21: Illinois

Good morning, Chicago – this is your mayor speaking. It’s another fine day in the Windy City. It’s good to be the mayor. It’s good to be the mayor here today.

The Windy City that is. The Willis City. Bruce and Wesley and the old Sears Tower.

Make Big Plans the city says. I Will Work Like The City That Works I Will. Was that the motto? This is the motto now: What I Will, is.

Riding the city bus. I ride the city bus. Transfer to the transit bus. Take the subway underground.

This is the way I get around town, get around ‘round, I get around.

“Good day, Mr. Mayor,” says the man on the corner. I tip my cap and continue on. A freckle-faced boy gives me a lucky quarter. A Medusa-headed woman smiles as well, clicking teeth in time like Chronos, like Kronos, mouth open and face clouded over, like Saturn devouring the sun.

I alone avert my eyes, but everything is steel and stone. Everyone is statues.

Monuments. Memorials. All these frozen-faced people looking down-and-out, water-worn and blown-about, a downtown full of layabouts in a city sung to the tune of Powerhouse, all lit up like Metropolis, an owner’s paradise and a worker slaughterhouse. This city ain’t been the same since the Century of Progress, no sir.

Up South Wells Street, past West Marble Place, West Monroe, West Wacker, West Calhoun. I double back and go to Walgreens. Overhead the El rolls by, clackety-clack, clackety-clack, clackety-clack.

The pharmacist is a new girl. “Call me Mr. Mayor,” I tell her, holding out my hand.

“Pleased to meet you,” she says, and leans forward to show me her breasts.

 “Who do you think I am?” I say.

She covers up and apologizes, offers to be one of my future wives. I decline and she gets upset, she upends the television set. It shatters on the floor.

She won’t be quiet so I start talking louder. Eventually the police arrive.

“Don’t talk back to the Mayor,” the policeman says. “This way, sir.” He dusts me off and escorts me out.  The El is coming down the tracks, don’t-talk-back, don’t-talk-back, don’t-talk-back.

So I run for it, climbing out of the underworld like Orpheus, like Theseus leaving a street-side labyrinth, flying up like Perseus and Pegasus, Icarus or Daedalus, alone on the platform with Mirrorface who says we must rise above and save ourselves, while all the people down below are dead to us.

The Orange Line arrives. The conductor smiles when he sees me, slows the train. I get on and Mirrorface stays behind. For a little while I just ride the ring around the city center, a mayor on his kingly progress, changing lines and switching directions, clockwise on the Orange and counter on the Brown.

Quincy, Washington, Clark, State, Randolph, Madison, Adams, then back to Library and LaSalle. I watch the city out the window and it speaks to me, repeats.

The intercom drones and dings. The buildings flit by, black keys against the white sky, like accidentals on a massive scale, like blue notes but square.

Got to dress it up, jazz it up. Got to decorate the city, doll it up in time for Decoration Day. Got to save Chicago’s soul by the very very very end of the merry merry month of May.

Gonna tinsellate the Willis Tower. Gonna tessellate the city streets. Gonna top the trees in foil. Gonna sweep the city clean. Gonna collect all of the garbage in Millennium Park and assemble another throne. Gonna take all of Chicago’s trash and make it gold.

But how should I begin?

There was a song once. It went like that, like this.

I take out my marker and make a list. The wall is my paper. The city my canvas.

The Orange line train completes a circuit, switch to Brown.

First I’ll need the precious metals, woven in fleeces and cast in medals, eagle-headed and zephyr-tailed. I tally them up: One for me, Two million eight-hundred thousand for them. Second:

The center of town, past the park at Madison. At the next stop I’ll get off.

Look out the door, make sure Medusa isn’t waiting.

The Minotaur is standing guard by the stairs.

I step back and the train doors close again.

The circle continues unbroken. The building numbers are going up. Every clock is counting down. I lost the thread a while back.

If I could fly like Superman it would be easy. It was easy once upon a time, when I whipped ass and rode the sky.

Mirrorface is reflected in the window behind me. His face is polished smooth and flat. Maybe I could use it as a shield and beat Medusa back.

So I take it upon myself, exorcise it like a preacher, seize it like a city exercising eminent domain. Glasses shatter. Blood is on my hands. I lick it off them like ketchup from a crumpled yellow paper wrapper, salty, sweet, and thick like thieves or family.

Was it the Masons, the Mansons, the Mason-Dixons? Make you fortune in Mini-Mansions old McDonald said, before he served his billionth Chinaman. Pearly Gates or Golden Arches – what you want is what you get. I’m loving it. I’m loving it.

When I said I was the Mayor of Chicago, I was lying. I’ve been lying about a lot of things. The thing is, I’m like the President, but better. The guy on TV is a phony. The Secret Service, the CIA, the FBI, FEMA, the CDC, CNN and CBS, they all know it’s a cover-up. I’m his higher-up. I was the mayor of Chicago, but I’m the emperor. They destroyed my birth certificate but I can prove it. I know where their files are. The secret must come out. This story must be told. My people have a right to know.

The El rolls to a stop at Quincy/Wells. The door slides open. I lunge out and shield myself because Medusa may be there, arms outstretched like the woman on the poster, snake-hair hissing as she tramples on the Earth

No time for exposition, explanation. I hear someone scream and I run faster. Footsteps behind me as I descend the stairs.

On the street the public waves, and I wave back. The wind blowing down the streets and alleys of the windy city blowing the greetings from their mouths and the smiles from their faces, combing their white and black hair back.

In the lobby the policeman greets me. “Good evening Mr. Mayor.”

We both know none of that is true.

From the Sky Deck looking down and out and over, this city my city my home. My Roman empire. My mortal lover. My prodigal son. My siren song. Once more from the top.

No B section this time, though no repeats.

No intros, no outros, no missing beats. No loops no fades no edits.

Now how would WW end this?

Rock over London; rock on, Chicago.

Good to the last drop.