Joey Takes Chicago
This weekend I emptied out my bank account and ran away to Chicago. If you want to know the reason, or perhaps what sparked this trip, I'm afraid I couldn't tell ya. I guess the right place to begin would be last Monday, when I locked my keys out of my car.
So as of last week I'd been trying to be better about keeping my grades up. When my midterms came back a month or so ago I was failing a couple classes and not doing so hot in the others. Call it my "I don't care" attitude that's carried over from high school. You could blame the fact that I don't see the point in keeping up grades whose ultimate benefit remains unseen. This fantastic movie Harold and Maude was on AMC a couple weeks ago. Lately, well, since school started, I've been feeling a lot like Harold. And like Harold, I want to push my car off a cliff and dance around the countryside playing a banjo. I do not, however, want to sleep with an eighty-year-old woman. But I digress. I drove to Bradley last Monday with the intention of staying for the entire day and being attentive in all of my classes. Not impressive to some, but quite the feat for me nonetheless. So wouldn't ya know it I lock my keys in my fucking car. You see, there's a lot of fumbling going on when I get out of my car in the morning. With a cup of coffee and a backpack in my grasp as I struggle to open, lock, and shut my door, one can understand why I might leave the old car keys in the ignition. So I had to skip all of my afternoon classes to go to the visitor's center and call my mom. And right next to the public phone were several Amtrak brochures and next to those -- maps of Chicago. It was the closest thing to a sign from God I have ever encountered. Some divine power was obviously telling me to make a trip to the great city. I quickly stuffed the brochures in my coat pocket and went into the lobby to wait for my mom. Afterwards we went to the Chinese buffet on University, where inbetween egg rolls I mentioned that my theater class was going to Navy Pier on Sunday. This was not a lie. I just hadn't planned on going until this point. My theater class is required to attend three plays during the course of the semester. The first was a fairly awful version of "You're a Good Man, Charlie Brown" that was performed at Bradley. The second was some play at ISU that I didn't go to. I wanted to go, but I had to put in the hours at Barnes and Noble. And I figured such would be the case with the Chicago Shakespeare Theater's rendition of "The Merry Wives of Windsor." But seeing those pamphlets in the visior's center gave me a feeling I couldn't ignore. I would go with my class to Navy Pier, sure, but I wouldn't be coming back with them. My plan was to go with Theater 131 to Chicago, spend three days alone in the windy city, then catch a train home. I guess you could call it spontaneity, or perhaps boredom, but I would say I needed a couple days to stop and breathe. I was finding myself at a crossroads where lack of passion and boredom with life was making me late to work and failing at school. Lately I had been late for work because I didn't want to miss the 3:30 episodes of Boy Meets World on Disney. Something was wrong here.
That Thursday I woke up with a terribly sore throat. I skipped my radio show and instead went to Jason's house to burn a CD. We also filmed scenes for a movie I'm making for the Bradley Student Film Festival. It's a black-and-white short film about a clown who faces discrimination in college.
My sore throat progressed to the point where I could barely talk, so the next day I went to the doctor. It was at this point that I learned I had a mild case of strep throat. I was prescribed some Penicillin and sent on my merry way. My mom took me to the new Cold Stone Creamery place out at Grand Prairie afterwards, where I had some of the best fucking ice cream on the planet. I was beginning to have doubts about going to Chicago with strep throat, but Dr. Mom assured me that I would be okay with my penicillin.
And so I woke up Sunday morning and put a bunch of clothes in my backpack. Then I got online and made reservations at a Holiday Inn somewhere downtown. Not exactly the Ritz, but hey I was on a fixed budget of six hundred dollars. I was gonna take my green coat to Chicago but good old mom assured me that it would be freezing in the windy city. Thus, I was given the most obscenely large coat ever to be fashioned in a Polynesian sweatshop. This was the type of coat that even an eskimo wouldn't have a use for. I can't even imagine the type of climate that would neccessitate a coat this grossly overweight, but for some reason I took it with me. It reminded me of that story from Mixed-up Stories From Wayside School that we read in Grade School. There was this new kid in school who wore a really, really big coat and one day the kids took his coat off, only to reveal another coat. And this continued until they found out it was just a rat with a bunch of coats on. I, of course, am the rat in this scenario.
My mom dropped me off at Bradley and I boarded one of the three Charter buses hauling our class to Navy Pier. I broke the rule I established in 8th grade of always taking Teddy Grahams on a charter bus ride, but in its place I took donuts and coffee. Not a bad trade I thought. No one sat by me on the bus thank God. There's nothing worse than having to sit next to some douche on a bus. I recall the time I was conned into going with a church group to Great America during the summer after my sophomore year. That sonuvabitch Brian Heywood sat next to me the entire way there talking about Bugs Bunny or some shit. A year later I offended this crotch-stain by simply mentioning that he had the same name as a character from the Shawshank Redemption. How the fuck was I supposed to know he changed his name to Brian Christopher because he had a falling out with his dad? It's people like this that would tell you I'm an asshole. Most people that call me an asshole are just the victim of a misunderstanding...or I made fun of them because they're in a lame ass band. Either way I do not see myself as an asshole. But anywho, I sat on the Charter bus eating my blueberry donuts and sipping my coffee, the entire time thinking about how nice it was gonna be to get away. The ride lasted about two hours. Everyone either slept or made out with each other. I guess most of these kids were from Chicago because no one really gave a shit about the skyline. Upon arriving in the city people either continued to sleep or continued to make out. After numerous trips to this place I still get all giddy about seeing the Sears Tower and friends. I snapped a couple pictures with the disposable camera that my mom had given me.
