Playground

2006-06-03 8:02 a.m.
Just a reminiscent day yesterday. Stepped away from my desk around noon, sober besides some coffee and cigarettes. Grandma�s Hands (Bill Withers) hit the speakers as I set back to rest my eyes. Childhood took over for a bit�

Talking to a few of my friends who are getting their families started lately tends spark strange conversations about the best places to raise kids and whatnot. I�d been privy to said conversation quite often with clients and coworkers of the past and a very small set of friends.

I usually held firm that I couldn�t imagine raising a kid outside of Chicago, in the same way I can�t imagine not growing up in my city. I don�t have the same determination for Chicago when it comes to family as I once did (not that I wouldn�t), but the city thing is still a big deal.

For the longest, I never considered why. Everything that happens from the early teens and on tends to take precedence in the memory attic. A lot of firsts and strange internal arguments that became defining points are hard to get beyond when thinking back.

But yesterday, for whatever reason, as I closed my eyes I saw the world as I did when I was 4. My mom owned a bar/restaurant on the NW side. My grandmother ran the kitchen. After I finished helping her roll up some pierogies for the day, I would sneak out the back to play race car in my mom�s car or talk to the beer delivery guys.

Eventually, I�d stroll barefoot through the alley, completely ignoring any glass or whatever else that might lie in my path. I was a climber and the building next door was perfect. I�d climb up steps and gates and whatever else to get to the roof.

And there I was on my couch yesterday� dangling my little feet over the edge of the roof of the building. Looking down at the back yards around us and hoping nobody would find me cuz there�s no way anyone would have been happy with me sneaking away.

We moved a lot and by the time I was about 5 or 6, we were in our 2nd or 3rd place. I usually made friends quickly and got tight with B right off, who�s dream was to be a semi truck driver. He�s the one who told me what a semi truck was.

I would play secret agent sneaking between bushes and never touching the sidewalk to get to B�s who lived 4 doors down. We�d go across the street to convince the kid from across the street�s mom to let him come out. We�d sneak off to the park at the end of the block, set up the beer bottles by the park bench and throw rocks at them to see who could break the most.

One of the big kids (probably about 14) saw us from his yard and ran after us with a bat. I kicked the bottles over, threw my rocks in his face and took off. He caught up with us and slammed me against the wall, smacking me in the back of the head as he dragged me to catch an ass whooping from my uncle.


I wasn�t allowed back at the park for a while, but I snuck off and met up with some of the kids from the dirty apartment buildings a couple blocks away. My uncle went out to look for me and found me standing with two other kids with a chain link fence between us. We were competing to see who could fit the most swear words into a sentence. My uncle held his laugh and dragged me home to tan my hide.

B ended up leaving with his dad in a huge black truck. It had to have been 4 blocks long, all black with an A-Team stripe. He gave me a couple of his toys and before he�d gotten back, we moved to another neighborhood. Never saw B again.

I didn�t have many toys, but I was really slick about borrowing Transformers and GI Joes and Wrestling figures from the kids in the neighborhood. I�d never really had new clothes - just the stuff my cousin E would grow out of. Sometime�s he�d give me shit about my clothes until I reminded him that they were his 2 years before.

When I went to visit E in Skokie around the age of 9 or 10, we would camp out in his back yard with his nerdy Jewish neighbor. We�d play those little plastic handheld mazes with the little steel ball and read Mad Magazine and tell long jokes and ghost stories. Once the lights in the neighborhood started to shut off, we�d sneak out into the neighborhood and spy on the neighbors.

First we�d go to the night owls and watch them watch tv or whatever. Then we�d go next door and find a way into the place through an open window or unlocked door and explore stealing magazines and other miscellaneous shit. What the hell use does a 9 year old have for a vcr? Well, back then anyways.

The next morning I�d help him bundle papers and magazines for some company in the schoolyard and we�d grab copies of Mad Magazine and Playboy, steal some pop from the corner store and hide behind the truck to check out our new stash for the week.

And when I wasn�t staying with my cousin, I�d grab my bike and ride for miles to explore. I wasn�t supposed to leave the neighborhood, but how would anyone know? I�d go to the forest preserve a couple miles away and we�d set up ramps in the big dirt hills. I swear we used to get at least 4 or 5 feet off the ground. And then my �cousin� R would puss out and ride back home really fast.

With bloody scrapes on my knees and elbows and filthy clothes, I�d have to race him back so I could make up a story before he could tell on me. He was kind of a messed up kid so as long as I had a solid story, they wouldn�t believe him.

By the time I was about 10 or 11, I�d been hanging with PM all the time. I didn�t get along with my grandfather and mom had work and school so I usually stayed with him. His dad was really cool. A whacky guy, but always welcomed me in his house and talked about cool grown up stuff with us.

The city was our playground. The viaducts were our jungle gyms and the the train tracks were our hunting grounds. We would ride our bikes everywhere and come up with competitions. P was really smart and knew what was cool so it was easy to come up with things to collect.

