Dirt Track Demon

The front lawn was as neglected as the house when we bought it. When the Chicago, mid-April snow melted, we went to work resuscitating our dirt and weeds into something resembling a front yard. Aerating, seeding, over-seeding, de-thatching, consecutive weekends were devoted to a front yard that would no doubt rival the lush outfield at Sox Park.

“You think I need to get a sign or something?” I asked my brother-in-law propped upon a spade.

“You got any string? Stakes?”

“Nope, I’ll have to go back to the hardware store. You think it will keep people off of this?” I pointed along the sidewalk’s edge to the rich top soil cradling my Scott’s “Sunny Mix.”

“Jerks will walk on it no matter what you put there,” Marcus prophesied. He panned the border, punctuating his logic with a sip from his “Banquet Beer” from Golden, Colorado. “But it will keep people from carelessly walking on it who aren’t paying attention.”

The verdict reached, I drove back to Mutual Ace Hardware, and put four two-foot stakes and a 50 foot roll of fluorescent orange ribbon on the counter. The sun was setting, and I was looking forward to celebrating the day’s efforts with some suds and pizza.

I pounded the stakes along the edge of the walk with flat side of my gravel shovel, like when Clint Eastwood pounded in his crude cross before embarking on his tour of vengeance in Outlaw Josie Wales. I carefully contrived some knot I convinced myself would hold the warning line fast as if it marked the boundary of some federally protected prairie grassland. My job was done. Though I knew the safety orange tape flashed a clear warning, to a junior high kid on a dirt bike, the taught tape was the finish line to a moto-cross championship.

I heard the high-pitched, experimental profanity and laughing of the backpacked adolescents as they passed my house. I could see the tight squads of heads bobbing by through my living room sheers. I knew, I just knew the sunny lure of an almost-Chicago Spring day would beckon a sixth grader to live out his glorious fantasy. The salve of fresh top soil was just too tempting for those knobby trail-blazing tires. And the flickering ribbon may as well had Kawasaki stamped across it.

Just before the moment of truth, I put down the stack of papers I was grading and stood up. The little Huffy lawn-jobber cruised right through the tape, basking in the flashbulbs of his friends approval and then he began his victory lap around my front yard, never suspecting that not all of his fans were very impressed.

“Hey!” I yelled, shattering the moment of deviant glory. The force of my reproach nearly knocked the flat-topped miscreant from his chrome and electric blue mount. His eyes met mine in adolescent horror as he hobbled out of the aching yard and back out onto the street. He pushed his bike with one leg as if I’d shot it with my Winchester reprimand.

“Sorry,” he mumble, as the crowd stood amidst the adrenaline mix of guilt, pre-teen rebellion and relief of innocence. The fans were getting their money’s worth. I trod down my front steps in my fleece house booties, a clearly intimidating accoutrement.

“Get over here!” I snapped. For a moment the kid moved his handle bars in the direction of escape, then thought the better of it.

“I’m sorry,” he stuttered again. His averted glance and hunched shoulders expected a beating with a rolled up Times.

“Fix it!” I stabbed my index finger at the flagging, severed tape. He crept closer and fumbled to collect both ends and tie them together. My eyes flashed and I bared my teeth.

“I worked all weekend on this! How would your parents like it if I ruined their yard?!” Somehow, I thought this profound logic would in an instant allow this young Latino kid to simultaneously empathize with my anger and understand the sheer gravity of his encroachment.

He haphazardly stumbled to his feet, rocked his bike upright, and slowly peddled away; his rabble snickering at his misfortune and exposing their relief that they were not to blame.

“I don’t have a yard,” he quickly responded over his shoulder, the homework in his backpack an uneven ballast. I could say nothing to his rejoinder. Of all the possible smart-assed gestures, snotty save face comments, or even genuine penitent pleas, he threw me a curve ball that my ire couldn’t hit.

The riff-raff drifted away and I stared at the departing group as if they were some WTO demonstrators vandalizing my storefront. But as I returned to the couch, I didn’t feel the vindication to which I was entitled. Other times I longed for five minutes with the punk that egged my house, or the asshole that keys your car in the parking lot, immediately ruining your good mood because you were ready to tear into a fresh bag of Matt’s chocolate chip cookies.

