Fiction: All That's Left Is Everything
Set in the Chicago music scene of the '90s, when CDs were king, the Internet was a rumor, and your phone stayed home
PART I
If a growling stomach was grounds for justifiable homicide, Sallee would’ve left a row of dead boyfriends in her wake. You did not obstruct her path when hunger hit, when “starving” was a collision of stark and raving. But money on the phone for a freelance writer trumps any situation short of home invasion. Sallee had on her coat and glared at Walt, in his home-only sweatpants, making the thumb-brushing-fingers sign. On the line was the editor of Soundz magazine, telling Walt about a new feature called “Underrated/Overrated,” where two critics take a side on the merits of the featured artist. The first one would be Guns N’ Roses. “Sounds like fun,” Walt said, as Sallee sighed loudly and walked away. As he stepped out of his sweats, Walt discussed fee, deadline and word count with the editor and then, just before he was about to hang up, he remembered something. “Which side do you want me to take?”
Ten minutes later, Sallee Bryant, 23 and gorgeous, and rock critic Walter Carmody, in his late thirties, entered the Laizy Daizy Diner on Diversey Street to stares. “Long Tall Sallee,” as she was nicknamed as a star volleyball player in high school, was so much better looking than Walt that not only did it seem unlikely that they were a couple, but that she could be his daughter. She had the bone structure of a fashion model and his goatee gave him a chin. The gazes of astonishment never got old to Walt, who didn’t really know what this gorgeous creature saw in him either.
They could make each other laugh. That was the main thing. One night she was talking about joining a gym and maybe Walt should, too, hint hint. “What do I care if I’m a little chubby?” he said. “I don’t have to fuck me.” Sallee thought that was hilarious and then finally said, “I don’t have to fuck you either!” But they ended up having sex.
He lasered her with attention, “publishing” a one-page handwritten newspaper about their love called The Daily Divinity, and showed her all the cool things in music, books and film. In their six months together, she’d come a long way from “What is the Velvet Underground, a band or a club?”
The only thing that really bothered Walt about the genetic jackpot at his side was the way she ordered in restaurants. His gal Sal didn’t have much use for menus. She’d just ask for what she was craving, given the culinary boundaries of each eatery. Oh, she wouldn’t order pad thai at a Greek diner; it was more like this: “Can you poach an egg, with pumpernickel toast and steamed broccoli?” Ninety per cent of the time she’d get what she wanted. On the table and in life.
The way they hooked up was that he wrote something that convinced her they were soulmates. It was a profile of U2 that ran in Rolling Stone magazine. Well, actually it was a profile of Walter Carmody, with some quotes from Bono and the Edge. Sallee read it on a cold night, this tale of a writer lost in Dublin, lost in life, and wrote a letter to Walter Carmody c/o Rolling Stone. He wrote back.
She sent a photo. He booked a flight.
In the piece, lapsed-Catholic Carmody goes the long way around to the realization that music is the answer to the God Riddle: “All-knowing and all-powerful, He’s inside all of us, always was and always will be.” What power is higher than a song that comes at the perfect time? Walt played “I Still Haven’t Found What I’m Looking For” over and over, rewinding the cassette in his Walkman, as he waited for the band in a pub. “They speak of my drinking, but never my thirst” was a sign behind the bar. A lot of folks thought Walt’s U2 piece was overwrought horseshit, but Sallee took it right to her heart.
She had heard Paul Simon’s “Slip Sliding Away” the day she read Walt’s piece, and right then and there decided to quit her good-paying, deadly boring job as a secretary for a law firm. “The nearer your destination, the more you’re slip slidin’ away.” It was just like Walt said, the radio knows.
She found new employment, at about half the salary, as a screener/researcher for The Oprah Winfrey Show. In Chicago, tagged to the end of each episode, was a message about what the next day’s topic would be, with a phone number on the screen to call if you had a story along that theme. Sallee was one of two assistants who’d answer the phone and determine which callers would be the best “randoms,” the audience members “Big O” could call on. (The staff’s nickname for the host could get you fired if she overheard.) She also read books written by the main guests and typed up the highlights for Oprah’s producer, a handsome young man named Kenny who was smitten with her. The hours were long- 8 a.m. until about 6 p.m. and sometimes later- but Sallee loved the job because the stories, the people were different every day. She beamed when one of her callers ended up becoming an integral part of the show. She never regretted walking away from 85K a year from McBride Thompson.
