cNutgroist

What I did on my Holidays: Part 5

After 45 hours, 32 stops, 11 life stories, 6 states and numerous trips outside in the frizzing cold for a smoke, we arrived at Union Station, Chicago only 15 minutes off schedule. A great trip indeed. I put my luggage in a secure locker and walked out into the Chicago snow.

And then the nightmare began…about 5 minutes earlier -

I’d said goodbye to my new friends and made for the lockers. Chucked everything I owned inside, including my laptop, closed the door and walked out. Thank the lord and all his lovely angels that two of my travelling companions were in the locker room at the time.

‘Dude, is this your door?’

and I almost didn’t turn round, thinking they were calling after someone else. Oh I’d closed the door alright. Just failed to lock it. It had swung open for all the world to pillage and I’d walked out. Top blokes.

Meanwhile, outside Union Station my relieved future self entered a bloody blizzard and having failed to walk it, hailed a cab to the Art Institute of Chicago (see Monday’s post) to complete a long-awaited, previously cut-short visit exactly a week ago. Jumped out, ran up the steps and had this conversation with the ladies at the information desk.

-Do I need to buy a ticket today? I think it was a free entry day when I came last

“we’re closing in 15 minutes, honey. It’s really not worth it.”

-b-b-b-but, hang on, youre closing at 5pm on a Saturday?

“it’s Sunday”

-oh shit

And it was. I’d lost track of time entirely – that’s probably what being on holiday is meant to be. Damn, it worked too well.

“is the Museum of Modern Art open?”

-no, honey, that’s already closed

“oh damn (didn’t want to swear again). What IS open around here then?”

-there’s really nothing. Even the shops are all shutting at 5.

-nothing at all?

“there’s Millenium Park. It’s one block up. Though it might not be fun in this weather”

And it wasn’t, though I was still impressed. A big flat bit of Chicago given over to gigantic sculptures, including the famous chrome bean, I slouched round it for half an hour in the snow and the slush and started to feel my diminutive size in this gigantic city. Getting soggy feet is one of the simplest, most destructive ways to destabilize a grown man. So I went looking for culture, with food and shelter as a back-up plan.

By sheer luck, opposite where I was lost stood the Public Library a.k.a The Chicago Cultural Centre, which had an exhibition of African housing adornments (didn’t know there was so much more to it than shrunken heads and mortar) that was, crucially, open til 6.

I don’t know how I did it but I managed to get lost in a major city famous for giant steaks, hot dogs, stuffed pizzas and god knows what else and managed to find absolutely nowhere to eat. I wish I could blame it on indecisiveness but I didn’t get the choice to even vacillate over it. Panicking that I couldn't find anything at all to eat, I decided to get back to the train station early and find something around there. I walked for 20 minutes in a complete circle and then back on myself just to compound the error, then gave up and took a cab to Union Station, said in my famous 'i know where im going' voice. And so I was dropped off outside a completely unfamiliar building and went inside to investigate. I found only signs for local trains and realised I was at the wrong place entirely. Still nothing to eat. Stepped back outside, walked 5 minutes down the road with no idea where I was going and hailed another cab to Union Station, the Amtrak one please sir.

1 minute later he drove me back to the building i'd just left and around to the front entrance, the very station I was indeed looking for. The meter had barely crept up 20c since i'd got in. He didn't give a fuck so I decided not to either. After all, it was snowing, I had soggy feet and i'm a dollar-rich Englishman.

Earlier that day in a conversation about junk food, I made the probably true statement that I hadn’t had a McDonalds in 4 or 5 years and I don’t plan on having one ever again. Like many people, I went mad for it as a kid but as an adult I was never a habitual user. Turning up at the check-in, I met up with the same two musician kids from Seattle who saved my stuff in the locker from inevitable pillage and before I even had a chance to refuse, they’d stuck a double cheeseburger in my hands and I was so goddamned hungry I nearly pushed it past my teeth and straight down my throat with my fist. I immediately felt better, though slightly ashamed of myself for eating and enjoying such shit. Within a minute, they’d shoved another one in my hand and refused to let me give it back, though I claimed quite truthfully that I wasn’t hungry anymore. They made me keep it for later. I set out in search of real food.

This time, I knew better than to search outside the station where food for sale apparently doesn’t exist. But still I should have known better than to enter an area called the Food Court. The word ‘Court’ in this case is apt since the culinary crimes committed therein deserve an instant trip to the Justice dispensary. After a brief flirtation with the Cajun and Chinese establishments, I turned a forgotten corner and found the raggediest looking McDonalds ever and I just knew I was going to order a Big Mac with medium fries and a large orange juice and I also knew it was going to be disgusting. I didn’t even eat it in the McDonalds itself, so sick did I feel about the whole affair. No, I ate it in the Banqueting Hall deep within the castle walls of the Court of Foode and mighty physic was not mine victuals. All hail McDeth, for thou shalt be the Burger King.

