Alex And Me And The Hapenings Of The City

So its monday night or should I say tuesday mourning around 12:30am, and Alex gets a hankering for something to eat. She says she knows this place in Chinatown in Chicago thats open all night long. Myself afraid to eat chinese food (I get giant welts that form on my face, might be related to MSG but the DR. tells me otherwise) and having nothing better to do decide to acompany Alex on what would turn out to be a very interesting mourning.

I cruise over to Alex's pad and we take her BMW convertable, very nice ride, and head off to her old stomping grounds Chicago. It was a comfortable 75 degrees at 1:12am so we were cruising with the top down. The first place we headed to was her old swanky pad on Michigan Ave. Then we tooled around looked at a loft she was going to buy, and headed into China Town. Chinatown is not all its cracked up to be in Chicago. It consist of about two streets and four city blocks, and is located next to some crapy neighborhoods and housing projects. Alex chose Three Happiness as our destination to eat on west cermack. we arived around 1:30am and some interesting locals ie bums were hanging out in front of the restuarant. Although we weren't hasseled on our way in, the eating experience would become something out of a movie.

When we entered, the place didn't have quite the decore I expected. It was rather plane, and run down looking for a restuarant, that I had heard good things about. There was only about 10 tables to sit at in the joint. I sat down faceing the back of the establishment and Alex faced the front, so she could look out the window. We ordered pot stickers, egg rolls, crab ragoone, shrimp fried rice, and sweet and sour shrimp. Before we ate I first had to make use of the washroom facilities. I noticed on my way a big sign that said "for paying customer only." I love how the chineese write their english how they speek it. The washroom was like a closet with a nasty doornob and smelled like air freshionor covering piss. When I returned from relieveing myself I sat back down at the table to an awaiting egg roll. I was three bites into it when one of the colorfull characters from outside stepped in and said he was here to pick up an order for the two guys who had just placed it. The Chineese fello at the front said he couldn't give it to that man, that the gentleman who placed the order must come in and get it. The man responded, "what the fuck do you meen I cant get it, give me their for fucking food!" the fello at the front said "you leave now!" The colorfull man responded with "fuck you! Give me some food!" This then brought our Chineese waitress into the argument who gave her two cents. "You leave now, we no want you!" Profanities went back and forth for a couple of minutes. I was surprised at how racail slurs were completely left out, but then again I dont speek Chineese so who knows what the waitress and the fello at the front were saying to eachother after the man finally left. Me and Alex were in aw and had completely stoped eating. Like I said this is a small intamite place so we could hear and see everything. Our waitress then went in the back and brought the crab ragoone and pot stickers to our table with a smile like nothing had happened.

I said to Alex "what kind of a place have you taken me too?" Alex replied "I usually come here before 1am, but its been awile so I dont know whats up." After that event transpired, I began to take notice of the type of people who were coming into order. Nobody sat down to eat, but a lot of orders for carry out were being placed. The list is as follows, big black thug looking dude, black thug, black thug, cook county corections officer, black thug, white yuppie, Cook County corections officer, Cook County corrections officer, Cook County Sheriff, black thug and so on. When I asked Alex what was up with the corrections officers, she said "26th and Callifornia are right down the way." For those of you that don't know, its Cook County jail.

As I was eating my pot stickers a wierd moment happend, it was deja vue. I dont know if it was a preminaition, or stress due to the uncomfartable suroundings, but I said to myself, "this isn't where I die." I didnt mention it to Alex at the time, shes into Wicka, so I dont know what she would have to say about it.

As Alex and I were eating we continued chatting about random things, work, job hunting, and crap like that. I was in the middle of telling a story, which I have completly forgotten because of the events about to happen. As I was talking to Alex I noticed her eyes suddenly widen, and she stopped eating. It was almost like she was holding her breath. I then heard the fello at the front yelling "you leave, you leave" and our waitress yelling in chineese. The waitress then ran over next to me and put her arm out. Engrossed in my own story I didn't realy take notice that a man was standing next to me, with his hand on my shoulder. The waitress was now yelling at the top of her lungs "quite bothering our customer, quite bothering our customer!" I was stunned I didnt know what to do. The dishivled man was now talking in a slight voice "sir can you give me food for me and my babys, sir" the mans voice was quickly drowned out by more Chineese banter between the waitress and the fello at the front. Then the waitress yelled "you leave we call police, we call police, qiute bothering customer." Not knowing how to handle the situation I staired forward thinking he might just leave. This however didn't work, I then turned my confused gaze onto Alex. As if she knew what I was thinking (how do I get rid of this guy) told me in a very calm voice to just turn and talk to him, hell go away.

