2001-05-25 - 8:34 a.m.

Ed: The first and third segments are new, the rest is repeat. Bear with us.

Episode 4

(In which our young hero visits City Hall, gives a stranger the shirt off his back, hugs a homeless man and does some substitute teaching)

While I was away, I was sent a mass-mailing from the Friends of the Uptown, a group that I stumbled across a few months back. They�re working to save the Uptown Theater, this big, hulking, boarded up theater that hangs over Broadway. In the 1920s, in Uptown�s heyday, it was one of the biggest and most beautiful movie halls in the country, but it�s been closed for 20 years and is now in danger of being condemned.

They�re E-mailing me because there�s a public hearing coming up at City Hall over a plan to revitalize Uptown, bring in some more commercial development to fill up some of these vacant storefronts, or maybe some new housing. It just so happens that the hearing is today, and I don�t have anything to do, so I head down there and check it out.

I settle into a seat near the front of the hall, by a microphone where it looks like most of the action will be taking place. A man in front of me turns around and introduces himself as David Rowe, executive director of the Uptown Chicago Commission. I�m not sure what to call myself, but I say I�m an interested resident and a writer of sorts and leave it at that.

The speakers that come to the microphone lay out the controversy. Chicago�s Community Development Commission has already decided that Uptown should be given a special status as a tax-increment financing district, meaning that certain developers in the neighborhood could apply for funding to boost their ventures. The question at stake is what sort of ventures will get the funds.

There�s the Uptown Chicago Commission, which believes that the neighborhood has too much low-income housing. There needs to be more mid-level housing, they say, so that the poor people who finally manage to scrape together a living can stay and live in their own community. And there needs to be more commercial development, they say, so the people who are already here can find jobs.

Then there�s the Organization of the NorthEast and Community of Uptown Residents for Affordability and Justice (COURAJ), two groups who believe that condominiums have pushed out too many poor residents in Uptown, and more low-cost housing is the only way to preserve the neighborhood�s diverse mixture.

Mixed in with all the official speakers are several students from Prologue High School, attesting to the value of the school and arguing that funds should go to saving it. I didn�t even know there was a school nearby, but it�s practically across my street. Just travel through an unmarked door and up the stairs and there it is, one of the city�s most troubled alternative schools, for students who couldn�t make it anywhere else, right on top of a convenience store and a bar.

I finally feel like I�m seeing a new angle of Uptown, the behind-the-scenes wheeling and dealing, the aldermen and commissioners who will ultimately decide the fates of thousands of Uptown residents. This is only the beginning, one small skirmish in a long war over what to do with this neighborhood that doesn�t seem to be working, hasn�t been working for years.

I chat with David Rowe after the meeting, make plans to talk to him again, because I want to dig into the issue, why I�m not sure, but I want to know more about it. I want to amass volumes of information and then decide what to do with it, write a treatise or just be able to make up my mind on what should be done and take a side on it.

And then, meeting over, I decide to wander through city hall a bit, and I walk through every floor, poking my head in doors and lingering over artwork, spinning a yo-yo all the while to make these people wonder who I am, until the place clears out at five.

***

I go to the beach. I walk out along the big stone slabs, down along the beach in the direction of the beacon that�s hanging over the lake at the end of a long stone path. I�ve been here a hundred times, but I�ve never realized until now that it�s shaped like a hook. And I never imagined until now that there would be so many people fishing off the edge at five on a Thursday. I hoist myself up from the sand onto the surface rather than walk around.

Up ahead there are four guys in their 20s motioning over the edge. The wind has apparently blown one guy�s tackle box and chairs over the edge.

�I�m gonna go get it.�

�That water�s fuckin� cold, man. Don�t do it.�

�That�s hundreds of dollars worth of stuff down there, man.�

While the rest have continued fishing, he has stripped to his underwear and is beginning to lower himself over the ledge, which goes about six feet down to the water.

�Is he gonna do it?�

�You�re crazy, man. Don�t do it.�

I am staring over the edge with them, caught up in the suspense of the moment. It�s so warm up here that I�ve taken off my overshirt and tied it around my waste. The shirt is just an old thing that this guy gave me in Virginia because he didn�t like flannels.

�Hey, man. If I go in there, can I wear that that sweater?� he asks me.

I tell him sure, even though it�s not a sweater. He is very concerned about the coldness of the water. Down at the beach, where the water doesn�t go past your knee, it�s not too bad, but to plunge your whole body in and search around for a tackle box is something else.

