Letter From Milo: The Time Luc Longley Chickened Out

Back in the days when Jack Daniel and I were close friends, I used to do and say a lot of very stupid things. It wasn't my fault. I blamed it on the booze. As an anonymous old bluesman once sang, "I was high, baby, when I did you wrong and you know it don't count when you're high."

I remember staggering home one evening from my local swill-a-teria and passing my neighbor's house on the way. The neighbor, a lovely woman named Amy, saw me rocking and reeling and called out, "Milo, are you drunk again?"

"I am indeed drunk," I replied, in my usual gentlemanly fashion. "But tomorrow morning I'll be sober and you'll still be an ugly old whore."

The next morning Amy's husband, a big brute of a man who is 20 years younger than I am, confronted me. "Did you call my wife an ugly old whore last night?"

"Yes I did," I answered. "And I'm truly sorry about it. It was presumptuous of me to say that. You see, I don't know what your wife does for a living."

Instead of kicking my butt, which he had every right to do, Amy's husband laughed his ass off and invited me over for drinks later that day.

I used to hang out at a bar called Sterch's on Lincoln Avenue. It is far from a chic or trendy spot, just a local saloon that has been sensitive to the needs of drinkers since the early 70s. One evening, a little after midnight, a smartly dressed couple walked in, probably by mistake, or else they were just slumming, checking out the local wildlife. They reeked of class, probably had season tickets to the opera and made regular appearances in Kup's Column.

It just so happened that the gentleman sitting on the bar stool next to me, who I had been having a lively discussion with for the past few hours, chose that moment to pass out. He rocked back and forth a couple of times then fell forward, his head hitting the bar with a loud thump.

The society matron appeared disgusted by the sight of my friend dozing on the bar. The woman pointed a well-manicured finger and said, "He must be the local drunk."

"No, lady," I told her, "We all generally take turns."

I've mentioned my good friend Bruce Diksas a few times in my posts. Bruce spends most of the year out of the country, in places like Bali, Nepal and Australia. Due to his proclivity for traveling, and his astute sense of the ridiculous, the editors of this blog site have offered him the prestigious and highly paid position of The Third City's Foreign Correspondent. As of this writing, Big Mike, the Barn Boss of this site, and Bruce's agent, Moe Howard, are still dickering over the terms of the contract. The hangup seems to be the company car. Big Mike is offering a 1997 Ford Taurus while Bruce is still holding out for a late model Buick Electra 225.

Anyway, until Bruce comes on board and provides us with his own unique and informative brand of bullshit, I'm going to steal one of his stories.

Now, Bruce is a guy who enjoys a good drink once in a while. In fact, he has had the the great pleasure of ordering drinks on five different continents. When they open a saloon in Antarctica I'm sure it won't be long before Bruce is on a first name basis with the bartender.

One day Bruce was sitting in his favorite watering hole on the island of Bali when in walks the biggest man he has ever seen. Not only that, the huge man is accompanied by a six-foot tall blond that would make Stevie Wonder look twice. When the awesome couple took seats at the bar next to Bruce, he realized that the man was none other than Luc Longley, the Aussie who was the former center for the Chicago Bulls. Bruce, being a Chicagoan and a Bulls fan, introduced himself and offered to buy Luc and his companion drinks. Luc accepted and shortly afterward reciprocated.

A few hours and quite a few drinks later, Bruce was feeling pretty good. In fact, he felt bulletproof, like Superman. He felt so good that he challenged Luc Longley to a game of one-on-one.

Luc, who must have faced this situation countless times, graciously declined, claiming a bum knee.

We were having a few drinks, a few months later, when Bruce related this story to me. Maybe it was the booze, or maybe Bruce was just feeling feisty, but he put his own unique spin on the tale. He didn't outright say it, but he intimated that perhaps, just perhaps, the great Luc Longley chickened out.

"Can't say I blame him," I replied. "After all, why would any seven-foot tall former NBA basketball player with three chanpionship rings to his credit want to tangle with a drunk 60-year-old Lithuanian with a four-inch vertical leap."

"My point, exactly," Bruce said.

Big Mike: This Means War

I was on the phone with my esteemed colleague, the renowned author Benny Jay, the other day. Somehow the conversation got around to the first concert I'd ever attended. I told him that I'd seen Parliament and War at the International Amphitheater in 1973. There was silence for a moment, then Benny Jay launched into hosannas about my coolness that led me to believe if we'd have been in the same room, he'd have begun salaaming me.

Now, Benny Jay is as wired in to the Brother Culture about as much as any white man ever has been. I assumed he'd been in the groove from childhood on. Sadly, he wasn't. Benny Jay later admitted that way back in 1973, he was still listening to Top 40 songs on WLS and WCFL.

In the 60s, these two seminal Chicago rock 'n' roll radio stations had introduced me to Sam Cooke, Otis Redding, Jackie Wilson and the Chambers Brothers as well as blue-eyed soul brothers like the Rolling Stones, Tommy James and the Shondells, the Young Rascals and others. I still listen to all of them to this day. But by 1973, the two radio titans had grown stale, reflecting the state of pop music at the time, and my radio dial never again came near either AM 890 or 1000. I refused to listen to the unbearable crap they were playing. To illustrate, here's a list of some of the top songs of 1973. Read it and try to refrain from retching:

• "Tie A Yellow Ribbon 'Round The Old Oak Tree," by Tony Orlando and Dawn
  
• "The Night The Lights Went Out In Georgia," by Vickie Lawrence
  
• "Little Willy," by Sweet
  
• "Half Breed," by Cher
  
• "Wildflower," by Skylark
  
• "The Morning After," by Maureen McGovern
  
• "Diamond Girl," by Seals and Crofts
  
• "Boogie Woogie Bugle Boy," by Bette Midler
• "Funny Face," by Donna Fargo
  
• "The Twelth Of Never," by Donny Osmond
  

And some people think waterboarding is torture. Poor Benny. He says it wasn't until he went away to college that his musical horizons broadened. He became infatuated with Jimi Hendrix, among many others. Now, I can take Jimi Hendrix or leave him (well, to tell the truth, I'll leave him, period) but that's a matter of taste. At least he turned a youthful Benny Jay away from Tony Orlando and Dawn.

Our conversation got back to that first concert I'd attended. My pal Whitey and I took the No. 72 North Avenue bus from its western terminus at Narragansett Avenue seven miles east to Halsted Street, where we picked up the No. 8 bus and headed south another 57 blocks to Bridgeport and the Amphitheater. The ride took a good two-and-a-half hours but we both loved War. The song, "The World Is A Ghetto," was a brilliant, haunting, 10-minute-long masterpiece. Whenever it came on the radio (by this time, I'd become an habitual WGLD listener - the low-watt Oak Park station that later gave way to WXRT) I became lost in it, cranking the volume up to Nigel Tufnel's mythical 11. A bomb could have gone off next to me but I'd take no notice.

Neither Whitey nor I were familiar with Parliament but by the time its opening set was finished, we'd become diehard fans. Since we were a couple of half-broke Northwest Side teenagers, we could only afford cheap seats. We sat somewhere near the upper boundary of the troposphere and viewed the proceedings through a dense haze of legal and illegal smoke. We got back home to Galewood around 4:00am, proud of ourselves for our sojourn into the big, black inner city.

"How many white people do you think there were at the Amphitheater that night?" Benny asked.

