Spider can often be seen working on cars in the Bucktown neighborhood of Chicago. That’s when we don’t take our vehicles to his homestead in Indiana, near a cornfield, where three or four non-operational vehicles sit in the driveway. They’d probably be in his garage but he has a lot of junk in there. Engine blocks, three riding lawnmowers (one that works), a motorcycle with no gas tank or seat, and various scraps of metal and car parts. There are several posters on the wall featuring women wearing bikinis and high heels (I never understood that look). There’s also a Sex and The City poster (TV show version) and on one shelf what Spider calls “a Japanese motorcycle helmet.” Spider has been mentioned once…
Essays, Interviews, Observations, Pop Culture, Stories, and other Dodginess
Posts from the “Essays/Writing” Category
“Mind nobody’s business and keep the noise down when you throw an immigrant social” Mr Chang owned a Chicago-area trailer park and was a close acquaintance of the mom of my friend Johnny. During our senior year of high school Mr. Chang let Johnny and our other friend, Kingston, rent a trailer to live in. This wasn’t like one of those John Hughes movies where all the cool kids partied at rich North Shore homes, but for us it was a big deal. We had a place. To party. To drink. To sex. I remember going with Johnny and Kingston to meet Mr. Chang. Although he had an office and his own trailer at the park where my friends were renting, we met Mr.…
My relationships with women. My friend Johnny’s incontinence. The Chicago Blackhawks. All of which have fallen under the spell of Nicolle Moreaux, a spurned French-American girl from my past. “She won’t turn you into a vampire or anything, but she could cock-up your relationships” Nicolle Moreaux had a crush on me in high school. She was too sweet, cute, gangly. She was new in the area, attended a different school – which I thought was a high school. Turns out she was in eighth grade. I was a junior – so at that time it just seemed wrong. I wanted to date high school girls. The discovery of this came after we hung out a few times (we met at a concert). She was…
The Dodgy 