One guy lowers a pole down to him to help him fish out a few pieces floating around. Another guy doesn�t want him to use his pole.

�Do what you want with your own stuff, man, but don�t mess with my stuff,� he says as he baits another line.

Now the guy down at the water is standing up somehow, I can�t see what he�s holding onto but there must be another ledge down there. He�s pumping himself up for the plunge.

�Do it, man.�

�Shut up. I have to pace myself.�

�Just shoot right down there, grab the stuff and pull it back up.�

�I know. I know.�

He stands there for a while, building up for the big moment, some of us wondering if it can really be that big a deal, if he could really get hypothermia down there if it�s so warm up here.

�You have to be ready to pull me up.�

�All right, man. We�ll be here.�

And then I look away and look back a moment later and he�s disappeared, leaving a swarm of white bubbles where he dove. And a few seconds later he�s back up again, and he�s got something, a tackle box. But he�s breathing so heavy and he�s trying to lift it onto the ledge in front of him but for some reason he can�t.

�Get out of there, man. Get out of there.�

�I�have to�putontheclasp,� he sputters as he fumbles with the clasp. Then he�s got it up on the ledge, and he�s up out of the water himself, and he hands up the tackle box and two guys pull him up, one arm apiece.

He starts pacing around and I give him the shirt and he starts talking about how that was only half his stuff, he�s got all his tackles down there, that you can only catch certain kinds of fish with what he�s dredged up but there�s a whole bunch more down there, all together in one spot right where he could find it, and if he could just dive down there one more time and scoop it up and push himself off and get out of there, he�ll be fine.

One guy is raising his voice in protest. Another friend has already wandered off because he�s nervous about them swimming illegally. Other people along the pier are starting to take an interest in all the commotion.

�I can do it. I know right where it is.�

�It�s not worth your life, man. You can buy new stuff.�

�Come on, man. I can do it.�

�Just do it and let�s get out of here.�

�Don�t tell him that.�

�People were fishing just fine before we got here. Somebody�s gonna call the cops.�

But he makes his way down there again and stares into the blue water. He can�t see that big pile of tackle he saw before, in fact it looks like it�s all drifting away. All it looks like he could get are two old beach chairs that fell down with the box, and they�re not worth much anyway. But he�ll stare down at the water for a while, and he�ll grab the two chairs when his friend pulls them from the bottom with a fishing pole. And then his friends will lift up his goosebumped body, and he�ll shiver around for a bit and put on that old shirt and thank me again. And he�ll go home and wonder why he was so stupid to put his chair so close to the water, and why didn�t he grab the other tackles when he was right there and had the chance, and he can imagine them so clearly down there that it feels like he could go right back down there and scoop them back up, but then he�ll realize that they�re already scattered across the floor of Lake Michigan forever.

***

I�m on my way to Hollywood Video to return a few movies when this homeless guy comes up to me. There�s always a contingent of them standing near the corner of Lawrence and Broadway, right between the Chinese restaurant and the closed-up Goodyear place. You can�t go past them without having them ask you for some money or a cigarette, at least not if you�re white. I�m white, so I always get asked.

I�ve got another cigarette going, my shield, my accessory to help me fit into this desolate landscape, and of course this guy comes up to me and asks for one. It�s my only one, but there�s really no need for me to be smoking it, so I just give him this one, half-smoked.

�I love you, man,� he tells me.

�I love you, too,� I tell him.

�Here, give me a hug,� he says, and I think why not, I want to commune with these people, let�s get it on.

So we give each other a hug, a real hug, so I can actually feel the stubble on his cheek rustling against my coat. Am I feeling anything? Do I care?

I want so much to care. I�ve been trying to care for a long time, and somehow I keep coming back to the homeless. When I went to England in college, and I was all alone on the streets with not a care in the world, I started going up to homeless people to talk to them, handing them 50 pence and asking them a little about themselves. I brought my little mini-tape recorder along so I could record their tales of woe, make it into something, somehow do some good. I filled up two tapes and talked to seven or eight people, some who seemed to be hard workers who had hit a rough patch, some who were drunk all the time and railed at the world, some who pushed me away and didn�t want to talk to me at all. And then back at college, I attacked the subject again, hoping to celebrate the few homeless people in that college town for my thesis, but eventually concluding that my attempt was futile, I didn�t want to look too closely because I always realized that they�re not as sympathetic as they look at first glance, and I couldn�t really help them with my little college papers.