The Big Mac was the worst I’ve ever had – sizzling cold ground cow-dung topped with a slice of melted orange Duplo, a distant relative of the suspicious cream sauce and a dead relative of a lettuce leaf – all in a sesame seed bun. The fries were cold, hard AND soggy, a triple-pronged bumrape up the jacksy of junk food standards. The orange juice tasted like it had already been drunk. (And when I drank my piss later that night, it was no better)

So disgusted was I with myself and the whole situation I found myself in that when I finished eating I self-loathingly dug out the spare double cheeseburger that was cold and squishy and of course I scoffed that badboy down like the motherfucker it was. I guess my imagined hunger took over to the point that I had persuaded myself that it was actually food and I hadn’t eaten in days. All this irrational behaviour overwhelmed me within a matter of minutes, particularly distressing when I reflect on my new found love for myself. Obviously there's still some way to go.

This trip has taught me three truths I hold to be self-evident: Americans are fat fucks; Americans are fat fucks; Americans are fat fucks. I went back to my pre-divorce stomach size in a week, though the rest of me stayed gloriously gaunt and urchine. But by the end of the trip I looked like some of my less successfully rolled spliffs - basically a snake that's swallowed an egg. It’s also taught me that I’m just not set up for cheap meat. I get a stomach ache when I eat it, though since it’s been with cheese this week it could be that instead. (Don’t care to find out. Still not doing it again for good while). How some Americans manage to stay thin I do not know.

I guess you don't need to know that as I chewed the last bite of McEvil I got a serious pain in my stomach just as if inside me there was a baby kicking...its crack habit. I went straight from the Food to the Poo Court, handily placed adjacent and attempted to poo out food that was already having second thoughts about entering my stomach let alone leaving it. I say attempted also because my record with public toilets is not a proud one and the minute i run out of things to blog about in the present, someone remind me and i shall recount the tale of the curious incident of the cock in the daytime (in Uxbride tube station, no less). So i'm tired, ill, flustered, nervous and really just wanting to get on the next train, get a good seat and sleep. In contrast to either of the absurd colonic donations to the porcelain gift basket of my previous Chicago sojourn, this time my poo simply refused to leave its dark lair. Sure, i sat down and pushed out a few plops but nothing else wanted to come, no matter that there was something lumpy sitting 'on the ledge'.

You know when you're wiping a dripping tap or a snotty nose and no sooner have you wiped away that residue than an equally big deposit had taken its place and you'll wipe it and no sooner that you wiped it than ...etc? Well, if you haven't you should really come wipe my anus some time because that's what it's like and I know you'll love it. The surprising thing was how sticky it was. Did I sit on some glue? Had I just eaten 2 jars of smooth peanut butter? That's what it felt like and was easily the equal in volume. Every wipe would take me one step closer to cleanliness... and one step back. I must have gone through half a big roll of toilet paper and all i got was a smelly hand and the desperate wish to get my trousers back up around my waist and leave this dodgy space. The poo kept coming unabated. The door and walls were incredibly low as it was, presumably so attendants can see homeless guys or addicts in there. Unfortunately, so could any average heighted shitting fetishist. I zipped up still sticky and ran, having also succumbed to the sticky rancid whiff of pure paranoia.

Half an hour later I was back, spooning out more brown butter and trying desperately to stem the flow of this everlasting bumjam. Then as now, I think over what I'm doing and saying and briefly pause to wonder if this is how most men in their mid 30's talk and act - I won't say i'm in the majority, i dont think i have ever been in that apparently hallowed group my whole life, but i also can't believe im the only man of this generation to go through a series of public dietary crises and faithfully report it to the disbelieving, breakfast-ruined world.

And to think I almost went to my friends' wedding in Calcutta, if I hadn't already decided on this trip. I thought it was the safer option but something about the interaction of Chicago and I equals heavy duty, industrial-grade intestinal difficulties. I don't know what it is but I know that as a result I can never, ever, live there, love there, lav there.

And now, even now as I edit this a week later I am very literally doing a poo. It's ok, this time I ate mushroom curry and brown rice with lentils. It comes out better than some curries go in. And it's ok because I'm sitting on the toilet writing this and it's ok because I remembered to take my trousers off this time. And as the last dollop drops plopping into the watery internal rhymes of the u-bend, I have to go because I have a slate to wipe. Clean

Here's yet more from Old Man Jarrett. Entrance from Dark Intervals, 1987. A tiny spontaneous piece so compact and beautiful I've just asked it to marry me. We've got to find a really liberal rabbi and then I'll let you know the date. You're all invited.
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