To the Empty Bottle.
We drove up to Chicago from St. Louis in the middle of January to see things that are not as of yet visible in St. Louis. There is no recognizable dancing and not much singing in this version of Chicago. Richard Gere and Queen Latifah don’t know where this place is and if they did they wouldn’t come here anyway. The sign on the outside wall facing Western Avenue says ‘Friendly Dancing’. It may be two signs to signify that the place is friendly and that you can dance, too. But ‘friendly dancing’ sounds much more erotic. And underneath the Old Style beer sign hanging above the entryway is written ZROM DROBNIE. Chicago has the second largest Polish population in a city, surpassed only by Warsaw. We are looking for a place called The Empty Bottle. Dr. Underwood and I have come here as part of an anthropological study on the current state of live improvised sounds of human beings. Or music. On our third approach, with the shuttle shaking wildly and the tiles starting to bake, we notice a message scrawled on the door in pencil. Empty Bottle.
Once inside we scout around for the advertised food specialties. No kitchen and no food. The empty plate. That is disappointing, but at least they have good beer on tap as well as some classic American shlagers to pacify the tasteless and faux-trash and the students of unemployment. I’m having cranberry juice and seven with a lime. Any drink that ends with seven with a lime is a good drink. Got milk?
I’m trying to sober up a little after a somewhat scary drive here from Goose Island Brewery and a stop along the way to smoke a bunch of pot. Goose Island is a microbrewery that features some delicious varieties of high-alcohol beer. If you go to Chicago and you don’t go to Goose Island, you cannot honestly call yourself a beer drinker. The menu lists interesting facts about the brewing process next to the beers as well as the alcohol content of each. These hops came from The Black Forest and there is enough alcohol in each glass to sterilize your liver permanently. Intrigued by the variety and imbued with our newly found knowledge of alcohol contents, we opted for a semi-scientific field survey by sampling one pint each of all of their wares. Hypothesis: beer makes you fucked up. Conclusion: not too fucked up to drive.
When we’d finished off the menu, it seemed like the perfect time to get in the car and drive fast through the streets of Chicago during a crowded afternoon rush hour. This was likely an idea that sprang to mind before we drank the menu. But who cares, I like to live in the moment and to try and forget about the past. So we sped away, trying to see how fast we could get the rent-a-car going before the impending stop at the end of each block. We got involved in a down and dirty drag race on North Avenue against a middle-class Puerto Rican family driving a Saturn. I had passed their car while in traffic and the driver must have gotten upset or something because they began trailing us like photographers chasing a dead princess. That bitch just would try to stay right on my bumper no matter how fast I would go. Some people just can’t handle being passed. She was the truck driver from the film, Duel. As we stopped for each red light, she would honk the horn and begin screaming at us in Spanish, words that her mama would have scrubbed off her tongue with hot lye soap. She was rubbing on her St. Christopher medal so hard that he got a little bronze boner. I was enjoying the show, smiling at her in the rearview mirror and finally turning around to wave at them every time we stopped in traffic. Then I’d put the gas pedal to the floor at the first hint of the green, leaving them sitting there a shrinking, shrieking vision of Latino America in the 21st Century until they’d catch up to us halfway through the block. This went on for about fifteen blocks until I got bored with it and stopped looking back at them and I forgot to keep egging them on. As they finally passed us, her children gave us the finger from the back seat and her husband, sitting bitch, exuded machismo. Via la Puta, buddy!
We had decided to visit my dear, old friend Prat, who lived just a short drive from The Empty Bottle and therefore would have a good place to get high before the show. We found his address easy enough but trying to park a car near there, like everywhere in this town, was almost impossible. Where there weren’t cars there were five-foot piles of snow and ice. After a short 3-block extension beyond our destination, we saw a parking space. All that stopped us from parking there was a discarded six-pack of empty beer bottles. Dr. Underwood got out to move the bottles so I could park. I saw a pick-up truck going past hit its brake lights and that’s when I heard the shouting begin.
“Hey, what do you think you’re doing? I’m talking to you, mister. Don’t just put that there and…I said I’m talking to you, buddy. Are you deaf?”
The obvious question to scream at a deaf person who isn’t looking at you.
“Me?” replied the doctor. “Not deaf, just not listening.”
“I’ve got a good reason for you to listen right here, you son-of-a-bitch.”
And with that, the guy jumped out of his truck and ran toward the sidewalk where my friend stood in drunken amazement. Poor Dr. Underwood just had a ride in the first unofficial Chicago Grand Prix and Death Race and now this bellowing eco-maniac is coming to get him. I waited a second to hear the shots ring out but I only heard partial sequences of more screaming.