"I'd say two - Whitey and me," I replied.

"So, you were the only two white guys in the whole place, and one of you is named Whitey!" Benny exclaimed, roaring. Then, he added a correction. "Three white guys - you forgot War's harmonica player, Lee Oskar."

I congratulated Benny Jay on his knowledge of War. Thank the gods, dumb luck or modern pharmacology, his listening to Donny Osmond hasn't resulted in brain damage.

Randolph Street: Rollin' Up The River

While photojournalist Jon Randolph lolls the days away on a fishing boat in a Canadian lake, we're presenting pix from his trips up and down US Highway 61. Here's the second batch. - The Eds.

"Raccoon," Minnesota

"Celose" (note the sign in the window), Minnesota

"Merchant," Minnesota

"Country Kitchen," Iowa

"Yard Sale," Tennessee

"Mirror," Duluth, Minnesota

This is a personal look at mid-America that I shot between 1976 and 1985. At the times I shot these pix, the approximately 1700 miles of US Highway 61 roughly followed the Mississippi River from New orleans to Minneapolis, then jutted northeast to Duluth and then along the western edge of Lake Superior to Thunder Bay, Ontario.

This is the second installment - part three will run next Friday. There's a lot to look at. - JR

Visit The Third City every day for new posts, treats, surprises, words and pictures. We'll be moving soon! Our new home will be thethirdcity.net. We're building the site right now - knowing us and our meager technological talents, it'll actually be up sometime around the turn of the next century. Anyway, we'll keep you up to date. - The Eds.

Benny Jay: Modern Man

I'm driving north on Southport, and my car dies....

I know there's no good place to stall in traffic, but this place particularly sucks -- in the left turn lane, just south of the intersection. I suppose it could be worse. I could, you know, be in the middle of the intersection. Guess I should count my blessings....

It's noon. Car's zipping by. Nothing I can do. I try to go through life without swearing. I really do. It shows a lack of discipline and creativity. But, every now and then -- FUCK!!!

Ah, now I feel much better....

I have a cell phone. But it's almost as useless as my car. The battery's low. The battery's been low for about two weeks. I need a new battery. As a matter of fact, I was on my way to the cell phone store to get a new battery when my car died. Can you believe this shit?

I figure I have just enough juice in my battery to make one quick call. So I call my wife, who's really busy at work. And I tell her: Can'ttalklongphonealmostoutofbatteriescardiedintrafficcalltriplea....

Which translates into: Can't talk long; phone almost out of batteries; call Triple AAA.

Message conveyed, I put on the blinkers, rush to the back of my car, and direct oncoming traffic to go around me. Some doofus in a Toyota honks his horn, like, you know, I'm standing in the middle of the street for some reason other than my car has died.

"My car is dead," I tell him.

"Fuck you," he says.

Ah, the compassion of my fellow man....

A guy on a bike pulls over and asks: "Need help?"

I want to hug him. Instead, I say: "Thanks, man...."

He gets behind my car. "We'll push it through the intersection," he says. "So you're not blocking traffic...."

We push, but the car won't budge. "You have to take it out of park," he tells me.

"Right," I say. "I knew that -- I really did...."

I hop back into my car. I'm about to switch gears when I see the keys dangling from the ignition. On an impulse, I turn the keys. It works!

"It's a miracle -- the car's on," I tell the biker. "Thanks for everything -- you're the man...."

I want to turn left and park on the side of the road. But the light's red and the car's quaking, like it's about to die at any instant. I'm waiting and waiting and waiting for the light to turn green. Ever notice how long something takes when you're waiting for it to happen?

The light turns green -- finally. I make the turn. The car's like an animal who's been shot in the leg with a bullet, limping along in pain. I drive it past the no-parking, bus-stop zone. I pull it into an empty space, just as the car dies. Phew!

I get a call from an editor. I tell him I can't talk -- battery low. I get a call from my wife -- she tells me Triple A is on its way. My phone dies. All juice gone. What the hell good is it? I toss it on the seat. I feel like the main character from that Isaac Bashevas Singer story who's on a train from New York City to Montreal in the years just after World War II. It's modern times and he's a modern man. But he feels as though with a flip of the switch he'll slip back to the Dark Ages. That's how fragile our existence is....

The deep thought passes and I bide the time the way I usually do -- thinking about the Bulls. Today's paper had a picture of Ben Gordon wearing a Blackhawks jersey. I wonder if the Bulls will sign Gordon. I start to call Norm to talk it over, when I remember: My phone's dead.

The Triple A tow truck arrives. The driver's named Ed. He couldn't be nicer. He hitches me to his tow truck, tells me to hop on in and he drives me to the mechanic. Along the way, he says the problem is the alternator -- the thing that feeds juice to the battery. It used to be called the generator. He's giving me a whole lecture when -- wham! -- the tow truck hits a speed bump that he obviously didn't see coming.

It feels as though my car was dropped from the sky.

He hops out of the truck to see if my car is damaged. Oh, brother, just what I need.

"It's okay," he assures me when he gets back.

He drives me to the mechanic and we walk into office. "We're here," I tell the lady at the cash register.

"Now, who are you?" she asks.

"The Ford," says Ed.

"Oh," she says. "Your P's husband...."

"Yeah, the one and only...."

She fills out a form and says: "Who should we call?"

"My wife," I say. "She's the brains of the family...."

"Guess you're the beauty," she says.

I shrug with Elvis-like humility and say: "I guess that's what I bring to the equation...."

When I leave the shop, she's smiling. I'm feeling pretty good, like I'm still quick with a one-liner.

Gonna call my wife to tell her all about my witty exchange. And I remember -- the cell phone's still dead. Aw, man. That's the thing about technology. It's one step forward, one step back. Probably all better off without it....

I walk home, get my bike, and peddle on over to the cell phone store.

Letter From Milo: High On The Hog

I'll eat almost anything. The word "omnivore" doesn't do me justice. If it walks, crawls, flies or swims - as long as it doesn't have opposable thumbs - I'll try it.

I'm not saying I'm as adventurous as Andrew Zimmern, the nutcase who hosts "Bizarre Foods" on the Travel Channel but I've eaten some pretty odd meals. I've eaten bugs, rodents, pig and cow testicles, raw beef and raw fish. I've tried fungi, mosses, weeds and leaves from trees. I've eaten food that looked great but tasted vile and food that looked disgusting but was absolutely delicious. I've had food that's gotten me stoned (hash brownies) and food that's sent me to the emergency room (tainted chicken).

That said, there is one meal that I prefer over all others. It is the meal I would order if I was on Death Row and it would be the last food I'd ever taste. I'd go to the gallows with a twinkle in my eye and a song in my heart as long as my face and hands were smeared with sweet, sticky and spicy red sauce.

Yes, folks I'm talking about barbecued ribs, God's gift to the human taste bud.

I've eaten ribs in rib hotspots all over the country - Chicago, the Carolinas, Memphis and Kansas City. Each of these places claims supremacy in the art of barbecue. And each has a valid claim. My good friend Bruce Diksas, tells me that there's even a rib joint on the island of Bali, where he lives part of the year. The place is run by an American ex-patriot and advertises Chicago-style ribs.

One day Bruce decided to try the Balinesian ribs. Now, Bruce grew up in Bridgeport and knows a thing or two about ribs. When he finished the platter, the bar owner asked Bruce how he liked them.