Now I've never really understood why people go to Navy Pier. Perhaps it's because I can't figure out what the fuck it is. Is it an amusement park? If so, where are all the rides? I guess it falls into the same category as Branson, Missouri -- the category of "Places Adults Love For No Goddamn Reason". Yet even Branson has its merits if you're a country-lovin' retard. Navy Pier is just a ferris wheel and a dude that wants to sketch an unflattering portrait of you. When we got there we had an hour to kill before the play started, so I walked around taking pictures of Lake Michigan. Of course it turns out to be like sixty degrees in Chicago and I'm stuck wearing the X-treme Eskimo Parka(XEP). On top of that I had a hefty backpack on my shoulders. I'm sure to the denizens of Chicago I appeared to be a retarded studier of Glaciers or something who was so retarded that he went to Chicago instead of the Arctic. Actually I bet no one thought that. I stopped by an ice-cream stand and ordered a Rocky Road sundae. Imagine my surprise when it cost me 7.50! At this point I realized I would need to budget my cash if I wanted to survive for the next three days. I also realized that I hadn't called in sick for work yet. You see, I had been scheduled to work on this Sunday, and rather than ask for the time off, I decided to just call in. But I forgot. And now here I was at Navy Pier where seagulls were chirping, music was playing, and tankers were blowing their horns. I found a seemingly quiet side of the Pier and called Barnes and Noble. Of course the manager that likes me the least picked up the phone.
"Barnes and Noble, this is Deb."
"Hi Deb, this is Joey from music"(at this point she knew what was coming and lost all enthusiasm).
"Hi Joey."
"Umm...as you may or may not know I have had strep throat for a few days and I don't think I'll be coming into work today," I said, telling a sort of half-lie. I did have strep, but it obviously wasn't keeping me from doing anything. She seemed alright with it, but just then a flock of seagulls flew by screaming or whatever you call the noises that seagulls make. I immediately ended the call and ran away. Then I realized the absurdity of me running away from a telephone call and stopped to take a couple more pictures.
The play turned out to be really shitty minus a few mildly amusing scenes. A frat dude from my Math class wanted me to sit by him, but the ushers were douches and made everyone sit according to their tickets. I sat inbetween an old lady and some giggling little girls who happened to LOVE Shakespeare. I'm sorry I couldn't get into "The Merry Wives of Windsor" as much as they could. During the performance I mostly looked at attractive girls in the audience, then turned away really quickly when they realized what I was doing. Yeah I know I'm a real creep but it's not like I had any other form of entertainment. When the play was over everyone headed back to the parking deck to wait for the buses. I found my teacher Doug and told him I wasn't going back with the class and was instead going to stay in Chicago. To my surprise he didn't ask any questions. Not a "how are you going to get back?" or even a "what are you going to do?" He simply told me to have my name checked off a list.
And so everyone got back on the buses and headed back to Bradley. I found myself alone at Navy Pier, and even scarier -- alone in Chicago. A quick glance at my map showed that my hotel was on the other side of downtown. And for reasons that evade me even a mere four days later, I didn't take a cab. My dad and I always used to come to Chicago when I was little. Since he's cheap as hell he convinced me at a young age that taxis cost a fortune and that you should always walk. And so I did.
I walked through Navy Pier's indoor shopping center towards the exit. Come On Eileen was playing on the loudspeaker, getting me excited about the ensuing adventure on which I was about to embark. I took a step outside. It was dark out, and getting colder by the minute.
I zipped up the XEP and walked across Lake Shore Drive and into downtown Chicago.
I took out my map and glanced at it. Navy Pier was at the bottom whereas my hotel was at the top. Seven inches on the map equated to several miles of walking. Luckily I am an expert navigator and was able to chart a course to my hotel without any preexisting knowledge of the Chicago street system. After a half hour of briskly walking down Illinois street and up Orleans I arrived at the Holiday Inn at Mart Plaza. I saw lots of derelicts and other various dirty people! I always considered myself to be a fairly unsheltered person, but I’ll be damned if I wasn’t really scared. When I finally reached my hotel I had to breathe a sigh of relief. The hotel was right on the Chicago river across from where they filmed scenes for the new Batman movie. Don’t think I wasn’t excited about that!
The lobby was a really really big atrium and if you looked up you could see all the floors of the hotel. At the bottom there was a bar and some restaurant. I wasn’t too impressed since I had seen photos on the hotel website when I booked my reservations. The guy at the front desk obviously could’ve cared less about his job. I gave him my three hundred dollars and he gave me my two room keys. Well, actually they were room cards. In the city they don’t have keys, they have futuristic cards that you swipe in the door handle. Now isn’t that cool?
I took the elevator up to the twenty-second floor and found my room. It was a quaint little place with a king-size bed and a complimentary coffee maker. The first thing I did was turn on the TV. On it was a guide to Chicago’s nightlife. I quickly flipped through the channels and stopped on FOX when I saw some blonde girl in a skirt. I then went to the window to pull back the curtains, expecting some shitty view of the adjacent apartment building. I was fucking amazed when I saw that I had a view of the entire city. The Sears tower was only five or six blocks from my hotel, it was awesome. It was so fucking amazing that I grabbed my camera and took a couple pictures. Then I took a picture of me waving at myself in the mirror. Then I jumped on my bed for a while. Afterwards I decided to go outside and walk around for just a bit. On my way out the security guard in the lobby of the building wouldn’t stop staring at me. He was giving me a really strange look and it was really creeping me out. I walked across the Chicago river and up a few blocks to the Sears tower. Since it was Sunday night everything was closed and there was no one on the streets. I wasn’t sure if this was necessarily a good thing but it made the city that much better, like it was mine. I made a mental note to go back to a couple of the stores I saw when they were open the next day. Sometime later I went back to the Holiday Inn and had a pizza delivered to my room. According to the yellow pages it was ranked as Chicago’s #1 deep dish and HOLY SHIT they weren’t joking. That was seriously the greatest pizza I’ve ever had. I ate half of it and set it on the endtable next to my bed. I shut off the lights and fell asleep watching Cheaper by the Dozen on HBO.
