For someone like me who lives in a city of 5,000 and works in an office surrounded by woods and fields, a rare business trip into downtown Chicago is a big deal.
Since my meeting is walking distance from the downtown Metra commuter train station, I opt to relax and ride the train from suburban Crystal Lake, rather than navigate the insane city traffic and overpay for parking.
As the train fills, strangers end up sitting next to each other. The natural inclination would be to acknowledge and greet the person who just planted their posterior two inches away. But no one does. And so I don't, either, when a middle-aged woman ends up beside me. She's not in business attire; she might be an office worker, a store clerk, or possibly just going to visit someone. It feels unnatural to me not to speak to her. I see everyone else in their seats, staring straight ahead, oblivious to their neighbors. I am reminded of the scene from “Metropolis” where the shifts of workers change, a mass of humans silently plodding along. The woman next to me yawns, and I see my opening. “I know how you feel,” I offer. She smiles and starts a conversation; small talk about not getting enough sleep and relying on caffeine to get through the day. Before too long, we run out of things to say and return to our silence. But at least the ice was broken, the chill is gone, and I relax. When we reach our destination, she smiles and wishes me a good day and encourages me to stay awake.
It's been about five years since I last took the Metra into downtown Chicago on business. The experience is so different than what I am used to that in a strange way, it excites me. I laugh when I think that what to me is a tourist attraction is to everyone else another day of mindless tedium. The last time I commuted in on the train, my final destination was too long to walk to from the station, so I doubled my public transportation pleasure and hailed a cab. The cabbie, who I guessed to be Jamaican from his accent, was an affable fellow wearing a White Sox cap. We chatted about the South Siders' then-recent World Series triumph as we maneuvered through the stop-and-go traffic. A train, a cab, a downtown destination – I felt like one of those guys you see portrayed in the movies. Jim Lyke, big city business guy.
Or at least, I'd like to think I am that guy. In reality, there is something about downtown Chicago that brings out the bumpkin in me. I gawk at the tall buildings. I marvel at the technology that hoists a bridge into the air in order for a ship to pass through.
It seems like each individual block of every downtown street has a second “honorary” name and street sign. Near the Tribune Tower, Michigan Avenue is also Jack Brickhouse Way, a memorial to the legendary Cubs broadcaster. Some of those so honored have familiar names (Ben Gurion), some not so much (Newton Minow, Christ Demos). I look up Minow later and discover that he was the FCC chairman who described television as a “vast wasteland.” For that quote alone, he should have an entire country named in his honor, not just a street.
After my meeting is over, I walk over to the local office of the outdoor advertising company I work for. I'll be meeting people that to this point I've known only by their phone voice or e-mail address. Our Chicago office is located on the 22nd floor of a building on Michigan Avenue, the heart of downtown. It's great to put faces to the voices. I play the part of the small town boy to the hilt, telling my big city cohorts that you could stack the four tallest buildings in Janesville and it still wouldn't add up to 22 floors. I'm not sure whether this is true or not, but it amuses them. What is true is that when you look out their windows, you see the John Hancock Center and behind it, Lake Michigan. When you look out mine, you often see wild turkeys. One tom even attacked his own reflection in our front door until he bloodied himself. We all sell the same thing for the same company but our experiences are as alike as Cher and Chas Bono.
After lunch with my counterparts, I head back toward the station, guessing that I have more than enough time to catch the next train back to the suburbs. I get stopped on Michigan Avenue by a young woman named Maddie who is selling memberships in Greenpeace. She somehow spots me as someone who cares about the environment, either by intuition or pure luck. Maddie admits that most guys dressed like me don't give a rat's ass about her cause. She is passionate about her organization and she's good – very good. We talk, she goes for the close. I stop short of commitment. She tries again. I tell her that I'm not the kind of buyer who makes a decision emotionally on the spur of the moment; I need to check out the facts. Maddie gives me the Greenpeace web site address. I promise her I'll visit the site and that if I make a donation, I'll make sure she gets the credit. I tell her I manage salespeople and compliment her on her skills. She tells me it's her second day on the job. I would love to hire her. But she could never sell what I sell. She could never care as much about 20 x 60 signs on I-90 as she does about saving palm trees in Indonesia. What I do goes against everything she believes in.
The conversation with Maddie delays me enough that I pick up the pace a bit. Up and down the downtown streets, you hear the rhythmic jangle of the downtrodden, shaking paper cups full of change that sound like broken tambourines – a wordless plea for assistance. As I approach one of the beggars, he smiles politely and asks me for help, rather than just rattling his cup as the others do. I can't help but feel horrible when I rush by, depositing nothing. What makes me - hurrying to catch a train in my suit and tie - a better, more worthy, more fortunate human being than this poor soul reduced to begging for change on a city street? Why has God smiled upon me, and not on this polite young man? Is he a panhandling snake oil salesman, hiding his evil intentions behind a convincing smile? Or is he so down on his luck and desperate that this is the only thing he can think to do to feed himself and his loved ones, yet his circumstances haven't broken his spirit?
With mere minutes to spare, I make it to my train and start the trip back to my real life. But the images of the desperate and destitute stay with me. Can I save the poor? Or for that matter, the whales?
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