It's a Dan Brown World

As a nonfiction writer, I am glad that the crazies of the world (and especially the CTA) seem to be attracted to me. They provide me with excellent writing material and guarantee that my train commutes are rarely boring. Recently, I haven't met any notable crazies except a woman on the CTA who kept shouting that I was "the whore of the CTA" and "the whore of the airport." This was at 8 in the morning and I was too dumbfounded and jet-lagged (I had just returned from Ireland two days previous) to do anything but sit there and ignore her. We were the only two in the train car for about three stops. As soon as the typical morning rush began to bombard the train she turned her shouts elsewhere.

This week, however, I had a much more dedicated crazy. I was on my usual 8:06 a.m. train, which, I have noticed, seems to attract more crazies and angry people than the 8:09 train (the "you're a whore" woman was on the 8:06) -- I guess those three extra minutes of sleep really help! I was able to snag a corner seat. These seats are coveted on the new CTA trains where all seats face the aisle. If you're on a corner then you can avoid being sandwiched in by your book-ending neighbours and it also gives you a little nook to tuck away anything you may be carrying.

I claimed my corner seat, put my tote bag in the nook and began reading a new book a friend lent me. It took only four stops for the train to become jam-packed and a petite woman with a Starbucks cup squeezed onto the seat next to me. Normally I am so engrossed in a book on the train that I am oblivious to anything going on around me. What drew my attention away this morning, however, was the constant turning of the woman with the Starbucks cup. Every minute I would see her head turn and look at me. She did this enough times that I went from self conscious to annoyed very quickly. I then realized that she was talking, but it was at a level where you couldn't tell if it was to herself or to someone near her. Turning my head slightly - the perfect angle of being able to look at her without looking like I was looking at her - I saw that she had her iPhone in one hand and her ear-buds connected to the iPhone. "Ah," I thought, "she is talking to someone on the phone."

I went back to my book, but something about the woman's conversation kept drawing me away. I couldn't understand anything she was saying, but I was curious if she was actually talking to someone or not. She would say a few sentences and then stop, wait a few seconds, and then start talking again, but it wasn't the normal stop-and-go you'd except from a two-person conversation. Finally, I took a peek at the phone in her hands. There was nothing on the screen saying that someone else was on the line. "Here we go," I thought. The woman then dialed a number from her Contacts and waited for it to connect. The number was labeled "Signature, Inc." and was given the designation of "Home." I wondered if this woman was so dedicated to her job that she intentionally labeled it as her "Home" or if she just did not know how to work her iPhone. She waited for the call to connect and when it did she put her phone up to her ear even though her earphones were still in her ears and attached to her phone (for those of you that don't know, this means she could keep the phone on her lap and talk through the speaker on her headphones). Now I knew things were about to get interesting.

"Hey, hey -- it's me," she began, "yeah, I'm on my way down now, I'm on the train. Yeah look -- I talked to the detectives and the FBI and they're just not gonna do a thing. Not a damn thing." She had my full attention. People talking to phantoms on the phone usually say some interesting things, but the ones who bring up detectives or the FBI are even better. "It's that church, you know," she continued, "no one is gonna do a goddamn thing against that church. That's why I'm callin' the State's Attorney. The city of Chicago knows. Oh they know. And they're not gonna do a goddamn thing. They said two letters, two words, and one goddamn thing," She kept repeating this line a lot: two letters, two words, one goddamn _______. I could never completely understand that last word, but each time I thought I heard "game," "pagan," or "thing."

As I eavesdropped, I realized that I hadn't turned a page in my book for a while. It was still open in my hands and people were either going to think I was the world's slowest reader or, my real concern, this woman would realize I was listening to her. She was still glancing over at me from time to time so she was obviously paranoid. I put my book away, pulled out my phone, and began texting what was happening to my roommate. The woman continued to get angrier and louder on the phone: "Because I'm the next target. And no fucking, goddamn way am I going to let someone make me The Target and get away with it. They are endangering lives and no one cares. Not the city of Chicago or the FBI. They think they can just take lives and take mine and not have to pay. No goddamn way. NO GODDAMN WAY. They said -- they said to me two letters, two words, one goddamn thing. Yeah, you know it. Fuckin' church, fucking satanic rituals. Coming in here and taking people's live. I'm not gonna let them. Chicago may be looking the other way, but ain't no one gonna come and make me The Target and not get something from me. NO GODDAMN WAY."

