For Kennedy, Maybe

“I got pushed in front of an oncoming el train about ten years ago. Down at Washington station, coming home from Buddy Guy’s alone, stupid drunk, not paying attention to anything. I’m standing way too close to the edge, trying to make out this modern art poster on the other side of the tracks. The second I realize it’s for the World Cup coming to Chicago, I hear this high laugh behind me: ‘Uh-HAH!’ Then a hard shove in my back, and I’m in the air; I’m flying; I’m falling. Everything slows down but the train. My hands are doing that thing where they’re rolling down the windows, I’m pedaling my feet trying to stay upright, looking at the third rail on my left, and figuring out how to land. Those tracks are way down, five or six feet deep, and my ankles rolled when I hit. The third rail was right there, and the light was getting bigger.”

“Train blows a goddamn whistle. Goes right up my spine. I scramble out like the floor’s lava, back up on the platform, and the train comes barreling in right behind me. Everybody’s screaming. It was busy—late on a Sunday night—but busy. Cops run down the stairs and get right up in my grill while the train unloads. There’s people everywhere and everybody’s yelling over everybody else. ‘Did he jump? What happened? Guy’s trying to kill himself! Change of heart!’ I heard all kinds of shit.” 

Across the table, Josh was tight-mouthed. His bushy eyebrows were upturned, as if asking for help. He was sporting the same look in the church basement meeting earlier, like he was putting in effort trying to get through the night, but he hadn’t spoken, as usual. Josh was a tough nut, too quiet for his own good. So, Nolan had asked him to a meeting after the meeting—a harmless hangout at “Coffee,” a Logan Square staple. Nolan had time to spare, and he owed a debt he could never pay back, so he paid it forward, as was taught. He had been sober a few years and knew that look on Josh’s face. Often, in early sobriety, the biggest issue was killing time before bed safely. 

“The World Cup was about to start, and Daley had the cops sneaking the homeless out to the suburbs at night, so half a dozen cops are right up in my face. Freaked me out. I get super anxious in groups anyway and that many people, especially cops, were too much. Over time, sobriety helped the anxiety. But a year or two before this happened, some dickhead cops kept me locked up over something I had nothing to do with and they knew it. I ran my mouth, but they were egregious.”

A nearby patron stiffened and examined the cover of the book he was reading. Nolan figured his own story was better and didn’t mind small groups, so he spoke up. 

“Between that and the fact that I hadn’t seen who pushed me, I waved them off. Cops yelled to the crowd, ‘He doesn’t want our help!’ and they were right. I didn’t ask for help, so I didn’t get any. I walked away from it. What can the cops accomplish aside from making me paranoid? Number one was getting them out of my face. Fuck their little good cop, bad cop, bologna sandwich dinner and a show. 

“I storm off, somewhat irrationally, and a train pulls up, so I hop in. The doors close on all that chaos, and I can finally catch my breath. For a whole twenty seconds, anyway, then I hear the door between the cars opens, and the wheels screeching, and that same goddamn laugh is coming up behind me. “Huh-HAH!” And then whack, upside my head. I’m seeing stars.

“They all breeze past me and stand there by the exit, clowning. ‘How you like them tracks, boy? How you like them tracks?’” 

“Who the fuck were they?” Josh asked. “Did you know these guys?”

“No. I don’t think they were a study group. Friends, gang, shitbird kids, nothing better to do, didn’t leave a card.”

One table over, the black eavesdropper regarded white Nolan, then returned to his book. Nolan had been asked so many times by other white listeners if his attackers were black, partly because he left that info out, thinking it only distracted, and partly because Nolan knew more racists than he thought he knew. He never believed what happened to him was about race, but some people had their own agenda. He appreciated that Josh hadn’t gone there. Yet. Josh hadn’t gone anywhere, but also he hadn’t gone there.

“There’s four of them, laughing and talking smack at me, and I just lose my mind. I’m picturing running straight at them, grabbing the vertical bar and swinging up, using that momentum to plant my steel toe right into Laughing Guy’s jaw. Only I’m not picturing it. My legs are pumping. My hands are grabbing that bar and here goes. I’m doing it. I swing up. Turns out I’m not Bruce Lee. You shouldn’t try Bruce Lee shit when you’re not Bruce Lee, and I’ve never so much as taken a class. The guy leans back at the last second and my foot just misses him. So, I’m horizontal, gripping the bar, and with all that momentum behind me, snap. I can throw my back out now if I sneeze wrong. Gravity won out, and I landed on my back like a fifty-pound sack of rice, and for a second there, nobody moved. 