Bruce shook his head sadly and said, "Sorry, pal, these ribs would never make it in Chicago.

One of the first times I ever tasted great ribs was in a small storefront in Gary, Indiana, called Shoe's Ribs and Chicken. Shoe's specialty was a rib sandwich, which was nothing more than two or three rib bones slapped between two slices of Wonder Bread, drenched in sauce and served on waxed paper. I don't recall if napkins were made available. Anyway, those rib sandwiches were delicious. Man, a couple of those and a cold bottle of Blatz and you were set for the day.

When I settled in Chicago, I thought I found rib heaven. There were good rib joints everywhere. My favorite was a small spot off North Avenue by the Chicago River called Edith's. In my opinion, Edith's ribs were close to perfect. Edith used baby back ribs and the texture was just right. They weren't wussy ribs that fell off the bone if a slight breeze passed by. You had to work them a bit but it was well worth the trouble.

The best ribs aren't always found in restaurants. Some of the best ribs I've ever tasted have been at backyard barbecues. Two stand out in particular. One old friend, a college buddy named Way Out Willie Bauer, was and probably still is, a rib master. He took infinite care with his ribs, hovering over the grill like a card shark over pocket aces. He constantly adjusted the coals, carefully turned the slabs and watched for flare-ups as intensely as a California park ranger watches for brush fires. When it came time to add the sauce, Willie's brushwork was every bit the equal of Picasso's. And Willie would accomplish these magnificent rib feats while consuming huge quantities of booze and reefer.

Another rib master is my neighbor, John O'Connor, who works as an attorney in order to finance his rib habit. John prefers a dry rub to sauce. Although I'm a sauce man I have to admit that John's dry rub is the best I've ever tasted, spicy but not overpowering. He hosts a backyard cookout every summer. I always try to be on my best behavior at his cookouts because I don't want to get drunk and do something so stupid that he won't invite me back. His ribs are that good.

A while ago I wrote about visiting Kansas City with Bruce Diksas. We went for a reunion of our old army outfit. Now, Kansas City has a lot of things going for it. It's not Milwaukee or Indianapolis, for one thing. But in my mind Kansas City's greatest asset, it's municipal pride and joy, is Arthur Bryant's.

For years, Arthur Bryant's, along with the Rendezvous in Memphis and Lexington Barbecue in Lexington, North Carolina, has been ranked as one of the top rib joints in the country. There was no way on Earth we were going to Kansas City and not visit Bryant's. It would be like going back to your home town and not visiting Mom.

We were not disappointed. Bryant's served superb ribs, meaty, al dente and with a wonderful sauce. It was everything I'd hoped it would be. We each had a slab accompanied by French fries and a scoop of slaw. I doubt Bruce and I spoke a word while devouring those fantastic ribs. We just grunted, groaned, belched, slurped, licked our fingers and guzzled beer. When we finished, we leaned back in our chairs, patted our distended bellies and sighed with pleasure.

"Well, what do you think?" I asked Bruce.

"You know, Milo," he said, "I think those ribs would make it in Chicago."

Big Mike: A Stinging Refusal

I have more phobias than I have fingers and toes. My phobic history has even evolved. For instance, I was pretty much incapable of going over a bridge in a car as recently as 15 years ago. In 1992, I essentially had a nervous collapse at the foot of the Second Street Bridge over the wide Ohio River because of my unbearable panic. Now, though, that particular terror has gone into remission. I drive the mile-long span as easily as ordering a medium pizza with sausage and green peppers.

But I still have a healthy (well, unhealthy) collection of hysterias. Probably the biggest of all is bees, wasps and hornets. No, it's not a sane person's reasonable caution concerning the sting-y buggers. I have nightmares about them. I can't even look at pictures of them. Should a nature show on TV suddenly zoom in on a beehive, I dash out of the room. As for those whackjobs who like to wear bee beards, well, they ought to be horsewhipped.

It's so ridiculous that even typing the word bee makes me jittery. That, my friends, is a phobia.

My lineup of shrinks and skull jockeys has urged me to unearth the genesis of this terror for decades. The best I can come up with is an incident when I was about four years old. It was a sunny summer day. I was fooling around in the backyard without any shoes on.

My father was mowing the lawn and I was pretending to help him. Apparently, my seemingly futile attempts to drag the bushel basket over to him when it was time to empty the grass catcher were actually of service. Who knew?

Anyway, at one point I took a step and felt a sharp pain. I looked down and saw beneath my pink big toe the mad, buzzing, wing-flapping bee who'd just planted his shiv in me. I shrieked louder than Janet Leigh in her Bates Motel room shower and ran inside. Dad either couldn't hear me or - more likely - chose not to. He didn't possess an unending reservoir of empathy for the anguish of four-year-olds.

Ma grabbed me and hustled me into the bathroom where she applied a variety of palliatives to my throbbing toe. She yanked the stinger out with a tweezers, washed my foot with soap and hot water, dabbed mercurochrome on the wound and, for all I know, sprinkled garlic powder on it. At some point during these ministrations, Dad must have called for his bushel basket and found me missing. He was hot.

Dad marched into the house and called my name in that loud, deep, father-voice that's meant to petrify anyone within earshot. I couldn't answer because I was still sobbing. He called my name again and the second ensuing silence enraged him. He stomped into the dining room, off of which was the bathroom, and found Ma operating on my foot. "I'll be goddamned!" he hollered. "When I call you, you answer!"

Ma hollered back: "For chrissakes, Joe! he was stung by a bee!"

What followed was one of their classic donnybrooks. My parents fought exactly as George Costanza's parents would on TV some three decades later. Every time I see Frank and Estelle screeching at each other on "Seinfeld" reruns, I alternate between convulsive laughter and painful grimaces. It's as though I'm watching my family's home movies.

At that age, such brawls scared the bejesus out of me. Ma and Dad would take positions at either end of the house and launch verbal salvoes at each other for what seemed hours. They swore, they called each other names, they goddamned each other and themselves countless times, their faces turned beet red and there was fire in their eyes. Normally, I'd hide in my room until they'd shouted themselves out.

I did so on this particular day, all the while telling myself it was my stupid fault for getting stung by a bee. As usual, after such open hostilities had ceased, my parents would then engage in a Cold War, refusing to speak to each other for days - even weeks - on end. I was, I told myself, a jerk for causing another such stretch of bad blood.

Cut to Friday afternoon. The Loved One announced that she'd discovered a hornets nest under the eave of our house. My blood turned cold. I didn't even respond, thinking that if I ignored her, the nest and her forthcoming suggestion that I do something about it would simply go away. Mirabile dictu, she didn't breathe another word about it for the rest of the day. Almost.

That night, about 11:00pm, I was sitting in my boxers and flip-flops at the dining room table, reading celebrity gossip on dlisted online and feeling my eyelids getting heavier by the minute. That's when The Loved One, who'd been snoring on the sofa, began to stir. I heard her pad around the kitchen, pouring herself a glass of milk and sneaking a piece of chocolate cake. She joined me in the dining room.

"Mike," she asked, "would you help me do something?"

"Certainly, my precious angel, light of my life and partner 'till death. What is it?"

"Help me take down the hornets nest. It's the perfect time; they're dormant for the night. It'll be easy."

My eyes, half-lidded 15 seconds earlier, now were saucer wide. My legs turned to jelly. I responded monosyllabically:

"No."

