Pickup of spouse from the airport took twice as long as it should last night. I don't know what caused the delays. All I know is I was circling around the bumper to bumper traffic for the third time before she texted she was leaving the baggage claim.
Jay Stephens, "Little Horror Flicks", Instagram
There must have been an accident on the highway because Google Maps rerouted the best path home using local traffic. Up Cicero through Garfield Park, one of the most neglected portions of the city. Cut off from the rest of society decades ago when they built the highway. They finally tore down the last apartment building on an entire city block, in the middle of a dead field of prairie grass and garbage. That place was haunted. All of Garfield Park is, as it should be, named after an assassinated president as it was. Somewhere in the middle is the Garfield Park Conservatory. It's a beautiful anomaly in an area that looks like a Walker Evans photograph. It feels wrong driving through there. A skin graft that didn't take. A dead tooth. Suicidal ideation as place. People live here.
Drive carefully. You don't want to crash there. You feel reassured by a Subway or Walmart sign.
There's a lifting of pressure once you leave, but you can't shake the feeling that something's still right behind you.
At 1AM, I arrived back home four hours after I'd left. I thought I saw an old man sitting outside on my porch turning to look at me. There wasn't, but I can still see his grin. Shiny Things:
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