For a while we had a good collection of hood ornaments. It was all about getting the 3-spoked circle from the Mercedes, but we never saw them wherever we went. He knew some kid who had one. It was really shiny chrome and huge. Somebody took P�s stash and we gave up replacing them.

By then we found out that some air intake valves on a lot of car tires had chrome twist-on covers instead of the normal plastic ones. Even better, they would fit on our bike tires. At one point P had like 10 and I only had 5 or 6. I went on a crazy mission in the Sears parking lot by my mom�s Real Estate office and ended up with like 15 more.

By then, I used to ride the train to school or to my grandmothers sometimes. Along the train ride, there were these really cool colorful paintings on the big brick buildings by the highway. I remember one that was a big funny looking Goofy (the character) with some weird letters by it.

So the next time I visited my rich cousins in Schaumburg, I would brag to all their friends that I knew how to read the special codes on the walls. The girl my cousin M liked was into me cuz I was a city kid and made out with me on the basement pool table and so he wouldn�t talk to me anymore. The suburbs sucked anyways and that girl ended up pregnant a couple years later.

By the end of that summer, P found out about some of the guys who write on walls and stuff. He told me everything he found out and even met a couple of them. That night, we grabbed a pilot marker and walked forever until we got to kmart. We wrote on a couple walls, but it was so hard to see unless you were close by. We were writing MAG (major ass grabbers).

It had to be about 1am, so we grabbed a shopping cart form the Kmart lot and took turns pushing each other home. He wanted me to give a running push and let him go, but we decided it was a bad idea.

And then we graduated. P�s friends finally let me hang with them more cuz I said really weird off-the-wall shit and did really crazy shit. I�d also started hanging with some kids I met at one of E�s friend�s parties. Those guys were bad news but I learned a LOT from them like about drugs and sex and life and growing up.

A week before Halloween, the main guy of the neighborhood gang came after P. None of us knew why. I�d never seen P run that fast. He disappeared for a bit and we told the guy we didn�t know where he went.

A rumor went around that the guy was gonna do something to P on Halloween. I found my dad�s old gun and brought it with just in case. It wasn�t loaded but I had everything if I needed it. I put it in my bag and went with MM to the JJ Peppers to grab some eggs and toilet paper for bombing.

When we got back his dad was standing outside and he didn�t seem very happy. It turns out he found what was in my bag. He beat the shit out of me and I ran away. I ended up at AO�s house. I was heading to the train to go home, but I noticed A�s bedroom light was on.

I knocked and he wasn�t doing anything for the night. We grabbed some eggs out of the fridge and went to the viaduct by the train tracks and hid behind the billboard. We would throw eggs over the sign at people walking by and watch as they looked around trying to figure out where they were coming from. The angle was perfect cuz it would drop straight down on them (or by them) so they didn�t even know which direction they came from.

After that night, I couldn�t really hang with MM anymore and he was kind of the centerpiece for all of P�s friends. Me and P used to make mix tapes (actual mixing, not just playlists) on dual cassette players and I taught AO how to do it. We met the guy at the record store a block away and ended up saving up money for a pair of turntables. By the time we went to high school, AO decided he didn�t want to dj anymore. I saved up and bought his turntable (we bought one each).

By then, we�d all gone to different high schools, made different friends and were pretty much just on our own thing. It turned out P and them ended up getting turntables around the same time. Since they were at local high schools, they all stayed pretty close. I was going to a school on the South Side, so I ended up meeting people from all over the city.

A lot of what happened from that point on is written throughout this thing, so I�ll leave the trip there.

I still talk to P. He�s spinning a show in a couple weeks and I�m sending him some of my old records. All those guys are throwing a bar b q when I make it back to town. Most of them are married (besides P) and have kids. Most are still in the same neighborhood or general area of the city.

The strangest part about looking back is that you never considered the consequences or context of things. I got to make new friends every couple years since we moved so much. It was easy for me to sneak away all the time because my mom was young with no degree and pushing 18 hours a day to keep us afloat. My clothes were always baggy because until I was about 12, E was a lot bigger than me.

All the other kids I knew had to eat vegetables and stuff and I got to eat macaroni and cheese every day. Of course, it was only 25 cents a box. I knew the way the world really worked because my mom was too young to think to lie to me � honesty being the basis of our friendship now.

I never understood any of that shit. My mom told me some of it, but there's no relative terms for a lot of it at that age. Every day was just another conquest and adventure.

No matter how many toys or games or consoles or how big a swimming pool or back yard my cousins in the suburbs had, I could never wait to get back to the city where things made sense.

I can�t imagine how bad off I might be now if it weren�t for the steel, concrete and broken glass of back then. It was by far the Best playground a kid could ever hope for.

(partially inspired by the very beautiful - and seemingly telepathic night owl, gg)