That Sallee and Walt got to know each other through letters is key to this love story. Walt spent more time writing for Sallee than he did for his editors at Rolling Stone. It was like Christmas for Sallee when a plump letter was in her mailbox, with an Elvis Presley stamp. In those handwritten pages, Walt emptied his mind of such seemingly mundane topics as why he would never buy a lottery ticket. “If you truly believe that you’re the lucky one in a million who hits all the right numbers to be paid like an NBA point guard for the next 20 years, then you also have to believe that you could end up as that poor guy who spends his last hours of life locked in the trunk of a car. I’m fine with being in the middle.”
Walt’s offbeat insight intrigued Sallee, who’d been going out with looks-appropriate jocks, the guys whose sense of humor was channeling Chandler from Friends. Could they be any more vapid? Walt had just been fired from RS (wrote a negative review of Yoko) and so he called up an editor he knew at Spin and said he wanted to write a profile of Chicago industrial band Ministry. Warner Brothers flew him from S.F. to O’Hare, but saved money on a hotel.
Sallee met him at the gate and they kissed passionately in the elevator. When the door opened, there was a family with two young kids standing there, horrified. Walt and Sallee laughed and practically skipped to the car. There’s just nothing like the feeling of fresh love. Walt had won the lottery without buying a ticket.
The couple started living together immediately and at first the sex was fast and furious- at least once a day. But Sallee started losing interest as the romantic fantasy began to unravel.
Walt was a slob and he drank too much. To contain all that, Sallee gave him a small room in her apartment where he could work and be as messy as he wanted. To Sallee, that room no longer existed, except when she was hungry and the occupant wasn’t getting ready fast enough. The rest of the apartment was Sallee’s to girlie-up as much as she wanted. There was potpourri and framed art posters and a basket that had peacock feathers poking out. Walt never noticed any of that shit.
They were on different schedules, with Sallee waking at 6 a.m., a couple hours after Walt would sometimes come home from the clubs, smelling of grunge. The Daily Divinity had gone weekly, if that.
After a week w/o sex, Walt took care of his needs at the porno arcade near the apartment. He grew up in Honolulu, where his mother was a nurse at Tripler Army Medical Center, and got his first dose of hardcore sex at about age 12 while looking out the window of a city bus traveling down Hotel Street. In its cluelessness, the city put the main bus transfer point right in the middle of Honolulu’s red light district, when just a block over on King Street, the view was Chinatown fish markets and lei stands.
If you got to the bus stop just as your carriage was pulling away, you’d pop into the “quarter sweaters” for a quick toss. At least Walt did as soon as he could pass for 18. He became kind of a tug addict, seeing so much porn before he lost his virginity that when it finally happened, at age 19, the only thing he could think was “Look, it’s me fucking!” He was finally the star of his own loop.
The porno arcade near Walt and Sallee’s apartment in Chicago was a gay cruising spot, not unusual, so there were always a few guys hanging out in the hallway, looking to suckle some strange. But Walt made it clear from the first encounter that, in no way, was he interested in their services. That was also the last time he wore his Revolting Cocks t-shirt to the come closets.
On seeing him grow from shadow to solid down the dark hallway, the gay guys would groan or say something like “Why do I suddenly feel like eating pussy?”
Walt gave it right back. When he was done masturbating, he came out of the booth and taunted the hallway availables by saying something like “Soup’s on!” or “Gentlemen, the floor is yours.”
Walt was concerned about Sallee’s back burner approach to sex and he thought that if he told her he had to jerk off, she might take a hint and get back on the clock. Big mistake.
