Kicking Out Their Crutches - Part I

Cast Off Thy Falwells and Walk!

The perambulations forced on me by these last, and annoyingly internetlessness days of summer and the weird schedule of meetings and conferencettes into which I have been dropped have had a few salutary benefits.

First, since I had to be at a ridiculously early staff meeting this very A.M., I was (all of this was very much present-tense as of the first draft) out and about and hungry and sufficiently compos mentis to be enjoying a brunch outdoors at a restaurant close enough to the Lake to hear the shusshing of the water and where the green canopy of street doesn’t taper to a vanishing point of traffic and buildings facades but instead dead-ends in small square of the most perfect blue you can imagine.

Easy to forget as the Children of the Cell Phone mutter past, and roller-bladed women come and go (talking of Michelangelo) that Chicago is, among other things, a maritime city. Define every bit as much by river, lock, port and bridge, as by the Museums, the architecture, the bungalow belt and endemic corruption.

That there used to be taverns on the river -- in the heart of the city -- where you could dock your boat, and come in for a beer.

That one of the most expensive and least visible disasters in recent Chitown history wasn't fire or ice -- of which we've had plenty, thank you very much -- but flood. A breached wall in the old, underground rail and tunnel system filled downtown basements and subways to brackish overflowing with water. It was the same Loop we all knew -- same Marshall Fields, same Thompson Center -- but eerily deserted, and beneath, for days and days, a Metaphor ran through it.

The sky here is a brilliant blue. And, I must say, a sexy, provocative blue; not a vulgar and smutty blue.

As great strippers and fan-dancers all know, something must be left to our imagination. A solid wall of a single color is boring, as mere nakedness on stage is dull. Sheer flesh can be a yawn, but like the wise and subtle artist, the sky here has donned a white boa of clouds, cumulo-pasties and strapped itself into a pair of six-inch Cirrus heels and is slow-dancing across the dome of heaven while I shout "Oh Baby!" much to the confusion of the other brunchers.

Second, putting me out into the world at odd angles to my regular habits also put me in touch with a few of my Moderate acquaintances with enough slack in my schedule to have a bit of a State of the Union-type conversation with each. More about that in Part II, but those talks got me to thinking...

And as I was thinking, let me swear by all that is holy -- stacks of Chick Tracts and colanders full of Flying Spaghetti Monster’s Begotten Sons (with a little pesto) –- that something very odd happened.

I was making my way back from my Dawn Bureaucratic Bacchanal, parsing the conversations I had had over the last several days, trying to figure out if this was something I wanted to write about. Everything takes time and emotional energy -- sometimes quite a bit -- and both are commodities of which we all have a limited supply, and so there are opportunity costs associated with every writing decision. Which is also why, at any given time, I have a lot of prose pieces and parts up on blocks, and I’m scooting around beneath them all, tinkering.

So to get to the point, I'm zooming along looking for the right catalyst...and I speed right past the tableaux in the picture above, as-is. I didn’t touch it up or alter it in any way.

And I cruise on by, thinking, “Damn. That’d fit. That’s sum it up really well.”

And I kept right on going, along a route I would have otherwise never taken, while the perfect image dwindled in the rearview, while I debated with myself.

Idiot.

One 3-point U-turn and several pissed off drivers later, and I walked back to the spot and only then did it register with an audible BANG exactly where this particular garbage can was located.

In front of a stele bearing the name of the Biggest Pimpenest Original Republican. The Progenitor of the ones I want back in the world. The ones I want to rediscover their consciences and kick the shit out of the Christopaths who dishonor and debase the Great Emancipator with every word they speak.

On a route I never would have taken, on a day I would have probably spend doing chores and keeping close to home, looking for a place to eat and a kind of leitmotif I find a pair Crutches, in a Trash Bin, in front of Monument that say’s “Lincoln”.

It’s not exactly Our Lady of Fatima, but still kinda cool. And rare is the moment when I actually get to snap a shot of the Universe smacking me upside the head and saying: ”Hey, Dumbass. Look. Over. Here.”

Ok. I get it.

Part II in awhile.