The next morning I woke up around ten. I cleaned myself up, put on a sweater, and headed out. Downtown Chicago was going crazy with commerce this morning, unlike the previous night when you could have heard a pin drop on Franklin street. The sidewalks were packed with businessmen. I was standing next to these one guys at a street corner when I overheard one of them say, “So I told Clemmons it was shitty idea and to get the hell outta my office! Then I fired him!” The other businessmen then erupted into laughter. I couldn’t help but smirk at this man’s clichéd little anecdote. Across the street was a National City and I decided then that my trip would require more money. So I went inside and withdrew a hundred bucks from my account. Now I had more than enough spending money for the next couple of days. The teller at the bank was a very pretty young woman. Whenever I see a hot bank teller I think of that scene from Catch Me if You Can where Leonardo DiCaprio goes up to one and offers to take her out to a steak dinner so that he can learn how to forge checks and such. And I wonder if that would work…the steak dinner part, not the forging of the checks.
After walking a few more blocks up Franklin I stopped by the Sears Tower. Of course the skydeck has a separate entrance so that businessmen don’t have to intermingle with wacky tourists. When I arrived I was the only tourist in the entrance hall. I went through a metal detector and then a girl led me to the elevator. She looked at me as I was getting on the elevator and said, “You look lost.” Before I could respond the doors closed and I shot up to some floor with no windows where I had to pay for tickets. On this floor were other tourists waiting for the next trip to the skydeck. There were lots of families and a few couples. I was the only person who had come to the Sears Tower by his lonesome and it was kinda depressing, actually. Eventually we were led into a small theater where we had to watch a shitty eight-minute movie about the history of the Sears Tower. A couple people actually took pictures of the movie and I couldn’t help but roll my eyes at the horrendous waste of film. Once we got on the elevator we were treated to another movie about a cartoon goose or some shit. These two foreign tourists started laughing at the cartoon (which was in English mind you) and snapped probably their entire roll of film. I don’t know if you’ve ever been up in the Sears Tower, but the elevator fucks up your ears. Mine wouldn’t stop popping and it was driving me insane. When we finally got to the Skydeck I couldn’t hear a goddamn thing but I could definitely see the view of Chicago. I don’t usually describe things with the word “magnificent” but if I had to, this view would’ve taken the cake. I was grateful that I’d remembered to bring my disposable camera with me this morning as I walked around taking pictures. I got up on the guardrail and pressed my forehead against the glass, looking straight down so that I could see the tiny people below. Looking at people as though they were ants gives you a different perspective of humanity, albeit too long to describe in here. They were playing that “Somewhere Out There” song from Land Before Time and that seemed to fit the nature of my trip quite well I thought.
When I got out of the Sears Tower I realized that I was starving. I followed my map to Michigan Avenue, where I stopped by a corner bakery and ordered baked French toast and coffee. It was pretty good I guess, and I think I saw the chicks from the Chicago-based reality show I was watching on FOX the night before, although the show’s name escapes me. I went up to throw away my garbage and made small talk with a nice lady who was stirring her coffee. Across the street from the corner bakery was the Chicago Art Institute, a museum that some of you might remember from Ferris Bueller’s Day Off. I went inside and bought a ticket. I got some discount because a High School was touring the gallery and they thought I was with them. There’s not much to say about the institute except that it was enormous and filled with priceless artwork. I saw up close a lot of the works that we studied in Humanities with Mr. Hicks, so that was cool. There were some medieval weapons and armor, which kinda reminded me of Griff’s bedroom. I actually wound up spending a couple hours walking around the various wings of the building viewing stuff. It was very quiet and relaxing, and if you’re ever in the Chicago area I highly suggest stopping in. I tracked down the stained glass window that Ferris and Sloane made-out in front of, and the painting of the little girl and her mom that Cameron stared at. I always thought this part of the movie was a joke, but now I understand that the more you look at the painting of the little girl, the less you see of her. And I guess this is how Cameron feels about himself; that the more you look at him the less there really is.
I left the Art Institute and walked a few blocks up Michigan Avenue and stopped in Millennium Park. There was an outdoor ice-skating rink and an indescribable piece of reflective artwork that somewhat resembled a piece of shit. I of course took pictures of all of this for future reference. I also wanted to ice-skate, but there was no one else on the ice so I opted not to. Instead, I continued walking up Michigan and stopped in stores that caught my eye. I went into a huge-ass three story Border’s and looked around for a short while. That got pretty boring and lonely so I left and tried to find FAO Schwartz. For those of you who don’t know, FAO Schwartz is the world’s largest and most awesome toy store. Way back in the day my dad and I always used to come to Chicago to hang out and have fun. Some of my greatest childhood memories are from hanging out in that city with my Dad. I can still remember the first time I ever heard Mmmm Bop was while crying in the back of my Dad’s Suzuki Sidekick when we had to leave. I guess he felt bad because we stopped in some restaurant and had supper. Anyways, there were only two things in the entire city that I ever wanted to visit as a kid: the Shedd Aquarium and FAO Schwartz. Since my dad was (and still is) pretty cheap, we usually didn’t go to the Aquarium, but we always went to the toy store. I remember they had a Star Wars section complete with a 1/3 scale AT-AT and a life-size model of Han in carbonite. It was totally sweet and if I had any money with me I spent it there. And here I was years later with the prospect of spending endless hours in the store without interruption from my dear-old Dad. I combed Michigan Avenue for the toy store, but to no avail. I had to be overlooking it somehow. I then walked up and down the adjacent streets but still couldn’t find it. I did, however, pass some exclusive Fashion Show with a bouncer out front and everything. I dreamt up this wild plan of changing into one of the suits I had with me and trying to sneak into the show. As I thought about this more the plan went from “wild” to “somewhat reasonable”. I even went into a Ralph Lauren store to look at dress clothes.