One day Sallee apologized for the lack of action in the bedroom and Walt said that it was OK, he’d actually tossed off to porn that day. “WHAT?!” she said, whirling around with eyes on fire. Walt was unprepared for the intensity of the blow-up that followed. Sallee tore the whole place apart, heaving the TV set 10 feet. “You might as well have fucked somebody behind my back!” To her, cheating is cheating. She wanted to kick his ass, and started a punch, which made Walt flinch. Then Sallee just stormed out of the apartment and slammed the door.
Walt just sat there, with the framed copy of his U2 article, smashed at his feet amid toppled dry petals. What the hell just happened? The angel’s a psycho!
The next day, a contrite Sallee handed Walt a VHS tape. “If you’re going to do that, use this,” she said. After she left, Walt played the tape, which consisted of a nude Sallee in sexual poses, talking dirty and writhing in orgasm. But Walt just sat there eating his sandwich. The scenario is the turn on. Reality does nothing for the dick in your hand.
Sallee never wanted to go out to the clubs, where the shorter girls would complain that they couldn’t see the band over her 6’2” height. Then there were all the guys sizing her up. It just wasn’t her scene, which frustrated shallow Walt. He wanted to show off his girlfriend, especially in front of the three younger (and currently more successful) critics who were at every cool show together. The ringleader was Ravi Green, of ambiguous racial makeup, known as the most intellectual of the new rock critics. Courted by big magazines, the affected 25-year-old had a different fawn with him every show, but he was really with the two other critics: Colton Slattery, also a hot young critic, known for long, ironic articles on pop stars like Britney Spears and Bobby Brown, and Charles Coffey, the critic for the Chicago Tribune. Colton’s girlfriend Annika was also a music critic, just starting out. But she wasn’t taken seriously by the others and was usually relegated to hanging out with Ravi’s date when they went to clubs. Coffey always attended to a constant stream of well-wishers and musicians making small talk. Everyone loved the self-deprecating Charles, whose best man was Bun E. Carlos of Cheap Trick.
One night at the Metro club, the rockcrit entourage was behind Walter in line and there was quite a hold-up because it was a new bouncer who didn’t understand that Walt’s name was always on the list, whether he made arrangements or not. A passing bartender vouched for Walt and he was finally waved in. “I guess I’m just a nobody these days,” he said. “Oh, you’re not a nobody,” Ravi said, then under his breath: “You’re a has been.”
To these critics, Walter Carmody was a relic of first person abuse, who used similes and metaphors to mask a lack of insight. When he took notes at concerts, the trio, always hanging out in the same catty corner of the club, mimicked his style to each other. Example: “I came to realize that drummer Janet Bean is the roux of 11th Dream Day’s musical gumbo.” They sometimes spent as much time watching Walt as the band.
The night of the Urge Overkill show at the Metro, Walt put on the hard-sell for Sallee. “You know these guys,” he said, as he played the new record Saturation. “Chicago band poised for the big time!” But she just put on her DePaul sweatshirt. “I rented ‘About Last Night’,” she said, as she put on her pajama bottoms. “Again?” he said. Walt could not shake Sallee of those Brat Pack movies. “I haven’t seen it since it came out,” she said.
The three critics had never met Sallee, but they did see her once, without Walt. She was leaving a Jesus Lizard show early (all the cigarette smoke!) just as they were coming in. Ravi and Colton turned around to check out the hot chick, while Charles fielded a compliment from the doorman about a recent Liz Phair profile. Those guys would be so jealous if they knew she was with Walt.
One night when Walter and Sallee were out driving, he saw a car with the three critics inside. They were finally going to see that, not only was Sallee real, but gorgeous! There was much stop-and-start maneuvering in Walt’s driving to get next to the other car, making Sallee wonder what was up. Just as Walt got next to the critics at a light, the braking made his trophy’s purse go flying to the floor and she bent over to pick it up. “Hey, guys,” Walter said. “I want you to meet…” Sallee’s head was still down. “They’ll think I was blowing you,” she said, refusing to lift her head. Walter continued to talk to this person who couldn’t be seen and the other critics drove away laughing.
They always asked Walt where his girlfriend was when he showed up by himself. This was not just to spoof Walt’s mysterious paramour, but to give a little pre-review of that night’s show. “Not a fan of pretentious coalminer music, is she?” Ravi said at an Uncle Tupelo show at Lounge Ax.
