William Brown - The Undertaker

On my side of the expressway lay block after block of dirty yellow, ten-story, brick apartment buildings standing like shoe boxes tipped on their sides. “That's the “projects,” the Robert Taylor Homes,” Marty announced glumly. “It's gang country, no man's land, like Beirut or Baghdad. They don't make the six o'clock news, because the Chicago reporters are too chicken to go in there. So are the cops.”

I looked closer. On the first two floors, all the windows had thick steel bars. On the higher floors, many windows were boarded-up and there were black smudges on the brick fascia above, where a fire must have gutted the apartment. The grounds were even more depressing. Trash lay up against the fences, the playground was little more than bare dirt, and the swing set had no swings. The chains made good weapons and no parent in their right mind would let kids play out there to begin with.

“Drive up State Street over there, you'll see fifteen year-olds with $500 Starter Jackets, $200 Nike's, Oakley sunglasses, cell phones, and a wad of green in their pants pockets the size of an apple, and every one of 'em are carryin'. They run the place, and it don't matter what color you are or they are; they're strictly equal opportunity thugs.”

Marty turned off the Dan Ryan at 23rd street and cut over to Lake Shore Drive. We rolled past Soldier Field, the Aquarium and the City's other big museums, Grant Park, Buckingham Fountain, and the Yacht Basin, where the white masts of a thousand sailboats stood upright, ready for another day of fun on the Lake.

“Well, George,” he said. “You wanted downtown, so downtown it is. I'll drop you off at Michigan and Randolph. That's about as downtown as it gets. From there, if you walk a block left, you can catch the El on Wabash, or you can walk east to the Prudential Building. There's a big underground train station there where the Illinois Central, the South Shore, and a couple of other commuter trains come in.”

Marty cut over to Michigan Avenue and we passed the Art Institute with its pair of bronze-green lions standing on all four feet, alert and on the prowl, guarding the front doors. I'm not sure what for, since the sidewalks were mostly empty at that hour.

“The next traffic light is Randolph,” Marty said.

“Hey, thanks for everything.”

“No problem,” he said as he pulled over and we shook hands. “You helped keep me awake, so the pleasure's all mine. Go on, now, before the light changes. And you be real careful out there… George.”

“I will, man. And thanks.” I jumped down from the cab and waved good-bye. He drove away and I suddenly found myself alone again. In a big city like Chicago, that can be very depressing and a bit scary.

I patted my pockets and took a mental inventory of my meager possessions. I still had a fistful of cash from the Sheriff's Coffee Fund, the envelope from the Buick, a New Jersey driver's license with a photo that didn't look anything like me, and Louie Panozzo's three flash drives. I wasn't even sure I had my own name anymore, but what bothered me most was the utter loneliness I felt. To be fair, it had been building inside for months, but standing alone on that street corner, it was crushing the life out of me. I had no one to talk to or share my feelings with. Whether I cared to admit it or not, that wasn't my natural state and probably no one else's either.

Chicago: on State Street, that great street…

Other than some movies and TV shows, I didn't know a lot about Chicago. I figured the best place to start my hunt for Edward J. Kasmarek was in a city telephone book. Marty said there was a train station under the Prudential Building, and that seemed as good of a place as any to find a phone booth. As I entered the brightly lit waiting room, it was still early and they hadn't rousted out the last of the bums and hookers. They would be called "the habitationally disadvantaged” and “the alternatively employed” in a more politically correct city like LA, where they probably wouldn't be rousted at all.

There was a big, round clock on the far wall that showed it was 6:45. The ticket booths lined the near wall and a bank of telephone booths were on the opposite side. As I walked across the room, I saw two glassy-eyed hookers sizing me up. One was young and white, with dull, dishwater blonde hair and too much baby fat. She looked to be one Greyhound bus ride out of Kentucky. The other was black and lean, with a short, red party dress and the half-closed eyes of a young, but very old pro. When I did not respond, her eyes went dead again. I had to smile as I remembered the Carl Sandburg poem they drilled into our heads about another, earlier Chicago, “They tell me you are wicked and I believe them, for I have seen your painted women under the gas lamps, luring the farm boys.” Well, I didn't see any gas lamps or farm boys down here, and I preferred to start my mornings with Starbucks, but the custom could be different in the Midwest.

I dug into my pocket and even with the change I'd gotten at Uncle Ike's, I only had five quarters and that wouldn't get me very far on a pay phone these days. I could ask one of the hookers to break a buck, but that didn't seem like a good idea. Most of the ticket booths were empty. The agent in the middle one appeared half-asleep, leaning on one elbow as he read the day's Racing Form so I pushed three one-dollar bills under his window. He wasn't happy about being disturbed, but he pushed three stacks of quarters back at me and went back to the ponies.

The phone was missing in the first booth I tried. I looked in four others before I found one where the phone worked and most of the thick Chicago phone book was there. Opening it to the Ks, I found almost a column of Ka Z mareks, but only a couple of inches of Ka S mareks. The clerks at Ellis Island had to have been the original Beta Test group for “Spelling by Phonics.” Edward J. Kasmarek's name was ninth on the list. I dropped in two quarters and dialed his number. I heard a couple of clicks and, “We're sorry, but the number you have dialed is no longer in service in Area Code 312.” That told me Edward J. had probably lived alone, or at least he had no wife or immediate family still living there, which confirmed the obituary. Not bad for my first call, and I even got my quarters back.

I looked at the address: 3182 North California. I turned to the city map at the front of the phone book and saw it was on the near north side. Apples usually don't drop too far from the tree and people usually don't move far from their old, familiar haunts. I went back to the Kasmareks, dropped the quarters back in the phone, and tried Alice and Rupert, the first names on the list. Midwesterners were supposed to be the hard-working “salt of the earth.” At 7:00 AM, I figured they'd give me a straight answer just to get me the hell off their telephone.

The phone rang and rang, but I never did get an answer. As I worked my way down, I got another “We're sorry…”, some no answers, an irritated, half-awake, “Who?”, and one, “You mean that boy of Karl and Lurleen? Haven't seen them in years, him either… No, no I ain't got no idea.”

This was not going as well as I had hoped. With my next quarters however, I got a woman on the other end of the line who was willing to talk.

“Who? Oh, you mean Little Eddie. Let's see, last time I seen him he was working at the service department of Fishinger's Chrysler up in Lincolnwood, not that it matters much now, 'cause he's dead.”

“Yeah, I know. Look, I'm with Acme Mutual Life and there's an old insurance policy he took out. I really need to find his family or next of kin.”

“Next of kin? Well, his folks is both dead, died a few years back. He was an only child, you know, so…”