Dark Matter(82)

I start walking down the sidewalk.

It’s two in the morning, and I’m running on fumes.

How many other Jasons are wandering these streets at this very moment, facing the same fears, the same questions?

How many have been killed?

How many are out hunting?

I can’t escape the feeling that I’m not safe in Logan Square, even in the middle of the night. Every alley I pass, every shadowy doorway, I’m looking for movement, for someone coming after me.

A half mile brings me to Humboldt Park.

I track through the snow.

Out into a silent field.

I’m beyond tired.

My legs aching.

My stomach rumbling with hunger.

I can’t keep going.

A large evergreen towers in the distance, its branches sagging with snow.

The lowest limbs are four feet off the ground, but they offer some semblance of shelter from the storm.

Close to the trunk, there’s only a dusting of snow, and I brush it away and sit in the dirt against the tree on the leeward side.

It’s so quiet.

I can hear the distant mumble of snowplows moving through the city.

The sky is neon pink from all the lights reflecting off the low clouds.

I draw my coat in close and ball my hands into fists to preserve some core heat.

From where I sit, my view is of an open field, interspersed with trees.

The snow falls through the streetlamps along a distant walking path, making coronas of brilliant flakes near the light.

Nothing moves out there.

It’s cold, but not as bad as it might be if the skies were calm and clear.

I don’t think I’m going to freeze to death.

But I don’t think I’m going to sleep either.

As I shut my eyes, an idea strikes me.

Randomness.

How do you beat an opponent who is inherently wired to predict any and all moves you might make?

You do something completely random.

Unplanned.

You make a move you haven’t considered, to which you’ve given little or no prior thought.

Maybe it’s a bad move that blows up in your face and costs you the game.

But perhaps it’s a play the other you never saw coming, which gives you an unanticipated strategic advantage.

So how do I apply that line of thinking to my situation?

How do I do something utterly random that defies anticipation?

—

Somehow I sleep.

Wake up shivering to a world of gray and white.

The snow and the wind have stopped, and through the leafless trees I can see pieces of the skyline in the distance, the highest buildings just touching the cloud deck that overhangs the city.

The open field is white and still.

It’s dawn.

The streetlamps wink out.

I sit up, unbelievably stiff.

There’s the faintest dusting of snow on my coat.

My breath plumes in the cold.

Of all the versions of Chicago I’ve seen, none can touch the serenity of this morning.

Where the empty streets keep everything hushed.

Where the sky is white and the ground is white and the buildings and the trees stand starkly against it all.

I think of the seven million people still in bed under the covers or standing at their windows, looking out between the curtains at what the storm left behind.

Something so safe and comforting in the imagining of it.

I struggle onto my feet.

I woke up with a crazy idea.

Something that happened in the bar last night, right before the other Jason showed up, inspired it. It’s nothing I would have ever thought of on my own, which makes me almost trust it.

Heading back across the park, I walk north toward Logan Square.

Toward home.

—

At the first convenience store I come to, I go inside and buy a single Swisher Sweets cigar and a mini BIC lighter.

$8.21 remaining.

—

My coat is damp from the snow.

I hang it at the rack by the entrance and make my way down the counter.

This place feels gloriously authentic, as if it’s always been here. The 1950s-era vibe isn’t from the red-vinyl upholstering on the booths and stools or the framed photographs of regulars on the walls down through the decades. It comes, I think, from never changing. The smell of the place is all bacon grease and brewing coffee and the indelible remnants of a time when I would’ve been moving through clouds of cigarette smoke en route to a table.

Aside from a few customers at the counter, I spot two cops in one booth, three nurses just off-shift in another, and an old man in a black suit staring with a kind of bored intensity into his cup of coffee.

I sit at the counter just to be near the heat radiating off the open grill.

An ancient waitress comes over.

I know I must look homeless and strung-out, but she doesn’t let on, doesn’t judge, just takes my order with a worn-out midwestern courtesy.

It feels good to be indoors.

The windows are fogging up.

The cold is leaving my bones.

This all-night diner is only eight blocks from my house, but I’ve never eaten here.

When the coffee arrives, I wrap my dirty fingers around the ceramic mug and soak in the warmth.

I had to do the math in advance.

All I can afford is this cup of coffee, two eggs, and some toast.