“But they all switch on and kick the crap out of me. I roll around and cover my head as best I can, but I’ve got to stand up, and eventually I do. I get my hands around the High Laugher’s neck. Slam his head into the partition a few times. Then I let go and hit him, but you know what really hurts your hand more than I was aware? Hitting somebody in the forehead. I’m no good at this either, so I go back to strangling him. 

“Which is no way to fight a bunch of guys at the same time. Which they were quick to point out. I get cracked in the head by something heavy, and I go down, and now they’re really putting the stomp on me, and I’m rolling around again, still trying to cover my head, which is slippery now. This goes on a long time, a long time, until it finally sinks in. I haven’t been in a lot of fights, but this one, I either get up or I might die down here.” 

“Mmph,” the eavesdropper appeared to agree.

Josh nodded. His mouth hung open a bit.

“The loudest thought came from somewhere. ‘Crazy Eyes!’ Didn’t know what it meant, but I ran with it. I got up to my feet, blood’s streaming down my forehead, running down my nose, and I open my eyelids wide as possible and try to pop my eyes out as far as they can go. Not crazy enough, so I flash this creepy smile at that same dude and start nodding at him, nice and slow. Now his eyes get huge, and he says, ‘Oh, shit,’ real quiet and now nobody’s swinging or kicking, they’re all backing away from me. The train is slowing down, and they’re tapping each other, backing up, going, ‘Ay, c’mon!’ The train stops, doors open, they all go running out. And then . . . then it’s quiet. It’s just me and, it turns out, a bunch of other people staring at me.” 

“The car was full?”

“Surprisingly full,” Nolan laughed. “Big audience. Think of the show they had. Waldo here jumped up and attacked four guys at once, got his ass handed to him relentlessly, then stood up making googly eyes and they all ran away. Just nuts. I found a seat and collapsed, and this old guy wanders over, hands me my glasses and asks if I know where I’m going.”

“‘Not really.’”

“He tells me we’re headed south, and Comiskey’s next.”

“Of course, I’ve been going the wrong way. I thank him and switch at Comiskey, wait for a northbound. There’s people on the platform staring at me, but I’m all racked up and nobody’s saying a word. You need a refill? I need a refill.”

Josh shook his head. As Nolan returned with a fresh cup, Josh’s pale blue sweater and khakis stuck out in the crowd. Nolan had to dress silly for work, too. He ran the mailroom at a corporate bank and had to wear a tie and slacks, but the Logan Square meeting was cooler than cool. He’d change out of work clothes into black clothes for the meeting. Nolan felt like an impostor, but he wore the uniform of artists and hipsters hoping to blend in. The meetings there were that good. He should mention that to Josh, he thought. 

Nolan understood his outsider syndrome to be low self-esteem’s way of trying to supply his ass a reason to skip that meeting and go get trashed, because low self-esteem was struggling now that he was sober. He still felt like an impostor among other adults, among the younger crew he preferred to hang out with because they were funnier, or in the break room at work among all those MBAs. From the fancy recovery meetings to the Salvation Army ones, all too often, he focused on the differences. Nolan wondered if Josh felt like an outsider. Most drunks did.  

“Washington Station,” Josh said. “Those tracks are so far down. How did you get out?”

“Exactly. Look at me—I got zero hops. I said lava, but no games. Best I can figure, it was one hell of an adrenaline burst. All I know is I was back up on the platform, going, ‘What?’ Then the train blew in.”

Josh shook his head.

“I know . . . I’m not athletic. Angels might exist, though. Keep in mind how drunk I was, and how God looks after drunks. I did get out. Promise. I’m here.” 

“Yeah. Sorry. So Comiskey.”

“No, wish I had a better answer. Life’s a mystery. It’s hard to quantify the combination of that oncoming light and the train whistle. Seriously.” 

“Sure,” Josh said. “Comiskey.” 

Nolan laughed. “From Comiskey, I headed back north up to Belmont so I could switch to the Ravenswood.”

Josh nodded.