Around six it was time for me to take my antibiotics, so I caught a cab back to the hotel. I definitely didn’t feel like walking all the way back, and at some point during the day I began to wonder if my dad was full of shit about the whole “cabs costing too much” thing. And as it turns out, he was indeed full of shit. It only cost me like three bucks to go back to the hotel. I decided to take cabs to my destinations from that point forward (unless of course I wanted to walk). I went up to my room and took my medicine, then watched a little TV. I decided that I needed some structure to my escapades and looked to the television for things to do. I watched the guide to Chicago’s nightlife and most of the places on it seemed really shitty, except for a piano bar called the Redhead. There was also some bar called The Ghost Bar and the preview made it look like the coolest thing in the world. All the chicks were extremely smokin’ and the bar itself was all futuristic and art deco looking. According to the TV, it was the bar to go to in downtown Chicago if you wanted to be seen. I scribbled down the addresses to these two places and then subsequently found the address for FAO Schwartz in the yellow pages. I shut off the TV and left the hotel. I hailed a cab and told the driver the address for the toy store. The address was on Michigan Avenue, so I assumed that I had simply overlooked it when I was searching for it earlier. Imagine my surprise when Yaseem took me to some building that was obviously not a toy store. I clearly explained that I was looking for FAO Schwartz and that he had taken me to the wrong address. He said that this was a mall and that perhaps my destination was inside. This seemed wrong to me, but I thought what the hell and went into the mall.
I would talk about how long it took me to find this out, and how disappointed I was to learn it, but I’m not gonna. All I’ll say is that FAO Schwartz, a monument to my childhood, had been replaced with a store that sells bracelets and other worthless shit to teenage girls. The yellow pages at the Holliday Inn had either lied to me or were outdated. Disheartened, I drifted around the mall looking for anything that would save me. But alas, the only thing remotely close to the three-story megastore that was FAO Schwartz was a tiny KB Toys that only sold infant and toddler merchandise. I went outside, and as I did, it started to rain in Chicago. It had been overcast all day, so I had pretty much been expecting it. Just not now, not when my childhood dream of going into FAO Schwartz sans parents had been ruined. I then took out the sheet of paper on which I had scribbled the addresses of the two bars. And at this point a crazy idea popped into my head, one that I couldn’t ignore. I turned around and went back into the mall. I stopped in ExpressMen, where I spent eighty dollars on a purple dress shirt and a matching tie.
I took a taxi back to my hotel, ironed my new clothes, changed into a suit, and got ready for a wild night on the town.
- - -
I walked outside the hotel and caught a cab to the Redhead Piano Bar on Ontario Street. The cabbie dropped me off on the street, then took off. The entrance was actually below groundlevel, so I had to walk down a few stairs. At the base of the stairs -- and guarding the door -- was an Asian dude in a really nice suit. He greeted me with a huge smile as I approached the entrace.
"Welcome to the Redhead, can I see some ID?" he asked, stopping me dead in my tracks. Of course I didn't have any ID. I didn't even know you had to be 21 to get into this place.
"Oh, well..." I tried to think of an excuse but then I realized that this guy's probably heard it all. "...I didn't know you had to be 21 to get in."
The bouncer was all like, "Sorry man," and then complimented me on my suit. He actually came off as a nice guy. I walked up to the street and walked up the block a little bit. I think I actually walked around the block a few times, trying to think of what to do -- passing by the bouncer at the Redhead time. Eventually I decided to head for my second destination: The Ghost Bar! After all, the TV had called it "the place to be seen" and I definitely wanted to be seen. I looked at my map, which was one of the only things in my pocket besides a wad of cash (as you will see, bringing both of these things turned out to be a mistake). The Ghost Bar was on Randolph Street, just a few blocks away according to my trusty map. I opted not to take a cab and instead walked what I thought would be a five minute trip.
After walking for about a half hour I realized that I was totally lost and in a bad neighborhood. It was also starting to rain a little bit so I thought AW FUCK IT and called another taxi. The taxi that picked me up was a minivan, which I thought was pretty cool. The driver was, of course, some foreign bitch who didn't understand a word of English and would only smile in response to my incessant screaming of "TAKE ME TO THE GHOST BAR". I really didn't think she knew what the fuck I was talking about. But sure enough, a few seconds later we pulled up in front of the goddamned building -- an ultramodern, windowless skyscraper without any signs on it. It didn't even say "The Ghost Bar" -- it just had this neon Ghost logo next to the entrance. Sufficed to say, I was impressed. A man stepped out of the building, probably drunk, and I asked him if you had to be 18 to get inside. He looked at me kinda funny, and shook his head. So I went inside.
The bar was hoppin' with ALL of Chicago's young movers and shakers. The interior was ultramodern in every sense of the word and if I had to describe it with a color, it would be "neon-blue", because that's basically what EVERYTHING was. It was also big as hell, with a walkway that encompassed the dining area in the middle of the room. The dining area was filled with some cool-as-hell guys eating steak and drinking cocktails with their bitches. This was definitely a step up from Peoria. I felt like an outsider, like my cover would be blown at any second. I had no reason to be in a place like this. I was an imposter in a clever disguise...and then I started to panic, started to lose the cool. Be cool Fandel, be cool...
At that moment I spotted the bar for which this place was named. It was on the other side of the dining area, directly across from where I was standing. The first thing I spotted was the lone bartender, a young blonde who was unquestionably gorgeous. She was talking to two girls, the only people at the bar incidently. I decided to walk across the room and take a seat. I'm not really sure if my intention was to try and get a drink. I think I just wanted to get into a more comfortable situation, and I saw this as a way to do just that. I sat at the opposite end of the bar from the two girls and the bartender (mostly because I'm a pussy) and picked up a book of matches. I put the matches in my pocket and glanced at the menu.
