Looking for American Masculinity in Chicago.
A Funny Story & the Spectre of Violence.
Chicago isn’t known for being soft.
But I am decidedly soft. Can’t let go of exes. Write coy poetry about shooting stars over, lap at your sandy toes, Lake Michigan. It was a sunlit, bokeh filtering through the puffy cumulus clouds, kind of day. Budding tulips bloomed red & yellow. Made it worth slow biking through empty Chicago morning streets.
New Yorkers joke, “You know you’re a New Yorker when you…”
1. Bogart a cab from a slowpoke.
2. Fight off a rat for a slice of pizza.
3. Refuse to look both ways and never use the crosswalk.
Living in Chicago for a decade, I felt Chicago. But I couldn’t tell you, “This is my quintessential Chicago Story.” Broad shoulders? Producing live theater? Street art? Sneaking into Cardozo’s to eat lunch with your C-suite girlfriend? It all felt good, natural, me — synergistic. The City Loved Me. But was I truly Chicago yet?
I was peddling down, I don’t know, like La Salle or Clark. Heading South from Lincoln Park into the Gold Coast on my way to the Loop. Blasting a smile inducing happy, indie, pop punk, folk rock mix…
When I saw a short, ripped, youngish but balding dude yelling at a woman. He had a BMX style bike in one hand, and his bright neon green shirt clutched in the other.
“FUUUUCK YOU BITCH!”
He was saying more, but I was pretty sure the main gist of his rant was captured in those three words. I could hear him despite the noise canceling earbuds. There was a calculus to be done. “Six hours from now, is this going to haunt me? Dan, you’re a lot of awful things, but not a coward.” I made it an extra 30 feet before slowing to a stop. Gave a deep sigh and with a forced, deliberate peddling I wide-empty-street circled back.
“Go home, Allen, you’re drunk.”
“Oh. That’s Bullshit and you know it, Stephanie. That’s Bullshit.”
“Call an UBER!” Stephanie shot her two arms down as she leaned forward into her scream. Then she looked up towards her building, hoping no one heard her. Half under her breath she grunted an, “Ugh.” Her hair was to her shoulders straight and brown, it followed her cheekbones as they followed her gaze.
“I hate uber. God, you make me so mad.” What was left of his hair, wispy in the light breeze, was a deep sand, sandy blonde. He had these piercing blue eyes. His chest was massive. He saw me, and I waived sheepishly. “Hey, get the fuck out of here, bro.”
“I prefer not to.” This phrase is my superpower. People don’t know how to deal with it. It confounds them. You repeat it and watch people acquiesce. Use it as a non sequitur. Use it to get out of work, out of break ups, just say it soft and with a shrug. I stole it from a short story. (You’re reading this, so you probably already knew that.)
“What did you say to me?! I should beat your fucking, Ass. BRO.” He let go of his bike and kind of steam-engine, Chug-a-chuged toward me. I dismounted from my bike and set it gingerly against a black steel rod fence.
“Allen! Stop.” Then she pleaded with me, “Dude, it’s fine, just go. He’s drunk.”
He turned back to Stephanie and pointed, “I’m not drunk! It’s 9 AM!” Then turned those piercing baby blues back to me.
“I’d prefer not to get my ass beat today.” I looked up kind of absently at the clouds. “Though the sun is probably right for it.”
“That’s my, WOMAN. BRO.”
He spoke in broken caps. With big breaths between his words. Like he was a big bad wolf, getting ready to huff and puff my little piggy house down.
I craned my neck around him to see what she thought of his declaration of ownership.
“I’m not — we aren’t dating, Allen.”
He turned back to her and stomped three steps her way, “The fUck we aren’t!” Then as quick as he left, he doubled back in my direction, like he’d gone to leave the house and forgotten the keys, three times in a row. “I told you to fucking, ScRam, broseph.”
“I prefer not to?” I shrugged.
He pounded his right fist into his left palm. “You’re about to get Jacked up. You don’t fuck with A man,” he slapped his chest with both his palms. “Or his woman!”
With this grand gesture, I felt 100% sure that this very peculiar Allen would never hit me.
Advice is Useless When Indiana Jones Pulls a Gun.
When I was in college, I had a friend who got into fights.
He traveled around Ohio; bloodied fists in underground cage matches. Before Senator McCain went in and cleaned up the MMA, they actually happened in people’s basements.
Anyway, this dude, this bro of mine, he would go and just get the snot kicked out of himself, or vice versa. And he said, the real thrill was the fights that happened outside of the makeshift ring.
That’s where the real danger was, the fights in the parking lot.
