Big Mike: Black Comedy Excerpt No. 21 — “Ain’t This America?”

Chet’s best man is named Robby Waters. He looks uncomfortable in his rented black tuxedo. He’s continually pulling at his collar as if he’s a dog straining against his leash. Before the wedding Anna had begged him not to reveal the fact that he is a division leader in the Students for a Democratic Society. She needn’t have worried — except for her, Chet, Robby Waters himself, the black couple, and Chet’s three ushers and their dates, nobody in this banquet hall has the foggiest idea what the SDS is.

In fact, while Jackey Pontone was ordering a Manhattan at the bar before dinner, he overheard Robby Waters speaking with the black man. “We know which way the wind’s blowin, man,” Robby said. “That’s why we’re the Weathermen.” Jackey Pontone thought it was nice that this strange young man wearing sandals with his tuxedo was getting into meteorology. Maybe, Jackey thought, these hippies aren’t so hopeless after all.

Um, Jackey, Not This Kind Of Weatherman…

Space

Robby Waters walks up to the dais and coughs into the microphone. He wears wire-framed glasses that make him look like the intellectual heir to Einstein or James Joyce, except few people here would know this James Joyce — What was he, some kinda movie actor or somethin’? Einstein, yeah, he was that guy with the frizzy hair, the psychiatrist guy, right?

And Robby Waters does indeed wear frizzy hair, like that psychiatrist guy Einstein. He begins his toast.

The World-Renowned Head Shrinker

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“I feel as though I’ve known Chet all my life,” he begins. “We met a couple of years ago at the first meeting of…, of….” He glances at Anna whose eyes implore him not to say it. He hesitates a moment more and finally finishes his thought. “… of a group of friends who, um, uh, like to talk about things going on in this world.

“From the minute I met him, I could tell that Chet was a real mahatma, man.”

Rocco Bianco leans close to Jackey Pontone’s wife and asks, “What’d he say?”

Diana Pontone replies, “I think he said he was a Momma’s boy…, or man, I dunno.”

Robby Waters continues. “Chet Michalski cares about the world. He cares about his brothers in this world.”

Anna’s Uncle Louie whispers to her Uncle Frankie, “I didn’t know he had any brudders. Where’re d’ey sittin’?” Uncle Frankie shrugs.

“Chet wants to make this world a better place, a place where the youth of America can grow up in peace and harmony, in health and happiness. We’re not there yet, man! It’s a sick, sick world!”

At this very moment, Charlie Solari and his wife, who are sitting toward the rear of the hall, near the restrooms, can hear Joey loudly retching in the men’s room.

“Assassination!” Robby Waters says. “War! Racism! Poverty!”

Jackey Pontone wonders why they’re teaching this kind of stuff in meteorology class these days

Now Robby Waters is on a roll. He doesn’t notice that Anna has closed her eyes tightly and is biting her lower lip. He can’t be stopped even if Anna’d get on her knees and plead with him. He runs down a laundry list of all the evil, tyrannical, murderous, thieving, thuggish, racist, avaricious pigs who run this imperialist nation. Lyndon Johnson. Robert McNamara and Clark Clifford. J. Edgar Hoover. General William Westmoreland. George Wallace and Lester Maddox. William F. Buckley. When, at last, he gets around to indicting Vince Lombardi and George Halas, Charlie Solari can take it no more.

Now That’s Going Too Far!

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Charlie Solari, who has braved the McCormick Place inferno, who has climbed the stairs of the Hilliard Homes more times than he cares to remember, who has put out dozens of grease fires in those shitholes the Chinamen call kitchens, who has helped ambulance crews carry out the bodies of countless Skid Row winos, who has lived an exemplary professional life beyond reproach save for one time, once — that’s all, one time — when, for chrissakes, that strongbox was just sitting there staring me in the face and it was like my axe had a mind of its own, coming down on its lock, opening it and I saw the generosity of a loving God, twenty five goddamn thousand dollars’ worth of diamonds, and don’t I deserve it for all the filthy Chinamen and bums and shines I had to save from their own stupidity and, after all, ain’t this America where everybody, even Abraham Lincoln, can lift himself up by his bootstraps and become a rich man? And now this no good pinko, this hippie fag, this hopped-up little prick, he’s tellin’ me what the fuck is wrong with this great country? I’ll be goddamned if I let a little cocksucker like that tell me what’s wrong with my America.

So Charlie Solari quickly drains his bourbon, neat, and stands proudly and with the conviction of the only real man in this goddamned place with balls enough to tell off this little rich boy who’s still wet behind the ears lecturing us like we’re all idiots or little kids. He takes a deep breath and yells, “Siddown, ya goddamned little pissant!”

Robby Waters freezes at the sound of Charlie’s voice. As he stands motionless at the dais of the head table, he feels a rush of adrenaline. He feels as though his sandaled feet are no longer touching the Earth, or at least the faux parquet flooring of the raised dais. He leaps over the head table and dashes madly between the round tables filled with paralyzed wedding guests who watch as he takes a lunge at Charlie Solari. Charlie is as tough as nails and normally would pound a pissant like this frizzy-haired intellectual little homo Robby Waters but the warm butterscotch bourbon has altered Charlie’s reactions just enough so that when he takes a roundhouse swing at Robby Waters, he misses grandly and the kid is thus able to wrap his arms around the fireman’s waist and tumble with him to that faux parquet flooring, a tackle that would make both Vince Lombardi and George Halas proud.

As the two wrestle and a dozen men paw at them in an effort to separate them, Chet takes the microphone. “Peace, man! Peace! Let’s not fight! Please!”

Anna now pushes her plates and silverware aside and lays her head on her arms as if she wants to take a nap. Al is pacing and muttering, “This has gotta stop! Jesus Christ, this has gotta stop!” Tree sits calmly at table Number One and sips her whiskey sour, smirking. Eddie Halloran runs toward the brawl, eager to get in his licks but the sock of his shoeless foot slips on the highly polished floor and he slides a good ten feet before the back of his head hits the tile. All the muscles in his body relax and he begins snoring, his arms spread wide like Jesus’ on the cross.  Jackey Pontone’s driver reaches inside his suit jacket and fingers his holstered .38. Jackey catches his eye and shakes his head. The driver withdraws his shooting hand and resumes waiting, patiently. Joey opens the men’s room door, eyes the scrum and feels another wave of nausea wash over him. He retreats into the safety of the men’s room.

Rocco Bianco has run over to the pile of grapplers and stops short. Robby Waters is on all fours, his left arm around Charlie Solari in an unplanned half-Nelson. Robby’s hind end is pointed toward Rocco. Rocco appraises the tableau for the briefest of moments and concludes that Robby Waters really has a cute little ass. He exhales broadly, purging himself of his deepest secret, and steps up smartly to boot Robby Waters in that ass.

Robby Waters and Charlie Solari are successfully separated. Five men hold Charlie back, their restraining hands nearly caressing him as if they are tending to the alpha dog. The five men who hold Robby Waters back are clawing into him. Some of them are pulling his hair nearly out by the roots. The neighbor cop, Sal Sanfillipo, knees him repeatedly in the thigh. “Try sumpin’, tough guy,” Sal whispers. Oh, how he wants this hippie piece of shit to try sumpin’. He wants it so badly he begins to feel the beginnings of an erection.

Chet is still hollering into the microphone. “This is what happens in a violent society!” he thunders. “Hate’s all around us! We have to overthrow the….”

His amplified voice is almost drowned out by catcalls from the crowd. “Shuddup!”  “Sit the fuck down!” “Stick that revolution shit up yer ass!”

Chet hollers louder into the microphone. “The forces that caused a white man to murder Martin Luther King, the forces that are responsible for the rioting, for the killing in Vietnam, for all the gun deaths in our inner cities, they’re right here in the banquet hall!”

Chet points at the prone Eddie Halloran. “There’s your corrupt justice system!”

He points at Mickey Finnin. “There’s your corrupt ‘representative of the people’!”

He points at Jackey Pontone. “There’s your criminal boss!”

At this, Jackey places his hand inside his crisp Ermenegildo Zegna suit jacket, brushing against his fresh Sulka shirt, and begins to finger the handle of his own holstered .22 until he glances at his good friend Al Dudek and thinks the better of it.

Al has placed his palms against his ears and appears to be on the verge of tears.

Al’s daughter Anna, not napping but actually deciding at this precise moment what the course of her life will be, lifts her head from her arms and joins her brand new husband at the microphone. Her hand covers Chet’s on the mike. She pulls the mike down toward her mouth. He grins at her as if she’s given him the greatest gift a groom can receive from his loving, devoted bride, one who, previous to this very second he really didn’t know. And now he believes he does know who Anna Claudia Michalski, nee Dudek, truly is.

“Please,” she says, and, like that, the pandemonium ceases, such is the power of a bride on her wedding day. Some 250 guests remain in their positions as if a good witch has cast a spell on them. They gape at her, in her virginal white, her six hundred dollar Margie’s Bridal Shop dress cleverly puffed to camouflage the four and a half month old swelling of her womb. She is positively glowing with that most fleeting combination of womanly beauty and girlish cuteness. Even Tree, who is half in the bag for the first time in her orderly life, drinks in the visage of her daughter, the same one whom she wrote off when she learned of the second pregnancy, and becomes misty-eyed. Al brings his hands together at his chest, almost a gesture of prayer, and thanks the God he has ignored for the past quarter of a century that his princess will bestow a redemptive coda upon this nightmare.

