Adventures & Gravy

Leg Three
Madison to ChicagoThis took me to the land of ebonics.
I got on the bus and didn’t notice the seats surrounding me were occupied by people whose ancestors may have been slaves, three of them on their phones. I heard some pretty interesting things, let me not tell you.

Got to Union Station, put the majority of my things in a locker and made my way back to the general waiting area. I couldn’t have been there more than 20 minutes when an officer (not sure if it was police or security) came over and told me I had to leave because the station was closed between the hours of 1 a.m. and 5 a.m. (Which made me reflect sadly upon the circumstances of Thursday when I heard lady officer say, “Tyrone, you gotta wake up” no later than 7 a.m.)
He saw me out and gave me directions to Greektown, where there are 24 hour restaurants. Told me to get myself a cup of coffee. I didn’t bother telling him (why) I don’t drink it, just left and walked the 6 blocks or so to a place called Mr. Greeks Gyros, where my gyros was made and handed to me by guys who could be closely related to Inigo Montoya.

Not wanting to take up more space than I needed, I sat at a table for 2 in a corner. Which I now see as rather stupid. I had my back to the glass window (hello—driveby) and was wedged between the glass partition to the entryway and the trash can. Thankfully the guy who owns the place came over to me and said, “Sweetheart, you waiting for a bus or a train?” Affirmative, Mr. T. “You might want to think about sitting over there,” pointing to the other side of the restaurant. “This place is about to get pretty busy and some of these people aren’t the brightest and trust me, you really don’t want to be getting in their way.”
So I moved. But the table I moved to was, as the owner again pointed out, also in a high traffic area, being by the pop machine. So I moved to a table in the far corner and joined the young, pierced couple from California who were waiting on a 7 o’clock train.

Let me isplain (what I saw). No, there is too much. Let me sum up, in chronological order:
-one (black) lady threw her soda on another (black) lady, who then pulled out a tazer, which apparently only works if you’re touching someone. All over salt.

-the train girl asked if I had been as scared as she was walking down Jackson St. I simply said, “No,” but I should have continued with, “Here’s why,” and given her a Book of Mormon. See, kids—that’s what happens when you take things for granted; you forget to share it.

-train girl and her boyfriend went out for a smoke and some middle-aged black man came up and sat down at the other side of the table next to me, so he was facing me. He kept talking to me about what I was writing. Interesting conversation, saying the least. Before he left, he pointed towards a couple of girls who were very pretty and Assyrian looking, saying they deserved better than the superficial-minded lowlifes in that joint. He was furious when the prettier of the two stood up to reveal she was wearing much less than a gunny sack that hardly had room for “Sugar Daddy” written on the fabric swatch covering her rear.

-the Simon of a Simon & Garfunkel look-alike duo from Canada got kicked out and nearly arrested for hitting on the girl dressed in a “Sugar Daddy” and then apologizing profusely. The newspaper reporter and his photographer had fun with that, the reporter saying to us sober people, “He sure was sorry, wasn’t he? You think he was sorry?”

I for one, was not sorry I chose this method of travel.