I went back onto the porch and saw the kid about 100 yards up the street. He and his friends hadn’t sprinted away, nor had they given me the finger at such a safe distance. They sort of ambled away trying to recapture the bit of adolescent freedom that the warm Spring foreshadowed.

As I watched them, I thought of all of the mindless, impulsive crap I did when I was that kid’s age—especially on my dirt bike. My friends and I used to fish-tail skid on the sidewalk and compare the length of the crude, black “J’s”. We bragged when the threads of our tires showed through the rubber like battle scars. We spat, cursed, and acted like we knew what those words actually meant. We smoked candy cigarettes and rolled the extra packs up into our sleeves. We had fake fights drunk on root beer and howled at the sunset until our mom’s called us for dinner.

I got into my car and slowly drove up to the top of the hill where I saw the gaggle of kids disappear. He was pushing his bicycle at the speed of his walking companions. I pulled up about twenty yards behind him so as not to panic the bunch. Some of his cohorts noticed my approach. I was certain a buddy would warn the kid that his judgment day had arrived and I was not yet satisfied. But they didn’t.

“Hey guys,” I said. One of them rested their own pointer finger on the center of his hooded sweatshirt.

“Me?” he creaked.

“No, Rapid Roy… what’s his name?” His crew cut friend paused, not knowing whether or not to give up his pal’s name. He paused.

“Alasandro,” he confessed.

Again, a hush fell and the sea parted, only this time his friends didn’t snicker. They had no idea of the fate that awaited their twelve-year-old partner.

“Hey,” I said calmly. “Do you understand why I was so upset back there?” He immediately shook his head and reinforced it with an audible “yes.” “I appreciate your apologies, and thanks for fixing what you broke.” He looked up, relieved.

“Ok,” he said.

“Well my name’s Matt,” I said extending my hand. He took it in an awkward, sheepish, 6^th grade sort of way, and offered,

“Alasandro.”

Untitled

“Coffee. Jiggs Coffee? Two Coffees. Jiggs black? One black, one white, thanks. Put your friggin’ money away. I’m not bullshittin’, put it away. Grab the booth.”

Terry always asked if Jiggs wanted his coffee black, and Jiggs answered the same way, every time. He’d smooch his lips out, toothpick probing, squint his eyes near shut, shrug his shoulders with his fists holstered in his Carhartt pants and shake his head back and forth two or three times, real quick– like he’d ate a lemon or smelled a skunk. In the near same instant, Jiggs would relax his shoulders, but still squinting and probing, shuffle to the back booth. Before sitting, Jiggs would hang up his emerald satin Harvey Club hand ball jacket, smooch and squint at the juke box. If you saw him, you might think that he tried to make a selection with his toothpick. But he never did. Never put one dime into that juke box. After reading the Wurlitzer menu, he’d take one glide step right and slide into the back booth.

Terry on the other hand, always ordered coffee, two coffees, then paid, always paid. He never minded, never called Jiggs on it. He liked treating for coffee and occasionally a roll. It made him feel good. Jiggs never offered to pay; he’d just squint and smooch when asked if he wanted black coffee. It was a buck and a half, sometimes three with rolls, but to “T” it felt like charity. It all came out in the wash though. Jiggs always bought the paper and handed it directly over to T after reading through the cover. Jiggs never finished a whole cover article. He’d squint through the first side of the Trib, then the second, and leave it folded, and undisturbed for T. T never went to the back booth without making a phone call first. After ordering the coffees, and sometimes rolls, he walked right back to the phone and made his calls. Jiggs didn’t ask nor care who he called or why, because his job was to get the paper and “warm up the booth.” T kept a small steno in the chest pocket of his flannel and would scribble stuff with an Oriole Park public golf pencil. Jiggs never new what notes T scribbled, and didn’t care about that either.

