Monday, June 12, 2006

And Yet, We Always Look Forward To Coming Home

This weekend, we went to visit our brother in Chicago. It’s really an amazing city. It is very clean, beautiful, well-organized, friendly, and has a handsome, healthy gay population. We had a wonderful time there. But there was something missing, and we couldn’t quite place what it was. Eventually, our New York friend Kate came to the conclusion that the citizens of Chicago lacked a certain “edge.” When pressed, though, the two of us couldn’t define what it was. After all, it’s not as though Chicagoans aren’t diverse, intelligent, and creative.

Anyway, yesterday we came home, and it was one of those long trips that involve cars, planes, trains, subways and monorails. Finally, we were sitting on the L train at 8th Avenue, exhausted, waiting for it to move, at midnight, and it was sort of empty. There were some Puerto Rican Pride Parade people passed out, the requisite homeless people, etc, and on our train were a young boy, probably age 8, and his dad. The boy was clearly eager to be out so late, and the dad was obviously antsy to get home.

All of a sudden a scantily clad girl (she was probably 16) jumped onto the train, yanked off her tube top, and slammed her enormous, hugely nippled boobs into the face of the 8-year-old boy. A friend of hers cheered and videotaped with a handheld camera as she battered them against the (understandably, stunned) boy's head for a few moments. Then she flounced off the train.

The car was silent for a long time after she left.

Then Kate turned to us. “There it is," she said. "Edge.”

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

That thing you noticed in Chicago, it's called "not thinking you're better than everyone."

Thank god I've outgrown that Chicagoan tendency.

Anonymous said...

I think you mean "not knowing you're better than everyone."

and I couldn't agree more, about all of this. I found Chicago very pleasant. At the time I described it as "New York, but half as tall." And I should add, half as crazy.