07/25/2009: "Current Whereabouts"

Hi All,

I am posting this missive beside the window at the venerable Merchant Ale House in my old stomping grounds of St. Catharines, Ontario. I am drinking a very nice beer made on premises in the old cask-pulled manner of merry old England. Before this I had an Old Time Hockey Ale, a name which I take it came from the wonderful movie SLAPSHOT, starring the fine Paul Newman, a true movie star if there ever was one. It was directed by George Roy Hill, who, while somewhat forgotten in recent times, directed some of my alltime favorite movies, also starring Newman: THE STING, and BUTCH CASSIDY AND THE SUNDANCE KID. Whence have you gone, GRH? Hopefully he has not passed on, though I feel that a quick google search will reveal he has.

Anyway, enough of such maudlin ramblings. I am now in Ontario in search of new lodgings and suitable employment. I'm still not sure where, exactly, I will wash up, but Toronto seems the safest bet.

It was a wild and wooly cross-country trek, which I completed going through the US in four days, Calgary to here. Billings, Montana; Sioux City, N.Dakota; Chicago, IL---correction: NORTH Chicago (more on that later)---to here. A good time was had by me ... for the most part. I drove my brother's new car---'Fill that baby with premium ONLY' I was warned---which was nice seeing as I'd been driving the equivalent of a Chernobyl horror the past few years.

So things were going quite well until I hit Chicago. Now in some sick perversion that seems to be the sole bailiwick of the insidious Yankees to the south, there is a town north of Chicago called,rightly enough, North Chicago. This is where I'd booked a hotel room for the princely sum (it seemed princely, in any case, safely ensconced in my house before my departure) of 40 dollars. Anyway, North Chicago has a street called M.L. King JR Drive. Chicago proper has a street called M.L. King Drive. Note the lack of a JR---I did!

Aaaaaaaanyway, so I was tooling along and missed my stop because I was rocking out too hard to CLOSING TIME by Semisonic. So I've gone too far or at least my feeling is such so I pull over and pull out my road atlas and see, wait a tick, I in fact have 40-odd miles to go before I hit ML King Drive, right in the heart of Chicago---because, of course, where else would the $40 hotels be but nestled in the heart of a bustling metropolis, where tap water probably costs $40? So I'm a moron. So what?

So I'm tooling through Chicago thinking: 'La-dee-dee-da, I'm going to be just fine-a-reeno!" I consider myself a veteran unflappable traveller. So it pings that I can't exit the freeway onto ML King drive so I pick a street at random and get off. It's right near the stadium where the White Sox play---sightseeing op! So I turn left onto Pershing Street.

Pershing. Oh that name will live in my heart forevermore!

It was ... listen, it was a rough area. I was already frazzled and freaked out and I'm in my brother's car, his pride and joy. I'm idling at a light and a guy sauntered over from the sidewalk and gave me a long considering look. I'm thinking: Well, Craig, you're going to be taking the Greyhound home." (simultaneously thinking: Well, Craig, you're a bit of a prejudiced asshole).

Anyway, so this fellow comes up and hunkers down next to me about eye-level. He asks where I'm from and where I'm going. I tell him.

"North Chicago?" the guy says. "White boy, you're waaaaaaaaay out of town."

And he actually helps me get turned around and back to where I'm supposed to be.

I almost wish he hadn't done so.

The Knights Inn in North Chicago is an edifice built on failed hopes, dreams, on depression and angst and grouted with children's tears. The sadness leaks out of the walls like moisture. It was built on a graveyard full of depressives. Oh, how bad it was. Even the sagging volleyball net propped up with concrete blocks made me want to weep. On top of that, it was the only place I ever stayed where I could hear a drug deal going on to the left, a garage band practicing to the right, and a lively brothel trade going on above me. If I wasn't such a lilly-livered coward I would have smoked a little meth, enjoyed the services of the upstairs lasses, then jammed the night away with WICKED RAZORS in the other room. Alas, I'm a wuss.

Anyway, in St. Kitt's now. Staying with the Bro-ham. Will be looking for work and lodgings starting next week.

All best,
Craig.