Chicago Stories: West of Western

Chicago Stories:
West of Western

By

Eileen Robertson Hamer

Chicago Stories: West of Western

Copyright © 2011 by Eileen Robertson Hamer

Published in the United States of America

This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places and incidents are the product of the author's imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events, locals or persons, living or dead is purely coincidental.

All rights reserved. Except as permitted under the U.S. Copyright Act of 1976, no part of this publication may be reproduced, distributed, or transmitted in any form of by any means, or stored in a database or retrieval system, without the prior written permission of the publisher.

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Chicago Stories:
West of Western

Chapter 1

“Damn it, Ellie,
I thought I explained,” Seraphy said, shoving her short hair into a thatch of damp black spikes. The real estate agent had dragged her from one loft to another all afternoon and she was stewing in her slim jeans and long-sleeved shirt. She wiped her forehead with her sleeve and turned to face the Realtor hovering at her side.

“I couldn't live like this,” she said, waving a handful of listing sheets. “NO MORE yuppified lofts. Period.” Seraphy watched the agent nod, watched the words slide off without penetrating her Realtor mind.

“But you'll like this one,” Ellie pleaded, ignoring the signs of impending mutiny. “Just give it a chance.” Ellie had dressed for success that morning, but by late afternoon, her silk blouse clung to her chubby body like pink Saran Wrap and perspiration darkened her careful makeup. Clutching a brochure and a wad of keys in her right hand, her Blackberry in her left, she shifted from one aching foot to the other. Preparing to gush still more Realtor-speak, she glanced up from the listing sheet, caught her client's expression, and her face dropped. “Look, just give it a chance, will you?” she pleaded.

“I'm done.” Seraphy shook her head and spoke slowly and clearly in the tone she used to explain to her nephews why they couldn't put the cats in the clothes dryer. “No more, Ellie.”

“Get in the car,” said Ellie, temporarily defeated. “It's too damned hot out here to talk.”

Once in Ellie's Mercedes, Seraphy shuffled the remaining listing sheets, wondering why real estate agents couldn't understand basic English. Were ‘no yuppie rehabs’ a foreign language? Was there some special Realtor gene that blocked anything she didn't wish to hear? Was ‘Realtorcide’ a word?

The agent took out her frustration on the car's air conditioning controls until frigid air spewed into their faces, then yanked her hair off her neck and imprisoned the limp yellow strands in a butterfly clip. While she checked her messages, Seraphy slumped in the passenger seat, skimming the remaining listing sheets with half-closed eyes, more to keep from snarling at Ellie than in any real hope of finding anything interesting.

Maybe she should give up. She couldn't understand why this was so hard. All she wanted was a place for a home and studio. Something basic with room for her drafting board and flat files, maybe with a workshop where she could construct models, a loft with a kitchen and a place to sleep. But real estate agent after agent had shown her yuppie specials, overpriced one-time commercial properties gussied up with acres of granite. Basic didn't bring high commissions. After chewing through nine agents, Seraphy had found it difficult to find anyone willing to take her on.

“What's this?” Seraphy jerked herself upright, peeling a wrinkled sheet from the back of the last full listing in the pile. “Wait, don't say anything. Give me a minute.” Smoothing the crumpled paper, she squinted at blurred print and a grainy black and white photo printed on cheap newspaper stock. Someone had taken a red marker to X out the small industrial building.

“Why didn't you tell me about this one?” she said. “Hmm.” Maybe? The building might be a little tired, but at least it didn't look savaged by developers.

“What? Let me see that.” Idling at the curb, Ellie pulled her face out of the air conditioner vent, resuscitated by a sign of actual interest from her difficult client. When she realized which listing Seraphy was asking about, her nose wrinkled. “Give me that!” She snatched at the photo. “That's a piece of crap, that's why. I thought I threw it out. Besides, it's west of Western, out of our area.”

“Wait.” Seraphy held the paper out of Ellie's reach. “Wait a minute—out of whose area? I never said anything about Western.” She frowned, trying to make out details of the façade. “You say it's a wreck? That mean it hasn't been wrecked yet? For God's sake, I can handle a little rehab, I'm an architect.”

Her back against the door, she held the photo at arm's length and stared at the fuzzy image. Not bad, hard to tell from the blurred photo. Okay, so she had to admit, right now anything Ellie hated would look interesting, and Ellie's resistance only spurred her on. But actually—she chewed her lip and gazed at the image—nice facade, that shallow barrel-vaulted entry had to be—what—1909, 1910?

“Do you have keys? Can I see it? Now?”

“No!” Ellie gave up reaching for the listing sheet and shook her head. “Don't even think it! There's no way you could live over there. Gangs, filthy streets, run-down buildings. Rats the size of dachshunds. Disgusting.” She swiped her hand across her cheek and scowled at the orange smear left on her palm. “Shit! I hate summer! There's a packet of baby wipes in the glove compartment. Grab me one, will you?”

Seraphy tossed her the packet of wipes and tried to remember if she'd ever been on the other side of Western south of Division Street, then wondered why she hadn't. She shrugged and turned back to the photo. Her curiosity bloomed as she gazed at the grainy image. Better and better.

“I'm not worried about the neighborhood.”A yuppie-free zone, and knowing Ellie, the area was probably just unfashionable and the buildings cheap. After ten years in the Middle East, a little shabbiness didn't bother her.

“Well, I am. We're both hot and tired and I'm not dragging you off into a slum.” Ellie's eyes narrowed and she brought out her ultimate weapon. “Besides, it's a waste of time, the building's not mortgageable. Industrial building in an R3 zone. No bank would touch it. You'd have to pay cash.” Groping for the pages her client had tossed on the floor, she failed to see Seraphy shrug. “Forget it. We've still got three real lofts to see this afternoon. Where do you want to go next?”

