by Martha Carr
She flipped back the top of her mittens, a gesture common in Chicago along with fleece-lined underwear of every variety, and pressed her cold finger hard against the screen of the phone, sliding her finger to the right. Often, her hands were so cold the phone wouldn’t register her as human and she would have to hold her finger in her mouth for a moment hoping the caller didn’t hang up before she could answer.
“Hello?”
“Maggie? This is your mother.”
It was Eleanor Potter’s typical greeting. She had never caught on to smart phones. Even leaving a message was a challenge. They usually started out just fine but ended in some mild swearing and drifted off to the sounds of fumbling before the message cut off. Of course, the system still worked. Maggie knew to call her mother back.
That presented its own set of problems.
Maggie could never be sure what was the golden moment to call and be sure of a coherent mother. She purposely kept the bar low and was fine with at least a mild slurring of the words. But it was annoying when her mother would zing back and forth among unrelated topics, no one thought ever being completely formed.
Then, Maggie would change the subject to the weather or ask if she was watching Gilmore Girls on Netflix yet. That would stump her mother enough so Maggie could get off the phone without having to actually hang up on her. Eleanor Potter would usually mumble something unintelligible and do it first.
It was a workable system.
“Yep, it’s me. What’s up?” asked Maggie, holding the phone away from her face for a moment to check the time. The Booger Express still had another ten minutes before it would arrive. Plenty of time.
“Are you out on the street?”
“What?” asked Maggie. It was a nonsensical question but Maggie knew that it didn’t mean her mother was deep into an entire bottle of gin into her day. By her calculations, her mother hadn’t seen enough daylight yet. There was still some chance there was a loop of logic somewhere in there.
“I saw the news. All those shootings in Chicago this weekend! Are you walking around on the street?”
Maggie knew her mother was well aware that Maggie didn’t own a car and there was no way to ever leave her apartment without putting a foot on the street. She wasn’t sure where to go with this line of questioning, and decided to take a direct approach. Let things play themselves out.
“Yes, headed to work.”
“You with anyone, Maggie? It’s not safe for a young woman to be out on the city streets alone. I should know, I used to live there.” said Eleanor.
A million years ago, thought Maggie. Her grandfather was career military, and Maggie’s mother had moved around so much she had gone to five different high schools, finally graduating from Amundsen High School in Chicago. Once she left the city, though she never came back.
Maggie took a look around at the people who were continually streaming in, quickly heading for the stairs. The one city employee who was always in the station was giving her a bored look, as he glanced up the stairs. Booger Train must be getting close.
“Yeah, I’m with a lot of people,” she said.
“Oh good,” her mother said, sounding instantly relieved, her mood brighter. “Don’t walk around the city alone, even in the daytime,” she said.
“Not sure I can pull that one off, Mom,” she said. Maggie had a weird thing about lying. She wouldn’t do it, even when it might smooth things over.
The worried, strained tone instantly came back in her mother’s voice. “Well, be careful. Make sure you know who’s walking behind you. Okay? Anyone behind you now?”
Her back was leaning against a nearby wall, and she had been mildly wondering if that was a sanitary thing to do and had ignored it, at least for now.
“No one’s behind me,” she said, a slight edge to her voice.
The hot, thin rush of anger that could rise up the center of her chest at unexpected moments was suddenly there, threatening to push her over into saying something she wouldn’t mean five minutes later. She needed to get off the phone.
“I’m running late, Mom. Call you later?”
“Oh, sure, of course,” said her mother, in a hurried bundle of words. Maggie reluctantly hung up the phone.
She turned and looked out the front windows, trying to find something else to think about that would make her feel connected to the Earth again. Stop thinking about the lack of a mother. No good can come from that train of thought.
Out the window, she noticed a short, thin, middle-aged man with long stringy hair that hung off the sides of his head and a shiny bald top that caught her attention immediately. No hat despite all of his other layers.
“Who does that in Chicago?” she said, quietly, watching him take a good look around at the street.
He was clearly lurking under the steel bridge that the subway train ran across, just over the rooftops of her neighborhood in Lincoln Square.
Maggie loved the view up there from the platform. Sometimes, just looking out over the small buildings, none of them got over three stories, was enough to help her shake off the creeping malaise. Just thinking about the view was helping a little.
She took in a deeper breath and leaned forward to get a better view of the street outside. The streets were remarkably empty of people. “How does that happen on a Tuesday,” Maggie whispered, getting her face as close as she could to the grimy window without letting her nose touch the glass.
The street grew darker as clouds rolled in overhead, taking only seconds to go from a bright, sunny day with light bouncing off of snow and ice to dark and overcast. Pale, grey days were not unusual in Chicago, even during the summer when the clouds could make it look like the sun was struggling to show through and everything looked indistinct, blurry. But this was different. It was as if the clouds moved with a purpose, just over her neighborhood.
Maggie watched the little man who seemed rail thin and bony, even with the multiple layers of worn out clothes. Homeless man, she thought, trying to find some shelter.
