Chicago Adventures

"Can I get you anything? Booze? Smokes? Porn?" the stranger said to me. Perhaps my mother had put too much faith in my 20-something-year-old cousin and her roommates. "Really though, you're in Chicago, hours away from your parents—you can do whatever you want." It was true; at 13 I had taken the train all the way from Michigan to Chicago, navigated Union Station to find my cousin Clare, and rode with her to the home she shared with her roommates Josh and Robin. Josh was unkempt, unemployed, and often referred to as the house hobo with curly, shaggy hair and an untrimmed beard. Robin and Clare, however, a doctor and a scientist, both had red hair: Robin's natural like the color of a robin's belly, and Clare's unnatural like a cherry Jolly Rancher. I had figured Josh was joking then, but the more I got to know him, I'm sure he would've given me whatever I had asked for that first night, eager to corrupt a young mind.

The next day was Warped Tour, but before heading to Tinley Park (really more of a parking lot than a park) we stopped for breakfast at Panera Bread. Although in years to come Panera would become a staple of my diet, this was my first encounter with the bakery. After ordering the pecan-covered cinnamon roll, I silently applauded myself for such a wise decision. I could handle this, I could order good food for myself in this hip café, presumably a frequent hang out of my ultra-cool caretakers. The roll was sticky, the pecans crunchy, and the bread sweet. Only when Josh offered me a bite of his egg soufflé did I recognize my mistake: my cinnamon roll was like breakfast-dessert, whereas Josh's soufflé was a main course. With cheese and spinach and mushrooms, the egg was fluffy yet substantial and filling, but my fluffiness was just pockets of air leaving me empty and yearning for another bite. These days—as a college student—I order both, because my parents are hours away and I can do whatever I want.

Warped Tour itself was sweaty: parking lots full of hooligans running around in the summer heat. I will never forget the stench. The tour features around a 100 bands that play on 10 different stages around the park over the course of three days—pure chaos. Here began the list of, "Things Not to Tell Your Mother:" losing each other in mosh pits, avoiding attacks with condom balloons, screaming swear words. Clare's brother Jake joined us for our adventure but didn't participate in the shenanigans, assuring us that he was rocking out on the inside. Clare and I were doing the opposite. There I first learned proper punk-concert etiquette: helping each other lift people on top of the crowd, yanking someone up when they fall, and the strangely kind ritual of drinking a sip of water from a bottle and passing it to your neighbor (until some jerk throws the water bottle over the crowd, showering everyone below the line of trajectory and eventually hitting some poor fellow in the head). The water, though surely full of backwash and saliva, was a refreshing reminder of concert-goers' altruism. At the end of the day, Josh had deemed me the coolest 13-year-old he knew, among the highest of compliments I could have ever asked for.

After recovering from Warped Tour, a few nights later we went to a different kind of show: theater. We stood outside for what seemed like hours—reserved tickets weren't offered for this show—and passed the time with riddles and games of 20 questions. When we finally got indoors, one man charged us each $9 plus whatever we rolled on a die and another man wrote a different phone number on each of our hands. No one had warned me of the extent to which this show would be unconventional. The Neo-Futurists' signature, "Too Much Light Makes the Baby Go Blind" production involved 30 plays in 60 minutes, each written by a cast member. Here, I got popcorn thrown at me, saw a grown man naked, and called a state representative to voice my opinion on important issues. The phone numbers written on our hands were for that purpose; unfortunately, at 13 I couldn't vote, nor did I have any interest in or idea about anything political, making me especially aware of my young age. "Everything about that show," my cousin Clare said to me, "Goes on the list of Things Not to Tell Your Mother."

Later in the week we ate at a local pizza place and ordered two gigantic Chicago-style pizzas. "This should be number one on your 'Things to Tell Your Mother' list; she'll be very proud we ate Chicago-style pizza." Proud though she was, no one was more pleased than I. Standing three inches tall, contained by buttery crust, our pizza had at least two layers of both cheese and sauce, with pepperoni swimming somewhere in the middle. It was the best pizza I've ever had. The sauce had just the right hint of sweet and the whole wheat crust—giving the illusion of health—was delicious without being distracting. Afterward, stuffed, I pleaded for a nap, but to no avail; instead we went shopping, leaving no opportunity to keep leftovers.

The second—and final—week was less fun. Clare and her roommates had to resume normal adult life and return to work, so I spent my days in the back yard of Clare's brother Jake, pulling weeds and undoing the damage of his twin Akitas. One day Jake's hired help came to clean the home, bringing along her adorable approximately-6-year-old daughter, Angelica. I remember her name because of the Rugrats character, although she looked more like Dora the Explorer. For most of the morning, Angelica and her mother avoided me, a stranger to them. Yet, around lunch time, Angelica brought me a fruit I had never seen before. I thanked her enthusiastically but still she stood staring up at me, so I took a giant, juicy bite. Gross. I had never tasted anything so disgusting in my life. The skin was like fuzzy, poisonous rubber, but I choked it down, following quickly with my Monster Chaos energy drink. After what felt like an eternity, I swallowed and looked back down at the little girl by my feet: her expression hadn't changed. Another bite, more suffering, more Monster, same expression. Eventually, by some miracle Angelica retreated back into the house and left me to my work.

Later, I discovered that the fruit handed to me was a mango, and that normal people don't eat the skin. For a couple more years I continued to make trips to Chicago, but the visits were never as long, exciting, or memorable. Later, Josh and Robin got married and moved to North Carolina, Clare moved out to the suburbs, and I became too busy to take a vacation, anyway. Instead, my 15-year-old cousin Erin and I go to local shows at the near-by venues or basements in Kalamazoo. She's the coolest 15-year-old I know.