And now I�m living in Uptown, where the homeless people line the streets. Some will ask you for money and then, if you hesitate before saying no, they will hound you and harass you until something sends them away. Others will ask you for money, and when you say no, thank you and tell you to have a good day and God bless.

Somehow, over the years, Uptown has become a sort of clearing-house for the homeless, as David Rowe tells it. Public housing started to move in, and then some social service agencies followed them, and Uptown became the place to go if you are homeless on the north side. It�s got the homeless shelters, the mental health agencies, the drug rehabilitation programs.

So many people in the neighborhood are now living in poverty, about 60 percent of the residents according to Rowe�s estimates, that they get trapped in a vicious cycle. Because so many people are poor, or on drugs or have some other problem, the stores have moved out, the schools have gone downhill, drugs are available on every corner. And there�s nobody around you but other people in the same situation, hardly anything to give you hope that your life could get better, and it�s so much easier to just stay in homeless shelters or on drugs because that�s what there is in Uptown.

At least that�s how Rowe, who is an advocate for more affordable but not low-income housing, paints it. He�s been in Uptown 12 years, started volunteering at these homeless shelters back then, and he still sees the same people bouncing from shelter to shelter and no improvement in sight.

Some of these people who favor more social programs and more low-income housing have lost sight of their mission, he argues. They have not stopped to look at themselves, to realize that their mission is not being fulfilled. They have not stopped to ask themselves why Uptown should have more low-income housing when it�s already got the most by far of any community on the north side, and maybe it�s time to spread the wealth a little so these poor people won�t always be poor.

What�s more, Rowe says, groups that mean to help the poor have moved into Uptown with their programs, set up shop, and come to depend on a steady stream of low-income residents whose needs they can fill. The poor have become Uptown�s industry, and those who make their livelihood on this industry perhaps cannot bear to see it die out.

But even if their motives aren�t pure, they probably don�t realize it. Their self-interest is locked in there among the rest of their motivations, and nobody, much less them, can say how much weight it holds. We all have our self-interests in mind at some level � some of us accept it, some repress it. I choose to agonize over it. I question myself � why am I drawn to these homeless people and how could I possibly help them? Sure, I could write about them, have them make me feel like I�m a good person who is part of something bigger. I could have some anecdotal little interaction with them, write about the time I gave a homeless person a hug, dress it up nice and use it as a lead-in to start talking about the homeless. It doesn�t matter that while I�m hugging this guy I�m not thinking these things, I�m really honestly thinking I should give him a hug. It doesn�t matter because I�m still exploiting it, twisting it for my own purposes, in fact� but no. Must�not�get�jaded.

What the hell. Why do I always have to feel guilty about these things, why can�t I just give myself the benefit of the doubt? Maybe I can learn about the homeless, and find out what should be done, and write about them in such a way that someone�s heart is touched and they are moved to help them. Maybe somebody else will see me trying to push myself out of this little bubble so hard that they�ll be moved to get out of their bubbles, too, and get involved.

But now that I�ve started my little anecdote, I might as well finish it.

I pull away from this homeless man, who is now smoking my cigarette. He says, �You got a penny for me, brother?�

�No, sorry, man.� I never give them money.

�Come on, man, a penny?�

�I can�t, man, I have no job.�

This has become my standard reply in the past few days. It�s literally true, of course. But now I can see the response is so patently absurd; I�ve still got some money, and I never really expect to run out. In fact, I could probably go out and get a job in a week that will pay more than this man will ever make, but I want to go without a job for a while, to feel the struggle, feel like I could become this man at any time. I tell him this as if I�m saying, hey, I�m one of you, you and me both have no job, I�ll soon be begging on the streets like you, the only difference between me and you is I still have to pay rent, so I should be asking you for money, heh. Oh, and there�s the fact that I have a college degree and a resume and job skills, and a family that would never, ever let me land on the streets no matter how hard I tried. Other than that, we�re in the same boat, man.

�I�m on the streets. I mean it,� he says.

�Enjoy your cigarette,� I say as I walk away. And I�m off to return my video.

***

The phone rings at about 9:30.

