Towers loom

Loop towers loom behind theirgleam, and I can take you to theparking lot just off DearbornStreet where the Mayor andreporters went down intounflooded freight tunnels(although that lot is likely gonenow, 26 years later).

Alex and I drove south to northfrom city border to city borderthrough alleys of Chicago, worldalley capital. I saw a garage salechair and came back later to buy.

If you walk under the Loop andfollow the tracks west down LakeStreet — the soldierly tromp ofsteel frames to oblivion — youfollow my brother’s walk as atwelve-year-old through a Sundaysummer afternoon (through blackhot neighborhoods where youngmen and old, grandmothers andskip-ropers saw him as a gray-dungareed shaman, magic blondboy), up back stairs, to theLeamington second floor, 52years before self-murder.

Younger, he and I crawledaround the new-pouredfoundation of a WashingtonBoulevard building, so muddyand our bikes, we had to walkthem home to the double-spanking for the double of usby Dad, on the porch, thenafter the bath in bed.

Up Western from 79th Street, Idrove to Chicago (800 north)and turned left, out to thereporter job in Austin. Aright turn, and, in a mile,Ashland, where, thirtyyears later, I walked withSandra the grit Chicago thatabraded her out to thesouthwest and Mexico andback southwest again, talkingof the dust on medicalimplements in the drug storewindow, dowdy Rexall, and,a decade later, my son andhis wife live there in a duplexwith two fireplaces and neversaw the Rexall, gone now.They can walk to work inthe Loop in looming towers.