Chicago Noir

by Neal Pollack

  My mother put her hands on my shoulders, looked me straight in the eye with an uncharacteristically concerned look. "Are you okay, honey?" she asked.

  I nodded. Actually, I felt fine. I'd spent so much time dreading the robbery that when it occurred, my most profound sentiment was relief. I felt comforted by all the police in the house, remembered what it was like to live in an apartment with Shelah and her friends coming in and going out, with mom and Jim laughing and dancing and listening to the radio, instead of just silence and my grandfather's breaths.

  When it was clear I was neither afraid nor upset, my mother changed her tone. "Don't start telling the cops your theories," she said, "If they ask you what happened, tell them the truth, and the truth is you don't know."

  I was about to remind my mother that Jason Rubinstein was the only one to whom I had mentioned that my grandfather would be at the hospital all day. Who else other than Bobby would he have told? But I recognized my mother's tone. It was the same one she had used when I went with her to the auto insurance appraiser and she'd said, "Remember, don't tell them what you think happened because you don't know what happened," the same one she had when she and Jim had driven up to take me home from Camp Chi and she'd said, "If anyone asks, tell them Jim's your uncle." So when Officer Maki asked what I knew about the robbery, I said that I'd been at Caldwell Woods all day with Jason Rubinstein.

  Once the police officers were gone, the house felt emptier than ever. I couldn't wait to get to sleep, then wake up the next morning, visit Jason and Bobby Kagan's apartment, and see if I could find anything new like Grandpa's cufflinks or any of his paperweights. I lay in bed listening to my mother talking to Bobby on the phone, telling him what had been stolen, then saying that tomorrow night would be great, and yes, she would meet him downtown.

  The next morning, I noticed Mr. Klein across the street. He wasn't watching the neighborhood, he was doing the Sun Times crossword. When I asked if he knew that our house had been hit, he said that he'd been sitting outside all yesterday. He'd seen my mother drive to work with her Crawford's bags, had seen the ambulance pick up Hallie and my grandfather, had seen the ambulance return later that afternoon, then my mother coming home, and then the squad cars. He didn't know how he could have missed it.

  I asked Mr. Klein if he'd seen a red Cadillac DeVille.

  "Not even that," he said.

  "It's enough, Joe," I heard his wife Fran say.

  During the night, I concocted a plan that would allow me to search through the apartment on Albion Street without arousing Jason's suspicions. I would suggest a game of hide-and-seek. I feared that Jason might find the idea babyish, yet I couldn't think of another way to be alone in Bobby's room. But when I reached the apartment, Bobby Kagan was there. He was wearing a white headband, white tube socks with red stripes on them, no shirt. Now that he was dating my mother, he had invented nicknames for me.

  "Benny," he said, "Benito, what's happening?"

  There were more than a dozen questions I wanted to ask Bobby Kagan. Why hadn't he been able to pick up my mother the previous night? Where had he been between 5:00 and 7:00? Where did all that money in his dresser come from? But he was the one asking questions before I could pose any of my own. Was I hungry for pancakes? Did I want to see the ballgame tonight? The Sox were playing the Angels. Though he had some business to take care of, he could drop me and Jason off and give us money for a taxi home.

  "How do you get such good seats?" I asked.

  "I work for the Sox, Benski," he said.

  "What do you do?" I asked.

  "Public relations, Benovich. I thought I told you that already."

  Midway through the game that night, with the Sox down 7-0, I sensed that Jason had grown bored with me. He disappeared for the fifth inning and when he returned and I asked where he'd been, he said he was talking to some girls. I thought he was lying, but during the seventh-inning stretch he left again, then came back to ask if I wanted to join him and the girls in the upper deck. I asked why he couldn't bring them back to our seats; we had the better view.

  "Because no one's in the upper deck," he said. "And if no one's in the upper deck, no one can bust you for spitting on people in the boxes."