�How close do you live to us?�

�Right up on Lawrence.�

�Can you come in right away?�

I have just resigned myself to another day off. I�ve been up since 5:30, fiddling away on the computer, and actually hoping that the substitute center will not call me and send me to my first subbing job. They could call as late as 9:45, but by nine they usually have all they need, so I have decided to give one of the local schools a try. I call at nine, just as they are reciting the Pledge of Allegiance � I can hear it in the background � and they tell me they are all set for today but will keep my number in case they need me in the future.

And now they have called back, and I must rush in. I throw on my shirt � the one I set out so nicely last night has an ink stain on the pocket so I must switch it. I throw on a tie � they�re all preknotted because I can never figure out how to tie the damn things. I go running around the house frantically searching for my wallet and keys, only to find them on the desk where I have just been sitting. I throw some hummus and stale pita bread in my briefcase and Nate, who has just woken up, straightens my tie and buttons that last button at the top which I have forgotten.

I drive off for the school, which I just noticed on a drive yesterday, which gave me the idea of calling them up since they�re so close, but I can�t remember exactly where I saw it yesterday and they need me there now.

Eventually I do find it, park and front and walk quickly to the office, where a nice lady signs me in and takes me to the class. She tells me I�ll be going to a first grade class in the morning and an English as a Second Language (ESL) class in the afternoon. I tell her I�m somewhat new to this and she asks me how many days I�ve subbed before. Just a couple, I tell her, which is a lie of course, it�s my first day ever. She has tells me that this is a good school to get started in, and that the ESL class is so well-behaved, though the first class isn�t quite as good.

We get to the end of the hall and to the classroom where the students are involved in some major chaos. The substitute coordinator, the woman who called me, is sitting there in one corner helping a few students, while the rest of them seem to be doing whatever. For a few minutes we are both there, and I putter over to the teacher�s desk to put down my briefcase and jacket, and I walk around and say hello to the children. Then she leaves me alone with them.

It�s been a month since I first got my little Substitute Teacher badge and I�ve had plenty of time to imagine myself with my first class since then. Publicly I�ve told people that it�ll be hell, I�ll probably be scared silly and never want to go back. But I daydream something else. I imagine I�ll have a little trouble at first, but that soon they�ll be amazed to see that I�m not like the other teachers, that I understand them and they like me and they want me to teach them. And I�ll teach them all the lessons they never get in school, like how to understand one another, and how to appreciate what they have. I will take them all outside and sit them under a big oak tree, and make them think about the tree and how beautiful it is. And I will hand them each a strawberry, make them enjoy the strawberry, really notice its tastes, and through these little lessons help them notice and appreciate the world that they are usually too busy to notice. And they will teach me, in their own way, the meaning of life, and I will teach it back to them, and we will cry and smile like Robin Williams under the big oak tree.

But first there is the small matter of getting the kids to stop shouting and standing in their chairs and fighting. The teacher has left me an assignment list, and for the first hour it goes pretty well � the part where I take the kids to gym, for example, I pull off without a hitch, and I can wander around the room and try to get my act together. But soon I must head back to the gym to take the students back and I start running through the list the teacher has left me:

10:40-10:50 � Bathroom, drinks (students sit in hall, ask math questions to group while waiting for everyone to finish in bathroom).

The kids aren�t particularly interested in answering math questions. They get their drinks, sit down in some chairs outside their room and generally don�t listen to me.

10:50-11:00 � Calendar and sentence routine on rug � students know what to do.

Thankfully, the students do know what to do. I tell them nicely to come sit on the rug. Five minutes later, they are all there, though two are seated under a nearby easel to more easily whisper and giggle, and they are missing the important lesson one girl recites from the board � �Today is Thursday. It is chilly and sunny. Number of school days: 148.�

11:00-11:15 � Begin work on Tug of War play (see list of parts and students)

This lesson plan, the teacher will tell me later when she has relieved me of my duties, was intended for another substitute, an actor who loves the chance to direct his students in acting out a play. It turns out that it isn�t well suited to my style of teaching, which is no style at all.

I tell them to open their books to the Tug of War play. One of the kids starts sliding his desk forward. Soon they are all sliding their desks forward and backward and I can�t figure out if this is something they do every time of if they are putting me on. A kid in the back summons me and tells me wistfully, �They�re not supposed to be doing this,� and he expects an answer from me. I turn back to find that one girl has slid into the spot where another wants to go and there is a battle between the two desks. The kids are ready to fight, but I settle them down with a sharp word.

