Silence. Dead quiet. No noise. Nothing.  No frogs or crickets. Wrong year for cicadas. Too early for semis on 41 in the darkness of morning. Soon, it will be light. 

I sit here in this men’s room at a closed gas station south of Chicago. There is shit smeared on the walls. The smell of a urine soaked floor keeps me awake. Water from a faucet slowly drips. Writing on the mirror states, Jose Was Here, in a smeared silver color. Where is he now?

I crack the door open and see the beginnings of the day. Lights on poles turned off. The sun cracks through clouds. Time eludes me. I only know night and day. Light and darkness.

Bills in my pocket are gone. Small change jingles loosely in jeans that are now too big for me. I have three cigarettes left. Body aches. Forty-five miles left on my journey. Hog butcher for the world, Sandburg said. Hog butcher for the world indeed.

A station wagon filled with junk, trash, and various items pulls up. He rolls down his window and sees me leaning on a parking post. It’s an old man with a white  beard and red suspenders. Wire frame glasses on the tip of his nose.

Where you heading? He asks.

Chicago. 

I can drop you on the Southside, he tells me. Over by back of the yards. Is that cool?

Yeah. Sure. Thanks.

You wouldn’t have any gas money, would you? I move my head from side to side. I see. Well. Get in.

I open the door and place my feet among crushed beer cans. Plastic Pepsi bottles. Cartons of cigarettes.

You smoke? He asks.

Yeah. I got three left. Trying to save them.

Open up that carton of Viceroys and take a pack. Go on. I know what it’s like to be broke.

Thanks.

What’s in Chicago?

Poetry, I tell him.

Hog butcher for the world, he says. Hog butcher for the world. We both laughed. Read a lot of Sandburg?

Some. When I was in college. Mostly stick with the Beats these days.

Ginsberg. Kerouac. Gary Snyder.

Yeah.

I dig them, too.

The old man dropped me off at a gas station on the far Southside. I’ll be damned if he didn’t give me a twenty.

Spend it wisely

I saluted him as he drove off. Stuffed the green in my pocket. Lit a smoke and began my walk up Halsted. Past Canaryville. Past Bridgeport. Past Maxwell Street. Past Greektown. Past sins I’ve committed. Welcome to Chicago.  Hog butcher for the world.