From this point, the woman's conversation began to repeat. I was intrigued by what was going on and wanted to learn more, but all I could piece together was that a church in Chicago is performing satanic rituals on their parishioners, the parishioners are dying from these rituals, the city of Chicago is aware this is going on, but choosing to turn a blind eye, and since this woman is The Target, no one wants to help her. I wondered if she had read any Dan Brown novels lately.

I took another look at her phone. Apparently the call had connected at some point and although she had been talking for about ten minutes, the call time said she had been connected for less than two minutes. I also noticed that Signature, Inc. was an 800 number.

The train finally went underground and the woman got off the phone. She continued to talk angrily to herself about the church and how she had all the evidence that would bring them down. She stated, to no one in particular, that she had a video that would prove everything. She pulled up the video on her phone and, being the creeper that I apparently am, I watched it over her shoulder. The video was of a pair of feet, wearing black sneakers, and walking on carpet. The camera did not move above the ankles and trailed these feet for several seconds until the feet reached tile. At this point the feet moved out of the frame into blinding light and the camera was lifted and moved slowly across a wall of mailboxes. I noticed the woman's current footwear (black sneakers) and gathered that she had videoed her own feet walking down the hallway of her apartment building, into a tiled foyer (hence the bright light probably coming from the front door of the building), and the mailboxes were the ones for the apartment building.

As the train passed through the dark tunnels I was able to get a look at the woman's face. I recognized her immediately as the same woman who, a few weeks previous, had told everyone on the train that we were going to die because the train conductor was new and didn't know how to drive. She said this after the train knocked everyone around a bit at the spot where it always knocks everyone around a bit. I remembered thinking, "Give it a rest woman! Clearly you don't take the train that often if you think a little jolting is the conductor's fault." Now, seeing her again, that previous morning and her shouts made much more sense. I also realized that she was a regular commuter and that our paths will probably cross again.

As we passed through the Loop, most of the morning commute crowd had dispersed and there were about seven other people milling about on my side of the train car. (Some of you may be thinking, "How could all of this possibly take place in one morning commute?? How long are you on the train?" I am on the train for 45 minutes. Just enough time to see most Crazy Train Events from start to finish! Lucky me!) The woman was still very agitated and said, "No one believes me. No one fucking believe me. These goddamn motherfuckers are gonna get away with it -- well not if I have something to say about it! I'm gonna throw this coffee in someone's face and maybe then they'll fucking listen to me." At the mention of "coffee" all seven heads in the train perked up and turned towards me. The woman was holding her coffee in the hand nearest me. I decided that, although I like listening in on these crazy stories and enjoy relaying them to friends, I was not about to become an active member of this woman's delusional morning. I grabbed my tote bag and began to stand when the woman suddenly hopped up and walked to the train door. Everyone watched her out of the corner of their eye (or maybe they were watching for any sudden movements of her Starbucks cup). The woman continued to look over her shoulder at me so I stayed in my seat. I didn't want her thinking I was one of the church members sent to follow her.

The train stopped and the doors opened. As soon as the doors closed again I grabbed my stuff. I stood and headed towards the door since mine was the next stop. I hopped over someone's stretched out legs and planted myself right in front of the exit. I looked out the windows and was suddenly met with the reflective stare of the woman's eyes. I thought she had gotten off at the last stop! Without thinking, I spun to look at her. She was standing right next to me, glaring and looking ready for a fight. I took two huge steps back, making sure to place the outstretched legs between myself and the lady. She kept her eyes on me and I nonchalantly adjusted the straps of my tote bag around my wrist, acting like my almost leap backwards had been a totally natural thing.

