thursday (map of cook county)

A few weeks ago a photographer came over to take some pictures, no not that kind of picture, and while this was happening a framed map I have of Cook County fell down from its post above the living room sofa. The frame broke in three places but the glass stayed intact so I just left it there for about a week before cleaning it up. It was our little secret, Nacho’s, mine, and the cleaning lady’s. We all just left it there. Nobody fussed over it.

About a week ago I finally fished everything out from behind the couch. I threw out the frame and kept the map between the glass and cardboard so it doesn’t get damaged, theoretically. Ross Taylor, who I’ll see next week, sent me the map along with a map of Fire Island. I don’t think he knows that I’ve never been to Fire Island but I appreciate the thought. He has also sent me a photo of Anita Bryant holding a fish, which you surely remember reading about in this very blog. I owe Dave a copy of the Anita Bryant photo, every time I go to Chicago I forget to bring it over to him.

Anyway Wednesday and Thursday I decided to rearrange my office. I need a neutral background to film castings and whatever else it is I’m going to film and there was no way to record against a white wall. I gave the sofa-bed that only one person — Ben Bennett — has slept on in the last five years to my neighbors. Then I drank tea with them and we talked about pets for a couple of hours. It is a deep shame that life is about making money and shooting children instead of having tea with your neighbors. But I digress.

On Wednesday a painting in the living room fell down. I don’t know what these walls are made out of and I don’t think they do, either. The painting is by Andrew Birk, a painter from Oregon who lived here for a while before moving to one of the Canary Islands. It’s a white background with a fly painted on top of it. As I was fishing it out this morning, two days later, I lamented never having gotten the painting framed. The canvas is now blotched with fingerprints and dust from four different apartments. Then again it’s a painting of a fly, and I think I know Andrew well enough to say that he would appreciate it. The dust I mean.

I also rearranged my office to give myself access to both desks, I have two desks that I bought in like 2014 that I refuse to get rid of, I know I only need one but what is life if not hoarding objects for no reason. And I do, now, I found a cute way of arranging them in a kind of L where a bookshelf, which was also hidden, sits in the crook of the L proudly displaying its wares. I put all my computer stuff on one desk, well most of it anyway, and the second desk is meant to be clear to write music, notes, draw, compose, whatever it is that people like me do, far be it from me to know. Unfortunately the desk is now covered with a map of Cook County from February 1900.

The map is not actually of Cook County but of the northern portion of it and the southern portion of Lake County. The map is mostly empty except for several township names written in huge letters:

• LIBERTYVILLE

• SHIELDS

• VERNON

• WEST DEERFIELD

• EAST DEERFIELD

• WHEELING

• NORTHFIELD

• ELK GROVE

• MAINE

• NEW TRIER

• NILES

NEW TRIER is written directly over a bunch of boxes that I assume indicate some sort of development on GLENCOE, which is as you well know, you being a close personal friend of mine, is where I grew up. In the boxes are even smaller dots, like an outbreak of herpes, which I assume indicate individual houses or farms as they may have been at that point. Amongst the boxes and dots I think I can see the street I grew up on. I can definitely see how I usually walk to the lake.

To walk to Lake Michigan from the house I grew up in, first exit the house. This may take some time, especially if you are absent-minded like me, because the house is large, a little too big, and you are likely to have left various objects on various floors. This means that you will descend to the basement, turn on the light, turn it off, go up two floors to your childhood bedroom, you my close personal friend, find one or none of the objects you are looking for, go back down a flight of stairs, cross through the living room and into the kitchen, and undoubtedly find whatever it was you were looking for on the kitchen table. Then you’ll walk out the door, checking that it is locked both before and after you close it, despite the fact that no crime has occurred in Glencoe, Illinois, since the day this map was printed in February 1900 only to arrive to my apartment in Mexico City and fall off the wall.

Once you’ve made it out of the house your route is relatively simple. The primary obstacle is avoiding an array of luxury vehicles driven by teenagers and Karens who are screaming at the manager as they lurch towards Hometown Coffee and Juice and for this reason not paying much attention to where they’re going. Anyway if they run you over they’ll speak to your manager to figure out what exactly you were doing walking around in suburban America, you should obviously be driving, what the hell is wrong with you?

Once out of the house turn right. The road will bend around and turn into another road that I think is called Valley. Walk down Valley Road until it ends. Turn left and walk up a hill, continue walking up this hill, smiling as you think of Kate Bush, frowning as you restrain yourself from kicking all the “I Stand With Israel” signs all these screaming Karens have impaled upon their helpless grass, the grass stands with Palestine as does all the earth. Turn right on Greenwood Avenue because you want to walk past Hometown Coffee and Juice and see what everybody’s complaining about today. Maybe you want to get a coffee or a juice as well, the coffee is fine and the juice is probably also fine, the salmon bagel will give you the runs but the Cobb salad, whatever their version of it is called, is extremely unhealthy and salty and satisfying.

If you go to Hometown Coffee get a double espresso and a giant pop tart and sit outside and listen to the gossip. Maybe you will be as lucky as I and find yourself sitting behind a man who looks like he simply started enlarging rather than aging when he turned twelve, all cheeks and butt and shorts and sweaty polo shirt. This man is obviously a major donor to the Democratic Party and is talking with someone about Bernie Sanders being a radical. Resist the urge to throw your coffee at home so you can watch how uncomfortable he looks leaving the table and getting into a car, his car, driven by someone else. Obviously 12-year-olds cannot drive but they are welcome to donate to the Democratic Party.

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Once the major donor to the Democratic Party has driven away with a look in his eyes that suggests he would be pressed to write out his own name on a piece of paper, get up from your table (you’ve already paid) and walk in a straight line towards the railroad tracks. These tracks currently belong to the dreamy Metra commuter line with its retro (old) green scratched windows but used to belong, according to this map, to the Chicago & Northwestern Railroad, maybe they still do and Metra is just renting them? Anyway cross them and do not get hit by a train.

If you simply walk in a straight line you will walk past the Glencoe Unitarian Church where John Wick’s funeral was held, no not that John Wick, and eventually arrive at an overlook that overlooks Lake Michigan. At this point you may notice that, much unlike Hometown Coffee and Juice, nobody here is speaking English. People who speak English only know how to shoot child rape child hoard money call manager, as is well known. Here people know how to look at lake, play tennis, have picnic, etc. If you’re like me you’ll try to take a picture of the lake but the problem with Lake Michigan is that it is very large. This is also what is so wonderful about walking to Lake Michigan. It covers the horizon, the waves softly lap against the shore. If you dare, walk down to the beach, thinking of your grandmother and the way she smelled on hot August days when your parents were on vacation, and sit on the dock for a while, letting the gentle white noise of the waves cool down your nervous system. Then jump in.