“You don't listen well, do you?” The small industrial building was beginning to smack of forbidden fruit, and Seraphy was a true daughter of Eve. With her skin itching from the heat and her eyes tired from looking at the wrong buildings, she was in no mood to look at another Sub-Zero refrigerator, eight-burner commercial range, or Grohe faucet. “This one or nothing.”

When the agent took a breath to argue, Seraphy held up her hand, palm out to stop her. “Ellie, listen: do we go now or do I call another Realtor?”

Maybe
Ellie had a point. Crossing Western Avenue from Ukrainian Village, where sidewalks were scrubbed every day at dawn, they found themselves on Rockwell Street, where nothing was ever cleaned. Eighty year old red brick two-flats and a tired walk-up apartment building lined the east side of the street, a feast of crumbling mortar, peeling paint and taped-together windows. On the west side, a litter-filled vacant lot, a decrepit two-flat and a small industrial building. Broken sidewalks, dirt where there should be grass. Gutters full of fast-food trash, broken glass, leaves and other debris lined the pot-holed street. Scraggly silver maple trees drooped in the August heat.

But once Seraphy's eyes fell on the building on the northwest corner of Rockwell and the alley, she didn't give a rat's ass. Gazing at the facade, forgetting to breathe, she lowered her window for a closer look. She waited for the familiar feeling of rejection, the knowledge that she could never live in this place, and was surprised when it failed to arrive. Instead, invisible fingers tugged at her, pulling her to come inside.

“Well, Seraphy, you happy now? I told you the place was a dump. Shut the damned window and let's get out of this shithole.” Ellie hadn't bothered to pull into the curb and park. Even idling in the car with air-conditioning blasting, she was steaming. Pulling her silk blouse away from her sticky chest, she fanned herself with her left hand, her foot on the brake. Seraphy ignored her and slid out of the Mercedes without looking at the pavement, her eyes locked on the building.

“Where do you think you're going?” Ellie screeched behind her, unhappy in the marginal neighborhood. “Get back in here! Shut the door, you're letting all my cool out!” She rolled the window half way up as she spoke. “I told you, crappy building, crappy neighborhood. Can we go now?” But her client wasn't listening.

“I think . . . I want to see the inside.” Seraphy slammed the door and tapped on the glass. Impossible for her to even think of leaving without seeing the whole building. Ellie lowered the window another spare inch and heard her say “Give me the keys and wait in the car if you want. Better turn off the engine before it overheats. I'll be a while.”

“Get real, you can tell from here it's a dump and it's on the wrong side of Western. Get. In. The. Damned. Car.
Please.
We need to get out of here before rush hour.”

“Just hold on—I think . . .” Seraphy shook her head, her words tapering off as she scanned the abbreviated listing sheet, looking from the text to the building and back, a tiny flame of excitement growing as she took in more detail. Ellie made little ‘let's go’ noises, shifted in her seat and played with the radio, released the brakes slightly to let the car edge forward. Her hints were ignored.

“Yeah,” Seraphy said, decisive now, stashing the listing in a shirt pocket. “Okay, you might as well stop bitching and pull over. I'm taking a look inside.”

“Give me a break!” If her client wanted to see a listed building, a Realtor was legally bound to show it. Lines sprouted around Ellie's lips as she yanked on the steering wheel. Her pristine tires scraped the curb and a bottle hidden under leaves and junk food debris exploded under the left front wheel. “Shit! Okay, I'll show you the damned building!” Ellie hissed through the crack, her eyes shooting sparks. “One look and you'll see I'm right. And we're not hanging around, so make it fast. It's getting late and I'm not getting caught over here—” Seraphy wasn't listening when Ellie punched the button and the window slid up, cutting off her words.

In front of the shabby apartment building across the street, three obese old ladies perched on rickety kitchen chairs and stared at Ellie's slim legs and strappy red high-heeled sandals as she slid out of the air-conditioned car.

Seraphy had no attention to spare for Ellie's stream of complaints about the heat, the smell, the neighborhood, the lateness of the hour. Leaning her jean-clad butt back against the car for balance, she ran her architect's eye over the façade from cornice to footing.

“Um-hmm.” Delighting in limestone and bricks and tin cornice, she paused, absorbed in the old workshop, and tension melted from her face. Good bones, this one. She nodded, her thoughts tumbling over each other like puppies. Tuck-pointing, demo, wiring, roof. She forgot to be tired and hot and miserable, forgot scars irritated by the heat. Her tongue flicked over her teeth as she envisioned the building stripped and cleaned. Beautiful. Her breath caught. This one could be the one.

“I'm sorry, did you say something?” Seraphy turned to Ellie, vaguely aware of the Realtor, now beside her on the sidewalk, overheated, impatient, shifting from foot to foot, tugging at her arm. “Do you know who built her?”

“Yeah. Come on, let's get this over with.” As Ellie headed for the door, she threw words over her shoulder like machine gun bullets, fast and hard, keeping time with the click-clack of her red heels. “Built as a drapery shop in 1906. Closed in 1973, used as a warehouse, still in the same family. Old guy died, no will, greedy relatives, all that. Empty eight years. Estate problems. I'll get the door.”

Stumbling on a bit of broken pavement, she teetered, then lunged to regain her balance. “Jesus H. Christ!” Ellie shook her foot, her sandal now gray with blowing grit and encrusted with dog poop. “Shit!”

“Well, yeah, that looks about right,” Seraphy replied absently, still leaning against the car, her eye drawn by the rows of windows, the glass grimy and cracked behind rusted iron bars, feeling the building with her eyes. She had little thought left for Ellie. “I can see what you're saying,” she nodded and ran her tongue around her teeth again, holding back a faint smile. “She's a little run down.”