“That actually matters because it was Sunday night, after midnight–Ravenswood line isn’t running any more. I’m not thinking what day it is. I stand around for a long time, trains coming by are all Red line, one after the other, I’m like, ‘What are the odds? Next one has to be Brown.’ But I get tired of being wrong, so I take a seat on the stairs that cross the tracks, head in my hands, and I guess I pass out. Next thing, somebody’s barely tapping my wrist, going, ‘Sir, are you okay?’ 

“The adrenaline’s worn off. And I’m still drunk, but not as drunk. My shit’s starting to hurt. I go, ‘Yeah, I’m fine.’” 

“Guy’s like, ‘You’re passed out in a puddle of blood. You’re not fine. Can I call an ambulance for you? Can you walk? Are you able to stand?’” 

“Well, now he’s pestering me, and I don’t want to stand up, so I don’t.”

“’I can call an ambulance for you. Or we could walk to the hospital.’”

“I tell him, ‘No, no hospital. No cops.’” 

“He goes, ‘I didn’t say a word about cops. You just need medical attention.’

“I take a quick inventory. I’m fuzzy. I don’t feel so good. ‘No, I’m good,’ I tell him.”

“The kid’s like, ‘Nope. That’s . . . incorrect. Is there someone you can call?  Or I could call for you?’” 

“I think about it. Not really–I was single again.”

“He asks, ‘Is there family I can contact?’” 

“Not in Chicago. Not even close.”

“He says, ‘You’re killing me. My dad’s a doctor. I can’t just leave you out here like this. I’d have to live with that. Illinois Masonic is right over there.’ And he points three times. ‘We could walk, take a taxi, go for a quick ride in a meat wagon?’”

“’Nah. I’ll take the train home, sleep it off.’ Well, he gets it out of me that I live on the Ravenswood line and reminds me Sunday after midnight, no more trains. We keep going back and forth because I’m a drunk asshole who never needs help, and he flat out refuses to take ‘no’ for an answer. I spent my last two bucks on the train—I just found out I can’t get home, and I’m still saying ‘no.’ This son of a doctor is on a spiritual journey that puts ours to shame. The kid ends up walking me down the stairs, pouring me into a taxi, and riding home with me, his treat, provided I promise to wake up my neighbor when we get there. 

“Which I did, and Doreen screamed when she opened her door on me. I let the Good Samaritan do the talking at that point. No, I shouldn’t even, he was some kind of saint, and I can’t remember his name. Kennedy. Maybe. Can’t even track him down and thank him. I tried, but without a full name? Good luck. No Dr. Kennedy at Illinois Masonic. It’s classic alcoholic. Total shit when it comes to any details in life that count.” 

“Yeah.” Josh got a flash of guilt about something. Nolan took note, although of course, Josh felt guilty about something. Nobody got sober in the middle of a hot streak. 

“We get better,” he assured Josh. “But that takes time. And work. Totally worth it, though. If you haven’t already, you should get a sponsor. But anyway. Kennedy, maybe, is talking to Doreen in the hallway, and I go into my apartment to take a leak. I get a peek in the mirror and flip out. I am . . . terrifying-looking. Like a Hollywood-level mask of black, dried peeling blood all over half of my face and neck, and bright red blood smeared down the other half. I can’t help myself. I start yelling, ‘Damn it! Goddamn it!’ They both come running in, like ‘What now?!’ and I’m going, ‘I don’t have any film for my camera! Look at my face!”

“Kennedy’s like, ‘I have been.’”

“Doreen looks disgusted. We woke her up, for Christ’s sake. But once I saw my bed, all I wanted was my bed, so I got focused on getting them to let me go to bed. I overheard Doreen say to the kid, ‘I see what you mean.’ So, it was two against one, and eventually the two of them get me back outside and into the cab, and they take me to the hospital. Last time I ever saw Kennedy, maybe.

“There are cops at the hospital, called it, and the doctor tells me they want to talk to me. I say no way, and he winks and says, ‘I’ll be sure they get the message.’ Then he leans in and says in a low voice, ‘These guys did a real job on you. Any chance I’ll be treating some of them tonight?’

“I lie and tell him I caught one with a steel toe, might have broken his jaw.”

“Doc’s like, ‘Right on!’ High fives me. Just lifting my arm hurt.” 

