What happens is . . . you go from small town to small town, a few stops, a few thoughts of a stop, and then not a stop. Sometimes you’ll get someplace big. Davenport. Rockford. Chicago. And then there’s a lot of hustle and bustle and everybody going crazy trying to get their stuff, check the seats, check the overhead, check under the seats, maybe even the aisle. They are checking, checking, checking. But it’s just a bunch of garbage, really. There’s nothing here you actually need. Maybe your driver’s license and a few bucks. But that sweatshirt, and that Us magazine, and those Cheetos? You don’t need them. You think you do, but really nobody does. Just leave them.
By the time the train pulls into Chicago, the café car bartender has made his intentions clear. He would like to have lunch. In Chicago. With me. He said something about deep-dish pizza but I’m pretty sure he has something else in mind. Another kind of dish.
I’m way too young for him, but that never seems to stop them. When your boobs decide to make their appearance, all of a sudden every Tom, Dick, and Cletus starts giving you the hungry eye, and next thing you know you have to start making up excuses so some deranged licky-mouth doesn’t try to shove you into the back and make a dishonest woman of you.
PS: I’m sixteen. Nobody with a full-time job and the beginnings of crow’s feet should be asking me out for deep-dish pizza.
Of course, it’s never Gabriel, it’s never that cute boy Alex from the grocery store checkout who is interested. Maybe they don’t like deep-dish pizza. Or maybe they don’t like me.
But, the thing is . . . I have a little problem. Call it maybe a personal fault.
Curiosity.
I know, I know, curiosity killed the cat. Everybody says that. I can’t believe you and your lack of originality.
But it’s the next part of the phrase that’s the kicker. Do you know it? It’s: “Satisfaction brought him back.”
I don’t know why this cat is a male. Everybody knows cats are girls. From now on I am officially changing the way I say this. Here goes:
“Curiosity killed the cat. Satisfaction brought her back.”
There. Try that on for size.
When I was little my curiosity made the day-care teacher think I had been dropped on my head. I hadn’t been dropped on my head, my dad assured her. But she couldn’t understand how I could just sit across the playground from the jungle gym, staring out at the street the whole time. But, you see, there was a lot of action. The comings and goings of the big people. One time there was even a mom fight in front of the Piggly Wiggly. Involving an Easter basket. Very heated.
But now, right now, my curiosity problem is leading me through the vast marble splendor of Chicago’s Union Station. There’s vaulted ceilings and pillars everywhere, eggshell-colored but not dark enough to be beige. This is the kind of place you imagine Al Capone shooting up. Or someone from The Bourne Identity running through and someone chasing them and everybody freaking out. Although in real life no one would freak out. They’d probably just keep staring at their phones. Tweeting about “cray-cray chase in st8ion.”
Movie writers are gonna have a hard time with this pretty soon.
I mean, what’s a chase scene if everybody just keeps updating their status? Or recording it on their phone? Or tweeting it? Honestly, I figure we have about twenty years left as a species. Twenty years until the oceans rise enough to kill everybody and we all just stand there recording it as it washes us away.
You watch. On your iPhone.
So this guy is meeting me at a place called Fat Sal’s Deep-Dish. Très romantique.
He kind of looks like if you crossed Steve Buscemi with Brad Pitt. I know, weird. But what I’m trying to say is . . . he’s got bug eyes and he looks supertired but then has blond hair and bright-blue eyes. So he’s kind of like ugly-cute, in a way.
He’s trying to pretend to care about my well-being.
“Now, your train leaves in two hours, so be sure to get back to the platform by three fifteen.”
And that’s true. My train does leave in two hours. But if this guy really cared about my well-being he would not have invited me to Fat Sal’s Deep-Dish, that’s for sure. He would have invited me to stay on the train and given me a magazine. Maybe even a lollipop.
“You’re gonna love this pizza! Ever had Chicago deep-dish?”
He’s very enthusiastic.
“No, sorry.”
I don’t know why I should be sorry I’ve never had this stuff that everybody brags about. It’s like people from Seattle talking about coffee. Like they invented it. Like it’s the apex of human evolution. Enough, already, Seattle. It’s a beverage. Step off.
I don’t know, either, why I’m here other than the aforementioned combination of boredom and curiosity that have previously been my downfall and the intense lack of fucks I have left to give.
Also, it helps that I won’t be alive soon.
Might as well live it up! Deep-dish pizza for everyone!
Although now it occurs to me this guy might actually be dangerous. Maybe this wasn’t such a good, devil-may-care idea, anyway. Maybe this guy is wanted for murder, serial murder, and this is his shtick. The hook: deep-dish pizza.
Cold feet, commence. “You know, I really should be getting back. I don’t wanna miss my train.”
“You have two hours—” he argues.
“Yeah, but, I tend to space out sometimes. Trust me. I’ve bumped into lampposts before.”
“Is that right?”
He leans in now, whispers.
“So . . . you smoke pot?”
Oh, here we go. This is what they do on TV, right? Get the drugs involved, or the booze. Try to get a girl a little off-balance so she’ll make a bad decision. My dad warned me about this rap. Thank fucking God.
“Yeah, no. I’m Catholic.”
Like that has anything to do with anything. Yes sir, I’m the only Catholic to ever even think of sinning because the Pope told us no! We are all clean as the driven snow!
“Oh.”
“Also, I’m sixteen.”
His eyes widen. Then he gets this sad-puppy look. “Sixteen? Are you sure you’re not . . . eighteen?”
I mean. Gross.
“Look, I better go.”
“Aw, c’mon . . . You haven’t even tried it yet!”
“Um, no.”
“Okay, fine.”
Now he just looks pissed. Guys always turn real fast, I’ve noticed, once they see they don’t have a shot. It’s like the curtain flies up and you realize right away what a shit bag you’ve been talking to the whole time.
“Well, nice meeting you. Sorry you didn’t get to strangle me or whatever.”
He looks up, annoyed.
“Don’t flatter yourself. You’re not even that good-looking.”
“If you’re saying I’m not good-looking enough to strangle, then I will take that as a compliment, thank you very much.”
See what I mean? Two minutes ago this guy was national treasure Tom Hanks. Now?
Never trust a man who cares so much about deep-dish pizza.
On my way back to the platform, there’s a gift store. There’s a mirror on the back shelf I am trying to avoid, now that I know I’m not good-looking. In this tiny establishment you can buy all sorts of things to tell the folks back home you were in Chicago. Shot glasses. Mugs. Fridge magnets. And I’d buy one, too. If I had any folks back home.
I do not have folks.
I have folk.
Singular.
Dad.
And he does not want a fridge magnet to show I went to Chicago.
About now, he’s probably wishing Chicago never existed.
And, about now, I am wishing I never existed, too.