So as of last week I'd been trying to be better about keeping my grades up. When my midterms came back a month or so ago I was failing a couple classes and not doing so hot in the others. Call it my "I don't care" attitude that's carried over from high school. You could blame the fact that I don't see the point in keeping up grades whose ultimate benefit remains unseen. This fantastic movie Harold and Maude was on AMC a couple weeks ago. Lately, well, since school started, I've been feeling a lot like Harold. And like Harold, I want to push my car off a cliff and dance around the countryside playing a banjo. I do not, however, want to sleep with an eighty-year-old woman. But I digress. I drove to Bradley last Monday with the intention of staying for the entire day and being attentive in all of my classes. Not impressive to some, but quite the feat for me nonetheless. So wouldn't ya know it I lock my keys in my fucking car. You see, there's a lot of fumbling going on when I get out of my car in the morning. With a cup of coffee and a backpack in my grasp as I struggle to open, lock, and shut my door, one can understand why I might leave the old car keys in the ignition. So I had to skip all of my afternoon classes to go to the visitor's center and call my mom. And right next to the public phone were several Amtrak brochures and next to those -- maps of Chicago. It was the closest thing to a sign from God I have ever encountered. Some divine power was obviously telling me to make a trip to the great city. I quickly stuffed the brochures in my coat pocket and went into the lobby to wait for my mom. Afterwards we went to the Chinese buffet on University, where inbetween egg rolls I mentioned that my theater class was going to Navy Pier on Sunday. This was not a lie. I just hadn't planned on going until this point. My theater class is required to attend three plays during the course of the semester. The first was a fairly awful version of "You're a Good Man, Charlie Brown" that was performed at Bradley. The second was some play at ISU that I didn't go to. I wanted to go, but I had to put in the hours at Barnes and Noble. And I figured such would be the case with the Chicago Shakespeare Theater's rendition of "The Merry Wives of Windsor." But seeing those pamphlets in the visior's center gave me a feeling I couldn't ignore. I would go with my class to Navy Pier, sure, but I wouldn't be coming back with them. My plan was to go with Theater 131 to Chicago, spend three days alone in the windy city, then catch a train home. I guess you could call it spontaneity, or perhaps boredom, but I would say I needed a couple days to stop and breathe. I was finding myself at a crossroads where lack of passion and boredom with life was making me late to work and failing at school. Lately I had been late for work because I didn't want to miss the 3:30 episodes of Boy Meets World on Disney. Something was wrong here.
That Thursday I woke up with a terribly sore throat. I skipped my radio show and instead went to Jason's house to burn a CD. We also filmed scenes for a movie I'm making for the Bradley Student Film Festival. It's a black-and-white short film about a clown who faces discrimination in college.
My sore throat progressed to the point where I could barely talk, so the next day I went to the doctor. It was at this point that I learned I had a mild case of strep throat. I was prescribed some Penicillin and sent on my merry way. My mom took me to the new Cold Stone Creamery place out at Grand Prairie afterwards, where I had some of the best fucking ice cream on the planet. I was beginning to have doubts about going to Chicago with strep throat, but Dr. Mom assured me that I would be okay with my penicillin.
And so I woke up Sunday morning and put a bunch of clothes in my backpack. Then I got online and made reservations at a Holiday Inn somewhere downtown. Not exactly the Ritz, but hey I was on a fixed budget of six hundred dollars. I was gonna take my green coat to Chicago but good old mom assured me that it would be freezing in the windy city. Thus, I was given the most obscenely large coat ever to be fashioned in a Polynesian sweatshop. This was the type of coat that even an eskimo wouldn't have a use for. I can't even imagine the type of climate that would neccessitate a coat this grossly overweight, but for some reason I took it with me. It reminded me of that story from Mixed-up Stories From Wayside School that we read in Grade School. There was this new kid in school who wore a really, really big coat and one day the kids took his coat off, only to reveal another coat. And this continued until they found out it was just a rat with a bunch of coats on. I, of course, am the rat in this scenario.
My mom dropped me off at Bradley and I boarded one of the three Charter buses hauling our class to Navy Pier. I broke the rule I established in 8th grade of always taking Teddy Grahams on a charter bus ride, but in its place I took donuts and coffee. Not a bad trade I thought. No one sat by me on the bus thank God. There's nothing worse than having to sit next to some douche on a bus. I recall the time I was conned into going with a church group to Great America during the summer after my sophomore year. That sonuvabitch Brian Heywood sat next to me the entire way there talking about Bugs Bunny or some shit. A year later I offended this crotch-stain by simply mentioning that he had the same name as a character from the Shawshank Redemption. How the fuck was I supposed to know he changed his name to Brian Christopher because he had a falling out with his dad? It's people like this that would tell you I'm an asshole. Most people that call me an asshole are just the victim of a misunderstanding...or I made fun of them because they're in a lame ass band. Either way I do not see myself as an asshole. But anywho, I sat on the Charter bus eating my blueberry donuts and sipping my coffee, the entire time thinking about how nice it was gonna be to get away. The ride lasted about two hours. Everyone either slept or made out with each other. I guess most of these kids were from Chicago because no one really gave a shit about the skyline. Upon arriving in the city people either continued to sleep or continued to make out. After numerous trips to this place I still get all giddy about seeing the Sears Tower and friends. I snapped a couple pictures with the disposable camera that my mom had given me.