After moving to Chicago to be with Sallee, Walt tried hard to get the vacant pop music critic job at the Sun-Times; a good-paying union gig that would pull him out of the freelance uncertainty. His ally was features editor Sue Franklin, who advised him to broaden his coverage if he wanted to get the job. So, Walt started reviewing country concerts, house music, hip hop, etc., in addition to his favored acts from the Bob Dylan coaching tree. The corny, bug-eyed country shows were brutal and he couldn’t help himself from calling Brooks & Dunn “Loggins & Oates” or tagging former folkie Mary-Chapin Carpenter “Mary Blatant-Carpetbagger.” Sometimes the bad shows were funner to review.
In her early ’40s, Sue was all about Frank Sinatra, so there was a bond with the critic who penned an infamous Sinatra cover story for Rolling Stone about 15 years earlier. She got Walt to write a 75th birthday tribute to the singer for the Sun-Times, and it was a fabulous piece. Even Sinatra loved it, sending his former adversary a nice flower arrangement via the Sun-Times. Walt gave the flowers to Sue and she took him to Nissei, a Japanese bar near Wrigley field, for a drink to celebrate. As “Sukiyaki” played on the jukebox there was a flicker of attraction that made both of them uncomfortable.
Walt’s rival for the Sun-Times job was Maite Alvarez, a young, attractive woman of color (1/4 Puerto Rican) who was injured a few months earlier in a stampede while covering Rage Against the Machine for the newspaper. Her sparkly wrist braces became outfit-matching accessories that she kept wearing long after she had healed. She would wear a jean jacket with a crinoline skirt and Beatle boots- and look fantastic. No one could deny the fashion sense of Maite Alvarez, whom Walt called “Mighty Average.”
She was everything he hated about the new generation of music journalists. She echoed the popular opinion, responded to fame instead of artistry and strived to be well-loved and well-compensated. All that ambition without any real insight. She was in it for the backstage pass, hanging around with the bands she covered. One morning Walt saw her at the Daizy in her nightclub clothes with the singer from the Meat Dolls. That notebook she pulled out when she saw Walt fooled no one.
The Three Critics were complimentary to Ms. Alvarez to her face, but when she wasn’t around they were vicious. Even worse than they were with Walt. Colton made a version of Maite’s rating system for reviews, but instead of five stars as the highest rank, it was a drawing of a blowjob. The lowest rating was an arm with a decorative cast giving the finger. Walt laughed his ass off when he saw that. When he walked away, Ravi said Colton should do one for Walt, with the top rating being Walt blowing Bruce Springsteen. “That would be his four-star,” Colton said. “Walt’s five-star is him blowing himself.”
When Maite applied for the Sun-Times job he felt was his, Walt told Sallee he was going to tell Sue that she slept with one of the Meat Dolls on a night she reviewed their show. “She’ll just deny it and you’ll look desperate,” Sallee advised. True.
What Walt didn’t know was that Alvarez had been tattling on his drinking, which love didn’t slow. “I’m always amazed by his reviews on deadline,” Maite told the Sun-Times features editor. “That’s talent. If I drank as much as he does I couldn’t write a sentence. That reminds me, I should ask: Does the paper have a policy against accepting free drinks?”
It’s strange that Sallee would get so livid over the masturbation. Walt’s biggest problem, his alcoholism, was kind of ignored early on. He had Sallee pull over in sketchy neighborhoods so he could buy beer at a liquor store for the ride home. When he got back in the car with a 40, she just continued the conversation where she left off. They were a couple in denial.
Beer and masturbation are both something to do when there’s nothing to do. He needed an outside interest to fill those holes, but hobbies didn’t really appeal to Walt. Instead, he tried everything to limit his drinking. He bought 8-ounce beers, thinking that it would slow him down, but he just got 3 or 4 every time he went to the refrigerator, cradling them in his arms. When someone gave him a bottle of scotch, the only liquor he couldn’t drink because he got so sick on it the first time, he would unscrew the cap and take a whiff when he felt like getting drunk. That smell would make him feel sick.
