The trains that enter Chicago arrive like ships sailing across the roofs. They pass between towers jutting into the sky like long-necked sea beasts and the great gas-cylinders wallowing in dirty scrub like whales. In the depths below are lines of small shops and obscure franchises, diners with peeling paint and businesses tucked into the arches over which the trains pass. Top floor windows pass by so close that passengers can peer inside, into small bare offices and store cupboards. They can make out the contours of trade calendars and pip-ups on the walls.
He arrived here in search of his father Pendulum, his father sent word he had arrived here, where the rhythms of Chicago are played out in the sprawling flat zone between suburbs and center.
At the end of a day in March the train he is travelling on is making the journey toward Union station. Flanked by air, it progresses over the outlands of North Chicago, the city building up below it as it neared South Canal Street. The people beneath ignored its passage. Only children looked up as it clattered overhead, and some of the very young pointed. As the train drew closer to the station, it slipped below the level of the roofs.
There were few people in the carriage to watch the bricks rise around them. The sky had disappeared above the windows. A cloud of pigeons rose from a hiding place beside the tracks and wheeled of to the East.
The flurry of wings and bodies disturbed the thick set young man at the rear of the compartment. He had been trying not to stare openly at the women sitting opposite him. Thick with relaxer, her hair had been teased from its tight curls and was coiled like snakes on her head. The man broke off his scrutiny as the birds passed by, and he ran his hands through his own cropped hair.
The train was now below the houses. It wound through a deep groove in the city, as if the years of passage had worn down the concrete under the tracks. EvilClown glanced again at the women sitting in front of him, and turned his attention to the windows. The light in the carriage had made them mirrors, and he stared at himself, his heavy face. Beyond his face was a layer of brick, dimly visible, and beyond that the cellars of the houses that rose like cliffs on either side.
It was years since EvilClown had been in the city.
Every rattle of the tracks took him closer to home. He closed his eyes.
Outside, the gash through which the tracks passed had widened as the station approached. The walls on either side were punctuated by dark alcoves, small caves full of rubbish a few feet from the track. The silhouettes of cranes arched over the skyline. The walls around the train parted. Tracks fanned away on either side as the train slowed and edged its way into Union Station.
The passengers rose. Clown swung his bag over his shoulder and shuffled out of the carriage. Freezing air stretched up to the great vaulted ceilings. The cold shocked him. Clown hurried through the buildings, through the crowds, threading his way between knots of people. He still had a way to go. He headed underground… |