“I got eight stitches in the head, both ankles were sprained, they kept me awake for concussion. Whatever my shoulder and back did, my massage therapist loves it. She’s buying a second home. And the bruising afterward, I didn’t think was possible. Face, neck, shoulders, chest, stomach, back, thighs, knees, shins, ankles. Everywhere. My ass! Hip bones. It was so . . . thorough. Every square inch was black and purple, or yellow and brown. Even green. And red! My toes were okay. Steel toes. They survived. But that didn’t matter, ‘cause my ankles were useless!” Nolan laughed.

“Couldn’t sleep for days. Everywhere . . . it was impossible to find a way to lay down where I wasn’t putting pressure on five different sore spots. Couldn’t stand up. I just sat in this one comfy seat for days watching PBS, pissing in a bucket. After a while I could handle crutches down to the bodega for vodka, beer and black beans.” He laughed again. 

“Priorities. And I switch over to the bus for a while, it’s a few weeks before I get back on the el for work, but when I do, man, am I hypervigilant. I’m patting people down with my eyes and what I see is a guy over here with a long gun under his coat. And another one over there. Like in a Western, under their dusters. Right out there on the platform in plain view, sprinkled in with the crowd. Swear to God, I wasn’t losing my mind. They were long guns. Tried telling people about it, and they’re like, ‘You’ve been through a traumatic event, buddy.’ Yeah, tell me twice. I was there. But I’m not hallucinating anything else, so these guys are real.”

The eavesdropper nodded, checking his watch. It threw Nolan a bit. He looked down at his coffee, and Josh’s pale blue sweater caught his eye. He tried to focus.

“I don’t know, dude . . . the point to the whole stupid story is, well, I don’t put myself in that position anymore, for one. But did you see how many times I asked for help?”

“Umm, zero?” 

“If you’re not an accountant, you should be. What do you do for a living?”

“I’m an accountant.”

Nolan laughed, but Josh kept a straight face.

“Not really,” he said. “I do environmental impact studies. Go on, I cut you off.”

“No, you didn’t,” Nolan insisted. “I want to hear more about that.”

“No one wants to hear more about that. Go on.”

Nolan cracked up. “You’re a riot, dude. Environmental impact is cool. I’m filing that. So, I didn’t just forget to ask for help, I actively turned it down all night. I had cops right in front of me and I was too fucked up to accept that I was the victim of a crime. To me they were the goons who’d done me wrong just because they were wearing the uniform. All I had to do was give them the time of day, and I’d have missed the train those fuckos jumped onto. But my ego or my fear got in the way. Both. And for God’s sake, the kid! Kennedy, maybe! What the hell was he doing out at that hour? Seemed sober to me. Thank God he kept insisting. He’s out there offering up every kind of help I couldn’t even think of, but I still got that drunk instinct saying, ‘Leave me alone. I got this.’ That’s what we do. We truly suck at asking for help and it’s one thing we have to get better at. We don’t do this alone.” Then Nolan mumbled, “Help me be more like Kennedy, maybe in my day to day.” 

Josh looked startled by the impromptu prayer. “Help,” he said. “Four-letter word. It’s . . . I’m not much good at talking, let alone asking for help.” 

“Sure, you are. I might have said ten words my first few months of sobriety,” Nolan lied. “You’re way ahead of the curve. Just takes practice. Sometimes I think that’s why we drink so much coffee and take turns speaking at meetings. Putting in practice time talking while sober. Repetition is everything. It’s not terrifying anymore. When I came in, I was terrified to talk. My rehab counselor gave me this assignment to speak at every meeting I went to. Sucked balls, but it didn’t kill me. Keep doing it, it gets so much easier.” 

Josh looked heartened. Then he frowned. “What’d your neighbor say after this?”

“Oh, she hated me. She got it in her head I was a drug dealer. Because getting pushed in front of a train doesn’t happen to norms, right? I couldn’t convince her otherwise. She waited there while I was being treated, and the cops approached her about who did this to me, and she freaked out like she was under suspicion and called her dad, who’s a lawyer. It was a whole scene. Daddy gave her endless shit for helping me out at all. Poor thing. She stopped talking to me.”

“Makes sense. How long did it take . . . you think you had PTSD?”