Finally the train stopped again, the doors opened, and I let the woman exit before me. We both went up the escalator and while she stood on the right side I scurried up the left. I made it through the turnstile, up the second set of stairs and out of the station. I walked swiftly in the direction of the Sears Tower and waited until I was two blocks away before pulling out my phone to leave a friend a message about everything that had just happened. Before I began talking into my phone I looked behind me to make sure the woman and her Starbucks cup were no where in sight. Then I had to laugh at myself - who was the paranoid one now?

The CTA: A Travel Guide (Part I)

The Chicago Transit Authority. Also known as the CTA, or, if you are talking about only the train system, the El (for Elevated). The CTA comes in various coloured lines: red, purple, brown, pink, green, yellow, blue, and orange. Like the plethora of Chicago neighbourhoods, each line is unique in its route, service, people, and reputation. Let’s go through each colour before beginning your CTA journey:

First, a small map to help you visualize:

Red Line: If there is a “main line” in Chicago then this is it. Spanning from the northern tip of the city – Howard – to the very end – 95^th/Dan Ryan – this line runs straight through the center of Chicago (and is one of the few lines that runs underground). One of two trains that operates 24/7 this line is possibly the most diverse line. You start at Howard (aka Sketchville where there are signs in shop windows of a little child saying, “Don’t shoot me. I want to grow up!”) and then travel south picking up bohemians (Rogers Park), college students (Loyola), businesspeople (Fullerton, Belmont), international transplants from Asia (Argyle, Chinatown/Cermack), Yuppies (Bryn Mawr, Berwyn), drunk frat boys (Addison), tourists (Chicago thru Jackson), and homeless people who just want somewhere to sit, sleep, and be safe for a few hours. There are some people who deem this line one of the more dangerous lines (because there are robberies and altercations sometimes, but come on – we’re in a city) and avoid it after 5 p.m. However, those of us who travel the Red Line every single day – and have, at one point in time, been on the train between all the 24 hours of the day (it’s the fastest/cheapest way to get home at 4 a.m.!) – we simply describe it as eclectic.

Blue Line: The other 24/7 train line of the CTA. Full of college students and young families who do not really want to live in the suburbs, but also cannot afford to live in the city. This line primarily stays in the western half of the city except when it travels east to enter the Loop. (The Loop is what the city center is called – i.e. downtown. It’s called the “Loop” because all of the train lines meet there and loop around the downtown – except the Red Line, which runs straight through.) This line is most known for taking people to and from O’Hare, being 24/7, and, most recently, head-on, unexplainable-it-must-have-been-an-equiptment-failure train crashes. 

Green Line: This line has the worst reputation of all the colours. It runs from Oak Park to Chicago’s Southside (not the geographic Southside like Hyde Park and 95^th/Dan Ryan, but the bad Southside that’s known for lots of violence). Like the Red Line, most people do not enjoy riding this train after dark and there is normally a separation between white people at the front of the train and all other races at the back of the train. Clearly this has nothing to do with segregation, but is instead fear-related (the closer one is to the conductor the safer they feel). I once walked into the very last car of the Green Line to ride from Oak Park back to the Loop and the people I was with stated, “Are you crazy?? We have to go to the front where the conductor is!” Personally, I have never had a problem on the Green Line, but then again I have never taken it south of the Loop. It is also the one line where I have heard first person accounts of being mugged. This line is as diverse as the Red Line, but the Southside aspect seems to make the general public forget that it also travels to Oak Park (aka Yuppieville). 

Yellow Line: The Skokie Swift. This line takes passengers to a from Skokie, a boring suburb most known for Orthodox Jews and a gigantic outdoor mall. It was deemed “swift” because it picked up at the Howard stop (end of the Red Line) and dropped off at the Dempster station without any stops in between. The line has since gained two more stops (whoa!), but is still known as The Skokie Swift. It is also only three to four train cars long, thus making it look like the "special train."