He sought the advice of a club soundman, sober 7 years. “Do you still enjoy drinking?” Yeah, Walt said. “Then you’re not ready. You’ve gotta drink when you hate it. That’s when you’ve hit bottom.”
Cool, Walt thought, then got hammered. At least he didn’t day-drink, Walt rationalized. Didn’t crack a beer until three o’clock in the evening. Finally, after about a year of it, Sally put her foot down. “I think you may be an alcoholic,” she said. “I can’t take any more of this.”
Walt promised to quit drinking and didn’t touch booze for a month. Then, the night Los Lobos played the Riviera, he was backstage and the left-handed guitarist with the shades handed him an ice cold Heineken from a glistening ice chest. After the band left, Walt stuffed those green monsters in his jacket and had a private party at home. Next morning: darts! But Walt came up with a new qualifier. He would not drink unless it was part of an experience, like a member of a favorite band handing him a beer backstage. Other examples: visiting New Orleans or an Iggy concert. Walt wouldn’t drink as habit anymore, but, you know, there’s nothing wrong with an occasional exemption to heighten an adventure.
So, the next day Sallee came home from work and Walt was sitting on the couch in his underwear with a spent six-pack on the coffee table. “Oh, my gosh! What an experience!” she mocked. “The lights! The colors!”
The reason Walt got high, well, the one that doesn’t come out in therapy, was because he had a rock star fantasy that was greatly enhanced by drugs and alcohol. “That’s me on guitar!” he’d think during the second solo on “Whipping Post.” He was always a lonely kid, having to keep himself entertained. Most of his best times were in his head when he was out of his mind.
One day, Walt came by the Sun-Times to drop off a story and pick up CDs. “Let’s go to the Billy Goat,” Sue said. She had to talk to him.
At the Tavern was the column legend Mike Royko. “Do you see who’s here?” Walt said, sitting down. “He’s always here,” said Sue. “To write like he does,” Walt said. “To have the whole city by the balls. Meanwhile, I’m reviewing Boyz II Men records.”
Sue asked Walt why he decided to become a music critic.
“I guess I knew as early as fourth grade,” he said. “All my friends used to pretend they were Elvis Presley. I used to fantasize that I knew Elvis. Ah, but really, it was the only way to get published when I was starting out. You had to have a degree to write for a newspaper, but there were all these counter-culture rags out there on the top of the cigarette machines. I wrote for every fucking one of them.”
“I imagine you’re getting paid better now,” Sue said, putting pickles on that thin-patty “cheeseborger” made famous by Saturday Night Live. (“No Coke, Pepsi. No fries, chips.”)
Walt was deep in thought for a long three seconds. “Yeah, but to be 19 again and feel like you’re gonna do this better than anyone. Delusion is great fuel when you’re young. Pathetic when you’re not.”
Sue fidgeted in her seat. “Well, listen, Walt. This isn’t going to be easy. They’re gonna give that idiot Maite the job.” Walt showed no emotion, like a killer sentenced to death. “She just really knows how to kiss ass, plus, you know, we’ve only had white males in that job. I guess they think they’re getting a different voice.”
“Oh, they’re getting the same voice,” Walt shot back. “Critical correctness. I can’t stand a critic who’s afraid to break from the pack. There’s no right or wrong opinion. There’s only boring and interesting.”
Sue said Walt was still welcome to freelance for the Sun-Times, but not the record review column. That, and all the free CDs, would now go to Maite. “You’re too good a writer for that job anyway,” Sue said. “You should write books, not reviews.”
Walt looked entirely defeated. “I’m sorry, Sue, but I’m done writing for the Sun-Times. I do have a little bit of pride left.”
That night the bottle of Scotch didn’t smell half bad and Walt drank the whole fifth. He was badly hungover the next morning when he woke up to hear Sallee yelling from the kitchen, “Why does the whole place smell like shit?” Through cobwebs he remembered being drunkenly confused using the bathroom. Interrupting the thought, Sally said she was running late- could Walt check with the landlord about the plumbing, ‘cause something’s definitely backed up? After she left, he got up and took out a white kitchen trash bag, empty except for a small clump at the bottom.