After the standard five minutes, T’d shuffle back to the booth slide in opposite Jiggs, while at the same time removing his DeWalt mesh-back and exaggerate, “ah, cahffeeee…” T cupped the mug with both hands, waited for Jiggs to finish glossing the cover, took a careful sip and said “what’s news?” Jiggs, who never seemed to drink his coffee until no one was looking, wouldn’t say a word just squint, shrug, smooch and probe with his toothpick while sliding the Sports Final across the white Formica.

The greatest bet was the conversation. If you could be the salt shaker, well not the salt shaker because Jiggs always palmed it between his hands– like an air hockey puck. Anyway, if you could hear their conversation. It was the most efficient exchange of all the ivory tower topics. It was a series of diatribes, exegetical tours, criticisms all packed into a series of nods, shrugs, squints, smooches, sips and fragments. It was like a can of condensed milk. T did most of the talking. In fact, he did nearly all of the talking. But Jiggs spoke, just not with words, or not with any unnecessary words. But that’s the way it works best. You can’t have two guys that are jabbers, always competing for air time. One has to listen more, and that was Jiggs– but he never cared. Booth nine had all the answers and solved the world’s problems over a couple of cups of coffee, some Lucky’s and sometimes a roll.

“Ah shyst,” T hissed feeling for his pack of smokes. T worked in pseudo-profanity, it was a trademark medium. “You gotta smoke, Jiggs?” At this, Jiggs fished out his pack and took it from his prized possession– his papa’s stainless engraved pack case. Like his papa, Jiggs was a glazier. He was a proud member of the glazier’s union. And glaziers, f.y.i., are those guys that replace glass, hence glaziers. Jiggs worked mostly downtown. When he did talk, it was usually about the “big job.” The big job was that one year the Chicago wind tore through the Loop, and the gales blew out two dozen windows from the Hancock. People on the ground got hurt. Anyway, his papa got him in the union, died of a heart attack, and Jiggs took the case. The strangest thing, though, was that Jiggs always had a full pack of smokes. But, the kicker is, nobody ever saw him buy the smokes, or smoke the smokes. But he did. His cough said so. So did all the butts on the dash and floor of his glass truck. Jiggs could always be counted on for a smoke and the paper.

Legend had it that Jiggs, though he didn’t say much, had a golden voice. It was the legend according to Nick Malizzio. You could believe Nick. He was half Greek and half Italian, and he was five feet on a tall day. Nick anchored the counter at the Golden Olympic. He worked his whole life in Little Italy at a restaurant kiddy corner from Our Lady of Pompeii. It never had a sign out front, but it was jammed all the time. Cops, priests, guys from the outfit ate there. Nick knew them all. He was prep chef to Cecilio. Cecil wasn’t Italian, he was actually Mexican but none of Daley’s boys knew that. It didn’t matter anyway because Nick and Cheech cooked the best Italian on Taylor Street. La Lanterna closed. The offer from UIC for the property was too good to pass up for the retiring family. A lot of Chicago’s finest miss that Chicken Vesuvio. As Nick tells it, he heard Jiggs singing. One day, Jiggs is pulling into the Spoon from a job. Nick was spending his social security at Off Track. He had had a good day. And, evidently so did Jiggs. That Friday afternoon, Jiggs opened his truck door, and Nick saw him exhale a nimbus of smoke. What followed this billow were the final words to “Let’s Get Lost” as close to Chet Baker as Nick had ever heard. He says it was beautiful. T pressed Jiggs about it, but Jiggs just stared into his ivory tinted coffee, and smiled a bit. Everyone believed Nick, including T, because he saw the tape cover of “My Funny Valentine” sharing Jiggs’s dash with the bent-spent Luckys.

“Thanks Chet,” T smiled and lit the donated square. “I’ll be dipped.” T snorted, reading the Trib cover. T always started a shared news story with “I’ll be dipped.” “You seen this?” Jiggs squinted, shrugged and nodded. “Cheese o’ Pete, soon they’ll be tellin’ us which shoe to put on first… did you talk to Denny?” T exhaled. Jiggs nodded again. “Is he meetin’ us here?” Jiggs nodded a third time.