As I turned in my chair to talk to the gentlman, I was even more surprised to find his hieght to be eye level with me. We made instant eye contact. This was a very chilling moment for me. It was if the man had looked into the depths of my soul. It only lasted for a second, but felt like several minutes. As I staired back into his black portals for eyes, It felt like he was sucking the life force from me, I was completely powerless. The fello at the front had now reached for the phone as to try to make the man know he was serious about calling the police. After peering into my soul, the man quietly turned and walked out of the restuarant without speeking another word. I wounder if he had trully looked into my soul and saw something he didn't like?

Now Alex couldn't resist asking what was up with this place to the fello at the front. Alex Said "is this normal?" The fello at the front replied "no, they never come in here, only hang out front. There somthing strange tonight." The fello further remarked " we call police, but in Chicago it go against some kind free rights. you can't arrest them." Alex now had her eyes fixed on the window fallowing the shadows that crossed it. Alex began to appear nervouse, at our current location. Alex then wispered across the table to me " what if one of those wackos comes back and shoots up the place?" I tried to lay her fears to rest by making a sarcastic remark "you kidding me, this place is safer then Fort Knox! Pluss were in a Chineese place of buisiness, they probbaly got a shotgun under the counter, and know some Kung Fu." My efforts to lighten the situation, hardly worked. We ate the rest of the meal with a bit of tension, that cut our appetites short.

After we finished our meal the waitress brought out some white jello. Alex dared me to eat it, and I complied. Let me say pina colada and Jello don't mix. Somthing about the consistensy of jello and blast of artificial coconut flavoring don't go well togather. I told alex it was great anyways and she need to eat her piece. Upon closer examination of the peice she was going to ingest, looked like it had been dropped on the ground, dusted off, and put on a plate. I wounder if my peice had appeared the same? to late now, it was swiming in my gastric juices, besides my mother has food posoined me enough that I doubt I could get sick, even if it had met the floor.

With the meal over we were both contemplating how to make our escape from this place unharmed. It wasn't untill the man who had the yelling match over his attempt to steal someone eles's food returned to use their bathroom, that Alex was comfortable slipping out the front door. we didn't feel like waiting around to see if anything was going to happen.

After leaving the Chinesse restuarant from the Twilight Zone, Alex decided to give me tour of all the hot clubs/spots around Chicago. I found Crowbar to be a rather interesting place. It has no sign on the front, and no visible adress, yet its one of the most happening placeing in the city, according to Alex. Its only advertisment is word of mouth, which packs them in.

As we were leaving the city on our way home, we were stopped at a red light near 90 in the Lincoln Park area (sorry for not stopping by Jon). When out of nowhere a another incident occurs with one of Chicago's less fortunate. An old women comes up to Alex's car ranting about money, and being homeless. Keep in mind the top is down on the car so this allows the women a very intamite space to be converseing. We say no sorry when the women, who notices I'm smoking a cigarette, ask for one. We do what all people do in when aprouched by bums in their car, face forward and ignore. The Women yells out "why won't any one pay attention to me,Why does everyone ignore me?" In the back of mind I wanted to say "because your begging in the wrong neighborhood (Lincoln park is very upscale/yuppie)." The woman doesn't take to our suggestive body language and comes in closser touching Alex's car next to the drivers side door. Alex immediatly hits the gass and blows the light. I said "why did you do that?" Alexs response was "she reeked of piss, she smelled like New York." Not that I don't think that it was the appropriate response to run the light, but I could have given up one of my smokes no prob to leave us alone. Alex then said " what are bums atracted to you or something? Do you give off some kind of signal that tells them to come bother us? I think this was the most times I've ever been harrased by the homeless in one night! Besides if you give into their demandsYou'll just encourage them. dont let them guilt trip you." I could go into further detail about the rest of that conversation, but its best left for another blog.