"But Mike, we have to do it!"

"No."

"I need your help!"

"No."

"You're so selfish," she snapped. With that, she stomped out of the room. She refused to speak to me at the beginning of the next day. She eventually warmed back up by noon. Thankfully, she hasn't brought up the hornets nest again.

For my part, I was prepared to fight a Cold War for days - even weeks - on end.

Benny Jay: Memorial Day

The strongest memory I have of Donna Reed is as Jimmy Stewart's wife -- Mary Bailey -- in "It's a Wonderful Life."

I've seen that movie a hundred times -- watched it nearly every Christmas for as long as I can remember. I love that scene where Jimmy Stewart and Donna Reed -- young and in love -- are walking home at night from the dance. He promises to give her anything she wants in life. Just say the word and he's gonna "throw a lasso around the moon" and give it to her.

Yeah, yeah, I know -- I'm hopeless....

I was thinking of Donna Reed cause of a story in today's New York Times by Larry Rohter. Turns out that during World War II -- when Reed was still in her twenties -- hundreds of soldiers sent off to the battlefields of Asia, Africa and Europe saw her as a beloved reminder of the life, women and country they missed.

They'd write her letters -- hundreds of hundreds of letters -- "as if to a sister or the girl next door, confiding moments of homesickness, loneliness, privation and anxiety," Rohter writes.

"The boys in our outfit think you are a typical American girl, someone who we would like to come home to!!!!!" wrote Sergeant William F. Love. He wrote that letter on August 18, 1944 from the jungles of New Guinea.

Here's another letter quoted in the story: "Sometimes I wish I was back there with the old gang, able to go the usual rounds of the week. Occasionally, I will set on the fantail and look at the moon, wondering how many of our old friends were doing the same."

Then there's this 1943 letter from Lieutenant Norman P. Klinker: "One thing I promise you -- life on the battlefield is a wee bit different from the `movie version.' It is tough and bloody and dirty....quite an interesting and heartless life at one and the same time."

On January 6, 1944, Lieutenant Klinker was killed in action in Italy.

These letters would have been long forgotten. Except Donna Reed saved them -- kept them in boxes -- and her daughter discovered them. One thing led to the another and Rohter wrote it up in today's New York Times.

Here's the thing: Donna Reed "became an ardent antiwar campaigner" during the Vietnam War. She was co-chairwoman of "a 285,000-member group called Another Mother For Peace," and she volunteered for Senator Eugene McCarthy's 1968 anti-war presidential campaign, according to Rohter.

The story quotes her biographer, Jay Fultz, who writes: "She looked forward to a time when 19-year-old boys will no longer be taken away to fight in old men's battles."

Anyway, on Memorial Day, I'd like to offer a toast of gratitude to all the men and women who served -- my father; my uncles, Milo; my nephew Terry; and John Reeves, just to name a few.

And here's to all the other warriors -- Donna Reed among them -- who fought just as hard for peace.

Benny Jay: Now, That's How You Kill Somebody

I'm in Charleston, Illinois for the girls high school track championship. Me and the gang: Bobby Gee, Casey, the CPA, and Caldow. Super track freaks every one.

We broiled for hours in the sun, watching the qualifying rounds and now we're at a restaurant for dinner. I'm famished. Eating like a buyer -- like I ran the races....

Caldow is talking about a track meet that happened two zillion years ago.

Did I tell you I love talkers? Well, I do. I'm drawn to them like a moth to a flame. I'm thinking of getting them together for a party. You could charge people to attend, it be so entertaining. Just off the top of my head I'd have to invite Daddy Dee, Alonzo, Johnny (the black Forest Gump), and Lavinia's Uncle John. And Caldow -- gotta have Caldow. Of all the talkers, he may talk the most. I think the man was born talking....

Afterwards, we head over to Wal-Mart to by some stuff. I'm wandering around the big, old store with Bobby Gee and Casey.

Casey says: "I need a pillow...."

This being a Wal-Mart, there's about a million to pick from. She can't make up her mind.

Bobby Gee plucks one from the pile and says: "Get this one. It's only five bucks -- plus it's red...."

I don't have anything to buy. But I pass the school supply section and I see they have notebooks on sale. They're the little, itty-bitty flip-over kind that fit into your back pocket. It's like four for $1.29. I can't resist. I buy three packets. Then I see a pack of pencils. I don't need pencils. I don't even use pencils. But, there's twenty-five to a pack. Plus, they have all sorts of brightly colored erasers. Again, I can't resist. I take a pack.

We go to the self check out line. I'm not sure what to do. I'm standing at the machine, looking at it. Big Mike was right -- I have this phobia about machines. I have this fear that if I make the wrong move something terrible will happen. I make a mental note to myself: Gotta get some psychological assistance for this machine thing....

But Jamika, one of the girls on Bobby Gee's team, steps up to show me how to use the machine. She wipes the notebooks and pencils across the scanner. Pushes the right buttons. Inserts credit card. The whole thing. The girl's a freaking genius. Just call her Wilma Gates....

I'm so grateful I give her a pencil. Throw in an eraser too -- you know, as a bonus.

We're in the car, backing out of the parking space. Bobby Gee says: "Let me know if I hit anyone...."

"Just a small child," says Jamika.

I'm really impressed. First the machine. Now comedy. The girl's got jokes. Who knew?

I wind up with Caldow in Bobby Gee's dorm room -- yes, we're staying in a dormitory -- watching a movie on Bobby Gee's computer. It's the movie "Taken," starring Liam Neeson. Here's all you need to know about "Taken." It's really stupid. I mean, really, really, really, really stupid. Neeson plays this super-strong, super-smart ex-CIA agent whose 17-year-old daughter gets taken (hence the title) by a bunch of Albanian thugs who plan to sell her as a sex slave. I'm not making any of this up.

Did I tell you the movie's really stupid? Well, it is. But here's the thing. I get into it. I mean, way into it. I can't help myself. It moves really fast as Neeson goes after the bad guys to save his daughter. And here's the best part of all. I got Caldow doing the commentary. Everything that happens he's got something to say. Neeson shoots someone, Caldow says: "Those CIA guys are good shots. That's all they do -- practice shooting all day."

Neeson kills a guy with a karate chop, Caldow says: "Now, that's how you kill somebody. Crack. Split their neck. It's over...."

This bad guy drives a car into a bridge that knocks his head off his neck, and Caldow says: "You're dead. Next...."

Neeson kills a ton of bad guys while trying to save his daughter. Caldow's got something to say about each death. I never knew the guy knew so much about murder.

Plus, he's giving Neeson advice -- like the guy, you know, can hear him. Stuff like: "Look out." Or, "his gun needs a silencer. Use a silencer." Or, "duck." Stuff like that.

The climactic scene occurs on a boat that's running down the middle of the Seine. It's not really a boat so much as a super big yacht that's owned by this sheik who has a thing for virgins. So the movie boils down to this: Can Neeson save his daughter before the sheik deflowers her?

There's got to be -- oh, conservative guess -- fifteen bad guys protecting the sheik. Each one has at least two guns. Neeson doesn't even have a pistol. Yet he manages to mow them all down. He kills a guy with a karate chop, takes the dead guy's gun and shoots the other bad guys. You get the idea.

Eventually, it comes down to Neeson and the sheik, who has a knife to the throat of Neeson's daughter.