“This’ll Cover Up That Little Tummy Bump, Sweetie.”

Space

Anna scans the crowd. Her eyes hit upon the prone, spread-eagled figure of State’s Attorney Eddie Halloran. She glances at Jackey Pontone’s driver, that fearsome square block of a man with the cold stare. She sees the bouffanted wives of Galewood with their thick blue eyeshadow, their inch-long store-bought eyelashes, their dangling ear bangles, their painted nails, and their slender cigarettes. She sees her little brother Joey reemerge from the men’s room, pale as a hermit. She notices her new husband’s best man still in the clutches of that loathsome cop Sal Sanfillipo who, believe it or not, has grasped the lump beneath Robby Waters’ trousers and has twisted it, producing the most frightful grimace on the face of his victim. She sees Rocco Bianco, staring at Sal Sanfillipo’s hand clasping Robby Waters’ crotch and even from this distance, some 30 feet, she can see his tongue dart over his lips. She catches the glint of the pinkie ring worn by Mickey Finnin. And finally, she locks eyes with her father.

Mickey Finnin’s Pinkie Ring

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Al Dudek’s gaze implores her to right this madness. Poor Pa. Poor Al. Helpless to stop the ball he started rolling a couple of decades ago when he accepted the help of his brothers-in-law whose membership in the 42 Gang virtually insured the success of his new business. Poor Al. Poor Pa. Really a good guy but, man, so weak, so willing to sell his soul. Damn you, Pa!

Anna, the angel, Daddy’s little girl almost all grown up, takes a breath and with her hand still over Chet’s as they both hold the microphone, finally speaks.

“Fuck this shit!” she hollers.

With that, she and Chet, hand in hand, run together out of the Nuovo Mondo banquet hall, adrenaline-drunk, a dead-on reprise of Ben Braddock and Elaine Robinson running out of the church in Anna’s favorite movie ever, The Graduate. But rather than board a bus in the northern California sun, Anna and Chet burst out into the chilly early April air, the sky still gray from the smoke of the smoldering West Side fires, police and fire sirens wailing in the distance, and clamber into their honeymoon limousine.

Chet pulls the door closed with a bang. The driver asks, “Where to?”

Chet and Anna look at each other for an answer. Neither has one. They giggle.

“Just go,” the respond in unison.

Anna’s Favorite Movie Ever

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See you Saturday for the next installment of Black Comedy.

Big Mike: Black Comedy Excerpt No. 20 — “I’ll Tell You Who Public Enemy Number One Is”

Before we go on to today’s excerpt from my new novel-in-progress, Black Comedy, I’d like take a minute to remember Daniel Schorr. The old bird died in his sleep Friday at the age of 93. He was one of my few idols in the journalism racket. There are Ambrose Bierce, H.L. Mencken, Studs Terkel, Mike Royko, Matt Taibbi, some schmuck from the Chicago Reader by the name of Joravsky, and Schorr. If I could be a quarter as good as any of them I’d be happy. I listened to him every Saturday and Sunday morning on NPR’s Weekend Edition. Here’s how I knew Schorr was doing a bang-up job: he enraged Republicans and Democrats alike. At risk of sounding like a an old bastard (which I am,) journalism has gone all to hell of late. Thanks to the likes of Don Hewitt, Rupert Murdoch, and Roger Ailes, news reporting has become a carnival sideshow hosted by handsome and pretty airheads for the fat, the stupid, and the easily frightened. Schorr was homely and nerdy with poorly fitting dentures and messy hair. He looked lousy on TV. Good. I gave up on TV news a long time ago. While everybody else was breathlessly reporting the latest Oval Office blow job scandal or some out of context video tapes released by bullshitters who want to tap into white people’s deepest terror of brown people, Schorr just stuck to quaint concepts like issues and events. Ain’t many left like Daniel Schorr. Maybe no one. Now, read my stuff. — Big Mike

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The dinner will consist of Italian wedding soup followed by spinach salad drizzled with juice from fresh lemons. The main course will be the guest’s choice of veal piccata accompanied by mostaccioli marinara and french-cut green beans or sole meunière served with honey-glazed pea pods and carrots and risotto alla Parmigiana. Dessert will be a choice of spumoni, cannoli, or tira misu, although Joey has already indicated he will take all three.

The band is winding down, a signal that guests should begin taking their seats. The band is Jackey Pontone’s gift to the newlyweds, the New Colony Six, a real score, everybody agrees, considering they’d hit the local charts in 1966 with the huge smash, I Confess, and have appeared on national television shows in their trademark colonial costumes. Their brand new single, I Will Always Think About You, is just now beginning to rocket up the Billboard Hot 100 chart. For Jackey, booking them for this wedding was no big deal — he merely made a couple of phone calls.

Space

The maître d’ gives the signal for the waitresses to begin rolling in their carts. The band descends the stage and will eat in the kitchen. Already several guests begin clinking their water glasses with their butter knives, importuning Anna and Chet to kiss. The only two empty seats are Joey’s — he’s already horking in the men’s room — and Eddie Halloran’s.

The Cook County State’s Attorney wants to order his fourth highball of the young afternoon as the band leaves the stage but the bartender has stopped serving drinks. Eddie is incensed. He stomps out of the hall muttering the word fuck in all its permutations. He walks — or, more accurately, stumbles — around the corner to the parking lot where after a seemingly endless search he finds his Oldsmobile Toronado which he was standing next to when he stepped onto the lot in the first place. He opens the passenger side door and fishes under the seat until he locates his emergency fifth of Jameson’s.

Eddie Halloran fills his hip flask from the Jameson’s bottle. The flask is empty because he’d drained every last drop from it during the wedding mass at St. Giles. No one had seen him do it, of course, because he’d ducked into a confessional to slake his thirst in sanctified privacy. He had not sought the good Lord’s forgiveness for his intemperance while he was in the confessional because, he reasoned, one needs a strong bracer to make it through another of Fr. Jerome’s interminable sermons. Our Father in Heaven, Eddie Halloran thought as the Irish whiskey stung his esophagus, is not an unreasonable man.

A Place To Cleanse Your Soul Or Sneak A Quick Belt

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Eddie shoves the filled flask into his right rear trousers pocket where it makes a conspicuous bulge under the vent of his Marshall Field’s suit jacket. He walks — er, stumbles — into the alley behind Nuovo Mondo. He’ll need plenty of distilled strength to get through this goddamned dago dinner. These greaseballs cook everything in the goddamned world with garlic, for chrissakes. Christ in heaven, I’ll bet they put garlic in their Malt-O-Meal!

Eddie places his hand gingerly against the brick rear wall of the banquet hall, steadying himself for the short walk to the service entrance door of the place, set in from the alley, giving him a little privacy. Poor Eddie. He steps into a pile of dogshit just as he reaches the recessed entrance. “Goddamn fuckin’ prick shit,” he says. He looks around for something to wipe the shit off his oxblood wingtips. He eyes a poster stapled to the utility pole. It reads, “Rats. Public Enemy Number 1! Danger: Poison. This alley has been treated by the Department of Streets and Sanitation, Richard J. Daley, Mayor.”

Eddie rips down the poster and mutters, “Fuck you, Dick. I’m the fuckin’ State’s Attorney. I’ll tell you who public enemy number one is.”

He does as well as he can with the stiff cardboard. Still, there’s shit bits in the awl-punched holes of his wingtip. Eddie shakes his head and makes a decision. He carefully removes the shoe and tosses it into a garbage can. Satisfied, he unscrews the cap of his flask and takes a long, well-earned slurp.

Eddie’s Wingtip, Pre-Dogshit

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At this moment, another similarly braced soul stumbles into the alley. For Eddie Halloran, the alley is a temporary watering hole. For this newcomer, it is home, a place he has pride in. He’s not terribly pleased with the presence of a man missing a shoe sneaking booze in his alley, as if the habit is somehow undignified. “Where the fuck is your shoe?” the man asks Eddie Halloran.

“What the fuck is it to you?”

“Tough guy, huh?”

“Kiss my balls.”

The man stares at Eddie for a moment. “Hey,” he says at last. “I know you. You’re that guy from the papers.”

“That’s right,” Eddie Halloran says. “I’m Martin Luther Fuckin’ King.”

“No you ain’t. You’re that Halloran. It’s a pleasure to meetcha.” The man extends his hand toward Eddie. The two shake. The man pulls Eddie uncomfortably close to him.

“I’m Billy O’Connor. Former middleweight champ of the world. I beat Tony Zale in Soldier Field.”

Eddie Halloran isn’t the biggest fight fan in the world but he knows enough to know nobody named Billy O’Connor ever fought Tony Zale in Soldier Field for the championship of the world.

Tony Zale, “The Man Of Steel,” From Gary, Indiana

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“Okay, champ,” Eddie says, pushing the man away. “That’s enough now.”

The man is highly insulted. He balls his fists. “That’s the play, huh, tough guy? Tell you what — whyncha do somethin’ about all them niggers? Or they too tough for you?”