Although Jiggs and T sat in the middle of the booth’s bench seats, the booth did seat four pretty comfortably. The other two seats belonged to Denny, the best Ajax heating and air guy, and Corso a relatively young, Chicago Fire Fighter for the 24 on and an “independent contractor” (handy man) for the 48 off. It’s unclear whether or not Corso was a first or last name. The conversation was a special treat when all four were together. T often got miffed at Corso. Corso thought he was the “cat’s ass” as T put it. Corso liked to talk, a lot, about his “independent contracting business” and his Dodge Ram with the Cummins Diesel. It truly was a beauty. Red, of course, with that pepper thing with the crown on it hanging from the rear view. A truck like that was big bucks, but then again, Corso always had dough, and the respect of being a crewman for Ladder 35. The reason Corso and T bumped heads all the time was simple: Corso was a jabber. Air time, remember? Denny listened okay, not as well as Jiggs, but Den was a laugher. But, if he had an opinion he’d break into the talk with an “are you nuts?” So, when the four were together, T and Corso provided heated gab, and Jiggs backed T with a nod, shrug, wink and a frown– all at once. Denny took no sides, but checked the mental health of the two philosophers with an “are you nuts?”

When they were not bickering, they told the same jokes and stories over again. Each time, they all laughed and coughed until one of them had to get up to pee. T puffed his cheeks out like a blow fish. “What’s this?” he caught a quick breath and resumed his best Dizzy Gillespie. Another second and he gasped the punch line. “Monica Lewinski withholding evidence.” He pounded the table in self-affirmation. The best story, however, was told by Jiggs. If coaxed right, he’d unravel his uncle’s ‘mo story. Everybody tuned in because when Jiggs did speak, it was nice to hear a new voice at the table. Jiggs could really tell a story when he spoke once a week or on special occasions. None of these guys, not one, ever told a racial joke, or a ‘mo joke. The way they figured it was live and let live. The way T said it was “hey, as long as they hold hands between Clark and Halsted,” he didn’t care, none of them did. In fact, Corso’s brother-in-law was a swish, but a really nice guy. He was real sensitive and thoughtful.

After Jiggs’s coffee would mysteriously evaporate, he’d tell the story. It went like this. Jiggs’s uncle was a wrestling coach at Lane Tech. He was a very well-respected coach. He had ball park of 300 dual meet wins and he started the Mustangs Chicago park league wrestling club on the North Side. He was the coach of the year, every year it seemed. Everybody in high school and junior wrestling knew Jiggs’s uncle– Rosemont Cobras to the Harvey Twisters. Coach Duffy was a celebrity in the Illinois state wrestling community. The main reason everybody liked him is because he was in it for the kids. The kids knew this and loved him for it. His own kids called him the “Terminator.” It was an affectionate nick name that described a dad who never missed a day or a 5:OO am run and workout. “Duff” or “Coach,” according to faculty and students, kept in shape. He was not one of those coaches who yelled at their kids about weigh-ins and spent the rest of the tournament in the coaches’ hospitality room scarfing freebies. Duffy worked out in the morning and with his kids when he could.

Anyway, Duffy was riding his bike one summer Sunday. He liked riding from his North Side home down through Roger’s and Lincoln Park. On the ride, he’d see about twenty of his ex-wrestlers or mat mom’s and wave warmly. This particular Sunday was the setting for Jiggs’s story. Duffy had ridden all the way from Harlem and Foster down to Belmont. It was a day for one of those kinds of rides. Anyway, as he turns around on Belmont heading east to the Drive, he gets caught in a bunch of commotion. Traffic jams and crowds of people packed from Ann Sather’s to the Belmont Hotel. Coach Duffy had maneuvered his bike through the oversized cars and crowds toward the source of the back-up. Before he knew it, he had peddled right into the middle of it. Marching on all sides of him was the population of Boys’ Town. It was the Gay Rights parade. Coach Duffy doesn’t mind gay people, in small numbers, real small numbers. But this time he was quarantined by about a half a grand of them. Liberated gays walked, smiled and laughed and Coach Duff peddled right with them, praying for a side street. For a good two hundred yards, moving at just enough speed to keep the bike from tipping, Coach rode. Right behind him was the Channel Two news van. Until this day, Coach Duffy still hears about it, which is yet another reason why he avoids the hospitality room.