  In the front row of the empty right-field upper deck of Comiskey Park, Judy Petak and Brenda Lawton, two gumchewing girls with Le Sportsac bags slung over their shoulders, had ditched their parents and were crouched down in front of the green seats. Then, suddenly, they would spring up, spit as far as they could, and duck back down. I don't know if the girls heard Jason when he introduced me, but my name made no impression.

  I excused myself to go to the bathroom, and when I returned, Jason was making out with Judy Petak, and Brenda Lawton was spitting her half-chewed gum down. I had the twenty-dollar bill that Bobby Kagan had given us and I figured I could find a taxi in front of Comiskey and Jason wouldn't mind at all if I disappeared. But once I'd made it out the main gates and had searched vainly for a cab, wondering if I would survive a bus or train ride through the city at night, I heard Jason calling after me.

  "What the fuck's your problem, man?" he said.

  I told him that I hadn't expected him to follow me. He was welcome to stay.

  "How am I supposed to do that when you have all the money?" he said.

  We took the El back north; Jason had grabbed the twenty-dollar bill from me and said that he wouldn't spend that money on something as stupid as a cab ride. I said that it was probably dangerous to be riding the El so late, but he just laughed.

  "If anyone wants to mug me, I'll just give them you as collateral," he said.

  We sat next to each other on the train, but we didn't talk much. Every so often, Jason would just say how "goddamn stupid" I was, while I spent most of the ride staring out the windows, hoping no one would pull a knife on me then get pissed because I didn't have money. But when we got to Argyle Street, I grew exasperated with Jason telling me how goddamn stupid I was.

  "Maybe I'm stupid," I said, "but at least I'm not so stupid that I don't even know what my uncle does for a living."

  "What the fuck are you talking about?" Jason asked and snorted. "I knew you were dumb. Are you crazy now, too?"

  "If I'm so dumb, what does he do?" I asked. "Sometimes he's a scout, sometimes he's in public relations, which is it? Do you know?"

  "Yeah," he said, "he just doesn't like me to talk about it."

  "Why?" I asked.

  "Because it's illegal."

  I couldn't believe how matter-of-fact he was. I asked him why he wasn't more upset about it. What would happen when Bobby got caught, what would happen to Jason? Where would he live? What would happen if someone caught Bobby in the act and shot him dead?

  Jason Rubinstein regarded me with a seemingly indelible sneer. When I was through, he exhaled with a sharp, sardonic laugh. "You're pretty hopeless," he said. "Bobby doesn't rob people."

  "Then what do you call what he does?" I asked.

  "He's a ticket scalper, you freak."

  As the El curved along the tracks, streaking toward Loyola, I stammered, but couldn't get out another word. We were supposed to get off at Morse, then take the Lunt bus home, but Jason got out early. When I tried to follow him, he froze me with a stare.

  "Fuck you, asshole," he said.

  In the past, no matter where I'd been, I'd always feel dejected when I saw the house on Whipple, could feel my world constricting around me until I could barely breathe. I'd smell the urine and the disinfectant, hear the breaths and the voices. This night, I didn't mind so much.

  As I walked in, Hallie was seated at the kitchen table.

  In her right hand she clutched a paperback Agatha Christie book: Elephants Can Remember. But her hand was trembling and her eyes weren't moving over the page.

  "She's in the garage," Hallie said when she saw me.

  I walked through the den, onto the porch, out the back door, and through the yard, navigating a path of dead tomato plants, weeds, and wildflowers.
There was a dim light in the garage. Bobby Kagan's Cadillac was parked in the alley.

  Cupping my hands over the garage window, I could see Bobby in an open leather vest, blue jeans, and boots. With one hand, he was roughly grabbing my mother's hand, leading her around, while with the other hand, he ripped open boxes and reached into Crawford's shopping bags, every so often pulling something out—a necklace, a handful of cufflinks, a roll of hundred-dollar bills— and gesturing with it in front of my mother's face before shoving it into his pockets.

  Her cheeks were red and her eyes were huge. I couldn't tell if she was angry or afraid. I ran into the house, then back outside with my Pat Kelly baseball bat, not paying attention when Hallie told me to stop.