“Anyone who tells you that they are going to beat your ass is a pussy. That guy doesn’t want to fight. That’s not me. I want to fight. You’re lucky, Boyd. You’ve got glasses. You ever meet a guy who tells you, he wants to beat your ass, you know straight away, that’s the last thing that guy wants to do. That guy is vulnerable. The bigger the poppycock, the bigger the pussy he is. You’re lucky, because you’ve got glasses. Let me tell you, you can do this. You can do this every fucking time. You want to win a fight? This is what you do. You say, Hey, let me just take off my glasses. He’ll say yes, and then you don’t take off your glasses and you leap at his face and just start wailing on him as fast and as hard as you can. That’s only if you aren’t so close to him that you can kick him straight up into the crotch, of course. The dude just said he wanted to beat your ass. Everyone heard it. No one will care that you used some bullshit tactic. He’s probably ‘bigger’ than you. That sort of pussy always is. So, you gouge out his eyes. Don’t stick around, don’t gloat. But you tell him to wait, and you immediately jump him. It works every time. That’s why I wear a watch. You don’t need a watch, because you’ve got glasses.”
I have never used that trick.
But there is a level of bravado that’s always calmed my nerves. This is the first and only time I’ve seen straight up, monkey-man style chest pounding. But, I’ll tell you, if you’re worried about a guy kicking your ass, you can stop worrying once he starts to slap his chest. (From my sample size of exactly one.)
Allen finished his chest slapping move by popping his chest out and grunting. Then he dropped his neon green shirt on the ground. Bouncing his eyebrows and just stared me down.
After a long pregnant pause, I said, “I prefer not to.”
Their Ensuing Conversation was the Madness of Relationships.
“God, fuck you, you’re not even worth it. I’ve got my own problems. You should mind your own fuCKing business.” He turned around and headed toward Stephanie. “WE are boyfriend and GIRLFRIEND.”
“No. WE broke up months ago.”
“I spent the night.”
“Because you’re drunk and I wasn’t going to let you sleep on the curb!”
“I’m not drunk. You drank last night too, Gawd! It doesn’t even make sense. It’s 9 AM.”
“You are always drunk.”
“GaWD. Stawp. You’re my girl.” He looked back at me, “Are you still here? Bro.”
“Look, I called you a Lyft. When it comes, you’ll get in. You can pick your bike up later.”
“I’m not drunk, it doesn’t even make sense. I woke up. I was drunk. I’m not drUnk now. I slePT. It’s like you don’t know me, babe.”
“What did you have for breakfast?” There was the rub. She asked but decided she didn’t care. “I don’t need you to answer. I called you a Lyft.”
“I’m not a liar. I’m not drunk, bitch.” He looked back at me. The dynamic had changed for him. “She’s my Girl. WE talk like this.”
“No!” She cried. “We broke up. I’m seeing someone else. He is upstairs. You are going home. You and I are not back together, because you passed out on my couch.”
“But, Babe.” He gave her this giant grin. Despite myself, I found it charming. Like… if you wrote him as a sitcom character you wouldn’t believe it. If I hadn’t lived the experience, I’d think, I have to tone this knucklehead down.
She stepped around him to speak to me directly. “Listen, he’s drunk. I’ll get him in the Lyft. He’s not dangerous, he’s just an idiot. I’m fine. But I don’t want you here, it’s embarrassing, I don’t need another witness to the fact…”
“BABE!”
Moments You Go from Chicago to Chicago AF.
I headed to my bike.
Needing a minute to process what I’d just seen; I walked it for a block. Chicago. Anxiety. Cowardice. Bravery. Soft. Single words refusing to be contextualized.
I tried to melt them on my muttering tongue.
Chuckled as I looked up to see a bird of prey circling the skyscrapers downtown. I wondered, “Is this it? Did I just have the quintessential, only in Chicago experience?”
Then Allen, who hadn’t been ‘tricked’ into a rideshare, bore down on me via his BMX. “Hey, bro. I just want to say. Look. Bro. Wait up.” I turned and he was jumping off his bike. “Let’s hug it out.”
I threw out my palm to avoid getting my back broken by a bear of a man, “How about a handshake?”
Firm grasp, and big goofy grin. He gave me a hardy shoulder pat. “You’re a good dude. I’d have done the same thing. If I saw some rando calling some hot piece of ass, a bitch. I’d have been all up in his grill. You did the right thing. But TRUST me. She’s my girl. I just didn’t want you to worry about it all day. She and I are cool. And you’re cool too.”
Oh, wouldn’t it be lucky if all it took was a story to change your life. Find out Chicago has a secret soft spot you can nuzzle into. All you have to do is be there, present, connect.
Allen biked away.
Sort of wobbly. He’d put on that neon green shirt but you could tell, he was sort of shoulder dancing as he turned his bike toward the lake. And the bird of prey, in that Chicago pre-summer Sun, was poem worthy.
In this age of unlimited 30 second shorts, you took 10 minutes out of your day to chuckle with me. Now, I want you to be creative and productive.
You’ve got stories you want to share. Check out my Podia, and we can work together. Email me Dan@StoryLuck.org and I’ll invite you to Story Luck’s next cohort based writing class. I’ve never gone viral. These classes won’t make you a million dollars. But you will write everyday.
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