Eddie Halloran can take all the insults you can throw at him but one. Never — ever — imply there’s a tougher man than he is. Eddie Halloran has fought a thousand fights over just such a canard — and lost every single one. He winds up and smashes his tin flask against the forehead of the man who claims he was once the middleweight champion of the world. He wasn’t, of course, but matched up with Eddie Halloran he may as well have been. The man, in whose bloodstream there is more alcohol than in Eddie Halloran’s and two other men’s, sets upon the State’s Attorney in a fury. His rapid-fire right hand pistons blows against Eddie’s face, drawing blood from his lip, his nose, and above both eyes. Eddie flails about harmlessly with both arms. He feels nothing, thanks to the general anesthetic qualities of strong Irish whiskey but he will surely know he’s been in a fight when he sobers up. Well, not exactly a fight.

After what seems many long minutes, the man’s jackhammer right arm becomes tired. Eddie Halloran sinks to the concrete, dangerously near the dogshit he’d stepped in moments before. Somehow, Eddie’s white boutonniere has wedged itself between the fingers of the man’s fist. He pulls the rosebud out and flings it disdainfully at the collapsed public official. “Here’s your flower, ya fag,” he says. “And get yourself a shoe.” He begins to walk away then remembers to add a pièce de résistance: “And do somethin’ about them niggers!”

Some fifteen minutes later, Eddie Halloran feels recuperated enough from his beating to reenter the banquet hall. Al Dudek, Mickey Finnin, Rocco Bianco, and Jackey Pontone all see his battered face and understand that Eddie simply has just done what Eddie always does. Eddie’s wife, though, slaps her hands against both her cheeks and shrieks. It’s as though she’s never seen him wearing his hamburger face when, in truth, she’s seen it dozens of times.

“Eddie,” she hollers, “what happened?”

“I fell.” With that, Eddie Halloran bestows upon his long suffering wife a look which says, Say no more about it. He calmly takes his seat next to her at table Number Three.

It is now time for the toasts.

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Join us Wednesday for the next installment of Black Comedy.

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America At Its Best: Daniel Schorr

Big Mike: Black Comedy Excerpt No. 19 — The Dudeks’ World

It’s that special moment when the bride and groom seem to be an island unto themselves up on the dais. Anna and Chet are in their own little world as the rest of the Nuovo Mondo crowd swirls in front of them before dinner is served. Anna is Chet’s tour guide, discreetly pointing out this one and that one, neighbors and associates, the people who make up the Dudeks’ world in Galewood.

She points out Mickey Finnin and Rocco Bianco and Jackey Pontone and more. There, she says, is Mister Adamowski. Ben Adamowski. Lives on the next block over, Nagle Avenue, in a nice bungalow.

Once a rising young star in the Democratic party, Adamowski did the unforgivable and tried to clean up Chicago’s dirty politics. Even tried to expose a bit of the unholy alliance between government and the Outfit. As a reward, he was frozen out of the Democratic inner circle and eventually had to bolt the party. Ran as a Republican in 1956 for State’s Attorney and won.

Adamowski then tried to take on the corrupt Chicago Police Department and the even more corrupt Traffic Court. May as well have tried to spit on the flag and piss on everybody’s apple pie. The Outfit even considered taking out a contract on one of his lead investigators. One of Adamowski’s boys got a late night phone call once — the voice on the other end said, “I just read your brother’s obituary in tomorrow’s paper.” Still, Adamowski and his guys helped uncover a ring of bad cops up at the Summerdale district station; the cops had been working hand in hand with a band of professional home burglars.

Adamowski figured he’d capitalize on his successes and run against Mayor Daley. Took him on in 1963. Didn’t do too badly for a Republican in Chicago. Daley’s Machine only beat him by a shade under 140,000 votes. Still, he was finished. The big powers downtown hardly knew he was alive anymore. The Galewood big shots kept inviting him to their kids’ weddings because they felt sorry for him. He was, they all agreed, really a nice guy, albeit not too bright.

Oh, and there’s Charlie Solari and his wife. The fireman. Lives up the block. Chet looks at the man and asks Anna, “That guy? I’ve seen him. He drives a great big Cadillac. He’s a fireman?” Yeah, Anna says. She tells Chet the dirty little secret about Charlie Solari that everybody in Galewood knows. Charlie was stationed in the Chinatown firehouse on 22nd Street, a mile from McCormick Place. World’s largest exposition hall. All gleaming white concrete and steel, big as the Empire State Building laid on its side on prime lakeshore property. Everybody knows the place is fireproof.

One night in January last year Charlie’s asleep at the firehouse when the alarm sounds. It’s McCormick Place. Charlie’s engine company is the first on the scene. Flames are already licking out 40 feet in the air between cracks in the concrete on its north side. Within an hour the place is destroyed. 60,000 visitors in town for the National Housewares Manufacturers Association convention are stuck in their hotel rooms with nothing to do.

For the next few weeks, all Charlie’s neighbors and friend want to talk about is the city’s second biggest fire ever, next to the Great Chicago Fire. Charlie only shakes his head and mumbles, as if it’s far too painful for him to discuss the destruction of one of the city’s icons. In February Charlie buys himself a new car — the Cadillac Eldorado, tan with a white landau roof. All the neighbors admire his car and tell him, “Not bad, Charlie. Not bad for a fireman.” Then in March Charlie and his wife go to Hawai’i for two weeks. Now Charlie’s neighbors tell each other, “Not bad for a fireman — but I w0nder how he does it.” When Charlie comes back, he wife’s got diamond earrings the size of chandeliers.

In April Charlie has a new roof put on his house. In May, he has central air conditioning installed. By then the neighbors aren’t saying a word. They’re just looking at each other and shaking their heads. In June, one of the garbagemen starts telling some of the neighbors about a little story he’s been hearing. It’s about the McCormick Place fire. Seems one of the exhibitors had stored $25,000 dollars-worth of small diamonds in a strong box at his booth. Was hoping to give the diamonds away in a series of raffles throughout the convention, maybe generate a little publicity for himself and his company. Went to McCormick Place the afternoon after the fire and inquired about his diamonds. Talked to cops and firemen and the managers of the hall. They all had the same response: “Diamonds? What Diamonds?” The guy says, “Yeah, I had them in a strongbox at my booth.” The response: “Strongbox?”

One day Charlie asks the garbageman to step into his gangway for second. They get there and Charlie grabs the garbageman by the scruff of the neck and says, “Hey, no more stories. Ya got me?”

And there, that’s Angie Zaharias. Sweet girl. Married her grammar school sweetheart, Glen Nielsen. They didn’t go to St. Giles. Went to the public school, Lovett. Still, they were nice kids. She works at Cook County Hospital. A nurse in the emergency room. Was on duty one night two years ago when the ambulance brings in a drifter who’d apparently downed a bottle of sleeping pills at some flop house on Skid Row. She sets him up on the examining table. Grabs his hands. Sees tattooed lettering on his knuckles: Born To Raise Hell. The resident on duty walks into the ER bay and sees Angie staring at the guy’s knuckles. “Whatcha got there?” he asks. She shows him the tattoos. The resident had just read in the paper that the lone surviving nurse in the most notorious mass murder in the city’s history has told the cops that the killer had Born To Raise Hell tattooed on his knuckles. The resident places his fingers on the drifter’s carotid arteries and squeezes. The drifter’s eyes begin to roll to the back of his head. The resident says, “You did it, didn’t you?” The drifter says, “Yeah, I did it.” Within minutes, the Cook County ER is lousy with cops and reporters as Richard Franklin Speck is taken into custody.

And there’s Greg LaPorta. Runs LaPorta’s Realty over on Harlem Avenue. Lives near Newcastle and Bloomingdale. Always kept his nose clean, Always kept to himself and his family. A real hard worker. Then, out of the clear blue, he gets a call from the mayor’s office. It’s the mayor’s own secretary. She says he’s been invited to a special meeting of real estate men to be held the next day at City Hall. Don’t tell anybody about it, she says, just be there, on time. Mister LaPorta thinks it’s a gag and tells the woman so. He hangs up. Ten minutes later, Mickey Finnin calls him. Mickey yells into the phone, “Whaddya think yer doin’ hangin’ up on the mayor’s secretary?”

So Craig LaPorta shaves extra closely the next morning. Combs his hair for about five minutes. Wears his best Montgomery Ward suit and his tie clip from the Realtors Associaton. Takes the elevator up the to Fifth Floor at City Hall. Is ushered into a mahogany office. And there’s the mayor, sitting at the head of the conference table like Henry VIII in a dark suit. Bunch of businessmen on either side of the table. Mister LaPorta recognizes a few of the faces. They’re big names in the city’s real estate world. Big names! And at the other end of the table, several Negroes. He doesn’t know who they are except for one. And that man is one of the most recognizable human beings in the world. Martin Luther King Jr. For the next couple of hours, Mister LaPorta just sits there and listens as the real estate big names and the Negroes argue back and forth. Now and again voices are raised so high that the Mayor has to stand and rap his gavel on the table. The Negroes say, “There must be open housing!” The real estate big names say, “There can’t be open housing!” Mister LaPorta never says a word. When it’s all over, Mayor Daley shakes Mister LaPorta’s hand, hands him a glass paperweight with the seal of the City of Chicago etched on it, and says, “Thank you for your wonderful contribution to this momentous meeting.” Mister LaPorta took the Lake Street el out to Oak Park and called his wife on the public phone at the Harlem station and asked her to pick him up.

