1/22/12
Sitting in an airport lounge awaiting the departure of my flight to Hong Kong/Bangkok.
Arose at 5:00am this morning and Rachel was kind enough to drive me to the Champaign Terminal. Bus was 15 minutes late, but the ride went smoothly. While waiting for the bus to arrive I saw a man who I hiked with at the Sierra Club Lake Mingo outing. I tested my backpack for the first time that day, loading it with a few soup cans. This morning he was with his wife, they were taking the bus to Milwaukee for a ski outing.
When I departed the bus in Chicago in front of Union Station a homeless man thrust a newspaper into my hand and asked for money, and I sensed that I must no longer possess the look of a jaded city creature. When I first lived in Chicago in 1992 I was constantly approached by homeless people, but after the first year the occurrences happened less frequently. My fresh, eager eyes thus giving me away, I made a rookie mistake of taking out my wallet so that I could hand the man a dollar. I knew it was a stupid move, but instead of the guy grabbing the wallet from my cold hand, he simply asked for more, telling me he needed a place to stay for the night, and that his name was Paul, flashing a grin which showed a few missing teeth. I obliged and gave him another dollar, knowing I had much money to burn through, and here was someone who did not know where he would be sleeping later in the day. He thanked me and I began looking for the Clinton Stop on the Blue Line. I knew it was 3 blocks from where I stood but I had forgotten the direction I was supposed to walk. After walking 30 yards I decided I was going the wrong way and turned back to where I had started, seeing Paul once again. He turned to me and asked if I was heading to the Blue Line, and I felt as if a neon sign flashing “dumb tourist”was pasted to my forehead. I nodded a smile and he told me I was walking in the wrong direction. “Follow me”, he implored, and I started to follow him, aware I was making yet another rookie mistake. We passed the front of Union Station and I remembered I needed to stop there to pee. Seeing a way to extricate myself from a stupid situation, I told Paul I needed to use the bathroom and was going into the Great Hall. “Oh man, you got to piss, there is a port o potty right over there”, and I watched his hand point away from the towering stone columns of the station. A cold, desolate port o potty was indeed there, but I decided I had to put an end to the charade, and said “I'm going into the Great Hall”, and began to walk to the doors. I dejectedly saw each of the doors I passed posted with a closed sign, and with Paul right behind me, interjecting “man, look, they are closed now, do you think you can give me some more money, I need $12 dollars for a room?” At that moment I came to a door without a closed sign and pushed through, and felt the warm air of the hall spread across my relieved face. I knew I could not give Paul $12, I had only $7 left in my wallet, and $2 was needed for the Blue Line ticket to the airport. I felt myself grabbing once again for the wallet, knowing that I was doing an incredibly stupid thing, but continued to do so anyways. The wallet in hand now, I gripped it firmly, hoping that if he made a grab I could manage to keep it within my grasp. I quickly pulled out a $5 bill and handed it to him, smiling, with a “take care, man,” and turned to leave, detecting perhaps a look of disappointment upon his face.
Alone now, I walked through the great hall, found the john, and as I pissed began to silently laugh, recalling that I was proud for having purchased a bus ticket to Chicago for $3.50, and having somehow just now avoided a serious mishap. I zipped up, determined to find the Clinton Blue Line Station with a somewhat jaded expression painted in my eyes.
