I was in Chicago a couple weeks ago, and got a relatively cheap room ($105/night) at the historic Ambassador East. It's a pretty okay place, although the Pump Room isn't what it once was, and the walls in the rooms are so thin you almost have to whisper so your neighbor doesn't hear you. One morning I woke up and my woman was singing and laughing when suddenly we heard a loud bang on the wall. "It's 6:00 in the goddamn morning!" someone yelled. It was a woman's voice, husky and unpleasant. "Where'd that come from?" I asked. The voice heard me. The walls got beaten again. "Shut up! Shut up! We're fucking sleeping!"
I rolled over in bed. "Exactly what kind of beast is this?" I wondered.
I never found out. We let the creature sleep and never heard from it again.
--
Later that morning, I walked along Lakeshore Dr., and around and about all the way to Wrigley Field. It had been about thirty years since the last time I was there. I remember watching the Pirates & Cubs play. This is when the Pirates had Dave Parker and Willie Stargell & the Cubs' great jewel was their catcher Barry Foote. He was a heel though. And so were the Cubs. They still are. I always preferred the Sox (White or Black).
Anyway, I lapped Wrigley and ended up at a used bookstore on N. Clark. I perused the place. Couldn't find anything worthwhile, but just before I left one of the employees was carting a stack of books and as she moved past me one book fell off the shelf and landed on my foot (my barry foote). It was Faust Part 1, by Goethe, Penguin Classics 1949.
I opened it:
"Well, well, keep at it: ply the shears and paste
Concoct from feasts of other men your hashes
And should the thing be wanting in fire or taste
Blow into flame your little heap of ashes:"
The exact book I was looking for. I just didn't know it yet. I bought it and went back to my hotel, which happened to be on Goethe St.
--
