later, I crossed over a busy roadway and ended up in a tourist area on the banks of Lake Michigan.

Through a veil of frustration, I watched from a littered shore as the lake danced an ancient pattern. Traffic rolled by. Lights were surrounded by amoeba shapes like a 6th grader’s vegetable oil light show. The wet air at the lake’s edge chilled. I shouted over the din, “the job was temporary.”

The Process had prevailed. They had mocked at the church: the statue, the shimmying crucifix, the pigeon, and the reappearing goon squad. The codgers in the hotel lounge had tried to warn me with their world-weary, cynical humor.

As for that burn-out, Studs–if he showed his pasty face, I would remind him I had read three books about him. For most of those books, he was my hero, but in the end, he as just another Irish failure.

Through these long months, I had realized that to stave off the Process effects, I needed to concentrate on the task at hand. I needed to act out of character.

I decided to return to my original purpose: getting back to DC. I wanted to see Miss Crimson. I was sure she had answers.

I snatched a cab outside of a well-heeled steak joint. I gave the driver the name of the church. I did not tell him I was lost–who needed more irony.

The church was dark, with doors closed. I took in the hulking shape outlined by a deep blue sky–a ship towering over its humble neighbors, promising a voyage of glory. A great place to start a new life.

I asked for directions to the Interstate then slipped the hack one of the hundreds Tommy had paid me with. “Consider it a wedding present,” I said to my stunned brother of the road.