Bam, Neeson shoots him. The bullet whizzes past his daughter's head to splatter the sheik's brains. "I told you those CIA guys can shoot," exclaims Caldow. Like what we saw, you know, really happened.

The daughter hugs Neeson. But Caldow's one step ahead of us. "Look out," he says.

"What?" I ask.

"Who's driving the boat?"

"Huh?"

"They killed everyone. So who's driving the boat?"

"You're right," I say. "Why didn't I think of that?"

"Cause you're not Yoda," he says. "The all-powerful one...."

Apparently the movie maker felt no need to address the all-important question of who's driving the boat. Because the movie ends a few minutes later and they never tell us how they got off the boat.

"Neeson must have killed two dozen people," I say.

"Let's count `em," says Caldow. He starts tallying up the carnage, scene by scene. The guy's like a machine. He remembers murders from the movie that I had long forgotten. He's breaking them down by categories: decapitations, shootings, blows to the brain and so forth.

He loses count at twenty-something. But it's late. We're tired. We go to bed.

The next morning at breakfast, we're feeling refreshed. Caldow and I pick up where we left off, trying to count up exactly how many bad guys Neeson killed.....

Big Mike: I Rebel Against Guy Nation

I've never been terribly comfortable being a guy. It's not that I've ever thought about changing my sex. I'd be equally - if not, more - uncomfortable being a woman, what with how they've been treated by the guys of this world. So don't worry, this isn't a confessional about my hitherto undisclosed desire to become the next RuPaul (RuBig Mike?)

It's just that guys are jerks. And the more guys who gather in a room, the more the jerk factor shoots upward. In fact, with the addition of each single guy, the jerkiness factor increases exponentially.

Want proof? Go to a bachelor party. Walk into a cop bar. Peek into a men's locker room. Hell, the jerkiest religions in the world are those that relegate woman to the status of quadrupeds. Ever hear of a Catholic priest named Mary (outside of Halsted Street, that is)? Orthodox Jews say a prayer every morning thanking god that they weren't born women. And, of course, in the strict Islamic world, women would be taking a giant step up to achieve the status of sheep.

Guy-ness even pervades art. I usually keep my utter distaste for hip-hop and rap music quiet. To be honest, I don't want to open myself up to the charge that I'm a bitter old prick who hates anything the kids are listening to nowadays. While it's true I am a bitter old prick, I love a lot of new music. The Decemberists. Feist. My Morning Jacket. Radiohead. The list goes on. But I loathe hip-hop and rap because it's so guy. Hip-hop guys are always getting laid, drinking expensive Champagne, wearing precious metals, rolling in dough and calling every female on the planet up to and including flowering plants that contain the ovule-bearing structure, the pistil, bitches. Hip-hop and rap are way too guy.

I found myself surrounded by guys at Dick's Pizza the other night. One of those things. For some unknown reason, there wasn't a single woman in the house. There were the two bartenders, Hank and Rock-star Zach. There were Old Gus, Dinesh, All-American Allen, a couple of strangers and your faithful reporter. It was a sausage fest.

Old Gus is the epitome of senior guy-ness. He drives an aircraft carrier-sized Buick. He carries a came with an ornate gold knob. He was married a long, long time ago but he left his wife after a month and has remained a happily dispeptic bachelor ever since.

Dinesh comes from India. Once I asked him how the average Indian views Pakistanis. Normally a reserved man, Dinesh became an orator. He launched into a half-hour examination of the many socio-political, cultural and religious issues that divide the two nations. But as he went on, his anger mounted. He finally concluded with the statement, "D'ey are no goot! D'ey are pieces of sheet!" He couldn't resist, in other words, being a guy.

All-American Allen, whom I've introduced previously in this space, is a staunch Republican. You know, the party of white guys.

Bartenders Hank and Rock-star Zach are reasonably decent fellows although Zach plays lead guitar for a local band that gets a lot of radio airplay around these parts. Ergo, guy.

On the evening in question, the jowly, ever-outraged face of Lou Dobbs loomed above us on the three giant flat screens over the bar. Lou Dobbs is a king among guys. As if there weren't enough to send Dobbs's blood pressure skyrocketing, he'd found a video of an unfortunate incident on some big city bus. As captured on the bus's security cameras, a young man walked on, paid his fare, took two steps toward the handicapped seats and suddenly, without provocation, began whacking the shit out of some poor blind woman. Oh, the steam was pouring out of Dobbs's ears.

The gang of guys at Dick's was transfixed. We watched as several fellow riders tackled the assailant and threw him off the bus. Dobbs called them heroes. But my barmates weren't in a mood to laud heroes.

"They shoulda held him and called the cops," Rock-star Zach announced. "I hope they put him in jail and show that video to all the other guys in jail every morning. Then he'd get what's coming to him!"

"They shoulda beat him bloody!" All-American Allen proclaimed.

"I know what I would have done to him," Old Gus said in a loud voice, "I would have stuck my cane up his ass right then and there!"

"D'at guy ees a piece of sheet," Dinesh said in a louder voice. "D'ey should shoot him in d'e forehead!"

There followed a three-minute orgy of can-you-top-this with the two strangers joining in. I listened patiently until the orgy died down a bit, then spoke.

"Has it occurred to anyone that maybe, just maybe, the guy's mentally ill?"

The bar became silent. Either the guys were wowed by my intellect and sense of compassion or they'd exhausted all their rage. Aw, I'll stop kidding myself. They'd spewed all the bile they could muster. They were spent.

Hank sidled near me just as a different video of some thugs pummeling an old man in a playground flashed on the screens. "What's wrong with people?" Hank asked.

I pondered for a moment. "People?" I responded. "Or guys?"

Randolph Street: Highway 61 Visited

This is a personal look at mid-America from north to south that I shot between 1976 and 1985. At the times I shot these pix, the approximately 1700 miles of US Highway 61 roughly followed the Mississippi River from New Orleans to Minneapolis, then jutted northeast to Duluth and along the western edge of Lake Superior to Thunder Bay, Ontario.

The work documents the people, towns and fields along...

continued below pix

Greyhound bus at the Missouri/Arkansas border.

Nybo's bar & cafe, Minnesota.

Table, Mississippi.

TV, Arkansas.

Umbrella, Keokuk, Iowa.

Thunder Bay, Ontario, Canada.

 continued from above pix

... the way in more of a personal sense than a journalistic one.

This is the first installment - part two will run next Friday. There's a lot to look at. - JR

Visit The Third City every day. Randolph Street, camera candy from photojournalist Jon Randolph, runs every Friday. - The Eds.

Benny Jay: Hacking Like A Mug

Got a cold. Came last week. Thought it would go away. But it only got worse. Burrowed in my chest. Now it sounds like it's here to stay. Fuck....

Got me hacking like a mug. Sounds like I've been smoking two packs a day for the last twenty years. I should be up and at `em, working the phones. But all I wanna do is sleep....

I lie in bed. Tell myself -- this will only take five minutes. Just need a little rest....

Thirty minutes later I wake up and look around. Where the hell am I? In bed. Ugh. Start coughing. That leads to hacking. My stomach muscles ache. I feel sorry for myself.

I call my wife at work. "Do you have the swine flu?" she asks.

The swine flu! Damn. I hadn't thought of that.

"Take your temperature," she says.