  I quietly slipped out the back gate and into the alley and walked a few paces north. I stepped into the light spilling out of the garage, walked around the red Cadillac toward the garage door, which was open three-quarters of the way. Bobby Kagan stood with his back to me, his hand still gripping my mother's arm hard as she leaned against the hood of my grandfather's dusty old Lincoln. There were streaks of gray soot on her pale-blue dress. Boxes and bags were scattered around the Lincoln. I could see the TV from my grandfather's living room, I could see the necklaces, the rings, the paperweights, the bracelets. My palms were slippery as I gripped the bat in my hands and my mother's eyes shifted from Bobby onto me.

  "Get away!" my mother shouted at me. "Just get away."

  She squirmed out of Bobby Kagan's hold and then pulled down the garage door. I dropped my bat and ran down the alley.

  All night, I just sat on the front stoop with a rubber ball, bouncing it up and down, waiting for a police car to drive by with its flashers on and its siren off. At dawn, I heard Bobby Kagan's Cadillac rumble away down the alley, then the sound of the back door to the house open and shut. In the morning, I was still there as my mother walked down the steps. She was dressed for work and there were two Crawford's bags in her hand.

  "I know," I told her, "I didn't see a thing."

  I kept waiting for Mr. Klein to appear on his porch. I wondered what he'd seen and what he knew. But his shades were down, and Mr. Klein didn't come out all day.

  THE OLDEST RIVALRY

  BY JIM ARNDORFER

  I-94, Lake Forest Oasis

  The Illinois border burned orange under the falling sun. The rays singed the scrub and trees along the freeway and tempered the big rigs turning on Highway 41. The whitewashed barn demanding, in tall painted letters, that motorists "Vote Republican " was completely engulfed. A joke popped into my head.

  I looked in the rearview mirror. Andy was orange, too, except for a yellowish spot on his chest. That was the light from the television he wasn't watching as he looked out the window. The way he had been since we left Green Bay. He'd been silent, except for when he slurped his soda or crunched on some chips. Neck curving against the headrest, he struck the image of adolescent ennui.

  "Hey, looks like God's a Bears fan, too, huh?" I said.

  His face crinkled, as if he were searching for something interesting in the plowed fields. He locked his eyes on mine in the mirror. He waited.

  "The sun, it's making everything orange. You know, the Bears' color. Look around."

  He looked back out the window, supremely unamused. Not that I could blame him. It's a long way from Green Bay to Chicago, even longer when the Bears smack the Packers around. I knew it was going to be bad when Gary Berry was laid out for five minutes on the opening kickoff. And it was. Favre's first pass picked off. Marcus Robinson looking like Randy Moss. Cade McNown—Cade McNown!—looking like Dan Fouts. That boneheaded onside kick. We had listened to the blow-by-humiliating-blow recap on AM 620 until I heard Coach Sherman credit his team for almost coming back.

  "You don't brag about almost coming back against the Bears! At home!" I turned off the radio. "Sorry." Andy hadn't said anything.

  Less than fifteen hours from walking into the office. I could already see the wannabe-hip systems guy grinning at me through his wispy Fu Manchu. "Too bad about your Packers," he'd say, to which I would respond: "Yeah, I guess it wasn't our day."

  All this from a putz who couldn't name the Bears' starting O-line.

  Andy wouldn't get off as easy, I knew. He was only seven when we moved to Wilmette from Milwaukee five years ago, but he still bled green and gold, as they say on AM 620. That was my one accomplishment as a parent, I told my neighbor John Doolin. He laughed, but I hadn't been completely joking. I worked at it. I bought a dish so we could watch games together. I'd tape the game if I got stuck with clients in the corporate box at Soldier, and we'd watch it later. I'd call him from my hotel room when I was on the road and he'd give me the highlights. Andy'd put up with a lot of crap on the playground over the years for staying faithful. Last year had been the worst, after Walter Payton's ghost blocked the Packers' last-second field goal attempt and delivered the Bears a victory at Lambeau.

  Andy still confided in me back then, so he told me what the kids said. "Cheesehead" became "Cheesedick." "Packers suck and Favre swallows." "Favre's a bigger pussy than you are."