That was on her list of fears to avoid, being homeless, or worse yet, toothless and homeless. She didn’t even like being reminded that the homeless existed because some part of her worried she was always just a step away from joining them. It wasn’t a worry about money as much as she knew she could endure the lifestyle, and she wasn’t sure if she finally, and at last, ever did screw up enough to end up living on the streets that she would have the get up and go to do something about it.
There was a better chance she’d try and make the best of things. Maybe make a friend of someone with the biggest box or fall in with the toughest group. It wasn’t hard for her to picture.
Maggie was good at enduring anything. Growing up in a family that would have looked right at home in a psychiatric hospital had done that to her. They had made picturing something like that pretty easy.
She had looked up the definition for endure once in the large dictionary at the main library downtown. One of her favorite buildings to go and hide in from time to time. Tall ceilings, wide open rooms and large grand staircases. Far away from run down, toothless and homeless.
Endure: To suffer patiently.
She had let out a large guffaw followed by a hiccup that she tried to swallow as she sucked in her bottom lip, whispering “sorry” to the few people who gave her a good what-for with their eyes. She gave them a good solid finger as soon as their back was turned.
Her next biggest fear was losing a tooth, especially one in the front. It started with her father’s miserly ways and his idea that he could fill in as the family dentist for the less complicated procedures with a good pair of pliers and a strong stomach for screaming and blood. It was the reason Maggie had never bitten into a whole apple or chewed on an ear of corn.
A homeless man who was missing a tooth, smiling cheerily at Maggie could ruin her day. It always looked like an invitation to her and the slipperiest of slopes.
She leaned forward, looking around the street again, losing trac
k of anyone who might be inside the building with her. It was as if the bald, homeless man and Maggie were suddenly the only two people alert and awake, anywhere in Lincoln Square.
The little man looked to the left and to the right a couple of times and then crossed his arms over his chest, grasping his arms on either side, and shut his eyes, squeezing tight as he melted right through the street and disappeared from sight.
Maggie pressed her mitten hands against the glass, forgetting about the thick layer of dirt that transferred to her gloves so easily but was impossible to get off.
There was nothing out there.
She grabbed her purse and ran outside, still only brave enough to take small, bouncy steps over the ice, willing herself to not care so much about taking a spill, quickly crossing the short distance from the front window of the Brown Line stop to the thick girders right in front of it.
She was only a little aware that the clouds were pulling back and the sun was peeking through again as she came to the same spot and looked around.
No sign of him anywhere.
“Fuck,” she said, wondering if her aunt’s well-known psychosis was finally hitting her too. Fear number three on the list. Going crazy. Worse, in Maggie’s mind, than finding out you have a penchant for using alcohol or drugs to solve problems. No twelve-step meetings could make crazy any better.
Still, he had been standing right there. She was so sure of it that she slid her foot out to the spot where she had seen him last.
Her foot began to shimmer, the distinct outline that was her foot becomes less solid, and she felt a buzz that continued up her leg. Same buzz that had happened twice before. She whipped her leg back and looked down, her eyes wide. Foot still there, back to being solid.
“This isn’t good,” she said. She was used to talking to herself out loud, not crazy, but only as long as there was no one around to hear her. Image management was big with Maggie.
She slid just the toe of her boot in the general direction of the spot on the street until it shimmered again, ever so slightly. On an impulse, she stamped hard and immediately felt a hum move up through her entire body.
If she had been paying attention to the world still around her, which she wasn’t, she would have noticed that the clouds had knit themselves back together again and the street was darker than ever.
But Maggie Potter was too busy sliding through the street, down into a vast chamber, well, somewhere else.
She put out her arms as if she was still doing the imaginary skating, waiting to feel like she was landing or falling but nothing happened. She had the distinct impression of going from one place to somewhere else, but without really traveling. More like a thought that was suddenly there.
“What?” Her voice gave a slight echo, which was comforting. An echo meant there was structure somewhere, even if she couldn’t piece it together yet.
Over her head where the sky was supposed to be, it wasn’t. Where it was just moments ago, were now strings of electricity in blue, black and white, entwined together streaking across the top, filling the space and giving off a light bright enough to make everything visible but without hurting the eyes.
“Crap, I’m dead,” said Maggie, patting her chest with her hand. “I can still feel that. Not what I expected.”
She wasn’t sure if she should be afraid or grateful the end was so quick. Must have been a bus she didn’t see coming or maybe she had died suddenly while standing inside of the train station. That’s when everything started to go a little weird.
“My new home,” she said, immediately trying to take an inventory in case it turned out that she was on her own in the afterlife too. Maggie was hardwired for emergencies and coming up with plan B’s.
The endless lines of pulsing, dancing electricity occasionally gave of a loud ‘crack’ and a shimmer of thinner lines of the same kind of light fell briefly toward the ground, making everything glow, including Maggie. The colors of blue and black and white looked brighter for a moment until the lights faded, slid back up into the sky.
