A Blog of Personal Thoughts
Chicago! Chicago! Union Station! Chicago!
January 2025
"Chicago! Chicago! Union Station! Chicago! Next stop!" The train slowed almost to a stop and Chloe stared out the window.
She pursed her mouth and held one hand in the other. Firmly. Tightly. She shuddered as she watched a mother slap her child across the face. The screams, unheard through the windows or over the clacking of the train, reverberated in her ear as she saw the child as a father slapping his son who slapped his son who slapped his child….
The boy tried to protect himself, warding off blows with his arms but that only seemed to make his mother angrier. She grabbed his arm and the next time she hit him, his feet raised, her grip all that kept him from landing on the ground. The ground, a back yard of broken concrete and dirt behind a four-story red brick building connected to others just like it, ground broken only by streets that defined block after block of tenements. Garbage lay strewn everywhere. Sheets of plastic and newspaper blew in series of stop-starts as if each had its own propulsion separate from the breeze that cooled nothing this late afternoon.
Please, please, leave that boy alone. Whatever he did could not warrant such blows. She felt tears coming when suddenly the tenement, the woman, the boy disappeared behind the colored walls of a new set of buildings so close to the elevated tracks that if she had opened the window she could have reached out to feel the paint and bricks. The train crawled to a stop in front of a tile frieze. Blue, green, and pink tile, the colors of sunset that made patterns among the white tiles. Near her, it said Turkish, on the far end, Russian, and in between, West Avenue Baths. Stylized flowers swirled between Turkish and Russian to a slow arrow ascending above West Avenue Baths. She craned back but the long white front of the Baths blocked her view of the tenement.
Beginning with a creak, the train inched past each tile toward Union Station. Butterflies flew in her stomach, bumping into one another, fluttering against her sides. She had to change trains in Union Station. She'd never been in a city as big as Chicago. What was she doing moving to New York? Maybe she should turn in her ticket and go back home. Home to Blaine. Home to Kansas. No, not back to Kansas. Not to Blaine. She had a fellowship to Columbia. A fellowship. Her stomach tightened and the butterflies turned to moths, then fish. She felt their slime. She wouldn't have received the fellowship if she weren't capable.
She bit her lip. The train had come to a complete stop. The concrete platform lay outside the window. People walked on it. She would walk on it as soon as she got her bag. One bag. She put her handbag strap on her left shoulder and crossed the brown bag to the right side. One suitcase, one purse. Her parents had insisted she take one suitcase; when she settled, they'd send the rest. As she walked along the platform, she realized they were right. Sensible shoes, one suitcase light enough to carry. No one looked at her and she felt comfortable, almost self-confident. She looked on the board for the train to New York: Platform 7, 7:37 p.m.—over an hour. Enough time to eat her apple and get a pop.
The next morning, the intercom called out "Grand Central! Grand Central! Next stop! Grand Central Station! New York! Next stop!" Chloe saw the New York skyline closer and closer—looming, hovering, then swallowing the train and her on its belly entrance into the tunnel and city. The tunnel was soot black, the darkness lit with an occasional dim bulb. She watched the reflection of the inside of the car, then another dim bulb, reflection then bulb, reflection then bulb, until she saw the woman in the glass. She smiled at herself: light brown hair that came almost to her shoulders, her best feature for its shine. Average face. Plain, she thought. Plain eyes, clear complexion, plain nose and mouth. Pretty, others said. Ha, she laughed for she knew she had no dark alluring eyes or pert mouth, no high cheekbones, nothing striking. She was satisfied not being homely. I can do it, she thought, I can move into this city. I can do it, I can do it.
10:07, New York City.
Off the train and emerging finally into the elegance of Grand Central made her breathe deeply, but the cacophony of contradictory smells—coffee, urine, sweat, donuts made her choke. She bought a paper and ordered a cup of coffee at a corner shop. Like everyone else at the counter, she began to read. She found the want ads. Apartments $800, $1250! Good thing she didn't have a mouthful of coffee! She laughed, then looked around. No one looked up, not even the people on either side of her. Where's the poor, but not too poor, section of town? She'd left Chicago on platform 7, at 7:37 and arrived in New York City on platform 7 at 10:07. That settled it. She wasn't superstitious but she might as well go with sevens since nothing else came to mind. She went to the information desk.
"How do I get to 7th Street?"
"East or West?"
She hadn't come all this way to live in the west of anywhere. "East."
"Take the Lexington and get off at Astor Place."
"The Lexington?"
"The Lexington Avenue Subway."
She repeated the directions.
"Yeah." The woman looked around Chloe to the next person and raised her eyebrows.
Chloe walked away repeating these directions, singing them silently complete with the New York accent, until she walked up to daylight at Astor Place, a subway entrance island in the middle of what seemed like a dozen converging streets. A rust colored building with columns in front, rounded corners even at the windows, entranced her. Cooper Union, it said. She walked the length of it, still on the subway island. Seventh Street she read.
As she stepped off the curb to cross Third Avenue, a cab almost hit her. A child's voice hollered out the back window, "Watch it, lady!" She jumped back and stared into the passing face of a girl, not more than four or five, with dark hair, cream skin, and every feature perfectly placed. Now that is beauty, she thought, as she smiled at New York's intensity extant even in its children. She paused under the sign: Third Avenue, 7th Street. As she began to breathe normally, she realized she had held her breath as she crossed Third Avenue. Her shoulders relaxed. Odd, she thought. I'd think I'd like the open expanse of that Astor Place area. Here on 7th Street, the buildings seem to press together but I felt secure. She observed most had shops on the ground level. One had a plate glass window beside the door. Paintings. Must be an art gallery. The smell of rich brew caught her. "Dad!" she said softly. She smiled and pulled her lower lip between her teeth. The sawdust on the sidewalk and the simple green sign with the gold letters, McSorley's, made her slow her walk to smell, look inside, enjoy the presence of her father. She'd take him there when he visited. Still daydreaming, she saw a church, wall-sharing a six-story building, its other side against a short street, Shevchenko Street. To her left was another shop and she paused to admire the beautiful clothes of white, blue, and green cotton embroidered in black, orange, red, yellow, salmon. Aprons, peasant blouses, skirts. The display was simple; it had to be because the red, black, green, or white threads created such intricate designs. Lost in the bevy of cotton on cotton, she felt momentarily dizzy, smiled at the pleasure of sight and feeling, then walked on slowly.
This is the beginning of a novel, a manuscript stalled for the moment, but the January 1, 2025 blog post never the less.
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