Orange Line: This is the Midway train. It takes passengers from Midway Airport at the southern end of Chicago, travels north to the Loop, and then heads southwest to a few of the neighbourhoods-that-are-almost-suburbs. From what I have been able to tell, people mostly take this line to transfer to another line or to go to Midway Airport. (Also, as a side note, for a train whose primary purpose is going to and from the airport, it should copy the Blue Line and be 24/7 because anyone who flies out right when Midway opens or comes in super late has to either take a taxi or bus.)

Pink Line: Chicago’s newest El line. I honestly do not know much about this line except that it takes people directly west like the Green and Blue lines, but it stops much sooner than those two colours. I like to think it’s main purpose is to take people to Pilsen, a neighbourhood of Chicago set in the industrial area that is slowly becoming an artist-haven.

Purple Line: The line that runs from the tip of Evanston to the Howard station. This line also runs “express” to the Loop during the morning and late-afternoon rush hours. This is an amazing train if you catch the express because it runs parallel to the Red Line, but skips about 14 stops. Deemed a “safe” train because it is full of Evanstonites (i.e. business people, Northwestern college students, and the generally wealthy/well-off). This train is also one of cleanest and has the best air-conditioning in the summer.

Brown Line: Also known as “The White People Mover” and the “Whitey Express.” This train travels through Chicago’s more affluent  neighbourhoods and, like the Purple Line, is typically very clean, polished, and full of less weirdos. This train is perhaps the slowest train, which is either due to all of the twist and turns it must make or the fact that most of the passengers are AARP members (or a combination of both). This train is sardine-packed during the morning and late-afternoon rush hours (re: affluent), sparse on the weekend nights, and ends at an inconvenient 1-2 a.m. 

Do’s and Don’t’s When Riding the CTA:

Do wear your headphones and sunglasses. This way people will not talk to you. If they do, you can either a) respond accordingly or b) act like you can’t hear them and are in your own little world. It is also an excellent way to eavesdrop on interesting conversations.

Don’t talk loudly on your phone, talk loudly to your friend, or listen to loud music. This will cause other passengers to wish bad things upon your person, possibly accost you, and maybe even smack you in the face with their yoga mat (I may or may not have “accidentally” hit a man in the face with my yoga mat when he was yelling into his phone to his “bitches” who didn’t realize what a “fucking fine ass motherfucker” they were dealing with. Everyone on the train glared at him -it was clear we were minutes away from tossing him onto the electrified tracks - and sometimes you’ve just gotta hit these people with a yoga mat. Namaste, asshole.)

Do bring a book. It’s going to be a long ride. (My every day 45 minute to an hour commute on the El has caused me to become a reading fiend! I have gone through six books in two months. I haven't done that since entering Summer Reading Programs in grade school.)

Don’t freak out when you smell smoke. CTA trains catch on fire more often then you’d expect and the conductor has a nifty little spray bottle for leaning out the window and extinguishing these. Or you’ll have a fun adventure of being ushered off the tracks by the fire department.

Do brace yourself when the train starts to move and starts to stop. You do not want to be that person who topples over onto everyone else and then acts surprise that the movement of the train would cause them to do that. It’s embarrassing. 

Don’t be the jackass who takes up two to three seats to take a nap. There’s a special place in Hell for those people.

Do wash your hands after riding the CTA. There are some disgusting people on that train and possibly the source of the next worldwide pandemic. Disgusting acts witnessed on the train include but are not limited to: puking, peeing, snot wiped on the poles, spitting (everywhere), and the discarding of food. For a comparison of just how unsanitary the CTA is: I will (and have) walked barefoot on the streets of Chicago, London, and Aberdeen, Scotland. I will NEVER go barefoot on the CTA. Also, a friend contracted pinkeye from the CTA and I often get large welts from some sort of bug who has clearly learned that the El is the Country Buffet of succulent morsels. 

Don’t step onto a train before the other passengers have disembarked. There is a special place in Hell for these people, too.

