Oh Chicago

So I am having my students write about one of their most memorable moments, and I decided to read them this tomorrow . . . . I think they will be baffled, and if there are swears in it, no problem, I will omit them . . . More to come on their moments, at this point I am humbled by their experiences . . .

Chicago’s Union Station is filled with food vendors, bars and newsstands but not a single book that has been written by anyone other than Danielle Steele and contemporaries. My twelve-hour layover looked daunting without the prospect of a nearby bookstore. I asked all sorts of Chicagoans if they could point me to a bookstore within walking distance, and with wrinkled brows and shaking heads they all gave me the terrible news. In the heart of one of the most prosperous and active cities, there was no bookstore to be found!
I sulked away, defeated, tired and angry and I wondered how I could incorporate the latest issue of People Magazine or Cosmopolitan into my thesis on Short stories. The irony of the situation was tearing me apart! I had twelve, full, uninterrupted hours, with no looming obligations or friendly distractions to potentially work on my study. Although I had a lap top, writing was out of the question due to my exhaustion and complete lack of creativity. I settled on drowning my sorrows in comfort food from McDonalds.
There’s nothing like a Big Mac and French fries to console you through the blues, but when I scanned my seating options I realized I would have to share my space with a stranger. After spending the past 24 hours with strangers giving me cannibalistic stares in Amtrak’s smoking car and harassing me for the last bottle of white zinfandel on board, the last thing I wanted to do was interact with another stranger. Before I had time to contemplate my options I was shoved into a table by a man who was more eager than I to acquire his Big Mac. The occupant was a guy in a suit and trench coat and as I repositioned myself so I was not sitting on the table, I gave him a sheepish grin before I plopped myself down next to his chicken tenders.
He smiled and said, “Hi!” but I turned away from him and proceeded to stuff my face. I was on my third bite when I heard a buddy from the train say, “Hey! Did you find a bookstore yet?” I looked up, wiping the Special Sauce from the corners of my mouth, and shook my head. “No. And I am fucking all set with The Windy City. Intellectual my ass!” Chicken Tenders stopped mid bite and my train buddy held a fry suspended in the air. I have GOT to work on that inside voice I thought, and then proceeded to apologize. “I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to be so rude. It’s just that I am stuck in this train station and I really wanted to find a bookstore and there doesn’t seem to be one anywhere near here.”
The conversation that followed was a positive example of why it pays to let your inside voice squeak out now and then. Chicken Tenders drew me a map on a napkin and explained where the closest bookstore was. Within the next ten minutes I was standing in the Sears Tower in a local bookstore holding three collections of short stories! I stood in the fiction section and breathed in the woody smell of paper and ink. I ran my fingers over the glossy spines of paperbacks and the rough jackets of the newest releases. I listened as the clerk answered the phone and graciously explained to a customer that although they did not currently have it in stock, he would be happy to order it and she could pick it up in two days.
I realized then, that I was standing in the tallest building in North America with no desire to tour the observation deck or buy souvenir key chains and shot glasses; I was tingling with ecstasy as I read the index cards scribbled with staff persuasions beneath their favorite books. On the second floor of the Sears Tower, in a room the size of my country kitchen, I viewed the skyline of the city through the titles of the books.
Joyce Carol Oates and Alice Walker glistened with familiarity; Sylvia Plath and Virginia Woolf glowed with compassion from their ranks on the shelves; Stephen King nodded a New Englander’s welcome while Chris Bojalian flashed his Vermont signature on the front table. My rising anxiety had been completely halted with this unlikely source of comfort.
I paid for my three books and asked the clerk if he had any Annie Proulx stories. He told me that her new volume of Wyoming shorts was on its way and asked me if I would like to reserve one for pick up later that week. I hesitated, with an unexplainable longing to say “Yes”, realizing that this enormous metropolis was only as big as its smallest bookstore. I wished that my twelve hours in Chicago would not pass so quickly. “No. No thank you, I’m only here for a few more hours.”
Maybe the clerk heard the disappointment in my voice and suspected it was because Annie Proulx wasn’t in yet. Or maybe he could sense the real disappointment, like having to leave an old friend you have just met. Or perhaps he was simply treating me like any other local customer who comes in. Regardless, he allowed me a few more minutes of bliss by asking about the stories I chose.
“Hey, that one you have by Brockmeier,” he said pointing to the green paperback in my hand, Ait=s really good. Not super well known yet, but he=s won some O. Henry’s. Did you read the staff pick on it? I looked at the book and tried to come up with a more intelligent answer than, “Um, no. I just looked at the cover and liked it.” Before I could answer he was walking toward a shelf, pointing at an index card. “Check it out if you want. I wrote it.” He walked away, back to his register, while I stood staring at his recommendation. It’s really not that big of a place after all. I whispered to myself.