I don’t always write non-fiction, it’s just that writing fiction or poetry has always been a personal pursuit rather than something I wanted to build a career around. My poetry tends to be deeply personal — I’ve performed several pieces and shared some of it in a limited way, but for the most part I feel like it’s too specific to my own feelings and experience to put on public display.
My fiction, on the other hand, is usually written for the purpose of exploring an idea I find fun or entertaining. Trying to tailor it to a general audience would make it less enjoyable to write. Combined with the fact that I generally like to develop longer form fiction over a period of years rather than weeks or months, it’s not a form that lends itself to building an audience of people willing to put up with my tendency to produce large amounts of content over a period of days and then abandon the project entirely for months at a time.
One such project I’ve regularly returned to is a book called Lessons from Cleveland that is loosely based on the time I spent in Chicago when I was a teenage gutterpunk. It was such a unique place and time that it stands out to me as one of the last embers of a dying culture. According to data, most of the people alive today grew up in the world that replaced that one, so part of me wants to finish the book for the sole purpose of being able to plant it in the earth like stained-glass tombstone — a colorful remembrance of an imperfect life and imperfect people who I never stopped loving and will never forget.
I can’t promise that this will ever be more than a handful of lightly-edited drafts scattered amongst the archives of my more “serious” work, but if you’re one of the people who can live with that and accept as much of the story as I have to offer, it will be here waiting whenever you want to look.
“There are only three great cities in the U.S.: New York, San Francisco, and New Orleans….
All the rest are Cleveland.”
– Tennessee Williams (maybe)
Chapter One
Unga was on a lifetime mission to get and remain permanently altered in ways that most honest, hard-working Americans would view as downright aberrational. Dextromethorphan, ephedrine, caffeine, nicotine, benzedrine, kerosene… all legal for purchase and perhaps safe to use in reasonable dosages. Unga had dedicated far too much time working out creative ways to steal them to be constrained by amounts considered safe or reasonable. He was a creature that shared DNA with those Proterezoic beasts that lurched, oozed, and flopped their way out of the primordial ooze seeking only to consume random chemicals on a misguided quest to evolve into something mildly less lurchy, oozy, and floppy.
How he acquired the means of chemical saturation was equally ludicrous — just a tiny, hairy, man reeking of urine and beer, walking into a store, purchasing nothing, and absconding with hundreds of dollars of legal drugs.
It was never clear if the button-down blue shirts patrolling the aisles were really unaware of his purpose in their druggery, or if they simply didn’t want to be bothered trying to catch a guy who would clearly prefer to spit, bite, and wriggle than be peacefully apprehended. You don’t have to be a genius to work the counter of a drug store, but most people are smart enough to know that $4.25 an hour is not enough to risk life and limb trying to tackle a hairy deviant with three bottles of cough medicine stuffed halfway up his ass.
What was not apparent when a person first saw Unga is that he was one of those rare people whose internal state of being was nearly exactly identical to his external state. There were no extra layers, no special quirks, no depths to plumb. If you thought to yourself, “There’s an overall and tie-dye wearing Cro-Magnon with a love of hard drugs and some seriously homicidal tendencies.” then you would be exactly right.
I’d only been in Chicago a week when I found myself at a house party being thrown by a bunch of University kids. It was a shitty suburbanite get together. An excuse for the sort of guys that have nothing going on to drink keg beer and act like their lives were interesting. I had no reason to be there, but by the time I realized that I’d managed to score some acid from a wrestler who was probably named Greg or Marcus or something. I paid six dollars for two hits and figured it was probably bunk. I decided to wait there for it to hit, just in case.
Worst case scenario I could slide casually in amongst the stoners and grab a couple bong rips before I left.
Six dollars for two hits turned out to be such a good bargain I later wished I’d remembered the name of the guy who sold it to me. It had really started to kick in hard when I went outside to smoke a cigarette.
The trees were breathing. The night sky was pulsing with ribbons of blue and pink that separated into fractal patterns at the edges. I wanted nothing more than to lay on a small patch of grass and watch as the cosmos revealed great truths, but my enlightenment kept getting disrupted by some nearby cacophony that just wouldn’t go away.