Now I've never really understood why people go to Navy Pier. Perhaps it's because I can't figure out what the fuck it is. Is it an amusement park? If so, where are all the rides? I guess it falls into the same category as Branson, Missouri -- the category of "Places Adults Love For No Goddamn Reason". Yet even Branson has its merits if you're a country-lovin' retard. Navy Pier is just a ferris wheel and a dude that wants to sketch an unflattering portrait of you. When we got there we had an hour to kill before the play started, so I walked around taking pictures of Lake Michigan. Of course it turns out to be like sixty degrees in Chicago and I'm stuck wearing the X-treme Eskimo Parka(XEP). On top of that I had a hefty backpack on my shoulders. I'm sure to the denizens of Chicago I appeared to be a retarded studier of Glaciers or something who was so retarded that he went to Chicago instead of the Arctic. Actually I bet no one thought that. I stopped by an ice-cream stand and ordered a Rocky Road sundae. Imagine my surprise when it cost me 7.50! At this point I realized I would need to budget my cash if I wanted to survive for the next three days. I also realized that I hadn't called in sick for work yet. You see, I had been scheduled to work on this Sunday, and rather than ask for the time off, I decided to just call in. But I forgot. And now here I was at Navy Pier where seagulls were chirping, music was playing, and tankers were blowing their horns. I found a seemingly quiet side of the Pier and called Barnes and Noble. Of course the manager that likes me the least picked up the phone.
"Barnes and Noble, this is Deb."
"Hi Deb, this is Joey from music"(at this point she knew what was coming and lost all enthusiasm).
"Hi Joey."
"Umm...as you may or may not know I have had strep throat for a few days and I don't think I'll be coming into work today," I said, telling a sort of half-lie. I did have strep, but it obviously wasn't keeping me from doing anything. She seemed alright with it, but just then a flock of seagulls flew by screaming or whatever you call the noises that seagulls make. I immediately ended the call and ran away. Then I realized the absurdity of me running away from a telephone call and stopped to take a couple more pictures.
The play turned out to be really shitty minus a few mildly amusing scenes. A frat dude from my Math class wanted me to sit by him, but the ushers were douches and made everyone sit according to their tickets. I sat inbetween an old lady and some giggling little girls who happened to LOVE Shakespeare. I'm sorry I couldn't get into "The Merry Wives of Windsor" as much as they could. During the performance I mostly looked at attractive girls in the audience, then turned away really quickly when they realized what I was doing. Yeah I know I'm a real creep but it's not like I had any other form of entertainment. When the play was over everyone headed back to the parking deck to wait for the buses. I found my teacher Doug and told him I wasn't going back with the class and was instead going to stay in Chicago. To my surprise he didn't ask any questions. Not a "how are you going to get back?" or even a "what are you going to do?" He simply told me to have my name checked off a list.
And so everyone got back on the buses and headed back to Bradley. I found myself alone at Navy Pier, and even scarier -- alone in Chicago. A quick glance at my map showed that my hotel was on the other side of downtown. And for reasons that evade me even a mere four days later, I didn't take a cab. My dad and I always used to come to Chicago when I was little. Since he's cheap as hell he convinced me at a young age that taxis cost a fortune and that you should always walk. And so I did.
I walked through Navy Pier's indoor shopping center towards the exit. Come On Eileen was playing on the loudspeaker, getting me excited about the ensuing adventure on which I was about to embark. I took a step outside. It was dark out, and getting colder by the minute.
I zipped up the XEP and walked across Lake Shore Drive and into downtown Chicago.
I took out my map and glanced at it. Navy Pier was at the bottom whereas my hotel was at the top. Seven inches on the map equated to several miles of walking. Luckily I am an expert navigator and was able to chart a course to my hotel without any preexisting knowledge of the Chicago street system. After a half hour of briskly walking down Illinois street and up Orleans I arrived at the Holiday Inn at Mart Plaza. I saw lots of derelicts and other various dirty people! I always considered myself to be a fairly unsheltered person, but I’ll be damned if I wasn’t really scared. When I finally reached my hotel I had to breathe a sigh of relief. The hotel was right on the Chicago river across from where they filmed scenes for the new Batman movie. Don’t think I wasn’t excited about that!
The lobby was a really really big atrium and if you looked up you could see all the floors of the hotel. At the bottom there was a bar and some restaurant. I wasn’t too impressed since I had seen photos on the hotel website when I booked my reservations. The guy at the front desk obviously could’ve cared less about his job. I gave him my three hundred dollars and he gave me my two room keys. Well, actually they were room cards. In the city they don’t have keys, they have futuristic cards that you swipe in the door handle. Now isn’t that cool?
I took the elevator up to the twenty-second floor and found my room. It was a quaint little place with a king-size bed and a complimentary coffee maker. The first thing I did was turn on the TV. On it was a guide to Chicago’s nightlife. I quickly flipped through the channels and stopped on FOX when I saw some blonde girl in a skirt. I then went to the window to pull back the curtains, expecting some shitty view of the adjacent apartment building. I was fucking amazed when I saw that I had a view of the entire city. The Sears tower was only five or six blocks from my hotel, it was awesome. It was so fucking amazing that I grabbed my camera and took a couple pictures. Then I took a picture of me waving at myself in the mirror. Then I jumped on my bed for a while. Afterwards I decided to go outside and walk around for just a bit. On my way out the security guard in the lobby of the building wouldn’t stop staring at me. He was giving me a really strange look and it was really creeping me out. I walked across the Chicago river and up a few blocks to the Sears tower. Since it was Sunday night everything was closed and there was no one on the streets. I wasn’t sure if this was necessarily a good thing but it made the city that much better, like it was mine. I made a mental note to go back to a couple of the stores I saw when they were open the next day. Sometime later I went back to the Holiday Inn and had a pizza delivered to my room. According to the yellow pages it was ranked as Chicago’s #1 deep dish and HOLY SHIT they weren’t joking. That was seriously the greatest pizza I’ve ever had. I ate half of it and set it on the endtable next to my bed. I shut off the lights and fell asleep watching Cheaper by the Dozen on HBO.