I tell them to start reading. The narrators wander up to the front of the room, but rather than read, they start drawing intently on the easel. One girl writes out �Scene 1,� then another girl erases it and starts to write it herself. They finally say their line, and then it�s the elephant�s line, and two kids who play elephants wander up, one hanging his arm in front of his head to signify a trunk. And then there�s the hippos, and the little squirrelly animal that outwits them both in the story, and the bushes, and the rainforest. The text doesn�t tell me what the bushes and the rainforest are supposed to do but one of the bushes plants himself between the elephants and the hippos and starts to sway his arms.

Some message comes over the intercom saying that there�s a car outside that must be moved or else it will be ticketed by the police, but I don�t catch what kind of car they say. And two kids, a narrator and an elephant, are hanging out by the intercom telling me that I should press the button to hear it again, and for a moment I think maybe they�re right, because it would be stupid to get a $50 ticket when I�m only making $75 for the whole day, but then I look out the window and see my car right out there, and I�m fairly sure I�m parked in a legal spot. But then another voice comes over the intercom:

�Room 114?�

�Yes?� I am not sure if they can hear me, but I speak anyway.

�Are you buzzing us?�

�I�m sorry. It mush have been one of the kids.�

�Okay.�

And I scold the children and send them back to their seats.

We have about 50 minutes to �practice� the play, including making props and signs for each character, but with me at the helm, it takes all that time to go through the entire, 25-line play.

Then we have math � a practice test, except that it�s not very good practice because I can hardly keep the kids from shouting out the answers, and there�s one boy standing over to the side holding his booklet and not answering the questions.

�What? What�s your problem.�

�I don�t have a pencil. Anyway, I can�t do math.�

�Yes, you can. Who has a pencil that Daniel can borrow?�

And one of the kids comes up with a pencil to give to him, and I give it to Daniel and he just stands there saying he can�t do math.

And then the other kid, the one who offered up the pencil, comes back up to me and asks if I have an extra pencil, because that�s the only one he had. And I take the pencil back from Daniel and give it back to the boy, and I say, okay, who has an extra pencil that Daniel can borrow? And I finally get one to him but he goes back to his seat and puts his head on his desk and his jacket over his head.

But we get through a few questions anyway, about a quarter of the assignment, and then it�s time for lunch and for their real teacher come back. I stuff down some mashed potatoes and a limp grilled-cheese sandwich in the teacher�s lounge, washing it down with one of those tiny milk containers.

***

My afternoon class is much more well-behaved. They are a group of first-graders whose first language is Spanish. The only problem is the teacher has given me next to nothing to do. But the teacher from next door comes over and says our class should join hers in the library, so we all go marching up there in two orderly rows, and each of my students is paired with one of her students. They sit down and get to work on Mother�s Day cards.

But a minute later the computer teacher comes in and she is not pleased. There�s too many people in here, she says. It�s not fair to the lab assistant and it�s not fair to your students, who are not going to be able to learn what they need to know with all these extra kids hanging off them and sharing their chairs. So the other class, who was actually scheduled to be in here today, end up leaving, and we stay to work on our Mother�s Day cards. I go around to check on their progress, but they�re all writing in Spanish so I can�t tell if their spelling is right or wrong, so I just go around saying, �Good�.�

Then we march back down to the classroom to work out some math problem, which goes so well compared to my first class, so well that when they�re done with a few minutes left and they say, �We want to play Simon Says,� I can hardly resist. I have imagined myself as a nice sub, and the nice subs let you play games when you�ve been well-behaved all day. So I start running off a few rounds of Simon Says, and they seem to be enjoying themselves. I even let a few kids be Simon, then I become Simon again, and I tell them that Simon Says put your books away, and they do, and Simon says get ready to go home, and they all go bolting toward the door in their zeal for the game, and it causes a big pile-up. Several kids fall down on top of each other and start crying, and there is the teacher from next door seeing it all, standing in the hall with her orderly class all ready to go, and she gets angry at their disorderliness and tells these student that she will have a word with their teacher and for me to have a nice day. I am just standing there with nothing to say, feeling responsible for all these kids falling over and maybe even some kids getting bruises, but at least they are not crying any more, so I let them go to their lockers and get their bags and put up their chairs and go home and play. I will be glad myself to go home and play. I wonder if I will be back.

Other parts of this story:

Intro

Episode 1

Episode 2

Episode 3

previous - next