Do expect the CTA to run swiftly and smoothly whenever you are not in a hurry and to stop frequently due to track maintenance, fires, hooligans, and because the conductor just feels like it whenever you are crunched for time.

Don’t play the Which Ball is the Cup Under? game. There are people who make their livelihood from these games and you will not win. Ever. The answer is: there is no ball. However, if you say that, then somehow the ball will magically appear. The real game you’re playing is: You Lose and the Ball Man Wins. 

And finally...

Do appreciate the CTA. Sure, it smells funny, people will preach to you, hit on you, pester you for money, and even try to sell you things, but all CTA riders should appreciate that the CTA even exists. No matter where you are in Chicago you are always at the most a two-block walk from a train or bus stop and, even with the recent increase in transit fares, Chicago has the cheapest public transportation system in the U.S. You can also travel several miles without having to do anything except get on and off a train or bus. Months ago I was driving in the car with my boyfriend and as he drove I immediately pulled out my iPhone to start playing a game. Bernardo* (I can't remember if I have ever given my boyfriend an alias on this blog so for now he will be dubbed Bernardo until I can remember what his original alias was) commented, "We can't talk? You immediately have to pull out your cellphone?" It was then that I realized how accustomed I had grown to the everyday equation: traveling = sitting and staring at your phone or reading a book. While this habit is a bit rude when riding in a car with another person, what a lucky way to pass time on your commute! Instead of sitting in traffic and having to pay attention to the other cars around you, CTA riders can mentally checkout and leave the hard-work to the train drivers.

In summary, the CTA is like a family: you've got your weirdos, your snobs, the smart ones, the high school dropouts, the hippies, the embarrassments, the ones you actually like and are friends with, and the crazy uncle who everyone is a bit leery around and generally tries to avoid, but in the end you've got to love them because they are always there (although they may not be terribly punctual) and, honestly, what other family do you have?

Bring Out the Ark!

Well, dear readers, a State of Emergency has been called for the state of Illinois, specifically the Chicago region. It’s kind of funny that I would live through roughly ten years of Hurricane Seasons and hurricane floods on the coast of Georgia, and yet this is the first time I have experienced flooding that has caused a State of Emergency.

The rain began last week with little drizzles here and there. I wore my rain boots for the first few days, but stopped when there were no real puddles that needed to be waded through. Yesterday, however, I finally brought my Van Gogh rain boots back out from the closet and it turned out to be perfect timing. From up on the 58^th floor, my office-mates and I watched as what looked like a smoke screen rolled billowed towards Chicago from the West. The screen turned out to be pouring rain and our views turned to sheets of white as the storm engulfed the Loop.

As the rain finally let up, we all began to notice that it was incredibly dark outside. It was 3 p.m. and already it looked to be nearly 8 o’clock. Lightning suddenly ripped through the sky, followed shortly by a thunderclap and the sound of water once again tumbling from the clouds. An interesting note to make is that thunder sounds different when you are closer to (and sometimes inside) the storm clouds. Instead of the typical BOOM, the thunder sounds almost like a dump truck full of metal that was relieving its load.

My Van Gogh umbrella fell victim to the Chicago winds last week, but thankfully a coworker has a stash of spare umbrellas for just such an occasion. I waited until downtown Chicago was no longer “in the red” on weather.com and bolted for the bus stop. The bus made it two blocks in 15 minutes before I finally decided that I could walk to my next job faster than the bus could drive. I thanked my coworker over and over for her umbrella as I walked eight blocks in increasingly heavier and heavier rain.

By the time I left my second job the rain continued to come down, but not quite as heavily. I went home, packed my bag for my weekend trip to Georgia, and went to bed. Around 3:30 a.m. I was awoken by a flash. This obviously gave me a momentary heart attack before I realized it was coming from lightning outside. The sky lit up and rumbled for a few minutes as I tried to drift back to sleep. Suddenly, a powerful lightning bolt brought daylight into my entire room and was immediately followed by a crack so loud that it not only shook my room and my nerves, but it set off a car alarm.