I find the thermometer buried behind the Band-aids in the bathroom cabinet. I shove it in my mouth: 98.3. I feel better. Then I think: What if I didn't take it right? What if my mouth was open too much? I have this notion that somehow or other keeping my mouth open lowers the temperature. I take it again. And again. I become obsessive about my temperature. It's like the Bulls versus Boston one more time. I'm losing my freaking mind....

I go back to bed and look up at the fan. I turn to my right. There's a Reader's Digest on the night stand. Reader's Digest? How did that get here? I haven't seen a Reader's Digest in years.

I wind up reading an article called, "America's Funniest Jokes." Sid Caesar and seven other comics are sitting around a table in the back room of a deli, swapping jokes. Here's the first joke: "A man, shocked by how his buddy is dressed, asks him, `how long have you been wearing that bra?' The friend replies, `Ever since my wife found it in the glove compartment.'"

It must be the illness. But I find that hilarious. I can't stop laughing. I laugh so hard I start to hack. Then cough. Uncontrollably. Finally, I settle down. I'm lying on the bed. The dog's looking at me.

I start calling friends: Milo, Big Mike, Norm, Daddy Dee. I gotta talk to someone. Let the world know I'm still alive. They're all healthy. Busy. Doing shit. Big Mike's making bread, for Christ sakes. I'm not kidding. He's rolling out the freaking dough himself. Jesus. The whole world's doing stuff and I'm lying in bed.

I pick up Reader's Digest -- need another joke. I read about the priest, the minister and the rabbi who want to see who's best at their job. So they go into the woods, find some bears and attempt to convert them. The priest's so good he gets his bear to its first communion. The minister talks his bear into getting baptized. "They both look down at the rabbi, who is lying on gurney in a body cast. `Looking back,' he says. `Maybe I shouldn't have started with the circumcision.'"

I think that's hilarious. The rabbi cut the bear's dick -- get it? I'm roaring. Then I'm hacking and coughing. Aw, hell....

I roll on my back. I drift off. I hear a phone ringing. It's way off in the distance. I'll answer it later. When I get better....

Big Mike: Brainy Brian Learns A Lesson

A couple of guys I know are trying to start their own web site. One of them - let's call him Barney Kay - is an admitted dope when it comes to technology, the Internet, electronics, machinery and, for that matter, chewing his food. He wears his ignorance as a badge of honor. He leans on friends and acquaintances to help him through crises like computer crashes and those rare occasions when he gets a bit of celery stuck between his teeth. He has lent one ear each to his friend the track coach and his college-student daughter, who guide him through modern life's puzzles. Barney sings their praises as if they are the second coming of the Steves, Wozniak and Jobs.

The other fellow - call him Brainy Brian - tells his pal Barney that he knows this computer business like the back of his hand, that the two of them have no need for such self-proclaimed experts as track coaches and college-student daughters. He holds Barney Kay's hand through countless phone conversations wherein the two try to navigate the treacherous waters of the cyberworld.

Barney Kay and Brainy Brian made the decision to go online with their rants and flights of literary fancy early last fall. First, they honed their voices on a free blog site. Once they became good at it, they told each other, they'd create their own free-standing site. By Christmas, they knew they were ready to strike out on their own. They'd never missed a day of posting and kept each other entertained throughout.

As any schoolchild knows, it takes the click of a Buy This Package Now! button to start a web site. But Brainy Brian has convinced Barney Kay that they should study web hosts, web builders and the like with all the zeal of Marie and Pierre Curie trying to decipher the mysteries of radium.

"We must do this the right way," Brainy Brian proclaims.

"Yeah sure, but how do we know what's the right way?" responds Barney Kay.

"Don't worry," Brainy Brian says, giggling at his dear friend's timidity. "Leave it to me. I'll get you all the information you need so we can make a rational, considered decision."

At which point, Barney Kay shrugs and says, "Well, you know me. I'm a dope when it comes to technology, the Internet, et cetera. In fact, I'm proud of my ignorance!"

"Hah," says Brainy Brian. "You're lucky you have me as a partner. My knowledge of the topic is second only to that Gates guy, and he only knows about a few more details that I consider extraneous."

The preceding conversation has taken place, in one form or another, at least a dozen times since early last fall. Since then, Brainy Brian has immersed himself in the world of web sites. He's even written up a glossary for Barney Kay so the two can chatter in geek language.

Here's an example of one such conversation:

Brainy Brian: "Let's look for a company that offers 10 or 15 gigabytes of disk space and guarantees 99.9 percent uptime."

Barney Kay: "What's disk space?"

"Jesus Christ! I sent you the glossary. Didn't you read it?"

"Yeah, I read it, but I don't remember disk space."

Brainy Brian again explains disk space.

"Okay, got it," says Barney Kay. "Now, what's uptime?"

"Aaaaarrrggghhh!"

So, Brainy Brian returns to his lonely task of finding the perfect web host for the pair's new web site. He reads countless web host reviews. He thumbs through Wired and PCWorld at the Barnes & Noble magazine rack. He visits every conceivable web host's site, comparing prices, features and options.

Brainy Brian has contemplated MySQL, POP3/IMAP/STMP, Box Trappers, Coppermines, PHP-Nukes, Mambo and Joomia, Zen Carts, Apache Watchdogs, Pythons, PERL 5, CGI-BIN, AWStats, SSI, SSH, and ASP.NET AJAX.

Brainy Brian has also mulled the attributes of Red Hat ES Linux 4 OS, RAIF functionality, the EXTJS control panel and Putty. When he encountered this last feature, Brainy Brian sat back in his chair and let out a mighty sigh. He shook the cobwebs out of his head and yelled:

"WHAT IN GOD'S HOLY FUCKING NAME ARE THESE PEOPLE TALKING ABOUT!"

As the cats ran for cover, Brainy Brian banged his head against the dining room wall. Then he went into the den and banged his head against three of the walls in that room. Finally, he collapsed into his bed and cried himself to sleep.

If any of you can guess who these two fellows are, please don't tell Barney Kay what Brainy Brian has been going through. See, Brainy Brian has sent Barney Kay a monograph explaining precisely why they should choose a certain company to be their web host. It's chock full of all the aforementioned arcana. When Barney Kay reads it, he'll think that Brainy Brian has made a momentous choice based on all the available information at hand. It is the model of a rational, considered decision. Now, Barney Kay and Brainy Brian's web site can be up within days.

Try as he might, though, Brainy Brian has no more familiarity with MySQL than he does with the inner workings of the Illuminati. He made his web host choice based on Barney Kay's offhand mention that that is the company his track coach friend uses for his successful web site. Brainy Brian secretly hopes Barney Kay's college-student daughter approves.

Letter From Milo: Keeping Secrets Isn't Healthy

A long time ago I discovered that a married man has to keep some things to himself. For example, I never tell my wife about my affairs, gambling debts, opium habit, prison record, or the child support payments I've been making for the past 30 years. Its not that she wouldn't be totally supportive, you understand, its simply a matter of not wanting to worry her needlessly.

For the last six weeks, however, I've been keeping a secret from her and it's been eating away at me.

If you recall, I recently enrolled in the VA hospital health care system. One of the first things they wanted me to do was take a physical. I thought it was a good idea. I haven't had a physical in years, which is stupid, considering my somewhat advanced age.

They put me through a battery of tests - blood, x-rays - the usual shit. The doctor told me that I seemed to be in pretty good shape, considering that I'm a smoker, drinker and eater of red meat. He'd have to wait until the test results came back, however, before he was prepared to give me a clean bill of health. I made an appointment to see him again the following week.