Jiggs would finish the story, replete with all the bewildered looks and mimicked paranoia of his hall-of-fame uncle. To see Jiggs’s normally squinty eyes roll wide was reason enough to hear the story– again.

Denny partnered his embroidered Ajax jacket up with Jiggs’s mid-summer classic YMCA Harvey jacket. Denny’s hands and forearms were noticeably disproportionate to the rest of his physique. His square thumbs were permanently outlined in black. T always dished shit about Denny’s forearms and thumbs. “Product of a lonely adolescence,” T diagnosed with a grin.

Denny wouldn’t skip a beat in response. He’d grab T by his prominent trap and tighten it in a vice grip. “Yeah, hands are the best tools,” he’d say while T winced.

A Match

The kid with the mohawk painted like flames and deltoid Punisher skull tattoo tried to drink water. His lungs seized and teeth were numb. He tried to wash away the rusty taste, but his shaking hands couldn’t squeeze dark green bottle with the lightning bolt that matched the color of his hair. He looked over at the other kid through a salty eye, the other closed in swollen heat.

Adam waited, like he always did. He waited and paced. He waited for the mohawked kid to finish getting his “rest.” Occasionally he hopped from side-to-side, skipping an imaginary rope, and wind-milled his arms and rolled out his neck and shoulders. Tonight he just waited, hands on knees. He watched the trainers talk to Mohawk, who wasn’t interested, and try to dab at his mouth with gauze. He watched his coach who yelled and whispered to Mohawk at the same time. His coach had fucked-up ears. They were bumpy and smooth at the same time like they were covered with hot pizza cheese. Adam knew that Mohawk wasn’t listening to his coach. He saw the kid look at him through his swollen, stinging eye. Adam looked back and waited. Adam hoped his ears wouldn’t be that fucked up—but they probably already were.

“Time,” the ref called looking over to the red corner. He made an “X” with the blades of his forearms. “Is he ready? Can he go or what? ‘Cause that’s it.”

Coach looked once more at Mr. Toughguy and up at the ref. The ref waited for the reply. The kid’s lungs and Mohawk and tattoo heaved up and down. Coach slapped his headgear. “Let’s go! Get after it!”

“Red you’re down. Set?”

The kid with the mohawk slowly knelt on all fours and sat back on his addidas-striped ankles. He placed his palms deliberately, carefully, hoping that each second he wasn’t working would somehow restore the fire he tried to imitate in the narrow row on top of his head.

“Set? Ok…green…cover.” The ref, with his own set of afflicted, side-show ears, signaled with oversized arms and thick, banded wrists. The ref nodded to his partner at the edge of the mat, checked the scorers’ table and placed his whistle in the corner of his mouth like he was chewing on a nickel-plated cigar. The ref, like all good refs, was able to talk and use his whistle at the same time. It sounded like the ref threw his voice off mat and barked “wrestle” the same time the his whistle chirped.

Adam’s right hand vised around the kid’s waist and his bicep shifted Mohawk’s floating ribs. With his other forearm he caved in red’s left elbow, while green drove his knee through Mohawk’s tailbone.

By the time the kid heard the ref’s whistle it had already reverberated off of the Illinois state shaped “Sectional Qualifier” cut-out next to a poster posing “Attitudes are Contagious. Is Yours Worth Catching?” Mohawk uncoiled from his crouch with the intensity of a broken Jack-in-the-Box. He got up on one knee and one foot, then felt himself being sucked down again, as if the mat was a freshly tarred roof . His hand slapped the royal blue mat right in the center of the Blue Devil’s head, as if he needed to punish someone for the beating he was taking. Warily, he moved his eyes to the clock. The minute side wasn’t working right. Instead of one minute fifty seven seconds, the shorted lights mocked 8:57—which is exactly what the first two periods felt like.

 

There Are Those Days

There are those days

I long for steel mill

simplicity,

 

when the strong and silent types

could be just that

 

and the monotonous

maintenance on a Buick

made sense,

 

when Camels and black

coffee were good for you,

 

and you could disappear

in a glass of beer

in the corner of a neighborhood

pub

 

and just watch the fight.

 

Today is one of those days.