Anna points out David Pergler, a young news reporter for WBBM-TV. Everybody calls him Galewood’s TV star. She points out Sal Sanfillipo, the cop who once broke his hand on his wife’s jaw. “I hate him,” she hisses. She points out Muggsy Collera. He’s a Cook County Sheriff’s deputy. Joey says Muggsy’s always bragging about knowing where the pot fields are in the unincorporated areas of the county. Muggsy says, “Whenever youse guys wanna go pick some pot, you just lemme know.” That’s what Joey says, Anna tells Chet as she rolls her eyes. And that chubby guy there, Anna says, that’s Louie LaFemina. Works for the city — who doesn’t? — but he isn’t a garbageman or a fireman or a cop. He’s a lawyer. He’s with what they call the corporation counsel’s office, whatever that means.

Chet smiles at Anna. “You’ve got quite a lineup out here in Galewood,” he says.

“Ah,” she says. “It isn’t much. Nothing ever happens in Galewood.”

In our next installment of Black Comedy, Anna and Chet’s wedding becomes almost as chaotic as the West Side ghetto. See you on Sunday!

Big Mike: Black Comedy Excerpt No. 18 — The Happiest Day Of A Girl’s Life

Weddings and riots — what’s the difference? We’ll find out over the next few installments of my novel-in-progress, Black Comedy — Big Mike

It’s still hot on Saturday, April 6, 1968, even though the temperature at the time of Anna and Chet’s wedding at St. Giles is only 49 degrees. A cool front passed through the Chicago area early this morning, before the sun rose. But, yeah, it’s hot.

In the morning, for instance, snipers engage the cops in a shoot out at the Cabrini-Green highrises. Dozens of cops crouch behind squadrols and private cars, exchanging gunfire with dozens of snipers up on the balconies. For some moments, the area around Larrabee and Division sounds like the worst of the TV news film from Vietnam.

The Balconies At Cabrini-Green

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The cooler air temps may have led to a certain easing of the madness on the West Side. The setting of fires, for one thing, seems to have ceased although most of the more than 200 buildings torched within the last 36 hours still are smoldering. Nearly a thousand people have been made homeless so far. Ten have lost their lives — again, so far. And the running count of people arrested in the riot zone now stands at 2500, give or take a few hundred which, when it comes to the Chicago Police Department counting bad things happening to black human beings is about as accurate as things will get.

More than 22,000 fully-armed personnel have fanned out over the battle zone. Ten thousand five hundred Chicago Police officers in riot gear are working twelve-hour shifts. Governor Samuel Shapiro has sent in sixty seven hundred Illinois National Guardsmen. And President Lyndon Johnson has ordered 5000 regular U.S. Army troops into Chicago. The Army is setting up camp in Washington Park on the South Side. Convoys of armored personnel carriers and tanks are shuttling back and forth between the south and west sides.

Mayor Daley has been flying over the riot zone in a helicopter with Fire Commissioner Robert Quinn. The Mayor is shaking his head and saying, repeatedly, “I never thought this would happen here.” Commissioner Quinn, for his part, continuously points out young black kids running out of Madison Street shops with shattered front windows, carrying radios and and TVs. “Look at that,” Quinn says. “Look. Look. You see that?” Quinn, the elementary school snitch, and Daley, the flustered principal. It is during one of these flyovers that Daley notices cops apparently doing nothing to stop the kids from looting. “Why aren’t the policemen doing anything about it?” he wonders. He says the word policemen in his own version of Chicagoese: p’leess-minn. Quinn shrugs his shoulders, an innocent look on his face. Quinn is thankful Police Commissioner James Conlisk will bear the brunt of Daley’s wrath. Just to make sure, he points out a few more looters.

“How Could This Happen Here?”

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It’s at this moment that Richard J. Daley, the democratically elected mayor of the nation’s second largest city, declares war on his own constituents. Daley carried some of the precincts in these West Side wards by 10-1 margins in the last election. These are his most loyal voters. It is now that Daley first articulates his order for police to shoot to maim looters and shoot to kill anyone with a Molotov cocktail in his hand.

Meanwhile, Governor Shapiro declares the residents of the West Side to be in a state of insurrection, thereby giving his National Guard soldiers license to fire upon them at will.

Chicago, like much of the nation today, is at war with itself.

“Mr. President?” “Yes, Dick?” “We’re In Trouble. We Need Some Help.”

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Anna and Chet’s wedding must be the only one being celebrated in the city today. That is, if one can actually celebrate anything while tanks and armored personnel carriers are rolling through Chicago’s streets. But God forbid anyone would even consider postponing these nuptials. Tree, for instance. It’s not as though she’s been waiting for this day to arrive with bated breath. Nothing can ruin this day for her, the Mother of the Bride, since, well, this whole thing has been a disaster from the start. Al, of course, has never been one to let distractions like civil warfare move him off his planned course.

And what of Anna? Shouldn’t she expect Saturday, April 6, 1968, to be the most exciting day of her young life? Oh, don’t worry. It will be.

***

Father Jerome performs the ceremony at St. Giles. The pews on the bride’s side of the aisle are packed. None of Al Dudek’s family, friends, and associates are about to let those pozzo coloreds stop them from going about their business. Chet’s side of the aisle is less populated, thanks mainly to his estrangement from his parents. His side features only a couple of dozen scraggly hippies, his old Aunt Gert who has either forgotten or ignored the Michalski family’s boycott of the wedding, and — Madonna! — a couple of Negroes!

When the two Negroes first climb the steps of St. Giles, Jackey Pontone’s driver reflexively reaches inside his suit jacket and fingers the handle of his holstered .38. The two Negroes march into the church with every single eye upon them as if they are the bride and groom. They take their seats on Chet’s side and act as though some 180 guests on the other side of the aisle aren’t staring at them with mouths agape.

St. Giles

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Fr. Jerome climbs up to the lectern to give his sermon. He peers out over the assembled multitude and when his eyes land upon the two Negroes, his own jaw drops. He stands there staring for what seems an eternity. He stares so long that a murmur arises from the congregation. Like a character in a sitcom, Fr. Jerome finally shakes the cobwebs out and says, “Ahem, well then….”

The congregation has to wait another uncomfortable twenty seconds for him to even remember what the hell he’s going to talk about, so shaken is he. Fr. Jerome is a big one for incorporating current events into his sermons. Say, for example, this wedding is taking place on a Saturday in December and the Bears are about to about to face, say, the Cleveland Browns in a playoff game the next day. Half to three quarters of his sermon will be about the game. There was the time, just a little over a year ago, the Sunday after McCormick Place had burned to the ground, when his entire sermon resembled nothing so much as an arson investigator’s report. He even commented that the fire had forced the cancellation of the Four Seasons show at the Arie Crown Theater. His own tickets to the show are now worthless, he said, crestfallen. The Dudeks’ neighbors, Charlie Solari and his wife  Clarice were here that Sunday. They’re here today. Charlie Solari, a firefighter stationed at the Chinatown firehouse, actually battled the McCormick Place blaze. It turned out to be the most profitable working day of his life. Anna will explain this later, when she points out each of the guests to Chet at the reception.

Poor Fr. Jerome — He Missed The Four Seasons

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But Fr. Jerome, yes, Fr. Jerome is nothing if not up on his current events.

Today, though, he makes absolutely no mention of the mayhem on the West Side and more than a hundred other cities around the country, nor does he refer to the death of the nation’s most prominent black leader that started it all. No, today Fr. Jerome falls back on the old wedding sermon chestnut, the marriage at Cana. Fr. Jerome hurtles himself into a feverish rapture by recounting Jesus’ first miracle. He is thrusting his fist into the air and nearly shouting as he gets to the part about the jugs of water being transformed into wine. For God’s sake, the guests might be excused for thinking Fr. Jerome is recounting the final touchdown in the Bears’ miraculous comeback victory over those Browns. Perhaps he hopes his histrionics will make the congregation forget the riots and the assassination. And he’s right. By the time he finishes even Al is asleep.

***

The reception is being held at Nuovo Mondo Italian Restaurant & Banquets on Division Street, a block east of Austin Boulevard. Nuovo Mondo is a mere 200 yards from the border of Oak Park. Even though the rioting is taking place some two and a half miles away, there is an Oak Park police squad car blocking every major entry street to make sure marauding bands of Negroes don’t invade the leafy suburb. The Oak Park cops needn’t have bothered — there’s been plenty to burn and loot in the West Side ghetto.

Nuovo Mondo is part-owned by Jackey Pontone. He is providing the reception hall free of charge in exchange for a healthy discount on all his meats from Al’s company for the remainder of the the year. That healthy discount amounts to a simple four words uttered by Al when Jackey’s kitchen manager calls him up to inquire about his bill: “Doan worry about it.”

Black limousines pull up the the front entrance of Nuovo Mondo, disgorging their occupants: the newlyweds, of course; the rest of the wedding party; Anna’s parents, and Jackey himself. Pontone hates to be left out the fun so he has chartered a limousine for him and his wife.

An all-star cast arrives in lesser — but still pricey and shiny — vehicles. Mickey Finnin and his wife pull up in their brown Lincoln Continental. Alderman Rocco Bianco — a confirmed bachelor (some have whispered that he’s a swish) — pulls up in his rakish red Corvette. State’s Attorney Eddie Halloran and his wife Kathleen get out of their burgundy Oldsmobile Toronado. A slew of Buick Electra 225s of varying hues lets out the likes of State Senator Renaldo Nitti and his wife, Meat Cutters & Boners Union local president Tommy DeMio and his lovely bride, Teamsters local boss Jerry Piombino, restaurant mogul Andy Silverberg, auto dealer partners Nicky Capizzi and Mort Aronson, and a raft of lesser lights.

