Something to Believe

I waited 18 years To start a life Should’ve waited 10 more Got it right Alone I spend most of my time alone I spend most of my time… --Lucky Boys Confusion, “18 Years” On a good night I can get to or from Wicker Park in about 20 minutes. I kind of hate knowing that. There are a few places in Chicago I love. Wicker Park/Bucktown/Logan Square is one. The area up around Sheffield and Belmont is another. I love those areas. Whenever I’m up there I feel like it’s where I belong. There’s so much movement, so much noise, so much life. I’m starting to think of places like that when I think of the city I call mine, not the skyscrapers and arenas. I hate the fact that I have to leave at the end of the night. For although I call myself a Chicagoan, I am not truly, nor have I ever been one. I grew up in the suburbs. I’m still tied to them now, since my job requires me to go to one of the smaller of the fringe cities forever enslaved to the gravitational pull of their master. I now live in a compromise, a working-class town between the city I love and the job I need. It lacks the excitement of Wicker Park, the verve of Sheffield and Belmont. The fact is, I like that about my place when I moved here last fall. I wanted to be alone. This is how I always respond to trauma. I close up, lick my wounds, seek shelter from the world. I suppose that’s normal, human. It’s probably a leftover from our animal ways when we’d crawl off somewhere and try to heal in peace. My little two-bedroom perched atop a post-World War II three-flat in the suburbs has primarily been a place of solitude since October. A few friends have stopped by. My buddy who moved to Texas spent a week in my guest bedroom. My family comes by occasionally. But the vast majority of the time it’s just me. Up until this weekend I liked that about my place. Even if it sometimes felt lonely, the feelings never lasted long and always dissipated rapidly. Until this weekend. I spent Thursday night in Wicker Park for a Local H show. I spent Saturday afternoon in the city, too, running an errand and getting lunch on the Magnificent Mile. Sunday I was in Wicker Park again, this time for Lucky Boys Confusion. There’s something in the movement and noise of a concert I suddenly want to be surrounded by at all times. There’s something in the flow of people down sidewalks that I miss when it’s not around. Apparently I’m no longer content to hide, to wait. Apparently I’m now ready. I drove home from the Lucky Boys’ show last night to my empty apartment with regrets for my departure from Wicker Park still lingering in my mind. I had a dream. I’m kind of weird with dreams. Most of the time I think they’re pretty much a spasm of a mind trying to process the events of a day, a week, or a lifetime. However I am also a writer, so I understand plot, subtext, and symbolism. I’m pretty sure my subconscious mind does, too. So every once in a while I have a dream that’s laden with subtext and symbolism. When that happens the narrator who resides in my head wakes up, watches what’s happening, does its best to remember. I pay attention because the narrator realizes that my brain is trying to say something. It’s not prophecy. It’s not a message from the divine. It’s simply my mind’s attempt to take account of what’s been happening. So like any good storyteller, I listen, especially when I re-create my own version of The Inferno. I found myself in some sort of crazy abandoned industrial park. I was there with people. We were partying or camping or exploring or something. All of the sudden an announcement was made from the ether. The world was about to end. Everyone who wished to make it to heaven was welcome to try. The entrance, as it happened, was right next to the bizarre, abandoned industrial complex. All you had to do to make it was to cross an invisible bridge under the power of your own faith. So my companions and I traveled to the bridge. There was a crowd of people already at the gap. Some were crossing. Some failed to make it. I edged to the gap and looked in to the abyss. Down, far below, there was a massive grey expanse. Tiny forms were moving on it. People who hadn’t been able to cross the gap. I withdrew. On leaving I ran in to one of my companions, one of my former high school youth leaders. We decided to tough it out in the dying world and divvied up the supplies in our camp. The possessions we chose from were nonsensical, mp3 players and iPhones instead of the actual camping gear. As the lights (literally long industrial fluorescents, for the record) started to go out for the last time I decided to try for the gap, telling myself the entire time that I belonged in heaven, that I had the faith. I took one step on to the invisible bridge, then a flying leap, catching the edge of the afterworld with my fingertips. I climbed up and found myself in a department store, surrounded by little girls dressed as princesses. The image of denizens of the second and lower circles of hell clambering over the wall in to limbo filled my mind. I was sure that they looked at me and knew that I didn’t belong, that I’d only made it because I’d been able to run and jump. The stench of damnation clung to me. Or so I thought. Some years later I was working as a firefighter. Why heaven needs firefighters is beyond me. But I was late to a call and arrived at the station as the trucks left. My sister and brother-in-law were there, though. My sister looked at me and said, “You look like shit. Have you been sleeping?” I knew why she was asking. I found a mirror and looked at my reflection, shocked to discover that I was pale and gaunt. My hair was mussed and red rings outlined my eyes. Finally I admitted that I didn’t belong in heaven. Suddenly I was on the path to hell. Some nameless guide arrived. I suppose it was Virgil. Who knows? My guide started asking me why I belonged in hell. I started listing all the girls I’d never tried anything with. I said, of all things, that I’d kidnapped them. This makes zero sense until you realize that I’d spent more time imagining a life with these girls than actually trying to find out if they wanted to participate in mine and let me in to theirs. With every admission hell receded before me. Then it stopped. My guide asked why and with difficulty I conjured a single name, one from my deep past. The one person I actually think I may be capable of hating. I was placed in hell’s waiting room and told to hang on. It was a mass of plastic tables, telephones, and chairs with either a missing wall or a floor-to-ceiling window on one side, beyond which the fires of hell emitted smoke and a giant steam crane hung ominously against the sooty sky for reasons I’m sure are only apparent to my subconscious. Eventually she arrived and took her place in a plastic chair across the corner of the table from me. She said nothing to me and I said nothing to her. Eventually the phone rang and she picked it up. “Yeah, I’m here,” she said, “He’s here, too. Yeah, I know why.” Then she hung up the phone. I asked for her help. She stood up and started walking away. I chased her back out on to the path, grabbed her arm, said, “Please, I need this.” She turned back, looked at me, then the sky started to get bright. I had one last moment to realize that something was different about her. She stood before me in a yellow tank top and black track pants with a backpack slung over her back. The face was hers, but the body was one she would never own no matter how hard she worked. Since it’s important to the dream, let’s just say she’d always had body image issues and leave the rest of the back story to the past. I found myself in a medieval village (I’m going with Swiss, based on the houses, for the record) on a bright, sunny afternoon. The sky was a vibrant blue, the grass an impossibly bright green. Flowers were everywhere, filling the world with orange and purple and yellow and red. I started laughing. People came out of their homes, all smiles and laughter, and greeted me as I ran through town. I hopped on top of a hedge and surveyed all I could see. Then my alarm went off. So that is a glimpse in to my brain. I love the creativity of my subconscious. And I know that big a and Fiat Lex will appreciate it, even if no one else does…