Chicago: Race and Rain and Russians

Part I: Prairie Street

It rained, after I passed Soldier Field and settled at a window table in a Prairie Street Historic District coffee house. The rain. And all those manning the kitchen and espresso machines were clearly low wage Latino workers. This is not something I’ve seen in the St. Louis area – yet. I mean, maybe most U.S. baristinos are underpaid (I made $6 an hour in 2000 as a barista), but I hope those Chicago guys were at least making minimum wage. These details make something happen, inside the box of me. Other things, too, but the rain and the poor are enough, this late summer 2005.

Outside the window, the street that leads to such beautiful houses, huge and stone, the oldest in the city. And the Hillary Rodham Clinton Women’s Garden, with its idealized little play house in sitting sadly hollow (why would such a cool playhouse be empty on a Saturday, even before the rain?). I went into the playhouse and thought, “If I were any kind of a mother I would have managed a playhouse like this for my kids.” There are so many sad mother-thoughts. Too many to count. Too many ways that I know I could have done better, tried harder. How many days would it have taken me, if I had just decided to build them a lovely play house like this, one with windows that go all the way from floor to ceiling, peaked roof, flat, yellow painted wooden porch? I could have done it, surely. OK, maybe it wouldn't this perfect -- but it may have held together through a few thunderstorms.