Walt brought in the mail that day and the newest issue of Elle magazine had arrived. In a moment of weakness he took it into the bathroom and whacked off to it. The subscription card fell into the sink just as he finished, but Walt didn’t think much of it and threw the card into the trash.
When Sallee came home and emptied the receptacle, she found the card with the stream of DNA on it and busted Walt. Oh, man, did she let him have it! But instead of throwing things around like the last time, she used words. “You remember that day I picked you up at the airport for the first time? I fucked my aerobics instructor the night before. And I’m going to fuck him again tomorrow!” She crossed a line there and Walt realized they could never go back.
“You know who you’ve been fucking the past year and a half?” Walt said, not backing down for once. “A guy who shit in your kitchen last night!” That’s all he had.
Walt moved out and got his own apartment, with his anger and justification over the split with Sallee slowly giving into devastating heartsickness. The breakup, he finally realized, was all his fault. He lost the love of his life because he kept making his hand feel like a woman. How pathetic!
It was a lonely first night in his sad apartment, but he had the new Billie Holiday reissue to make his depression feel like a sacrament.
Walt had heard Sinatra sing “They Can’t Take That Away from Me” dozens of times, but didn’t know what the song was really about until he heard Billie’s version. When Sinatra performed the Gershwin number it was with the gusty bravado of a man who’ll take his memories to go. But in Holiday’s voice Walt heard an almost obsessive regard for the details of the loss she knows she’ll never get over.
Walt had to smile recalling the way Sallee imitated Oprah, badly, like a snooty British blueblood. And how she hated scenes where the actors ate Chinese food from cartons with chopsticks. She’d put a hand in front of her eyes until Walt said, “It’s over.” She had a lot of opinions that seemed preposterous, like Al Pacino and Gene Hackman were terrible overactors. Walt rented Scarecrow one night to prove her wrong, but had to admit she was right. Sallee was a strange gal. Laying alone in the dark, he could finally see that.
Walt’s landlord was a gay schoolteacher named Jerry, who lived on the first floor with his skeletal boyfriend, Sabir. Walt had signed the lease that morning in Jerry’s living room, which was dominated by an original painting by Keith Haring of a sperm cell with devil horns. Walt said he was very sad when Haring had died of AIDS a few months earlier. “He brought a lot of awareness to the epidemic,” Walt said.
His eyes met Sabir’s and that was when Walt realized the gaunt man in a white kaftan had also gotten “the package.” Jerry was looking over the lease to make sure he got all the signatures and said, “Now I know how I’ve heard your name. You’re THE Walter Carmody from Rolling Stone!”
“Well, I don’t write for them anymore,” Walt said. “I broke rule number one.”
“Gave a bad review to one of Jann’s friends?” Jerry asked and Walt yepped. “Mick or Yoko?” The latter, Walt said, with a laugh. “I gave her a star and they gave me the boot.”
Walt said he’d been doing a lot of work for Spin lately, “plus I’ve got the cover story of the Chicago Reader this week. The one about ticket scalping.” He had reported that scalpers took advantage of the artists’ nature to keep ticket prices reasonable for true fans, by going right to the promoters and paying more than value. Then they’d double or triple them for the “Fuck you, I’m rich” crowd. Almost all the prime seats were sold before the tickets went on sale to the public. “Great article,” said Jerry. “It was like picking up a piece of linoleum and watching all the bugs scatter. Fortunately, we never have any trouble getting tickets. My cousin is the A in JAM Productions.” Even though he was a fifth grade teacher at a private school, Jerry seemed to know everybody who was anybody. Or at least someone they were related to.
Jerry motioned for Walt to follow him to the next room. On a table was a phone/copier hybrid that made Walt’s eyes widen. “If you ever need to fax in a story, don’t hesitate to ask,” offered Jerry. As most copy shops charged $3-$5 a page for faxes, this was a stroke of great luck. Also, it was cold as fuck outside.
A couple days later, Walt knocked on Jerry’s door with a manuscript in hand. Sabir, weak and in bedclothes, took forever to answer the door. Which made Walt uneasy. “Um, Jerry said I could use the fax machine.”