Focusing my attention I looked around for the source. On the sidewalk there was a cluster of guys standing in a circle laughing about something. I took this as a universal indication that something fucked up was going on. No amount of caution could have overcome my drug-enhanced sense of childlike curiosity.
Making my way to the edge and I saw a burly kid jerking around in the street. He was crying and panicking as he tried to free himself from a pink dress. I never found out why he’d let them put the dress on him. By the time I got there it was clear that he was thoroughly trapped and reliving some sort of buried emotional trauma
He was bawling and screaming and struggling in the center of a ring of econ students with colorful sweaters tied around their necks. I don’t know how I knew they were future economists. Presumably that revelation was the result of either LSD-fueled telepathy or an intuition predicated on the detail that they were clearly practicing the cruelty and contempt I subconsciously associate with middle managers at a regional insurance company.
I pushed through the gaggle and immediately made my first mistake. I tried to touch him. The predictable result was a shoulder to my face. The small crowd laughed as I fell backwards onto my ass. I ignored them.
I got up and approached more carefully this time, speaking softly and slowly.
“Hey, buddy. It’s ok. Let me help you, It’s ok.”
It was not unlike attempting to free a dog caught in a squirrel trap. Growing up in the rural Midwest, that was a situation I was familiar with. It was clear that this was potentially dangerous for everyone involved. The best I could do was assert my calm and try to emanate positive energy. The lysergic acid cross-wiring my cerebral cortex allowed me to tap into the substance of the universe and defy the laws of thermodynamics. Radiating physical warmth and compassion into the space around me was trivial.
Over several moments, he seemed to calm. He became accustomed to my presence. His movements became less erratic. His screams turned to forceful grunts. When his internal chaos had ceased completely I reached out and gently laid a hand on his arm.
“Here. Let me get this shit off of you.”
There were agitated shouts from the crowd but no one moved to interfere. I gripped the bottom hem of the tube dress and pulled it slowly upwards. Hiis arms came free. I slowly and methodically lifted the garment over his head.
For the first time I could see the boy as he stood in his tighty-whities — he was dirty and covered in coarse, mannish hair but he was younger than I’d realized. He was short but thick — and surprisingly well-muscled.
His eyes focused. He slowly scanned the faces of the boys around us. I was about to suggest we leave when he suddenly locked onto a target. Without the slightest movement to telegraph his intentions, he charged.
I never learned what role the tall blonde guy had played in events. All I can say for sure is that he made a serious tactical error when he had chosen his target for mockery. Some tactical errors result in embarrassment. This one almost certainly resulted in scars and trauma.
The hairy kid tackled him to the ground and unleashed fury directly onto his face. His fists came down again and again even as the bystanders struggled to pull him off. It was like watching novice animal handlers trying to control a wild gorilla. His raw strength was magnified by raw savagery. Eventually and en masse, they did manage to pull him off, but not in time to preserve the blonde guy’s delicate nose.
Everyone turned to check on the figure lying on the sidewalk. The short kid turned away. I was the only person who had remained back, and I saw his eyes as sapience returned. He was clearly thinking and assessing urgently. I could feel his mind trying to assimilate everything that had happened. I saw the sudden realization as it dawned on him in a single instant.
He turned quickly and burst into a sprint.
Without knowing why, I followed.
People were always shocked when they first discovered how fast I was. I was rail thin and had very little muscle. I didn’t carry myself like an athlete. But I could run.
My entire childhood was spent running and riding bikes. I enlisted in cross country in the seventh grade and stuck with it until high school. In high school speed was a necessary commodity – it was my only defense mechanism against the bullies who wanted to beat the shit out of me. The reasons for that were never really apparent. They told me I was a faggot and a queer. I was never sure how they knew that long before I did.
I could run. I could sprint. I could endure. It’s what I was good at. Even on acid — with the world blurring and smearing into the oil canvas all around me — my body knew what to do.
The reflections of streetlights on car windows glittered around me like fireworks. The fresh black pavement was an infinite abyss beneath my feet. The wind whipped against me, cold and refreshing, seeming to crystallize the beads of sweat on my forehead. I smiled with ecstasy as my legs pumped out a familiar rhythm.
After eight blocks, the kid looked back over his shoulder. He saw me, arms flailing, hair drenched, laughing like a child. He stopped so suddenly I ran into him. The momentum carried us both down onto the hard pavement and we landed with an audible smack.