This intensity of thunder and lightning continued for some time. After about 10 minutes the owner of the disturbed car silenced their alarm and I was able to go back to sleep. Three and a half hours later I was showered and placing the last few necessities into my bag. My roommate (shockingly) left before I did (she’s usually not up until noon) and it was the first time I thought to take a peak outside and see how hard it was raining. I lifted my bedroom blinds and my heart stopped. The curb along my one-way street could no longer be seen. A rippling pool of water covered the whole block, leaving less than half a foot of the sidewalk free of flooding.

I had obviously been checking weather.com periodically to see how the weather for my flight would be and each time a red exclamation mark warned me about flashing flooding in Chicago – but I didn’t think they were serious! This was Chicago for god’s sake! A major metropolitan city! Who expects one of the United States’s major cities to experience flash flooding. That was the kind of stuff people out West on prairies experienced. Not the land of gangs, CTA clusterfucks, and the Cubs.

As if on cue to add to my slightly strained nervous, the skies opened up once more with monsoon-like rain and Zeus-is-pissed lightning. I sent my coworkers an “I think I’m going to be late email” and began to brainstorm the best way to get to work with a rolling suitcase in the middle of flash floods. Walking to the train might not be so bad. But would everything in my suitcase be ruined? I certainly couldn't hold an umbrella in this weather. A taxi? How much would that cost? My car? My car!

I dashed to the window and pulled up my other blinds. Typically, my car was parked directly outside my building, but I had lost my parking space over the weekend and was forced to park a block away on a cross street. Small sedans on my street no longer had visible tires and even the rims of a CRV were completely covered with dark brown water. I went to the windows in the living and in the 3^rd floor hallway, but I couldn't see my car. Sunnyside, my street, was a lake – a fact that was only highlighted as an SUV drove down the block, creating waves that went over the roofs of each parked car it passed.

Screw getting wet, I thought. Odie needs me! (For those of you that are unfamiliar with my unnatural obsession with my car – his name is Odysseus, but his friends call him Odie.)

I placed my electronics in plastic bags, my hairdryer in a Target bag, and my passport in a zip lock bag (I take my passport even when I travel domestically). I put on my spring jacket on first because it was still a bit chilly outside and layered my rain coat on top. I shoved my feet into my Van Gogh rain boots and left the apartment.

Rolling my suitcase was a joke. I made it as far as the sidewalk before lifting the bag to my chest and sloshing through the flood water. A fire hydrant on my corner was more than half submerged and I was forced to walk on the curb as I crossed the street when it was clear that the water was deep enough to flow into my mid-calf boots.

I waded through the waters, keeping a watchful eye for passing cars. The last thing I needed was a waterfall over my head. Taxis trolled up and down the street, looking for those of us unfortunate enough to be walking in this weather.

Finally, I saw my car. Apparently the cross street was higher than my block because he barely sat in an inch of water. I breathed a sigh of relief and finally headed toward my train.

Since arriving at work the rain has yet to let up and word on the travel-street is that O’Hare International Airport is cancelling flights left and right. As stated before, Gov. Quinn has issued a State of Emergency and photos abound a flooding all over Chicagoland. Engineers have opened the flood gates of the Chicago River so that it can release some of its stress into the lake, a geyser erupted out of a too-full sewer by the Ravenswood Metro Stop (Google that!), the Chicago Sun-Times has started a live stream of #CSTstorm photos (one which I contributed), and a sink hole swallowed three cars (and one very surprised driver who is doing just fine at Northwestern’s hospital) on the south side.

Of all the times to leave Chicago! Luckily, I have two friends who live either on or just passed the street where Odie will be spending the weekend. I have asked them to alert me to any flooding on this street and then I will…well most likely panic since I’ll be in Georgia and heck if I can remember where I put his spare key (and his primary one is currently in my suitcase since I was worried I would need to drive him to safety this morning). Fun times!