Maggie looked up, wondering if there was anything more above her. Somewhere up there she still had the strange feeling that the street she lived on was there and people were going on about their day.
“So not good,” she said.
She took a step forward to see if anything changed. Maybe she was still on the street having a massive hallucination and someone would grab her at any moment, anchoring her to reality. Or she’d bump her head on the window. Also potentially helpful.
The ground gave off a brief shimmer as she stepped, moving in and out of solid form, along with her boots.
Strangest part? Maggie wasn’t afraid.
She felt the absence of worry and for a moment, missed it, until the space inside of her immediately filled with a small amount of wonder.
“That’s new,” she said, more loudly this time, as she stepped forward again, watching the shimmer. She took a few more steps, this time in a circle.
Shimmer, shimmer, shimmer.
She tried a bounce, back and forth from foot to foot. Shimmer, shimmer, shimmer.
She dropped her purse and ran in a loop, a smile spreading across her face and felt the hum rise up inside of her again, the hairs on her arms standing on end, until even the hair on her head was dancing around her hat.
“Fuck, this is what happy must feel like!” she yelled out.
She made a bigger loop, trying to make the hum last, and as she made the biggest circle yet, a large wall appeared before her, shimmering into existence.
No, not a wall. A large machine of some kind. Too big to even see the edge and full of color. Not a bland shade of black or a coppery brass or some kind of silver. Every color, blending in to each other, twisting with the metal that seemed to have a million giant arms all connected to something. She put up her hand, trying to quiet the urge to touch it.
No steam. Maybe it’s not hot, she thought. What would hot look like here?
Her hand froze in mid-air. She was lost in amazement, looking up at the giant machinery, certain she could feel the pulse inside of her.
“Oh great!” A squeaky voice interrupted her trance and she drew her hand back, turning to see who spoke. Her foot shimmered and hummed as she moved.
The skinny homeless man stood across the room from her. He looked angry and worried all at once. It was hard to tell exactly. His face seemed to take on different dimensions, never really settling in to just one expression.
Maggie squinted at him, and then tried making a small peep hole by balling up her hand and looking through the pinhole opening she left in the middle.
“A little better.”
“Another one got through,” he yelled, as if there was someone else there with them. “They’re all a giant cliché,” he said, sounding exasperated. “What is it with the hand thing?” he asked, balling up his own hand and looking through it around the room, before shrugging his shoulders. “You never seen displaced energy before, peabrain?”
The air around her vibrated as small bubbles formed in the air, bouncing in place before zipping around and taking shape. Another small man appeared but much better dressed, even if the clothing was definitely vintage.
“You from Bucktown?” asked Maggie, looking to see if he had the requisite man-bun on the back of his head. Bucktown residents were always trying to look cool by never letting go of a trend.
The little homeless man let out a sharp laugh. “I told you that turn-of-the-last century look wasn’t cool anymore. A hundred and fifty years and you still won’t change to something else. A nice flower power or maybe some shoulder pads.”
The well-dressed man stepped toward Maggie with a conciliatory smile and a shimmering hand outstretched. She was dying to touch it, see what it did.
The moment their hands met his hand became more solid, giving off only a slight buzz.
He put his other hand on top of hers and gently shook.
“This has been happening more and more lately,�
�� he said, glancing back over his shoulder at his friend. “Must be all of the adjustments we made to fix the engine. Can’t decide if it’s a good thing or a bad thing,” he said, pursing his lips together. Maggie imitated him without even thinking about it, and as she did little sparks of light leaped out of her mouth, taking the shape of triangles or squares, and then images of dogs, a cat, Maggie’s apartment building. Her head turned and followed the light particles as they hung in space for a moment and then dissipated.
“Am I doing that?” she asked. “Am I dead?”
“Two good questions, almost the same answer, in a way,” he said. “First, let me give you a name you can call me. Your kind is very big on that. Let’s just go with John. Nice generic name. You can call him, Rodney.”
There was a loud ‘tsk’ and an eyeroll from Rodney. “I told you I wanted something more exotic next time. Like Pierre or maybe Apple or Western. That’s very big in the peabrain crowd these days. Rodney, tsk.”
“Ignore him as best you can,” said John. “He’s taken on a lot of the peabrain emotions over the years. Not all of them good.”
“Am I dead,” said Maggie, making it sound more like a statement at this point than a question, wondering if she could endure an eternity of this. That was a lot of suffering patiently.
“No, more like a new kind of awake,” said John, “and yes, you were doing that. Those were your thoughts gathering together and taking shape. Actual shape. They do that in your head all the time. Frankly, they can do a lot more. Well, anything, anytime, you know, make things happen, but others thought that might be a little too much for you so we…”
“Lied to you,” said Rodney, finishing the sentence. He jumped up, shimmering faster. “I have things to do. Enough of this,” he said, and began to vibrate faster till a light that seemed to be coming from within him spread apart and he disappeared, the molecules transforming themselves into small bubbles that flew off into a fading light in the distance.
