Letter

Last Sunday a mustachioed man in a trench-coat, scarf, and hat came into the bar. He went up and ordered a drink, then made a show of hanging his hat and coat on the coat rack by the magazine stand. He sidled up to several groups of drinkers, chatting with them as if they were lifelong friends catching up after not seeing one another for awhile. When not talking he twirled about the room with an enchanted sort of smile on his face. Whatever play he imagined himself to be in, he was most certainly the star.

On his way out the door he introduced himself as John and welcomed me to The Skylark, as if he was its mayor or something. On hearing my name his smile widened further and he asked if I was Greek JUST LIKE HIM! The fact I wasn’t didn’t dampen his spirits as he disappeared into the night. After he’d gone I went up to the bartender and asked if he knew the guy. He’d never seen him before in his life.

There are bits of theater performed in public for our benefit many times a day but when I go see the real thing I’m always taken aback at the heightened reality of it. On Thursday I went with a friend to a small theater in Old Town to see a new play. The room sat maybe fifty or sixty and the stage set was an ordinary living room. Watching and listening to actors who are close enough to touch is often an odd experience. They’re both with us and in an entirely different place, due to the words coming out of their mouths and the set through which they move, which is a few feet from our chairs, yet also miles and years away.

I felt the same way watching that mustachioed Greek at the Skylark go through the scenes of a drama only he knew the script to. We’re all that way to a greater or lesser degree; he was just acting out his inner monologue, while most of us keep it to ourselves.

As I told you a couple weeks ago, I’ve been logging a bunch of hours at the Skylark. Before I started working the door there early this year, I’d been a customer since the place opened in 2003. Of course it has been a bar of one kind or another much longer as my friend Paul Durica will tell you.

One of the great pleasures of the place is how dark it is inside. In a proper tavern it should always be night, to my way of thinking. The absence of TV screens gives the room a calm which is rare in the city’s drinking establishments. The low light leaves you to your own thoughts as well as encouraging an interest in the few objects which are illuminated here, like the Odd Fellows banners above the bar or the old stopped Schlitz clock in the corner.

From my post at the door, I can look back over the booths, towards the back of the room. I often see women come in alone or in groups and they’re rarely harassed or bothered; it’s one of the hallmarks of the place. I have yet to have to break up a fight here or even raise my voice when asking folks to leave at the end of the night.

I think back on all the people I’ve known who’ve worked here: Nora, Kevin, Eric, Nick, Dan-O, Andy, and others. There’s also a tie to Leo’s Lunchroom in Ukrainian Village. Having Sheila and Phyllis and Derek here (as well as some of the old specials on the menu board) makes me feel at home, without having to go back to Ukrainian Village and witness the unholy shitshow it’s become. I guess this has all been a long-winded way of explaining I like the place and am happy I work there. Walking home down Halsted with the dishwasher last week, he asked me to show him the painting I was carrying. He looked at it a few seconds, then said, “Wow. That’s how it felt from back in the kitchen.”

It was probably one of the best compliments I’ve ever gotten.

Last Tuesday I went to Stanley’s Tavern for a book-release party. Stanley’s is situated at the corner of 43rd & Ashland, right by one of the entrances to the Union Stock Yard. It’s one of the oldest bars in the city. The book we were there to celebrate was Slaughterhouse by Dominic Pacyga. It is a history of Chicago’s stockyards, so Stanley’s was the perfect setting. I got there a little early but the place was already filling up and Pacyga was signing books as fast as the folks from U of C Press could sell them. By the 6:30 start time there was nowhere to stand, let alone sit. It was clear there wouldn’t be much reading or discussion. A few people bought books and just turned around and left—a problem any writer with a new book would love to have. Then again this wasn’t the typical lit event crowd. Most were older and seemed to have more ties to the stockyards than the world of letters. Many were either related to Pacyga or had known him since childhood.

Bill Savage, who was to lead the talk, did his best to quiet the crowd long enough to introduce the writer and assure everyone that they could go back to their drinks and conversation in a few short minutes. Then Pacyga read from his book, perched on a rung of a barstool so he could be seen just above his audience. Then it was over.

Saturday I was part of a Chicago Literary Hall of Fame reading at the Chicago Book Expo. The city was in the middle of the season’s first snowstorm as I made my way to Columbia College in the South Loop. A bunch of small presses were peddling their wares on the first floor. I made a quick circuit around the room and waved hellos to familiar faces, then went up to the eighth floor for the reading. A windowless classroom held the eight or nine event readers along with their significant others. The poster I’d designed leaned in the corner. I listened to excerpts from Bellow, Brooks, Ferber, and others, then read my bit from Winesburg, Ohio. Then it was over and I was back out in the snow after a few goodbyes. 

Last fall I spent a bunch of time in the common room on the first floor of the Chicago Cultural Center. I sketched the people who came there all the time and eavesdropped on their conversations. I hope to make this one of the chapters of a book about Chicago; a kind of portrait of the city in pictures, my own version of A City on The Make. Got a ways to go before that happens, but this is a start.