Nuovo Mondo’s red-vested parking valets are having the day of their year, their pockets bulging with fins and ten-spots. They’re running like track stars trying to keep up with the big-tipping connected guys and machers. And then a clunky little beige Ford Falcon splutters up to the curb. The woman on the passenger side opens her own door because none of the valets has dashed up to do so. Her door makes an excruciating, rusty squeak. The driver, a man, gets out and waits for a valet to approach to collect his keys. He waits and waits and waits until finally the valet with the least seniority slowly ambles up as if attached to a large rubber band and holds his palm open six inches below the man’s hand — the valet clearly does not want his skin to graze the man’s. The man lowers his hand to bring it nearer the valet’s so as to make the exchange of keys easier but the valet maintains the six-inch space. Finally, the man grasps what’s going and on simply drops the keys into the valet’s hand.

A Lump Of Coal In A Parking Lot Full Of Diamonds

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The man from the Falcon does not dig into his pocket to slip the valet a fin or a ten-spot. He has no fins or ten-spots in his pocket. In fact, he is carrying precisely $2.63 on his person, as much as he carries on most days and more than on others. “Psh,” one of the other valets stage whispers to his colleagues, “whaddya expect from ‘em?” The man from the Falcon pretends not to hear this comment.

He and the woman, the same couple who drew unabashed stares in St. Giles, enter the lobby of Nuovo Mondo. They both pretend that they’re not being gaped at openly yet again. It’s unheard of for a black couple to enter the lobby of Nuovo Mondo. It’s bordering on madness for one to do so today.

There is still the hint of smoke in the air outside the banquet hall.

Now the guests are taking their seats. Joey, who has already begun sneaking gulps from wine bottles — not Chianti this time but Cotes du Rhone and Chateauneuf-du-Pape stumbles up to the wedding party’s dais and puts arms around Chet and Anna. “Yer married,” he says as if he’s breaking the news to the couple. Anna smiles at her brother. “Yes we are. Thank you, Joey,” she says. Chet is about to thank him when Joey expels a monumental belch. “Sorry,” Joey says, and he stumbles off to find another unattended bottle of fine wine to slurp.

Chet glances and Anna and they giggle. He leans nearer to her. “Who are all these people?” he whispers.

“Okay now,” Anna says, “pay attention.”

Join us Thursday for the next installment of Black Comedy

Big Mike: Black Comedy Excerpt No. 17 — “I Hate This Place”

Sometimes home is a place you want to get away from as soon as possible. The wedding is tomorrow. The rehearsal dinner is tonight. Somebody forgot to tell a cracker drifter with a rifle across the street from the Lorraine Motel in Memphis that this would be Anna Dudek’s wedding weekend. Here’s the latest installment of my novel-in-progress, Black Comedy — Big Mike

Anna thinks: I hate this place.

If she had all the freedom in the world, she’d get out now — this second. She’d move to Old Town or Evanston or even Hyde Park in a heartbeat. She’d move to where the young people are, the thinkers and readers and philosophers, people who don’t care one iota about Buicks and Cadillacs. She’d move into a kicky little studio, say, filled with books and candles and posters and incense burners. She’d wear miniskirts and granny glasses. She’d hang out with interesting people: musicians and people who want to Change The World, gentle, peaceful people, caring people, people who go to fondue restaurants and subterranean jazz clubs like The Bulls on Lincoln Avenue or folk hangouts like the Earl of Old Town. She’d want to see new faces, different faces, fascinating faces — not the same old faces of Galewood: all those grim, suspicious, dull, bigoted, fat, bitter faces. She’s had her fill of greasers and Doopers, of precinct captains and bee-hived, bouffanted housewives, of syndicate creeps and hypocrite priests and punks wearing gold Italian horns around their necks. She’d want to see people from somewhere — anywhere — other than this stupid, stinking hellhole. People from the East Coast and the West Coast. People from Canada and even England. Puerto Ricans. Negroes.

Pete Seeger, Harry Chapin, And Steve Goodman At The Earl Of Old Town (From Clay Eels’ “Facing The Music”)

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But Anna is five months pregnant. She doesn’t have all the freedom in the world. In fact, she has none of the freedom in the world.

It’s late Friday night. The rehearsal dinner broke up about eleven. Pa had his two scotch and sodas, naturally. Ma even had half a whiskey sour. Tree Dudek’s presence at the the rehearsal dinner in no way implies that she endorses this whole marriage sham with that bum Chet Michalski. She has merely decided to go along with the charade for appearance’s sake. Joey spent most of his night sneaking gulps from Chianti bottles at the various tables populated by Chet’s ushers and Anna’s bridesmaids and their girlfriends and boyfriends, uncles Frankie and Louie and their wives, and Fr. Jerome. By ten o’clock, Joey was slurring his words and dropping water glasses and flatwear. At ten-fifteen, ashen and sweaty, looking like a guy who just swallowed an earthworm, he suddenly rose out of his seat and sprinted toward the men’s room, his hand over his mouth. He didn’t make it.

The resultant reek of pink vomit caused the party to break up early. Not that anybody was in a mood to revel into the early hours anyway, considering what was happening on the West Side. Mayor Daley already had declared a citywide sundown curfew for those under 21, a group including all the ushers and bridesmaids and their girlfriends and boyfriends. Al handed out get-out-of-jail-free cards signed by none other than Mickey Finnin to all of them. He warned them not not be smart-asses to any cops who stopped them or they’d have to answer to him personally.

Valid Only When Signed By Someone With Clout

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Plus, Al had some business to attend to back home so he was in a hurry to leave. When they got back to Natchez Avenue, Tree collapsed in bed complaining of a monumental headache brought on by drinking too much (The ride home featured Tree moaning and holding her hand to her forehead, Joey snoring in the corner of the back seat, stinking of Chianti and vomit, and Anna raising her eyes toward heaven and muttering mantra-like, I hate this place, I hate this place.)

At home, Al hustled about, arranging the patio table and chairs. “Doan bother us out on the porch,” he’d warned Anna and Joey. “I got some people comin’ over. It’s important.” Then he turned to Joey and said, “You’re a goddamn mess. Go change your shirt and wash your face and go sleep it off. Cabeesh?”

***

Anna seethes as she sits in her bedroom cradling her pink Princess phone. She wants to dial Janine but the conversation taking place on the other side of the wall, on the back porch where Al has set up the patio table and chairs, is riveting. Al, Galewood’s most successful semi-legitimate businessman, Mickey Finnin, the 36th Ward Democratic committeeman, Eddie Halloran, the Cook County State’s Attorney, Alderman Rocco Bianco, and Jackey The Lackey Pontone — they’re all here and each is expressing himself hotly over the events on the West Side. Unless Mayor Daley is sitting on his patio with Police Superintendent Conlisk, Governor Shapiro, and LBJ’s Attorney General Ramsey Clark, there isn’t a more powerful meeting of men in the city right now.

Anna’s window is ajar — it would be opened wide on this unseasonably sultry night only she doesn’t want to gag from the smell of smoke from the fires on Madison and Roosevelt. The men on the back porch are puffing away on pricey cigars and long, slim cigarettes, their own smoke a protective cloud around them, warding off the stink of the West Side ghetto going up in flames a mere couple of miles away.

“D’is is gettin’ outta hand,” Jackey says.

“I don’t mean to be disrespectful,” Mickey says to him, “but isn’t there nothin’ you can do? Can’t you get word to your people down there to put a lid on this?”

“We ain’t got no people down there,” Jackey says.

“C’mon, now. I can’t believe that,” Mickey says.

“Believe it. D’is new generation of coloreds, they ain’t the same as our old friends from the policy wheel days. Them guys were nice, respectful businessmen. They worked good with Lawson and Jefferson.” He turns to Al to explain: “D’em was our men in City Hall and Congress.” (It’s important to note he mentions Alderman Marvin Lawson first, since he is, as a member of Chicago’s City Council, far more powerful than the mere U.S. Congressman Henry Jefferson.) Now he turns back to Mickey Finnin and continues: “If this would a’happened five, ten years ago, we’d'a sent word down there and — boom — everything would’a been under control. No more. Uh uh. They got these Black Panthers and all these radicals and Mau Maus and I don’t know what the hell all else. They don’t listen to nobody. They’re pozzo, I’m tellin’ ya.”

A Nice, Respectful Businessman Running His Numbers Racket at a Polling Place

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“Jesus Christ,” Mickey says.

“D’at’s right,” Jackey replies. “We’re gonna need Jesus H. Christ himself if we’re gonna put a lid on this.”

“D’at’s right,” Aldeman Bianco agrees, for that is what he does best.

” I just got a question,” Mickey Finnin says. “Why can’t you send some a your guys down there, y’know what I mean? Maybe if some a these tootsoons got their kneecaps broken they’d think twice about all this lootin’ and throwin’ Molotov cocktails.”

Jackey throws his head back and roars. Mickey looks at Al and Rocco BIanco. They shrug. “I’m glad I can entertain you,” Mickey says, laughing mirthlessly.