“We don’t go for that shit here. Not yours? This ain’t a bar zone. Families don’t want to walk through your dump. Chicago doesn’t want your trash.”
I decided to get out and see what was the matter. It turns out this was one of Chicago’s finest, doing undercover patrol in a redneck-looking old pickup with a camper shell on the back. He’s out trying to buy crack and apprehend litterbugs. We explained the situation about the bottles already being there, we were just moving them in order to park. No sale. Those bottles became our property once we touched ‘em. Too bad it doesn’t work that way for valuable stuff or people. Can I touch your Bentley? No, well how about your ass? I was a little hammered and feeling invincible. I wanted to start arguing with this jerk, but the small bag of marijuana that I held in my hand made me decide against it. I didn’t want to end up face-down in a Polish precinct house as a nightstick holder. So, the environmentally-conscious cop marched us down the street, driving slowly beside us for five more snow-filled blocks until we found a trash can to put the bottles in. Yeah, they really give a fuck about litter in Chicago, don't they? That’s why they have trash cans every two or three miles. Having cleaned up the streets in a most literal manner, he let us go. The cop never mentioned a word about the two of us in the car being falling down drunk and having just parked a car, suggesting that perhaps we’d been drinking and driving. It was like being hassled for jaywalking as you're leaving the bank you just robbed.
We walked the eight blocks back to my friend’s house. It seemed much further as we slid on the ice-covered sidewalks, drunk on our butts on the frozen sidewalk. Prat lives with a marimba-playing cokehead and an older man who sleeps on the couch but does not actually live in Chicago. We found the house and Prat was home alone. We drank a few Czech lagers, smoked some good pot, and hung out watching hockey on satellite TV as I mellowed out from the big race and the surprise litter detail. Prat had just recently moved in here from his tiny North-side apartment and this pad was nice. The furniture was big and comfy and I don’t think this couch would have fit in the living room of Prat’s old place. The room was warm and humid, a welcome contrast to the cold-ass Chicago winter. Spicy earth and lemon incense and skunk-juice permeated the air. The combination of being a little drunk and racing in the street and walking a few miles with a cop in tow had me really wound tight and the herb seemed to have an extra strong relaxing quality to it. The hockey players on the TV got slower and slower and the announcers voice babbled on in lower and lower tones until his mutterings were just a constant low level hum somewhere around b flat. Changing the channels made a sound somewhat like a theremin as we switched from drone to drone of sports and situation comedy. The Brady Bunch in A minor. The second movement of the Blues versus the Canucks in C. All making parts of the same endless meaningless media song. I was beginning to relax nicely when Prat’s roommates arrived.
“This is Moishke, who owns the place and John, who stays here on the couch.”
“I don’t really live in Chicago, or anywhere for that matter,” says John.
I think about the validity of an independent couch-state and I notice that Moishke is fidgeting with something in his pocket. He walked around the apartment, rearranging his pocket contents constantly until suddenly he jerked his hand out fast, like if he’d just been bitten by a small animal. Something in there was trying to escape. He looked at his hand and after verifying that it was still attached intact to his arm, extended it toward me. “Good to see you again.” He re-inserted his hand in his pocket. The room snapped and hissed with nervous energy as Moishke, (who is really a nice guy) began to furiously re-arrange things on the coffee table, all the while keeping one hand in that pocket.
“What are you doing to those cds?” asked Moishke, grabbing a small pile of discs from the tabletop.
“Those are the bad ones that we were going to use for coasters.”
“Well, that’s a fucked-up idea because someone like me is going to come along here and think that they aren’t really bad cds and then have to try them out and they’ll wind up getting stuck in the computer or they’ll trash out my cd player.”
“Wow, that would suck, Moish,” says Prat.
“Damn, I leave home for an hour and when I come back the place is trashed. Has someone been smoking in here? Something stinks.”
“Just pot, man.”
It was a lie instantly recognized as such and the smoking gun was still smoking in the ashtray. I tried to change the subject. I had noticed a marimba earlier and thought I’d bring it up.
“Nice marimba, Moish. It sounds beautiful.”
It was a new one he’d bought by trading in another marimba that he really didn’t own, but he had somehow gained possession of over the years. Someone had left a marimba at Moishke’s house a long time ago and it had become his obsession. Long, crazy nights snorting misery and beating out melody lines from his favorite pop songs. Coke-fueled dreams of Lionel Hampton performing the latest Beastie Boys/ACDC collaboration.