When I met with the doctor again, he had a grim look on his face. He had one of my x-rays on his desk. He held it up, pointed to it and said, "It looks like you've got an enlarged heart."

I think I can speak for most people when I say that the last things you want to hear from your doctor are the words cancer and anything having to do with the heart.

"What's that supposed to mean?" I asked, nervously.

"I can't tell until we do a couple of more tests. But if it's an enlarged heart it's not good."

We made an appointment for six weeks later for more extensive testing.

When I left the VA hospital, I decided not to tell my wife about my possible enlarged heart. She's a worrier and right now there's a lot of stress in our lives. I didn't want to add another layer on the shitcake. Besides, I wouldn't know for sure whether I did, indeed, have a heart problem for another six weeks. I decided that the only person that should be worried during that time period was me.

It was a long six weeks. I tried to carry on normally, but my family sensed something was amiss. One day my wife said, "The girls think there's something wrong with you."

"Why would they say that?"

"Because you're acting weird."

"Shit, honey, I'm a weird guy."

"Yeah, but you're acting weirder than usual."

"Heh, heh, I'll have a talk with them later."

I'll admit I was nervous when I went back to the VA hospital for the additional testing. I've always taken my health for granted. I come from hearty peasant stock. I figured I was like Keith Richards, someone who defied the laws of nature. But maybe I was wrong. Maybe my time was up. Maybe I had just made a down payment on 40 acres. Maybe I was on my way to Graceland and didn't even know it. All sorts of odd thoughts went through my mind, the majority of them gloomy.

I went through a whole series of tests. One of them was, I think, called an echocardiogram. It involved me lying flat on some sort of conveyor belt while I was slowly fed through a contraption that looked like an iron lung on steriods. All in all, I spent about two hours at the hospital, being poked, prodded, bled, x-rayed and magnetically imaged.

"I'll let you know the results as soon as they come in," the doctor told me.

The doctor called the next morning. "I've got good news for you," he said. "You don't have an enlarged heart. You have an enlarged artery and that's not really anything to worry about."

As soon as I got off the phone, I told my wife the whole story. She looked at me in disbelief.

"You ASSHOLE! Why didn't you tell me right away?"

"I didn't want you to worry. Besides, I wanted to know for sure if there was a problem."

"So, that why you've been acting like an idiot for the last few weeks."

"I thought I was acting normal."

"No you weren't. You've been moping around like a 10-year-old. Plus you've been drinking way too much."

"Honey I was a little out of sorts. A little wine helped me sleep better."

"No it didn't. The wine just made you drunk."

"Well, yes, that too."

"Promise me you'll never keep secrets like that from me again."

"Sure thing, honey. Whatever you say."

"Liar."

Milo Samardzija's great American novel, "Schoolboy," is on sale now. If you haven't bought a copy yet you are a cheap illiterate. Is that how you want people to think of you? - The Eds.

Benny Jay: Who Raises Gorillas?

I'm sitting at a table on the corner outside Starbuck's -- my dog at my feet -- drinking my coffee and reading my book, a Graham Greene novel about an English double-agent.

I'm enjoying the moment. The sky's blue -- the day warm, but not hot. The plots got me hooked. I'm eagerly turning the pages -- something big and bad's about to pop.

My cell phone rings. It's my mother.

"Did you see the story about the lady who raises gorillas?" she asks.

"No...."

"She raises gorillas in her front yard. Who raises gorillas?"

"I didn't see it...."

"It's in the paper...."

"I haven't seen the paper yet?"

"You haven't read the paper? It's almost noon and you haven't read the paper -- did you just get up?"

"I've been reading a book...."

"I'm about to eat lunch and you haven't read the paper...."

I sip my coffee. This could be awhile.

"She went to your college...."

"Who?"

"The lady who raises the gorillas...."

"Oh...."

"It says she's two years older than you, so you would have been there where she was there. Did you know her?"

"What's her name?"

"I can't remember...."

"How do I know if I know her if I don't know her name?"

"Well, she went to your college...."

Pause. I'm not sure what I can say.

The phone beeps. "I got another call coming in -- hold on." I put her on hold to take a call from Merlin, the computer wizard, who tells me he's coming by to fix my computer. I come back to my mother and I catch her mid-sentence. I don't think she realizes I put her on hold.

"She keeps the gorillas in her front yard. Can you imagine liking gorillas so much you raise them?"

"No...."

"She said she used to go to Milwaukee and visit the zoo. Ever go to Milwaukee?"

"Yes...."

"I can't imagine anything worth seeing in Milwaukee...."

I fight off the urge to defend Milwaukee. My phone beeps. "Hold on." I put her on hold to take a call from my oldest daughter who tells me she and my wife will be home soon.

I come back to my mother who, again, not aware that she was on hold, has moved on to another subject -- the Preakness horse race.

"The filly won...."

"Yes, Rachel Alexandra...."

"A filly is a girl horse...."

"I know...."

"A gelding is a horse that's fixed...."

"Right...."

"A colt is a male horse -- did you know that?"

"Yes...."

"You didn't know that...."

"I did know that...."

"I'm just tweaking you...."

A lady walks by with a dachshund. My dog, who had been resting, rushes out from under the table. My coffee spills. No more left. I think about buying a new one. But, nah, Merlin's on his way. Time to get home.

I gather my stuff and cross the street. Got the book and the leash in one hand and the cell phone in the other. My mother's telling me about her friend's illness. Guess I'll read my book later....

Big Mike: A Tale Of Eternal Love

Sometimes I think my history of love and marriage is downright weird. Thankfully, I keep my ears open so I can hear other people's tales and I don't feel so odd. I heard one from a woman at Dick's Pizza last week.

Let's call her Tammy. She's not exactly a regular but everyone knows her and the bartenders know what she likes to drink. She's short with flashing blue eyes and is smartly dressed like, oh, a real estate agent. In fact, she's in the house-trading racket, working for a mortgage company.

It was a perfect May evening. With the sun setting gold beyond Goose Creek Road, I sat out in the patio with Tammy, Mayor Janey and her husband Tim, and Old Gus. As Tim and Old Gus studied their respective cocktails intently, Tammy and Mayor Janey regaled me with tales of Tammy's home life. Mayor Janey and Tammy are fast friends. Mayor Janey is the garbage commissioner of the town of Goose Creek. She runs for the post every year and wins in a landslide each time. One year, her vote total almost hit a hundred. I like to call her Mayor. She gets a kick out of it.

Tammy held a cell phone and peered at the screen. She told us she'd grounded one of her two teenaged daughters for some hijinks at a party over the weekend. She'd also seized the teen's cell phone, a torture on a par with waterboarding. Now she was monitoring the messages that came in one after another.

"Oh," Tammy said, "look at this! 'Big party Friday night. Maybe. If you're not there, you're square - ha ha ha!'"

"'Maybe' huh?" I said. "Sounds like code for, 'As long as my parents aren't around.'"

"Right. 'Maybe' is capitalized," Tammy said. "Well, looks like she's gonna be square."

The conversation got around to marriage. I told the group that I make a stellar ex-husband. Tammy raised her hand for a high five. "Oh yeah! Same here!" she crowed.