“Naw, naw. Doan take it personal,” Jackey says. “Nobody’s breakin’ nobody’s kneecaps nowhere. Lemme tell you somethin’. Daley’s got the entire police force on 24-hour alert. Ten thousand friggin’ blues down there. Shapiro just sent in five thousand National Guard. LBJ’s thinkin’ of sendin’ in the Army. What’s that — fifteen, twenty thousand guys? Buona fortuna. I doan give a shit whatchyer readin’ in Royko, I ain’t got guys that’ll go into d’at jungle and deal wit’ d’em animali.”

“It’s that bad?” Al asks.

“It’s d’at bad,” Jackey says.

“D’at’s right,” Rocco Bianco says.

Mickey takes a deep drag off his cigar then points it at each of his colleagues. “We shoulda never gave ‘em those civil rights and all that other shit they were screamin’ about. Things were good just the way they were. I’m a Democrat all my life. I ain’t never gonna vote for them country club Republicans, right? But LBJ was wrong, dead wrong, givin’ ‘em those civil rights. JFK, too, God rest his soul. They give ‘em what they want and what do they do? They burn everything down. Am I right?”

“D’at’s right,” Rocco Bianco says.

“Damn right I’m right,” Mickey says. Al and Jackey nod emphatically.

Now the four men sit in silence and shake their heads at the stupidity of it all.

Al breaks the silence. “What about us?” he asks. “We gonna be okay over here?”

Jackey blows out a puff of cigar smoke. “Doan worry about it,” he says. “You could go up and down these streets all afternoon, you’da seen half to t’ree quarters a your neighbors out on their front porch, armed to the teet’. I mean it, d’ey want these coloreds to come over here. It’s like the wild, wild west out here. We got posses on every block.” The four share a titter over that one.

“D’at’s right,” Rocco Bianco says.

“Yeah,” Mickey says. “The Mayor ain’t gonna let ‘em get past Pulaski. Hell, he’ll get LBJ to throw the atom bomb at ‘em, they start comin’ this way.”

“I dunno about all these guns,” Al says, initiating another silence. Nobody’s thought about the repercussions of hundreds of hotheads sitting on their front porches ready to fire pistols, rifles, and shotguns at the first flash of black skin.

“C’mon now, Al,” Mickey says. “These are good people. They’re not… whaddya call it…, what was that you said, Jackey? Ahnny Mahlly?”

“Animali,” Jackey corrects him. “The beasts of the jungle.”

“That’s what I said. Ahnny Mahlly. You Dagos sure know how to turn a sentence,” Mickey says. “We Irish, we sing the songs and we love the drink. You Dago boys draw them pictures like that Duh Vinsy and you write them words like that Donnie guy.”

“Donnie?” Jackey says.

“Yeah, you know ‘im! He’s one a yours, fer chrissakes. Donnie.”

Jackey turns to Rocco Bianco, the only college graduate of the foursome. DePaul Law, 1948. “What’s he talkin’ about, Rocco?”

“I think he means Dante.”

“Dante! Gee Zuss Kee-riest, Mickey!”

The four chuckle, then turn silent. They can still hear sirens in the distance. A gust blows up from the south, bringing with it another blast of smoke.

“Animals,” Al says.

“Animali,” Jackey says.

“Ahnny Mahlly,” Mickey says.

“D’at’s right,” Rocco Bianco says.

“I’ll tell you this,” Jackey concludes. “We ain’t gonna let no crazy niggers ruin everything we built up in this city.”

“No sir,” Al says.

“No way. No how,” Mickey says.

“D’at’s right,” Rocco Bianco says.

There’s a final 30-second silence before Jackey speaks again. “Doan laugh,” he says, ‘but we can turn all d’is shit to our advantage.”

“What’s on your mind?” Mickey asks, leaning in toward him.

“This,” Jackey says. “I got contacts downtown in the real estate rackets. You know some a these people from the papers so I ain’t gonna mention no names. But these are heavy hitters, believe me. They tell me I gotta grab up as much a this land that’s opening up as fast as I can.”

“Whaddya mean?” Mickey says.

“All these buildings they’re burnin’ down, all these two-, t’ree, and four-flats? It’s gonna be a desert out there from Roosevelt Road up to Lake Street, right? That land ain’t worth a shit right now. You can get it for pennies on the dollar. You make your investment right now, wait ten, twenty years, all of sudden that land’s worth somethin’.”

“Is that what the big boys are gonna do?” Mickey asks.

“Not ‘gonna,’” Jackey says. “D’ey been doin’ it for a few years now. I know one guy that owns half the land around the Stadium.”

The Stadium

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“There’s nothin’ there,” Mickey says.

“D’at’s right,” Jackey says. “D’at’s why you buy now.”

Jackey’s three listeners sit back in their patio chairs and stare into the smokey sky, contemplating.

Jackey interrupts their reveries. “Am I right? Am I right? Now, let’s get crackin’ on d’is. We get together and grab some a d’is land ourselves. I’ll work with the big boys downtown to set it up. Whaddya say?”

Al, Mickey, and Rocco Bianco all nod.

“Good,” Jackey says. “Who’d'a thought it? D’is Luther King gettin’ killed might be the best thing that could ever happen.”

Rocco Bianco puts his signature punctuation on the proceedings: “D’at’s right,” he says.

In her room, Anna places her Princess phone back in its cradle. She thinks, I hate this place.

See you here for the next installment of Black Comedy, Tuesday.

Big Mike: Black Comedy Excerpt No. 16 — “I Owe You Big Time”

Galewood is under a canopy of smoke from the fires on the West Side. Jimmy The Jungle Man’s precious Mustang sits, wrecked, at the end of Joey’s block. Tree wonders if the whole world’s going crazy. This is the latest installment from my novel-in-progress, Black Comedy. Read on. — Big Mike

Joey turns the corner from Wabansia onto Natchez Avenue. He sees at the other end of the block the gorgeous metal-flake blue Shelby Cobra Mustang with twin white racing stripes sitting in the middle of the street, angled oddly as if The Jungle Man had tried to park it diagonally and simply quit mid-effort. The Mustang is The Jungle Man’s most cherished object on this Earth, probably even more dear to him than his parents and all the friends and relatives he’s ever known. But there it sits, steam emanating from under its crumpled hood, fluids of different colors and consistencies flowing out from underneath. The Mustang is bleeding to death.

Jimmy The Jungle Man’s Mustang, When It Was Still Alive

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Now Joey notices a huge old Dodge that has come to rest some fifty feet away from the Mustang, its passenger wheels up on the curb. It, too, is a goner, although its demise will be little mourned. It is pockmarked with rust and dents, missing all its hubcaps, its upholstery frayed and torn, its tires bald. As Joey nears the two cars, he surmises that the Mustang and Dodge have collided as one of the two vehicles — it’s impossible to tell which — came out of the alley next to the Dudek house. One of them was moving awfully fast.

Ma is always saying that Jimmy Finnin is gonna kill somebody, the way he speeds down Natchez Avenue. “One of these days,” she warns time and again whenever she hears his wheels spin, “he’s gonna hit somebody coming out of the alley. Just watch!” She shakes her head and stirs her tomato sauce more vigorously. “It just better not be your father,” she adds a moment later. “Them Finnins are no good,” she adds when Al isn’t around.

The street seems deserted. Under normal circumstances, the whole block would be out milling around the two cars. Kids would be running around, housewives would gather, tsk-tsking and occasionally yelling at the kids to stay out of the goddamned street or I’ll break your head, and a couple of old geezers would be trying to top each other with tales of wrecks they’d seen. But, again, these are not normal circumstances.

This is the day that a plume of smoke shaped like a big black penis hangs over Galewood. So the kids and their mothers and the old geezers remain inside where it’s safe for the time being, kneeling on plastic slip-covered sofas, peering out through sheer white curtains to see what’ll happen next.

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Joey nears the Mustang. It appears empty. He bends over to look into the passenger compartment, the radio still blaring, an oldie from ‘65, “Rescue Me,” by Fontella Bass. No, wait. The Mustang isn’t empty. Jesus, that’s the Jungle Man’s curly hair! What’s he doin’, lyin’ face down on the passenger seat?

Joey hears gurgling, then he sees blood dripping on the carpet. He reaches into the car and grabs the Jungle Man by the back of his collar. The Jungle Man reflexively retches, bloody spume and several teeth pouring out of his mouth. He gasps as if he’s been drowning.

“You okay?” Joey asks, shaking the Jungle Man.

No answer.

“‘Ay, Jimmy! Jimmy, you okay? Answer me!”

No answer.

“Rescue Me”

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Joey shakes The Jungle Man, gently at first but then progressively more violently until, finally, Jimmy Finnin hacks up enough blood and screams, “Stop it, goddamnit! You’re killin’ me!” He spits out a few more teeth.

Joey tries to open the driver’s door but it’s jammed closed. He reaches inside again, this time with both hands and tugs the Jungle Man out of the car. Joey’s got him by the shoulders. The Jungle Man’s legs finally clear the car door and they flop down hard on the concrete. “Aw, shit” the Jungle Man moans.