“That’s exactly what people said when I started talking about long guns on the el. I was a mess for a few weeks. Skittish. But an old friend came over and got me high and offered me a ride on his grandpa’s motorcycle. I said yes. A 1930 Brough with saddlebags, a time travel bike. I’m riding bitch like a champ, arms wrapped around him, but it was nighttime, and the streets were empty, so Sunday maybe? Nobody saw. We went flying down that dark section of Clark alongside Graceland Cemetery and it was like all these dead people were out there on my left. To my right, everybody’s alive. And it felt like Clark was this line separating those two worlds that we were balancing on, and the air has cooled off, and it’s getting forced down my lungs. My heart feels electric, and motorcycles are amazing, and I realize what side of Clark I’m on. I rode the el to work the next day.” He paused. “I wouldn’t say you completely get over that level of beatdown, though. Not yet.”

Josh was quiet, working something over in his head. Hard to tell from silence. Nolan tried to think of the right question, not his strong suit.

“Excuse me,” the eavesdropper interjected. “You said that was the year of the World Cup?”

Nolan laughed. “Yes, World Cup. That’s what stuck out?” 

“I mean, I’m sitting right here. 1994, if I’m not mistaken, so eight years? You didn’t seem aware that they caught those kids. They were knocking off convenience stores up and down the Red line and pushing people onto the tracks. That was their M.O. Most of my friends were cops back then. Those men you weren’t supposed to see were carrying long guns. Very big operation, kept under wraps. Daley’s orders.” 

“I’m sorry, ‘Caught?’”

“Yes. Juveniles, all of them. Sixteen, seventeen, but all tried as adults, and found guilty. All serving hard time.”

“What?” Nolan was slack-jawed.

“Daley was playing hardball. The World Cup was coming to town. The homeless relocation, you mentioned. But that sting operation on the el went on for months, if I remember correctly, and he kept the story out of the papers that whole time, but, yes, they caught those boys. And tried them as adults. Anyway, I’m late. I stuck around because I thought you’d want to know.”

“You were right. Can, uh, can I hug you?”

He smirked. “I’m fine.”

“Said your friends were cops?”

“Yeah. I tended bar at Quimby’s back then. Cop bar. Stories like yours were all anybody was telling for a while, inside the bar, at least. One woman lost a leg under a train. I really do have to run, but I just wanted to make sure you knew. Didn’t want to interrupt.”

“No. Okay. Um, yeah. I never knew . . . how it ended? Thank you. Honestly. I cannot thank you enough.”

The man gave a solemn nod and left. Nolan fought the urge to follow the Pied Piper out the door. He and Josh stared at each other until Nolan caught a giggling fit that went on and on. “No shit,” he finally said, catching his breath but burying his face in his hands. “They got them? I can’t even . . . They caught those evil fucks, dude. I never even knew!”

“You do now,” Josh said. “That’s insane. Wait.” He tilted his head. “You wouldn’t . . . you didn’t set this whole thing up for me, did you?”

“Wow,” Nolan laughed again. “Hate to be the bearer of bad news, but nobody’s that important. You know Franz, don’t you? My sponsor? Franz always tells me: ‘Stop taking yourself so seriously.’ That applies here. Besides, everybody already thinks you’re paranoid.”

“Seriously? What do they . . . who’s everybody?” 

Nolan smiled. “They’re all saying it.”

“Why do . . . when?”

“I’m fucking with you.”

Not his worst joke. Missed the landing, though. Nolan wanted to hear Josh laugh at himself, but it was possible Josh was too young and too ironic. He might end up having to learn how, same way Nolan had, with the help of others laughing at him to point out the funny. When a drunk, bound up in self-loathing and self-obsession, learned to stop taking themselves so damn seriously and laugh at themselves for a change, that was a moment. Nolan could almost hear that sweet, rare gasp of his mom’s laugh from beyond.

Josh had to learn how to talk. Nolan had to learn how to help him, not that he’d been tasked. He wanted to, and he was in such a good mood now, he felt buzzed. He was riding the carousel of helping others because it helped himself, but he’d just stumbled into something extra-unexpected, perfect satisfaction and he wanted more, immediately. He wanted to hear that laugh. 

“Environmental impact guy walks into a bar,” Nolan tried. “Doesn’t even duck.”

“Boo!” But Josh was grinning.

“Wow. I got booed. Fine. Umm . . . how many times have you locked yourself out of your apartment naked?”

Josh took his turn at Crazy Eyes. “What? I never told anybody!” 

Nolan gawked back. “We both? Seriously?” He raised his cup. “Naked twins!” 

The nighthawks clinked as a bus blew past their window. Josh shook his head, smiled down at the table, and cleared his throat.