LJ Archive - 06/22/05: Ghosts of Minuteman

june 22 2005

On the east side of South Central Avenue just north of 60th Street in Chicago, lies a small plot of undeveloped green space called Minuteman Park. This parcel sits directly across from Midway Airport, a literal wedge shoved between rows of squat little bungalows to the south, the Belt Railway Company’s main line to the west and west-northwest, and what is now land owned by a city-contracted construction firm to the north. Many years ago this place was my respite; ritual pedaling bringing me there daily to lie in the grass, race laps around the perimeter, and be at once both alone and among.

You’re a fatass who needs exercise: Go to Minuteman and ride, ride, ride like a madman until you lose track of the lap count, until you wish the bike had an odometer, until parents mistakenly start thinking you’re just biding your time to deal drugs to their kids...

Your friends won’t answer the phone; they despise you and you don't know why: go to Minuteman and watch the planes across the street and dream of the future. Hope that just maybe, you’ll run into one of the cute girls from school you always had a crush on without pretense – it could happen again. Maybe the one who lives reasonably close by that's a dear friend to a point you just don't quite understand...

You want solace but your parents and siblings are bitching nuclear again and you need someplace quiet: Ride to Minuteman and camp out under the huge oak tree in the wild field behind the north fence. Pretend to read but enjoy the solitude instead. Everyone else goes to Hale for the pool and the upgraded playground but you’re too cool for either one...

You’re suicidal and need to think it over: Ride like life depends on it – ride Anywhere But Here To Nowhere until all roads lead to Minuteman. Don’t stop 'til your mind is numb for the all but the thought of somewhere beyond the chainlink. Rest under the elm in the back corner and evaluate. Cry like a baby where nobody can see you. Then go catch a crayfish in the pond. Look at the planes again. Soak in the roar of a train passing 50 feet away. Bask in the coolness of a midsummer evening, the spiritual echoes of the thousands of fellow urban souls, traffic echoing distant, playground laughter reminding you what should be: a city is welcoming you back to her churning heart, nestling you in the womb of this park. Life is good once more...

...but only as long as you ride... and keep on going, out of the park, out of a bicycle seat, to a car and career and places unknown that dare to beckon...

Ride like the Minutemen.

* * *

It's a decade later. I’m sharing an impromptu lunch of a juicy Italian beef sandwich and REAL 'mom & pop' Chicago hotdog (all-beef frank, tomatoes, onions, relish, pickle spear, mustard on a poppy-seed bun: NO KETCHUP) with my wife. Life is good. Yet the weekend’s familial events have lashed the marionette strings once more, and I’ve come back to my green womb once again, perhaps for more than old-times' sake. My, but it has been a long time.

The iconic old benches of concrete footings and beams more of paint than wood remain, and here we sit, not speaking but enjoying each other’s company and the comfort of greasy fast food prepared by honest folk who need the money more than the corporate swill pushers.

We’d come here originally to chase wait for another train so I could take some pictures, but no, there’s more to it than that. Our neighborhood is a donut hole surrounded by tracks: I could shoot a train anywhere. So why here?

And as I look at the concrete sidewalk at the edge of my feet, I can’t help but pan my head to where the path curves parallel to the railroad tracks behind the baseball diamond and shoots straight on toward the airport beyond. There’s an odd fork in the path where we sit: one tine awkwardly added to presumably smoothly flow into the bungalow sidewalk across the alleyway street, but ending at the same crosswise park sidewalk as the other tine that dead-ends into an elevated curb. I used to mix up my cycling laps by choosing one fork or the other at random, turning from either back to the park sidewalk. I mentally retrace these steps as I look at the concrete, long worn in by honest folk.

I look up and suddenly see the ghost of my younger self passing by, one of the last laps he doesn’t recognize as such yet. He circles and passes by every minute or so, until I ask him silently to stop next time around. He obliges and we come eye to eye and glance at the fork in the road.

If I could talk to this ghost, I would ask him: “Can you see me here with the wife you don’t even know yet, from a rural state you only know as the butt of jokes? Would you believe it if you could? Would you believe she adores and cherishes you? That you will be a father to a beautiful baby girl who is more joy than you can comprehend?

“Of course not, because in a few months you will be going to college. You are going to become a highly paid Mechanical Engineer, making enough money to buy every POS car you can get your hands on and destroy in the Demo Derbies as Santa Fe Speedway. You're going to geek central and there will be no time for girls (ha) and friends. You are going to make sure your family gets the return on their investment. Everything is riding on you and everyone’s counting on you so you better not fuck it up.

“It seems so clear to you now, but just wait. Wait until you realize you hate math and desktop engineering, that you would have been happier in trade school but you’re in too deep to back out now. Wait for the blame you’ll shoulder and allow others to compound for your brother’s afflictions and your dad’s financial crisis. Wait until the mono and the depression, and the supernaturally failed attempt to fatally crash your car on the Dan Ryan Expressway...

“Wait until then, and please promise you’ll remember this fork in the road and think about it more carefully. Better yet, avoid it altogether.”

And then something happens that I didn’t expect. The ghost speaks.

“Yes, you are on the side that leads onward to a future, to security. There are potholes and weeds and a bunch of nasty shit you have to cross once you leave this park to get there. You'll have more trouble than you bargained for when you leave. And you’ll have to face the same demons again every time you come back to visit this place. That was the path you chose, and it’s why your’re able to sit there right now. Don’t blame yourself. Look at the dead end on the other path: it’s more than metaphorical. You can only ride away for so long.”

I hold this gaze to the past and choke on acknowledgment. He rides past me once more and is gone.

In my heart I know I made the right decision, but the ghosts of my past are always haunting and retrospection is a dangerous thing. So if I need to cross the dark alley from park respite to secure future, so be it, but it will never get easier. As the discordant lyrics of a favorite song say: All I do, I can still feel you...

But the ghost reminded me to take pictures to cherish the present. And then the trains came, and engineers and passing strangers waved, and my little girl waved at them too.

The ride is more leisurely these days.