The next morning I woke up around ten. I cleaned myself up, put on a sweater, and headed out. Downtown Chicago was going crazy with commerce this morning, unlike the previous night when you could have heard a pin drop on Franklin street. The sidewalks were packed with businessmen. I was standing next to these one guys at a street corner when I overheard one of them say, “So I told Clemmons it was shitty idea and to get the hell outta my office! Then I fired him!” The other businessmen then erupted into laughter. I couldn’t help but smirk at this man’s clichéd little anecdote. Across the street was a National City and I decided then that my trip would require more money. So I went inside and withdrew a hundred bucks from my account. Now I had more than enough spending money for the next couple of days. The teller at the bank was a very pretty young woman. Whenever I see a hot bank teller I think of that scene from Catch Me if You Can where Leonardo DiCaprio goes up to one and offers to take her out to a steak dinner so that he can learn how to forge checks and such. And I wonder if that would work…the steak dinner part, not the forging of the checks.
After walking a few more blocks up Franklin I stopped by the Sears Tower. Of course the skydeck has a separate entrance so that businessmen don’t have to intermingle with wacky tourists. When I arrived I was the only tourist in the entrance hall. I went through a metal detector and then a girl led me to the elevator. She looked at me as I was getting on the elevator and said, “You look lost.” Before I could respond the doors closed and I shot up to some floor with no windows where I had to pay for tickets. On this floor were other tourists waiting for the next trip to the skydeck. There were lots of families and a few couples. I was the only person who had come to the Sears Tower by his lonesome and it was kinda depressing, actually. Eventually we were led into a small theater where we had to watch a shitty eight-minute movie about the history of the Sears Tower. A couple people actually took pictures of the movie and I couldn’t help but roll my eyes at the horrendous waste of film. Once we got on the elevator we were treated to another movie about a cartoon goose or some shit. These two foreign tourists started laughing at the cartoon (which was in English mind you) and snapped probably their entire roll of film. I don’t know if you’ve ever been up in the Sears Tower, but the elevator fucks up your ears. Mine wouldn’t stop popping and it was driving me insane. When we finally got to the Skydeck I couldn’t hear a goddamn thing but I could definitely see the view of Chicago. I don’t usually describe things with the word “magnificent” but if I had to, this view would’ve taken the cake. I was grateful that I’d remembered to bring my disposable camera with me this morning as I walked around taking pictures. I got up on the guardrail and pressed my forehead against the glass, looking straight down so that I could see the tiny people below. Looking at people as though they were ants gives you a different perspective of humanity, albeit too long to describe in here. They were playing that “Somewhere Out There” song from Land Before Time and that seemed to fit the nature of my trip quite well I thought.
When I got out of the Sears Tower I realized that I was starving. I followed my map to Michigan Avenue, where I stopped by a corner bakery and ordered baked French toast and coffee. It was pretty good I guess, and I think I saw the chicks from the Chicago-based reality show I was watching on FOX the night before, although the show’s name escapes me. I went up to throw away my garbage and made small talk with a nice lady who was stirring her coffee. Across the street from the corner bakery was the Chicago Art Institute, a museum that some of you might remember from Ferris Bueller’s Day Off. I went inside and bought a ticket. I got some discount because a High School was touring the gallery and they thought I was with them. There’s not much to say about the institute except that it was enormous and filled with priceless artwork. I saw up close a lot of the works that we studied in Humanities with Mr. Hicks, so that was cool. There were some medieval weapons and armor, which kinda reminded me of Griff’s bedroom. I actually wound up spending a couple hours walking around the various wings of the building viewing stuff. It was very quiet and relaxing, and if you’re ever in the Chicago area I highly suggest stopping in. I tracked down the stained glass window that Ferris and Sloane made-out in front of, and the painting of the little girl and her mom that Cameron stared at. I always thought this part of the movie was a joke, but now I understand that the more you look at the painting of the little girl, the less you see of her. And I guess this is how Cameron feels about himself; that the more you look at him the less there really is.
I left the Art Institute and walked a few blocks up Michigan Avenue and stopped in Millennium Park. There was an outdoor ice-skating rink and an indescribable piece of reflective artwork that somewhat resembled a piece of shit. I of course took pictures of all of this for future reference. I also wanted to ice-skate, but there was no one else on the ice so I opted not to. Instead, I continued walking up Michigan and stopped in stores that caught my eye. I went into a huge-ass three story Border’s and looked around for a short while. That got pretty boring and lonely so I left and tried to find FAO Schwartz. For those of you who don’t know, FAO Schwartz is the world’s largest and most awesome toy store. Way back in the day my dad and I always used to come to Chicago to hang out and have fun. Some of my greatest childhood memories are from hanging out in that city with my Dad. I can still remember the first time I ever heard Mmmm Bop was while crying in the back of my Dad’s Suzuki Sidekick when we had to leave. I guess he felt bad because we stopped in some restaurant and had supper. Anyways, there were only two things in the entire city that I ever wanted to visit as a kid: the Shedd Aquarium and FAO Schwartz. Since my dad was (and still is) pretty cheap, we usually didn’t go to the Aquarium, but we always went to the toy store. I remember they had a Star Wars section complete with a 1/3 scale AT-AT and a life-size model of Han in carbonite. It was totally sweet and if I had any money with me I spent it there. And here I was years later with the prospect of spending endless hours in the store without interruption from my dear-old Dad. I combed Michigan Avenue for the toy store, but to no avail. I had to be overlooking it somehow. I then walked up and down the adjacent streets but still couldn’t find it. I did, however, pass some exclusive Fashion Show with a bouncer out front and everything. I dreamt up this wild plan of changing into one of the suits I had with me and trying to sneak into the show. As I thought about this more the plan went from “wild” to “somewhat reasonable”. I even went into a Ralph Lauren store to look at dress clothes.