“How many pages do you have?” Sabir asked. About 20, said Walt. “Feed the machine one page at a time,” Sabir started him off, then sat on the couch. After he caught his breath, Sabir asked Walt what magazine the story was for.
“It’s for Spin, but it’ll never run,” Walt said. “It’s a piece of shit I just finished for the kill fee.” Sabir gave a quizzical look. “A kill fee is what they pay you when the story is rejected. It’s usually 25%,” Walt said. “I pitched a story on Garth Brooks and the new country music boom, but then when I started writing it I realized the subject bored the hell out of me. But the kill fee is $1,250, so I just have to turn in 5,000 words. I just pulled most of it out of my ass.”
Sabir wondered if Walt was worried about his reputation being hurt by turning in inferior work. “Why take the short money when so much of your career is ahead of you?” Walt never thought past the weekend.
Over the next couple weeks, the two became more conversational. Walt felt comfortable confessing his fears to a dying man. Walt even came down a couple times with nothing to fax. “What’s it like to face your mortality?” Walt asked, using a lot more words, and Sabir responded, “You tell me.” Living with overwhelming trepidation is letting death run your life. And that’s the same as dying, Sabir said. “You think I’m living scared?” Walt asked. Sabir gave him a look that said nothing could be more obvious.
Sabir said he recently wrote a play about overcoming fear and moving on from tragedy. The young Turk from Virginia came to Chicago to act, he said, but the roles weren’t happening so he wrote a part perfect for himself, then built a plot around it. It was about a Palestinian doctor overwhelmed with grief after the bombing deaths of his wife and young son. He decides to start over in America and buys a convenience store on the South Side of Chicago. The kids in the neighborhood taunt him and try to make the man’s life miserable, but at least he’s not back in Palestine. One day he saves the life of a black woman who collapsed in his store, reviving her while her 7-year old daughter watched. He ends up falling in love with the woman and being like a father to the girl. But he’s still haunted.
Walt asked if he could read it. “It’s not quite finished,” Sabir said. “I’m still waiting for the perfect title to find me. And I’m not sure I like the ending.”
Walt was reading Sabir’s play on the train when Sue Franklin, his former Sun-Times editor, got on at the Lincoln Avenue stop. They were happy to see each other and she sat next to him and put her head on his shoulder.
“She’s worse than you can imagine,” Sue said. “I need a drink.”
As they were talking, Walt missed his stop, but he didn’t say anything and just kept riding with Sue. “Let’s get that drink,” he said. They got off the train at Cicero and Belmont and walked to the Bucket O’ Suds. Joe Danno, the wired, elderly owner, was playing some esoteric jazz and expounding on the merits of Eric Dolphy to a bar lined with Bucketeers, which is how Joe dubbed his regulars. “I don’t know, Joe,” Walt said, motioning toward the turntable that was part of the bar’s oldie decor. “It sounds to me like he’s just making it up as he goes along.” It was not the first time Walt made that joke, and Danno just swatted it away and asked them what they wanted. Walt ordered a club soda and cranberry and Sue, cocking her head and looking surprised, ordered the same. “She’ll have an Elixir of Lucifer,” Walt said, referring to Sue’s favorite Danno concoction (he had a hundred). “You can drink in front of me,” he said as they walked to a table. “Now, let’s hear about your new music critic.” Sue laughed. “Mighty Average would be a big step up! I think she’s just rewriting press releases to make them more positive.” The pair ended up talking and laughing and crying for three hours. Walt eventually switched to beer. Walt and Sue kissed each other goodbye, with a slight trace of tongue.
At the train station, Walt pulled Sabir’s play out of his bag and continued reading it on the long ride home. Occasionally, he’d look out the window and smile like he hadn’t in months. Right before he got to his stop at Roscoe Street, he wrote “All That’s Left Is Everything” on the blank title page. Still giddy from his encounter with Sue, he was excited to tell Sabir that new love had found his title. He walked fast from the train stop. But when he arrived at his building, an ambulance was pulling away.
“Kill Fee” continued…