How long is eternity? Yeah, I didn’t know. But I got an idea, last year, when I visited some of the great cathedrals in England. Some of the old parishioners, with clout, and even some Great Men, were buried under the floors of the cathedrals. Then a headstone, or entire gravestone, was placed in the floor over the spot, with…
Category: The O.G. Stories, 1994-1997
We Had to Take the Bus
When I lived in the northwest suburbs of Chicago, I found it convenient to take the CTA’s elevated train to school at Loyola Rogers Park campus in the evenings after work. Most suburbanites avoid public transportation like the plague, because “that kind of people” ride the trains. But to me it was handy. It got me into Chicago, and back…
English, the Universal Language
Note: This story is “historical fiction”. It’s based on two articles from the Chicago Tribune, August 2nd and 4th, 1994, that somehow affected me. I filled in the blanks and made them into a story. There’s no claim that any of this is what actually happened, outside of what was reported. And the names have been altered. Dark, drizzly, after-midnight,…
Seventeen Dollars of Ko-Kool
The first night we were at Tryall Golf Resort outside Montego Bay it rained. It rained the following afternoon, evening, and night, as well. God did it rain! Lightning, thunder, howling wind, and rain beating so hard on the flimsy roof of our villa that we thought the place would come down at any minute. But it didn’t. All fourteen…
The Jambalaya Lifeforms Experiment
A couple of Saturdays ago we had the annual Cajun Barbecue in the backyard of a co-worker’s house. He supplies the place, along with ribs and a turkey to barbecue (the sauce makes it Cajun, really), and the rest of us are expected to bring a Cajun side dish, or beer. Usually this follows the pattern you’d expect: guys bring…
Marc Smith’s Chicago Poetry Slam
There’s this thing called Marc Smith’s Chicago Poetry Slam down at the Green Mill bar on Broadway and Lawrence every Sunday night. I bet those of you in the bigger cities have something similar, although it’s undoubtedly called something else, ’cause there’s only one Chicago, and naturally yours wouldn’t be as good as the Chicago one, because ours is the…
What’s Your Takeaway?
“I want you to tell me something first: after you’re dead and buried and floating around whatever place we go to, what’s going to be your best memory of earth?” “What do you mean? I don’t get it.” “What one moment for you defines what it’s like to be alive on this planet. What’s your takeaway?” — Douglas Coupland, “Generation…
Ozone O Ozone – Is You Out There?
We called him Calvin Ozone. Partially because it was a natural perversion of his real name, but mostly because it was a deliciously appropriate perversion of his real name. Here’s a fer-instance-why: One evening his motorcycle failed to start. Exercising extreme good sense, Ozone removed the gas tank cap to see if maybe he was out of gas. It being…
The Pizza Roland Would Not Eat
Sandy owned the house next door. Sandy wasn’t what us kids called him, but it was his “real” nickname. He used to be a nice, friendly guy when we were little kids, but he grew mean and nasty as we grew older, and he’d keep our balls if they Accidentally went in his yard, or yell at us if we…
Angry Voices
The couple downstairs fought on New Year’s Eve day. I didn’t hear individual words, just angry voices. They fought a lot. I didn’t have anyone to fight with that day. My most recent girlfriend had recently Gone Insane and Moved to Texas. Not that I am prone to exchange angry words, or fight, anyhow. There’s something in anger that kills…