Tammy has a boyfriend now. She has no plans to wed. "He has his job and his kids, I have my job and my kids. We see each other when we can. Listen," Tammy confided, "it's better this way. If we had gotten married, we'd have been separated and divorced already."

With that, she launched into the tale of her first and only marriage. "He's really lucky he has me as an ex-wife," she said. "Any other woman would have killed him."

Tammy and her husband separated about ten years ago. For the first few months of the separation, he remained in the home with her for the sake of the kids and because, apparently, that perfect job seemed to elude him.

"Then, about six months later," Tammy recounted, "I found out he was having an affair with the woman who lived two doors down. It was funny because she'd been our babysitter. And my best friend!" All of us sitting around the table dutifully clucked our tongues.

"Oh, was I pissed! I told him to get out. Two days later, I see the woman's husband pulling out of the driveway to go to work. I chased him down. He stopped, rolled down the window, I leaned in and said, 'Did you know your wife and my ex-husband are fucking?'

"Of course, he didn't believe me at first because his wife was already poisoning his mind against me, saying things like I was delusional. But he found more evidence over the next couple of days and he couldn't deny it anymore. He moved out a week later. My ex-husband moved right in - shoom!"

Tammy followed this with a laundry list of her ex-husband's failings, a bill of particulars that would make Bernie Madoff blush. He lost money, he wasted money, he gambled money away, and he rarely, if ever, made money. He was, said Tammy, the classic Peter Pan. She felt as though she'd been raising three kids rather than two. He lied, he philandered and he left his underwear and socks on the floor.

"Still, I treated him with respect even after we split up," Tammy said. "It's for the kids. But it's really about me: I take the high road. I never say anything bad about him. If he had another ex-wife, she'd be talking about him all over town! Not me. I get along great with him."

Tammy then iterated that she never speaks ill of the man in front of the kids. Never has, never will. "But, man, the things I could tell them. Him and that woman."

Mayor Janey laughed. "Tell them about the time in the car," she said.

"Oh, yeah! Janey and me are in the car going out to dinner. The kids are in the back seat. I'm telling Janey about this woman, what a witch she is and how she deserves my ex-husband. All of a sudden, we get into an accident. The woman put a hex on me - she knew I was talking about them!"

Tammy took a sip out of her can of Coors Light and dragged on her Salem. "I took the high road. I had to work three jobs as a single mother just to put food on the table for my girls. I was only 30 years old. I don't know how or why I did it but I chose to be the better person. I took the high road.

"The only thing I regret is that he's such a no-good asshole. His daughters can't even respect him. They don't respect him. He doesn't give them any reason to respect him. He ought to grow up. But I've never said anything bad about him. I took the high road."

Tammy then told us that a couple of years after the divorce, her ex-husband and ex-best friend now were both unemployed and unable to keep up with the mortgage payments on the house two doors down. "As soon as I saw the bank's for sale sign on the front lawn, I called my mortgage company and bought the house. I waved bye-bye to them the day they moved out.

"She got my ex-husband and I got the house. I got the best of that deal."

It was getting late. Tammy stubbed out her last cigarette and drained her final can of Coors Light. She stood up. "That's my story," she said, exhaling menthol smoke. "I have to go now. But really, don't get me wrong - I love my ex-husband. I'm just not in love with him. But I'll love him till the day I die."

Benny Jay: Here Come The Hawks

At the bowling alley, they got the Blackhawks game on TV -- all five of them, to be exact. It's game six of the playoff series against Vancouver. If the Hawks win, they move on to the next round.

I couldn't care less. I wouldn't even be paying attention except there's a dozen or so Hawks fans hanging around the bar, making so much noise.

I stand between Bob and Pat -- two stone-cold, crazy Hawks fans. They're standing still as statues. Eyes stuck on the tube. I'm not even sure they're breathing.

I turn to Norm. "They never put the Bulls on all the TVs," I say.

"Don't hate," he says.

"I'm just saying...."

"No, you're hating...."

I watch the Hawks skate round and round and round. Truth is, Norm's right. I am hating. I know I should be happy that they're doing so well after so many dismal seasons. But, hell, I don't care about the Blackhawks. Don't know any of their players. Can't remember the name of their coach. And my not caring has turned to hate cause I'm jealous. Every one's paying attention to the Hawks and every one's forgotten about the Bulls. I mean, this is even weirder than my normal weirdness, which is pretty weird.

"I used to like the Hawks," I tell Norm.

"Yeah...."

To prove it, I sing a snatch of their ancient fight song: "Here come the Hawks, the fighting Black Hawks/take the attack and we'll back you Black Hawks...."

Norm's laughing.

"But then they dumped Bobby Hull," I say.

"That was forty years ago, dawg...."

"Yeah, but he was the Golden Jet, man -- they dumped the Golden Jet...."

"You gotta get over that shit, dawg...."

"I hope they lose...."

"Aw, that's terrible, Benny. How can you say that, dawg? That don't make no fuckin' sense. They Chicago, Benny. As long as they from the Chi, you got to be goin' for them...."

"I can't...."

"Try...."

"Okay, man -- for you...."

So I try. I really do. I ask Bob for the name of the guy who scored a goal and he says that it's Pat Kane. I ask him who's the goaltender and he tells me -- something. I don't know. The name's a jumble of vowels. When the Hawks tie the game at five, I cheer. But it's an empty cheer. I just don't care.

I'm starting to worry about Pat. He looks pale. I'm watching him watching the Hawks and I'm thinking -- so this is what I must look like when I'm watching the Bulls on TV. All hunched over, a nervous wreck. Pat's a grown man, too -- past fifty. He's wearing a team jersey with Pat Kane's name an number on the back. Man, he's got it bad -- maybe even worse than me. At least I never wear a Derrick Rose team jersey.

Bored with the game, I go to the bar and order a coke. I page through the Sun-Times that's lying on the counter. I'm looking for a story about the Bulls -- any story will do. Turn page after page. Nothing. Nothing but Hawks this and Hawks that. I don't want to hate, but....

Roar! I look up to see the Hawks have scored. They're up six to five. Folks at the bar are cheering. Except for Pat. He looks even worse than before. Lips clenched. Hands tight. Whiter than white. I recognize the symptoms. I know what he's thinking -- he's dreading the worst. He's thinking if he cheers too soon -- if he counts those proverbial chickens before they proverbially hatch -- he'll blow it for his boys. As though anything he does can ever impact the game. I can related. If it were the Bulls, I'd be thinking the same stupid thing....

"Maybe you should take a walk," I suggest to him.

"Fuck," he says.

Clearly, he's in no mood for conversation. "They're gonna win," I tell him.

"Shut the fuck up -- don't jinx `em...."

"What do you mean jinx them? I got nothing to do with them. They're up one and they're playing at home. They have the home-court advantage...."

"Ice," says Bob.

"Huh?" I ask.

"Home ice advantage -- it's hockey, not basketball, dickwad...."

"Ice, court -- whatever...."

I walk to the jukebox. The younger guys have taken it over, playing shitty `80s rock. Is it just me or did the `80s suck when it came to rock `n roll?

Another roar. Hawks score -- up two. Vancouver looks devastated.

"It's over," I tell Pat.

"Not yet," he insists.

The game ends. The bar erupts. Bob and Pat are pounding each other on the back and talking about the next big series.

Aw, hell, it looks like it's gonna be at least another two weeks of this crap. If I were a drinking man, I'd have to have another....