Now Joey smells burning gas and sees wisps of smokes coming out from under the car. He gathers the Jungle Man in his arms and carries him into the house. Joey lugs the Jungle Man into his room and lays him on his bed. Ma scuttles in, already carrying freshly wrung towels and an ice bag. She kneels on the floor next to the bed and applies the ice bag to the Jungle Man’s forehead and begins wiping the blood from his face. Joey steps back to look at the figure on his bed.

The Jungle Man’s face is becoming a purple and black mask. The front of his white T-shirt is a Rorschach blot of drying blood. His nose already is twice its normal size and his breathing is still a juicy gurgle. He props himself up on one arm and leans over the edge of the bed to spit bloody saliva on the floor.

The Jungle Man turns his face to look at Joey. He wants to say something. He opens his mouth. “Bloof,” he says and then cringes in pain.

Now the three hear fire truck sirens. The Jungle Man takes a deep breath and whispers, “My car….”

Joey goes into the living room to check on the car. It’s engulfed in flames. Joey grimaces. He returns to his bedroom. The Jungle Man whispers again, “My car….”

“It’s okay,” Joey says.

The Jungle Man, relieved, falls back on the bed.

Ma grabs Joey by the arm and brusquely leads him out of the room. “Go out and tell the firemen we need an ambulance — quick!”

Joey obediently approaches the driver of Engine Company N0. 23 as he watches his colleagues begin to spray down the Mustang with hand-held extinguishers before the hoses can be hooked up to the hydrant in front of Old Man Joe Martini’s house.

“Sir?” Joey says. “Sir?” The driver flicks a cigarette away, toward the burning vehicle. He looks at Joey as if the last place in this world he wants to be is here now — which is odd because if he weren’t here now he’d probably be on Madison Street dodging bricks and maybe a bullet or two.

“Whuh?” the driver says.

“We need a ambulance,” Joey says. “A kid’s got a bloody mouth in my bedroom….”

“That so?” the driver says.

“Yeah. Hurry. Please.”

“Get in line, kid. There ain’t no ambulances available. They’re all out in the land of teeth and eyes.”

“Huh?”

“Never mind. There ain’t no ambulances.”

Joey runs back inside to deliver the news to his mother. “I’ll be goddamned!” she hollers. Joey’s surprised. He wouldn’t have thought she’d be so concerned about Jimmy Finnin, The Jungle Man, of whom she holds such a low opinion.

She hands Joey a couple of towels. “Here,” she says. “Keep pressing the ice on his forehead. I’ll call the fire department myself.” Joey sits on the edge of the bed and mashes the icebag into The Jungle Man’s face until Jimmy pushes it away. He splutters through his newly-toothless and bloodied mouth, “Whaddya tryin’a do, suffocate me?”

“Sorry,” Joey says. Jimmy’s eyes roll back in his head. “Wait, don’t die,” Joey says, his eyes watering.

Jimmy whispers, “Not dyin’….”

Now Joey hears his mother dialing the fire department. A few seconds later, he hears this: “I need an ambulance at 1619 North Natchez Avenue. That’s one, six, one, nine Natchez. N, A, T…. What? What do you mean?” There’s a pause. “We got a kid here who had a bad accident! He swallowed his tongue. He smashed his face into the steering wheel. We need an ambulance!”

Another pause. “The West Side? So what for the West Side? What about us? We need some help, too!”

A third pause. “What’s your name? Gimme that again. Smolinski? Listen, Smolinski, this kid is the son of Mickey Finnin. You know Mickey Finnin? Yeah. That’s right. He’s hurt bad, Mr. Smolinski.”

Mickey Finnin is the magic pair of words. Ma says “Okay, hurry,” and hangs up. She rejoins Joey in the bedroom.

“What happened, Ma?” Joey whispers.

She whispers back: ” He hit a Negro coming out of the alley.”

“What?”

Ma nods. Joey ponders a moment. “What happened to him?”

“The Negro?”

“Yeah.”

“He ran.”

“What was he doin’ around here?”

“I have no idea. Probably nuts.”

“The Mustang’s finished.”

Tree slaps him on the arm. She leans in and whispers in Joey’s ear. “Shush! He’ll have a nervous breakdown if he hears you.”

They sit in silence watching Jimmy Finnin for 35 minutes until they hear another siren. “Must be the ambulance. I thought they’d never get here,” Tree says. “Go out front and make sure they know where to come.”

Joey stands on the front porch and when the ambulance turns on to Natchez Avenue, he waves his arms. As the ambulance guys pull their gurney out of their vehicle, Joey says to them: “Y’know who we got here?”

“Oh yeah,” one of them says. “We were down by Madison and Pulaski. The dispatcher musta said ‘Mickey Finnin’s kid’ forty two times.”

Joey leads the pair into the house just as Al pulls up in his Buick. Joey shows the way to his bedroom and tells Tree, “The ambulance is here. And Pa’s home.”

“Oh, thank God,” Tree says. She runs out of the bedroom to greet her husband. As Al comes in the back door, Tree says, “Al,” and Joey thinks he mights see his parents embrace for the first time in his life.

Instead, Tree keeps her distance, as always. “What’s goin’ on?” she asks her husband. “Is the whole world going crazy?”

“Now don’t get excited,” he says. “We gotta think calm now.”

The ambulance guys tape ice packs to the bridge of Jimmy’s nose and jaw. They lift him gently onto the gurney and wheel him through the dining room. “Joey,” Al says. “Go wit’ ‘em to the hospital.”

Tree nearly shouts, “Al, are you out of your mind? The hospital is too close to the riots!”

One of the ambulance guys says, “Naw, we’re not going to St. Anne’s. We’re going to Resurrection. It’s a lot farther away but it’s safer.”

Al says, “See?” He turns to Joey. “Now you ride with them to Resurrection. Stay there until Mickey and me come and get you.”

Outside, Joey climbs into the rear of the ambulance. Al and Tree watch as it pulls away, headed northwest, in the opposite direction of the inferno. Tree says to Al again: “What’s goin’ on?”

Al shrugs. “Well, if we don’t watch out, them black bastards are gonna take over.”

In the ambulance, the ride is bumpy. Every time the vehicle hits a pothole, Jimmy winces.

“It won’t be long now,” Joey says.

The Jungle Man stares into Joey’s eyes. “Thanks, Joey,” he says. Joey thinks it’s the first time Jimmy Finnin has ever addressed him by his first name. The Jungle Man continues. “I owe you, buddy. I owe you big time.”

Preparations for the big wedding go on as the city burns, Saturday, in the next installment of Black Comedy on The Third City.

Big Mike: Black Comedy Excerpt No. 15 — The Smoke

“… shoot to kill….”

– Mayor Richard J. Daley’s order to police during rioting following the assassination of Martin Luther King, Jr.

April 5th. It’s hot. St. Paul Federal’s 40-foot tall time and temperature sign reads 82 degrees, a record. And to the southeast, hundreds of fires burn out of control between Chicago Avenue and Roosevelt Road. A three-and-a-half mile stretch of Madison street is being leveled by arsonists. Rioters are erecting a barricade at Western Avenue. They’ll soon turn it into a pyre.

“…Shoot To Maim Or Cripple Anyone Looting….”

Space

The color of the sky reminds Joey of the time he took two Crayolas in one hand — one Yellow-Orange and the other Blue-Green — and tried to see what color he could produce if he pressed down really hard on the paper. He came up with something he couldn’t even describe — not that he’s all that good with words to begin with but even if he was, he probably couldn’t have invented one for that color. And for this sky.

This sky would have been crystal clear blue had not that black Martin Luther King gotten himself killed last night.

The public schools hadn’t even opened up today. The priests at Holy Cross High had decided against sending the boys home early when trouble started on the West Side late in the morning. At about two, Fr. Micelli had announced over the PA system that those who’d driven to school or were being picked up by their parents ought to give students who normally ride the CTA a ride home. “And go straight home,” Fr. Micelli concluded. The guys in Joey’s American History class all looked at each other. Fr. Micelli sounded scared.

Madison Street, April 5th, 1968

Space

Joey isn’t scared, though. Hell, Galewood’s white! And, as every Galewood kid is aware, with Sam Giancana living in Oak Park, Tony Accardo in River Forest, and Jackey Pontone right here in the neighborhood, this is as safe a place as any in Chicago. You think Momo Giancana is gonna let them moolenjohns come in here and burn everything down? Come on!

Madison Street, April 6th, 1968

Space

Joey thinks: D’em priests doan know what they’re talkin’ about. So, as usual, he hitchhikes home from school. A good way to save money. He pockets the 35 cents bus fare each way every day. By the end of the week he collects $3.50 that way. Good for a couple of bottles of Ripple Red for the weekend. Ma’s such a cheapskate with the allowance.

So he stands in front of the Dominick’s on Belmont and sticks out his thumb. It’s weird, man. All these cars passing by with their headlights on in broad daylight. Da hell is goin’ on?

A guy in a ‘59 Caddy Sedan de Ville, the kind with two bullet-point brake lights on each razor sharp fin, pulls over. A spade behind the wheel, of course. What is it with spades and their Caddies?

“Thanks, man,” Joey says as he settles into the cracked leather passenger seat.

“S’okay,” the spade says. “I jes didn’t think y’oughtta be standin’ out there today.”

“Naw, man,” Joey says. “The is the Northwest Side. Ain’t nothin’ gonna happen here.”

“Okay, you say so. But some o’my brothers ain’t feelin’ too kindly to some o’their white brothers today, dig?”

