i decided to take a trip to chicago.
actually, i had no place to go, but i had to go somewhere, so i decided to look up my old friend harry in chicago. harry had let me sleep on his couch or on his floor on many occasions in the past.
i found harry’s apartment - number 68. the door to the apartment 68 was very narrow and heavy looking. the whole apartment building had a heavy, old-fashioned look about it.
i knocked on the door. nobody answered right away, and i knocked a little louder.
finally a man opened the door. i didn’t recognize him. for a second i thought it might be harry, so changed since i last saw him that i did not recognize him, but then i saw that it was not.
is harry jones here? i asked.
yes, come on in, the man said, he did not seem surprised by my appearance, or interested in me.
i followed him down a very narrow hallway. the hallway opened into a surprisingly wide room.
the room was cluttered with chairs and couches, mostly cheap looking old-fashioned leather couches, and the chairs and couches were about two thirds filled with people.
not people who looked like members of the ruling class. but not out-and-out bums either. and they weren’t talking much, just staring into space like they were waiting for somebody.
the man who had let me in disappeared into a little side room. i could hear voices. harry? what was harry up to here, i wondered.
i remembered that harry had passed the bar, but never actually practiced law. maybe he was practicing law now? the place did not look exactly like a law office.
i sat down in a little red leather armchair. before i put my bag down, i checked it to make sure everything i owned was still in it. everything was there - some socks and underwear, toothbrush and toothpaste and such, and the two books i always carried with me - think and grow rich, by napoleon hill, and the collected poems of edgar guest.
i looked up and saw a very old woman seated across from me on one of the couches. she was leaning forward on a cane and seemed to be looking at me through impenetrably thick glasses.
do you know harry? i asked her.
of course, she answered, don’t you?
i’ve known him for a long time, i said.
harry is a wonderful person, the old woman said.
yes, he is, i agreed.
he does so much for the community.
i am sure he does, i said. it sounds like harry has a good thing going here, i thought. he must be practicing law, or maybe he is a - what do you call it - community organizer or something. surely he can put me up for a while, at least let me sleep on one of these couches.
an old black man sat down on the couch beside the old woman. i tried to think of something to say to him. the only thing i knew about chicago was that the cubs were on the north side and the white sox were on the south side. or was it the other way around?
and were the “north side” and the “south side” actually the two halves of the whole city or were they just the names of neighborhoods, like “south philly” or “south boston”?
how about those cubs?, i asked the old man.
how about them? he replied.
what does the ticket to a game cost these days? i asked him. the cheapest seat?
you can get in for thirty dollars.
wow, i said, that is cheap. i noticed that the room was filling up all around me - most of the chairs and couches now looked filled.
the man who had let me in came out of the little room. harry will see you now, he said to somebody.
and he will see me, too, i thought. it will be like old times. everything is going to be all right.
i woke up. i had fallen asleep on a bench in the park.
it took me a few seconds to remember who i was, and where i was.
harry had been dead for years.
and i had not spoken to him or looked him up for thirty years before that.
