CHAPTER TWO Old Style suds dripped down Torpe’s crippled hand as he poured another draft for Norm. The grizzled war veteran limped around the bar to the front door, locking it. Then he turned off the “Mickey’s Tavern” neon sign. “I’m not kicking you guys out, I just don’t want any other ding-a-lings walking in,” he said. It was late. I’d been here for four hours, ever since coming home from school and finding a note from my landlord reminding me that I had to be out of the apartment in three days. The apartment in the four-flat that was being turned into a condominium – like so many others in my Bucktown neighborhood. So here I sat in my favorite dive bar with…
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CHAPTER ONE Only Kirsten Kogan could make a cute bumblebee costume look sinister. This I knew before she punched me in the face the night before I lost my job. Kirsten and I co-taught a class at an alternative school in Chicago’s Rogers Park neighborhood. Well, Kirsten did most of the teaching. I was like her left arm, her muscle. My official title was intervention counselor and teacher’s aide. Really what it meant was I would take kids who acted up in class to a time-out room. At this school were a variety of “special needs” kids. Some would shit their pants, others would punch you in yours. Some did both. On our first day working together I had to clean up the bathroom…
Coming Tuesday night (May 20) to The Dodgy. “The Asshole Book Club Part 3” and possibly a chapter or excerpt from the book “Finn’s Rain.” “The same fist she put through the windshield. The fist that belonged to a size two insect with evil blonde bangs.” Still to come later: The Young Martens Life, love, and death within a college (secret) fraternity.
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