“Yeah, I know. I’ll be alright,” Joey says, hoping his tone of finality will dissuade this spade from giving him any more “brotherly” advice.

The spade’s about 40 or so. Has those muttonchop sideburns and a two-inch ‘Fro. Dressed all up as a mailman. Probably coming home from work. Maybe. But where the hell would he be living around here? Plus, he has more cologne on than a French whore. Lucky it’s hot out and the windows are open.

Joey glances around the enormous sedan. Pretty good shape. This tootsoon has a little pride — hasn’t let his wheels go all to shit. He’s probably got a Irish house, though. Pigsty.

But, man, that back seat is huge! Joey thinks: If I had this car I’d get Mary Ellen Foley in the back seat in two shakes of a lamb’s tail!

As Joey completes his survey of the Caddy, his eyes catch those of the spade. Is he lookin’ at me? Da fuck’s he gonna do?

“You wanna hear some music?” the spade asks.

Joey resists the temptation to roll his eyes. He doesn’t wanna hear all that jungle music, that James Brown shit. Maybe some Supremes, okay. But none a that humpa humpa humpa crap. Joeys says nothing but the spade flips on the radio anyway. Dex Card and the Silver Dollar Survey. “The Look of Love” by Sergio Mendes and Brasil 66.

“Ooh, I love this song,” the spade says.

Joey wrinkles his nose. He loves the song, too, but it’s creepy to hear this old man say he loves it. And then he starts singing along with it!

I can hardly wait to hold you,

Feel my arms around you.

Ugh! Joey thinks for a moment that he’ll just tell the spade he has to get out at Oak Park Avenue, over near Pitzaferro’s. He could stop in and get a slice, wait a while, and then try to hitch a ride with a white guy. Just as he’s about to open his mouth, the spade starts talking.

“I think all men should be brothers,” he says.

“Right on,” Joey says, contrary to what he’s thinking.

“I don’t know why we all have to hate each other.”

“Yeah, sure.”

“We should love each other.”

Joey thinks, Jeez, I thought that Luther King guy was dead. What’s all this love your brother shit?

Joey also thinks it’s getting hotter than ever in this car. He tugs at his tie and undoes his short collar.

“That’s it,” the spade says. “Make yourself at home.”

Joey thinks: Da fuck does that mean?

The Caddy is long past Pitzaferro’s now. The spade stops at the red light at Nashville Avenue. He looks out the corner of his eye at Joey. He bites his lip. Joey’s getting dizzy from the heat and the cologne. The spade reaches over and puts his hand on Joey’s thigh. He leans a bit closer to the passenger side. Joey’s mouth is open, like a guy who’s seeing a car crash happening right before his eyes.

“You wanna mess around?” the spade asks.

“Huh?” Joey says. It comes out as a shout.

The spade pulls back his hand. “Sorry, brother. I didn’t mean anything by it.”

“You fucking crazy nigger!” Joey screams. “Lemme outta here!”

Joey throws the door open and runs like hell down Nashville Avenue. He never even slammed the Caddy’s door shut. He hadn’t even picked up his books. Fuck it man!

Some four blocks down, near Diversey Avenue, Joey makes himself a promise. He will never, ever, ever tell a soul what just happened. And he hopes to God in heaven that nobody saw it happening.

***

Joey’s gotta get the stink of the incident out of his mind. Okay, the rehearsal dinner is tonight. Gonna be at Biancalana’s after the church. Joey decides he’s going to order the braciole.

A warm spring Friday after school like this should be a great big deal. Maybe start out with some softball at Park Nine until dinner. Then, after eating and showering, run back down to Park Nine where the guys’ll hang outside The Shack in their weekend best clothes, waiting for the girls to come by, at which point one or another will whisper to the group to watch its language and knock off the spitting.

They’ll talk to the girls about music. The Beatles have a new song, “Lady Madonna.” It has a line that still makes them titter despite their outward teen cool — “Baby at her breast.” Funny, man. Or they’ll talk about clothes. A kid nicknamed Demento was the first of them to wear those new bellbottoms. He’d split the neighborhood — most declared him a fag but a significant minority deemed him hip. Or TV. Some guy will say “Didja see Buffalo Springfield on the Smothers Brothers?” and immediately another will say, “Fuck that, man, them Smothers Brothers are commies,” after which a fierce debate ensues as to which karate chop and automatic pistol extravangaza is better: “The Man from UNCLE” or the “Green Hornet.” Invariably, one guy’ll karate chop another guy on the back of the neck and a tussle will follow. At around 8:30 or nine o’clock, the group will pool its money and a designated pair of will go down to Schmidt’s Drugs at North and Austin to await the arrival of some Samaritan kind enough to buy them a bottle of Ripple or Richard’s Wild Irish Rose. No matter how many of them share that bottle, it will be certain to intoxicate each as if he’d drunk a vat of the stuff. There were Fridays when they’d get only a couple of sips each from the bottle; nevertheless, by 10:30 one of them will be sure to marvel, “Man, that shit fucked me up!” To which the rest will agree with drunken nods. By that time, the girls would be long gone. It’ll be time for the guys to dream and lie. “I’m gonna make it with Lynette next week,” one will say. Or “I got a thing goin’ with Lorelei.” If a new girl had joined them that night, they’d analyze her in detail. “You think she’s goin’ with anybody?” “She got some tits, man.” “Yeah, she’s cute; I’d make it with her.” “I dunno; is she clean?”

But this is no ordinary Friday. At Diversey and Nashville, Joey sees a squadrol slowly cruise by. It has a shotgun prominently displayed in a standup rack between the two cops inside. The air reeks of far off burning neighborhoods. Joey’s trying to forget the sissy spade. A voice calls out from Joey’s left: “Ay! Whattsa matter wit’ you? Get the hell home!”

It’s some guy sitting on his front porch with a revolver in his lap. “Whaddya, nuts?” the guy says.

“I’m goin’ home right now,” Joey replies.

“Y’better,” the guy says.

Joey continues walking south. On each block there are fathers and sons sitting on the front porches of their homes, cradling hunting rifles or pistols, some of them grim, some grinning and kidding as if this is a city-wide party. And rather than jump out of their squadrols to seize the weapons, the cops are nodding their approval at the members of this ad hoc militia.

White Men All (Photo by Jo Freeman)

Space

White men all, the cops and the guys on the porches are brothers in arms, holding on to Galewood against what they’re certain will be an advancing horde of colored men, the coal, the jigaboos, the melanzanas, who at this moment are burning down all their own buildings and looting all their own stores and when they’re finished, they’ll turn to the north and the west, toward white homes and businesses, and wreak their havoc on civilization itself. Then they’ll go for the women.

It’ll be a wave of savages, Black Panthers, communists, less-than-humans who want nothing more than to enslave Galewood’s white wives and daughters. And, through no fault of their own, Galewood’s white wives and daughters would become entranced by their superior phallic endowments. If that thick plume of smoke resembles anything at all it is a titanic penis casting its shadow over Galewood. That the smoke is black only makes its specter all the more terrifying.

Space

Joey, of course, is unaware of such semiotics. He’s barely cognizant of how scared people really are, frightened to their cores, ready for a fight, a battle they know has been coming for years. There’ve been opening salvos for the past three summers now. Watts. Detroit. Newark. Gary. Cleveland. One city after another since 1965. Riots even broke out here a time or two.

And there were the marches. Al Raby leading black parents and teachers in circles around City Hall ridiculing the mobile home classrooms the Board of Education had erected around black schools to relieve overcrowding. God forbid they’d ever bus black kids out to underutilized schools in white neighborhoods.

The utterance of the word busing itself has become a lit match that can spark an argument, a fistfight, a riot, a goddamned race war.

Words. Busing. Integration. Open housing. Civil rights. They are triggers. And the good residents of Galewood sense in their guts that the gun is pointed squarely at their heads. They’ll be God damned if they’re going to let black adolescents sit next to their precious white daughters in steamy classrooms. They know what’ll follow.

If a single one of those young bucks named Otis or Tyrone tries to put his fat lips on a single Galewood father’s daughter, that father will dash to his closet, reach up on the top shelf, grab his pistol, and put a slug in that black bastard’s head. And, if by chance, that daughter comes home and announces she’s pregnant by some no good jungle bunny, that father will turn the gun on his daughter herself and then he’ll point the barrel at his own temple and pull the trigger because what’s the use of going on living?

They’re coming. The black smoke overhead blotting out the sun is a warning that can’t be ignored. They have to be stopped now. The Great Society be damned! Lyndon Johnson and all his experts, that goddamned Sargent Shriver and the rest, what the hell do they know? Their daughters are going to big fancy dances and fancy restaurants with nice white kids from Georgetown or Hyannisport. We got the shines burning the city down on their way to Galewood! We ain’t got time for no urban renewal! You wanna give ‘em a chance, you live next door to ‘em!

And so the cops and the guys sitting on their porches with guns on their laps smile and nod at each other, waiting. Waiting.

All Joey knows is that it’s very exciting. He doesn’t know from swimming pools or Willis Wagons. Something big is happening and nothing big ever happens in Galewood.

***

The Following Images Were Shot By Jo Freeman During And After The King Riots In Chicago, April 5th Through 10th, 1968.

For More Images From Jo Freeman, Visit Her Website.

***

Come back for more Black Comedy, Wednesday, on The Third City.