Jonathan C. Lewis
Author and Artist
Life is L
A fictional travelogue; four minutes to read.
Chicago is a muscular city. Skyscrapers, stockyards, steakhouses. Railroads, retailing, resettlement.
“The city gets its name from the Algonquin word for wild garlic,” my guidebook reports. “Today, 175 different tribes make Chicago their home—the third-largest urban Native-American population in the country.”
The first European to explore the area was a French missionary. Jacques Marquette's expedition, tribal leaders and the region’s wildlife are memorialized by mosaic friezes, bronze busts and bas relief sculptures inside the foyer of the Marquette building. Louis Comfort Tiffany used 300,000 pieces of lustered glass, mother-of-pearl and semi-precious stones to, beautifully and eloquently, record Chicago’s history.
After Marquette, a conveyer belt of humanity followed. Irish, Germans, Poles, Austrians, Mexicans, Lithuanians, Slovaks, Russians, Ukrainians, Jews, African-Americans, French Canadians, Czechs. By the turn of the century, 80% of all the beef eaten in America was being slaughtered by immigrants working ten- and twelve-hour shifts in the Chicago stockyards.
Boarding Chicago’s L train (L for elevated), I’m looking forward to a relaxing stroll along the Chicago River, a burger at Billy Goat Tavern, then early to bed. If it weren’t for the screeching of metal wheels on metal rails, I might have dozed off, maybe even missed my stop.
Instead, I’m watching a brown-skinned elderly couple seated across from me. They are tethered to their suitcases. She’s clutching her purse. His arm is around her shoulders gripping her as if worried she might be stolen.
I teach civics and American history to high school students. I recognize the panicked fear of injustice when I see it.
I smile a smile of reassurance. They stare straight ahead, ignoring me.
My smile is a pathetic gesture of cognitive dissonance. If Trump’s Gestapo invades our railcar, smiles will be useless. As useless as reminding a Republican that, before the party was taken over by counterfeit Christians and neo-Nazis, it was the party of Abraham Lincoln.
The other riders are lost inside their newspapers, books, headphones. Tension crackles off the walls of our trolley.
On the streets below us, the city is on alert for ICE agents raiding railcars, school yards, apartment buildings, public parks. Even Native-Americans—the original North Americans—aren’t safe from ethnic cleansing.
Outside our grimy windows, the passing buildings are stoney and solemn—shades of grey etched with dark shadows of sorrow. The streets are honking, riotous, unhappy. Scurrying people avoid eye contact. Warning whistles blow at every unmarked car or van. It’s as if the Chicago Symphony Orchestra is performing with untuned musical instruments.
Looming over the downtown, a Trump Tower—a glossy office building—dominates the skyline. Raping its way into the foggy clouds, it is an overpowering, phallic watchtower checking up that its owner’s orders are executed.
Not for the first time, I have the rattling sensation of uncontrolled foreboding. My breath is shallow. My chest hurts.
Confronted with a violent deportation—a kidnapping by state-sanctioned KKK members in hooded masks and packing weapons, I don’t know what I’ll do. I’m no hero.
A glance around the cabin confirms I am not alone in my cowardice. My hands feel cold.
Looking across the aisle, my legs quivering, I ask, “Do you need directions? Where are you headed?”
The man hesitates, before stumbling out an accented whisper, “O’Hare.”