We laid there laughing for several minutes before we could finally catch our breath.
“We gotta watch out, man.” The kid had managed to regain his composure suddenly. He had gone from a deep, guttural laugh to instant sobriety and I was having trouble shifting gears. “Those fuckers called the cops, for sure.”
It took me several seconds with him staring at me intently to catch my breath. “I don’t think they will.”
He looked puzzled. “I fucked that kid up man. He’s fucking basura. They’re all basura. They’ll definitely go to the cops.”
I rolled onto my back and looked up at the night sky. I slowed my brain and thought hard. “They’re definitely assholes, but trust me, they’re not calling the cops. I’ve known a bunch of these assholes. They want to keep partying. They have a keg and a bunch of shit going on in that house. They don’t want the cops to come.”
He sat up as if the thought had never occurred to him. Slowly he stood up. “Alright. Maybe you’re right. Still, we should get out of here.”
He extended a hand and helped me to my feet. I nodded my agreement and he stopped and studied my face.
“Got any more of that acid?”
I’ve always wondered how it is that everyone who has ever seen me tripping instantly knew I was tripping, but in this case it was pretty obvious. Even if he hadn’t noticed my dilated pupils or clenched jaw — the fact that I was standing like a gargoyle, grinning psychotically in the middle of the street probably clued him in.
I pulled out my cigarettes and handed him the pack. He flipped it over and grinned, pulled off the cellophane wrapper, retrieved my second hit, and popped it on his tongue.
Handing the pack back to me he declared. “You’re like an angel from heaven. Saved me twice tonight, and I don’t even know your name.”
“Alex.” I said. It wasn’t my real name, but none of us used our real names here.
“I’m Unga.” He shot back, extending his hand for a shake.
I had expected him to have a crushing grip, but the handshake was pleasantly gentle and firm.
“So, Alex… I literally just got here today and I have no idea where the fuck I am. Got any ideas?”
I smiled and nodded. “Yeah.” There was no point in mentioning that we were in Naperville, so I just gestured vaguely at the manicured lawns and security lights on the outside of the houses around us. The gesture was enough to answer the question he’d asked so I answered the question he hadn’t.
“I know where to go.”
There was only one place in the city where I knew I’d be alright, and Unga, I thought, will fit right in.
The late eighties and early nineties were a special time on Chicago’s near north side. The city was the geographical epicenter of the Midwest, and anyone traveling from the Twin Cities, Des Moines, Cedar Rapids, Cleveland, Detroit, Indianapolis, or a dozen other places was bound to pass through.
The Metro on Clark Street had become a major stop for punk bands that wanted to tour the Midwest. On Belmont, some enterprising folks had opened Medusa’s, one of the first all ages clubs in the country. Meanwhile, the queer community and sex workers aggregated around the night life on Halsted. Between all of these spots, on the otherwise nondescript corner of Belmont and Clark Street, was a 24-hour Dunkin’ Donuts that managed to become the gathering point for anyone and everyone who couldn’t seem to reliably fit in anywhere else.
For years, every Friday and Saturday night, kids would flood into the area from around the city. On a weekend night in the summer, there could be 200 people hanging around in the parking lot of the donut shop. When the majority of kids left back to the safety of their parent’s houses in Glencoe, Winnetka, or wherever the fuck middle-class wannabes grew up, a core group of undesirables remained. It was an island of misfit toys for anyone that didn’t have a nice cozy home to go back to.
Lots of us were living on the streets. Some of us were runaways. Some of us were travelers. Some of us were just outcasts from our own families who had chosen to join a group of gutter punks rather than put up with the judgment of the people who raised us.
I hadn’t been there long, but it was long enough to know it was the one place in the city where a guy like Unga could thrive. It hadn’t occurred to me that he would be finding the place for the first time with a head full of acid, but it wouldn’t have mattered anyway. Most of the folks there were on something, so no one was going to notice if a 5’7” caveman showed up wearing only his underwear and socks and occasionally darting his tongue out so he could taste the air like a reptile.
It didn’t take half an hour for someone to give him clothes they’d been keeping in the back of their busted up microbus. Another thirty minutes and he had been thoroughly adopted as a native member of the tribe.