WANT NORMALCY AGAIN

The intersection of Ashland and Clybourn, Chicago

Morning

 

This was my return to the intersection after a long hiatus. Since my last visit the attacks of September 11 occurred, which has made it difficult to get to the next step in this, a very autobiographical piece.

On the whole, traffic was heavy but responses were few. This was the first cool day I have walked the intersection, and far more drivers were sheltered from me by closed windows. I got one offer of money, a crisp, folded dollar bill, which was held out to me by the driver of a gray dump truck. He had a weathered Mexican face with kind eyes that tightened when I refused his offer.

A middle-aged African American man in a red fire chief's car stopped me. "What's that about?" he asked, smiling. I told him it was about getting back to normal after the eleventh.

"So doing this makes you feel better?" he asked.

"Well," I told him, "today has been sort of a weird day. I've been out here with other signs and this one I don't know. People just aren't too awake or something."

"Well, I'm not letting it get me down. I'm staying up," he said. And he was up. The light smile never left his face.

Two cars later, a young, lean, white T-shirted African American man asked from the passenger seat of a white van, "What does that mean?" He was curious not critical. Again, I found myself in the situation where I was trying to explain too much to a man in a vehicle that was starting to leave.

"It's an expression," I said.

Other than that I got a few slightly widened eyes, and dismissive laughter from a goateed man I know I've seen there before. A smiling African American woman who was getting off a bus asked me if I needed help. She wasn't phased when I said no.

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