“Javier says it’s a nice one and he should know. I bought it from him. Have you ever been there? That place is a trip. Javier is cool. It’s like the coolest bunch of marimbas you’ll ever see in one place.”
And he should know these things, being a cokehead marimba player (who is really a nice guy), so I’m taking his word on it. Besides, I get the feeling that if I question anything this guy says he might snap in two and piles of coke would spill out everywhere, like sand from a broken hourglass. Very tense shuffling of pocket contents.
“Wanna do some blow?”
“Umm, not right now. I’m pretty fucked up already.”
“That’s obvious if you’re passing this stuff up. Who is this guy you’re with? He ain’t a cop, is he?”
Yes, he’s a cop. He pulled me over earlier and I invited him up here to smoke pot and drink a few before he finishes his beat.
“Not a cop.”
And with that out came the huge bag of fine Peruvian flake and some poker chips with cartoon devils on them fell to the floor. He unceremoniously dumped the contents on the table and started chopping away at it with the side of a business card.
“What are you guys watching? Anything good? Did you see the porn channels? I can watch every fucking game of every fucking professional sports team that’s playing anywhere in the fucking country right now.”
Chop, chop, chop.
“We were looking for a channel called Free Speech TV.”
“We don’t have it. At least I don’t think so.”
Chop, chop, chop.
“Is it on Direct TV? If not, we don’t have it. I wouldn’t probably watch that shit anyway, so I don’t know if we have it. But we probably don’t. What the hell do you wanna watch that for, anyway?”
Chop, chop, chop.
“Jesus, this stuff is hard to break up. Someone give me a plastic card. No, not your driver’s license. What are you, fucking stupid? Try handing that to a cop when it’s all covered in coke dust. Jesus!”
The things you never think about when you’re not a cokehead marimba player (who is really a nice guy).
“Come on man, these are for you. Let’s party. Where are you staying after the concert?”
“Down at a friends house in the south burbs.”
“You’re a fucking fool. Come back here and let’s party. We’re up all night here and you can sleep on the couch.”
I wondered what the guy who lived on the couch, but not in Chicago, thought about that. I wondered how long Prat could survive in these surroundings. Maybe that little North-side dump wasn’t so bad after all.
“Well, maybe. We do need to be going. It was good to see you, Prat and you other guys, too.”
“Come on, man, this line’s for you.”
“Thanks, but I can have a heart attack for a lot cheaper than that.”
“All right, but before you leave, we have to play some music.”
“OK?”
I followed Moishke in to the marimba room.
“Play “Big River” by Johnny Cash.”
“I don’t know that one.”
I was wasted enough to honestly claim to not remember any songs just then.
“Try something in E minor,” I say.
“What’s that?”
Apparently keys mean nothing to a cokehead marimba player (who is really a nice guy).
“We really have to go, man.”
“Oh, come on, let’s play some music.”
I feared that this guy might attack me if I refused, but I wanted to get to the show, so I insisted on leaving. We said goodbye to Prat and the couch guy and left Moishke snorting and beating and chopping and snorting some more and playing his one note marimba symphonies to the accompanying drone of TV sports announcers. And we were off to The Empty Bottle.
Friendly Dancing.
The rooms are decorated with posters announcing past, present and upcoming performances by some of the leaders of the free jazz and noise movements in modern American music. The empty spaces between posters are filled with gangsta-style graffiti and the floors are finished with a spilt-beer lacquer and Chicago winter shoe-grime over partially peeled linoleum and splintered wagon-board. The bartender hasn’t shaved in a week and will probably soon have a heart attack according to the BBC. He reminds me of Wayne Coyne from the Flaming Lips in looks as well as demeanor. This guy is so happy to be here tonight that he genuinely can’t believe he’s getting paid to be here. He looks like he’s ready to break in to a big smile at any moment and I get the feeling it’s real. He leaves his tips lying on the bar much longer than any St. Louis bartender would do. I imagine that he does that in case someone really needs a drink but is short a little cash. It is that friendly in here. The musicians are mingling with the crowd before the show and everyone seems to be enjoying the free water in the cooler at the end of the bar. I decide to have a glass myself, as is my usual behavior when I see a large vat of community drink sitting out in a nightclub. I’d hate to be left behind, you know. I read The Electric Kool-Aid Acid Test. Yes, I know people are far too greedy for that sort of behavior these days, but I keep drinking it just the same.