Around six it was time for me to take my antibiotics, so I caught a cab back to the hotel. I definitely didn’t feel like walking all the way back, and at some point during the day I began to wonder if my dad was full of shit about the whole “cabs costing too much” thing. And as it turns out, he was indeed full of shit. It only cost me like three bucks to go back to the hotel. I decided to take cabs to my destinations from that point forward (unless of course I wanted to walk). I went up to my room and took my medicine, then watched a little TV. I decided that I needed some structure to my escapades and looked to the television for things to do. I watched the guide to Chicago’s nightlife and most of the places on it seemed really shitty, except for a piano bar called the Redhead. There was also some bar called The Ghost Bar and the preview made it look like the coolest thing in the world. All the chicks were extremely smokin’ and the bar itself was all futuristic and art deco looking. According to the TV, it was the bar to go to in downtown Chicago if you wanted to be seen. I scribbled down the addresses to these two places and then subsequently found the address for FAO Schwartz in the yellow pages. I shut off the TV and left the hotel. I hailed a cab and told the driver the address for the toy store. The address was on Michigan Avenue, so I assumed that I had simply overlooked it when I was searching for it earlier. Imagine my surprise when Yaseem took me to some building that was obviously not a toy store. I clearly explained that I was looking for FAO Schwartz and that he had taken me to the wrong address. He said that this was a mall and that perhaps my destination was inside. This seemed wrong to me, but I thought what the hell and went into the mall.
I would talk about how long it took me to find this out, and how disappointed I was to learn it, but I’m not gonna. All I’ll say is that FAO Schwartz, a monument to my childhood, had been replaced with a store that sells bracelets and other worthless shit to teenage girls. The yellow pages at the Holliday Inn had either lied to me or were outdated. Disheartened, I drifted around the mall looking for anything that would save me. But alas, the only thing remotely close to the three-story megastore that was FAO Schwartz was a tiny KB Toys that only sold infant and toddler merchandise. I went outside, and as I did, it started to rain in Chicago. It had been overcast all day, so I had pretty much been expecting it. Just not now, not when my childhood dream of going into FAO Schwartz sans parents had been ruined. I then took out the sheet of paper on which I had scribbled the addresses of the two bars. And at this point a crazy idea popped into my head, one that I couldn’t ignore. I turned around and went back into the mall. I stopped in ExpressMen, where I spent eighty dollars on a purple dress shirt and a matching tie.
I took a taxi back to my hotel, ironed my new clothes, changed into a suit, and got ready for a wild night on the town.
- - -
I walked outside the hotel and caught a cab to the Redhead Piano Bar on Ontario Street. The cabbie dropped me off on the street, then took off. The entrance was actually below groundlevel, so I had to walk down a few stairs. At the base of the stairs -- and guarding the door -- was an Asian dude in a really nice suit. He greeted me with a huge smile as I approached the entrace.
"Welcome to the Redhead, can I see some ID?" he asked, stopping me dead in my tracks. Of course I didn't have any ID. I didn't even know you had to be 21 to get into this place.
"Oh, well..." I tried to think of an excuse but then I realized that this guy's probably heard it all. "...I didn't know you had to be 21 to get in."
The bouncer was all like, "Sorry man," and then complimented me on my suit. He actually came off as a nice guy. I walked up to the street and walked up the block a little bit. I think I actually walked around the block a few times, trying to think of what to do -- passing by the bouncer at the Redhead time. Eventually I decided to head for my second destination: The Ghost Bar! After all, the TV had called it "the place to be seen" and I definitely wanted to be seen. I looked at my map, which was one of the only things in my pocket besides a wad of cash (as you will see, bringing both of these things turned out to be a mistake). The Ghost Bar was on Randolph Street, just a few blocks away according to my trusty map. I opted not to take a cab and instead walked what I thought would be a five minute trip.
After walking for about a half hour I realized that I was totally lost and in a bad neighborhood. It was also starting to rain a little bit so I thought AW FUCK IT and called another taxi. The taxi that picked me up was a minivan, which I thought was pretty cool. The driver was, of course, some foreign bitch who didn't understand a word of English and would only smile in response to my incessant screaming of "TAKE ME TO THE GHOST BAR". I really didn't think she knew what the fuck I was talking about. But sure enough, a few seconds later we pulled up in front of the goddamned building -- an ultramodern, windowless skyscraper without any signs on it. It didn't even say "The Ghost Bar" -- it just had this neon Ghost logo next to the entrance. Sufficed to say, I was impressed. A man stepped out of the building, probably drunk, and I asked him if you had to be 18 to get inside. He looked at me kinda funny, and shook his head. So I went inside.
The bar was hoppin' with ALL of Chicago's young movers and shakers. The interior was ultramodern in every sense of the word and if I had to describe it with a color, it would be "neon-blue", because that's basically what EVERYTHING was. It was also big as hell, with a walkway that encompassed the dining area in the middle of the room. The dining area was filled with some cool-as-hell guys eating steak and drinking cocktails with their bitches. This was definitely a step up from Peoria. I felt like an outsider, like my cover would be blown at any second. I had no reason to be in a place like this. I was an imposter in a clever disguise...and then I started to panic, started to lose the cool. Be cool Fandel, be cool...
At that moment I spotted the bar for which this place was named. It was on the other side of the dining area, directly across from where I was standing. The first thing I spotted was the lone bartender, a young blonde who was unquestionably gorgeous. She was talking to two girls, the only people at the bar incidently. I decided to walk across the room and take a seat. I'm not really sure if my intention was to try and get a drink. I think I just wanted to get into a more comfortable situation, and I saw this as a way to do just that. I sat at the opposite end of the bar from the two girls and the bartender (mostly because I'm a pussy) and picked up a book of matches. I put the matches in my pocket and glanced at the menu.