  That one hurt Andy the most. And they knew it. Skinny and small as he was, Andy wanted to play football. He didn't because we wouldn't let him. It killed him. "I want to!" His eyes would be red and wet. I always gave the same answer: "You're not big enough." "You played and you were shorter than I am." Swallowing my first response, "This one ain't my call," I'd point out my glorious career as a junior high receiver ended after racking up zero receptions and two concussions in two games. I thought Andy had good speed for a corner, but it wasn't a fight worth having.

  "Well, we're back in Illinois now. Better get ready for all the shit we're going to have to take, huh?"

  I looked in the mirror again. He wasn't going to humor me, even with my just-us-boys vulgarity. And I couldn't blame him. The shit he had to take went beyond abuse about the Packers. He'd get it for not having a credit card. Or for not having a cell phone. Or for having sneakers that cost only two figures. All these appurtenances apparently were standard issue for sixth graders at his school. He'd go to Natalie on this stuff and she'd come to me. I wouldn't have it. Natalie would point out we weren't in Milwaukee anymore. I'd walk into another room. She'd follow me. This apparently was a fight worth having.

  I budged once. I told Natalie he could have cell phone when he was in seventh grade. That was a mistake. "Why wait if you already agree in principle?" And she wondered why I left the room when we argued.

  The fields gave way to trees. I looked at the clock and gauged how far along the DVD must be.

  "Fourth down?"

  He looked at the TV. He'd begged us to get the TV with DVD-player option when we bought our paramilitary suburban vehicle. And after that he'd begged me to transfer my Packers videotape library to DVD so he could watch games on road trips. An hour outside Lambeau I put this one on as a surprise. I thought it'd be just the thing to get him out of his funk.

  "Yeah."

  November 5, 1989. Packers vs. Bears at Lambeau. The Packers were down by six at the Bears' 14 with forty-one seconds left. The Packers lined up in a four-receiver set and Majkowski went under the center. I was watching the game in a bar with friends from work. No one was breathing.

  "Man, that was a good game."

  "I don't know. It wasn't as good as the one Grandpa took us to."

  That would have been December 18, 1994. The last game at Milwaukee County Stadium. No, not many games were better than that one. Not that the Packers played well; they should have put the Falcons away early. Despite all this "greatest fans in the world" hype about Packer backers, boos came lustily from the stands. And I could feel the chilly fear around me when the Packers lined up at their 33 with 1:58 left and them down 17-14. But people went nuts when Favre hit a stumbling Chmura for a twenty-five-yard pass; the crescendo of footstomping and screams hit a peak as the Packers called for a time out at the Falcons 9 with twenty-one seconds left. And when Favre dove i
nto the end zone with fourteen seconds left, it was as if the Holy Spirit had come down. The people around me started shrieking in tongues and weeping and kissing each other. They would never be able to watch the Packers play in cramped, rickety County again, but it was all right. They were close to the promised land.

  No doubt Andy remembered the County finale for Grandpa. Grandpa explained the plays to him. Grandpa explained the penalties to him. Grandpa explained that he'd probably never see a better quarterback than the guy wearing No. 4, so watch him close. When Andy needed to go to the bathroom, he asked Grandpa. He knew Grandpa would cut a wider path through the howling crowd than his scrawny dad. Grandpa still had the body of the linebacker who'd played for Washington High School during the '50s and of the Harnischfeger worker who had shaped giant mining shovels with his hubcap-sized hands. Andy was too young to notice how Grandpa's walk was a shuffle instead of a stride. He couldn't see the way Grandpa squeezed his eyes shut every few steps. And he probably didn't realize Grandpa's hand on his shoulder wasn't guiding him; it was resting on him.

  I'd hoped seeing the Packers beat the Bears would make Andy happy. I'd hoped spending all this time together would make him talk to me. I'd hoped, and I realized this as I saw the sign for the toll booth, to hammer life into the shape of an uplifting movie. Instead, Brett Favre screws up and Mike Sherman talks about making a good comeback.