Two young men walked a cold wintry path. Occasionally one or the other would stoop to the ground, pick something up and either pocket it or throw it back to the ground. They appeared to be looking for something, and indeed they were in fact looking for something. If you were to ask them about their search, they would answer with one word, “Truth.” They were searching for what they would call truth, and the truth is, they weren’t having an easy time of it. They were meandering through a wooded area which they had chosen not because of the likelihood of finding truth but because it was shelter from the wind that blew a chill into their hearts. Their hope was gradually wearing away, but as the last vestiges of this hope floated away, they caught and hung on the slim chance that they would one day find truth.
“Did you find it yet?” said one to the other.
“Oh look here,” responded to the other. “It’s been right here in my back pocket the whole time.”
“Why didn’t you say something? Do you mean we’ve spent the last three hours searching this cold wintry path for nothing?”
“I wouldn’t say for nothing,” said the one with the truth. “It’s all for the sake of comradeship if you know what I mean.”
“I don’t. You know that communism was never my philosophical bent.”
Laughing and putting truth back in his pocket the young man and his friend turned to face the sylvan unknown. The cold winter seemed to beckon and the discovery of truth was forgotten for now. They walked onto other adventures leaving behind them the white snow marked by their searching.
***
The city of Chicago lay like an iceberg on the frozen shores of Lake Michigan. Monuments rose in sweeping curves that seemed to defy gravity, high rises competitively pierced the sky, and long observation galleries lined the lakefront. The mass of buildings undulated out to the far reaches of the suburbs in jagged waves of white steel and glass. It was a city recreated and as the sun rose on a new year, a new day began for Chicago, and it started in the typical fashion, with a headache.
Mollie Durante stumbled out of Studio 15 after a night of serving drinks to desperate University students. It had been her first New Year’s Eve shift and if she was certain of one thing, she was sure that it had not helped her mental state. She wasn’t sure why she was still working there. She had graduated from the University last May and wanted nothing more than to be rid of the it. She wanted to be doing some good in the world, she wasn’t sure why or how but there seemed to be something compelling her in that direction. She had majored in English, something that most people had disapproved of because it wasn’t practical, but her mother had approved.
Her mother.
She knew she wouldn’t be able to forget and shouldn’t try, but the memory of that night was before her always. She had done so much to occupy her mind but to no avail. She was a college graduate and yet she felt the absence of her parents as if she were an orphan of 10 years. Her father she had barely known and had never found out how he had died. She had trusted her mother to tell her when she was able, but that was not to happen. When the police came to her apartment that night last June and told her that he mother had been killed in a gang fight, she had gone numb. She had had no one to turn to. She had no friends in the University, the only ones having gone on to New York or San Francisco either to work Wall Street or join a social movement of some kind. They had always been like that though. She felt like she had always been in the middle of a war between two sides; on the side of success and power and the other the side of independence and diversity. Now she herself felt torn. Her job was now the only thing that kept her connected with something familiar. If she quit now, she would be set adrift in Chicago with no one to turn to and nothing to direct her.
And she hated Chicago. In her mother’s college days, it had been a city that was alive, almost an organism of iron and masonry that bustled along on the shore of the Lake. Like all living things, it had had its moments of messiness, its corners of filth and crime. Now the center of the city was a pristine, pure, cold paradise of metal. She hated it not only because of its cold indifference and aloof quality, but also because it was a lie. Chicago was not pristine. It was not a beautiful shining example of the American Dream. It was not a city on a hill and not because it was built in a swamp. Mollie had seen the real face of Chicago and it was not pretty. Chicago was not its white monuments but its grey factories masked by soaring office complexes. Chicago was not clean views of the Lake. It was the long dehydrated work days that somehow kept the economy on its feet and paid for the expansive building projects that were ashamed of their origins. Worst of all, there seemed to be nothing that could rescue the city from this vicious circle that was like the new light rail system that wrapped around the city center isolating it from the rest of humanity.
Her thoughts went to trains and high bridges and death in general as her hope faded with the rising of the sun. She barely noticed two young men walking toward her until she bowled into them. They had been whistling two different melodies in the hope that they would harmonize.
“Hullo, steady on,” said one.
“I wouldn’t have believed it of you, barging into a lady like that.” retorted the other.
“On the contrary, it wasn’t I but your blessed self.”
“Now that’s something I’d never do, barging into a lady, on principle. And don’t use words like “blessed.” They’re quite meaningless.”
“Of course I meant it in a material sense. Nothing but empirical proof would convince of a supernatural blessedness.”
“And you’re not likely to find that on the streets of the old South District.”
“Not likely to find it anywhere, really. Now as to the matter at hand, the question is which of us barged into the lady.”
Mollie thought that that wasn’t exactly the question she had in mind. Her questions flitted from “Who are you guys?” to “Are you insane?” to “You wouldn’t happen to have aspirin, would you?” Alas, she had had the physical and psychological wind knocked out of her and thus would not be doing any questioning any time soon. She would have continued on leaving the boys to work out whatever questions they liked, but her headache responded to that idea with a vengeance. She sank to the side walk.
“I propose a battle of wits,” continued the shorter of the two boys. “To be judged by the lady herself.”
“Excuse me…” started Mollie.
“Goodness, Simon,” responded the other. “In our haste we have forgotten the lady herself. What absolute cads we are.”
“Never said a truer word,” said Simon. They reached down to help her up and helped her over to the shelter of a nearby bus stop.
“Now,” said Simon. “My name is Simon Davis, but I generally go by the name Montrose. Believe me, if you had a name like Davis you would too.”
“And I am Thomas Hunt.” said the taller boy. “Thomas Cornelius Hunt. We are, as you may have guessed, philosophers-about-town.”
“I’m Mollie Durante,” said Mollie, still unsure of what she was getting into. Of course she was used to being hit on in the club, but this seemed different. That is to say it was something very similar, but turned inside out.
“Durante,” said Thomas. “An honorable name and one that befits you.”
“We like to speak in heightened language, you see,” said Simon. Mollie did see. She was after all an English major.
“I hope you don’t think we’re too forward, but may we accompany you home? See, we have this pact thing.” This time Mollie didn’t see.
“Yeah,” said Simon. “We can’t let a lady walk alone through the city. It just isn’t proper.”
“The world, after all, is a lonely place.”
“Do you go to the Lake that often,” burst out Simon irrelevantly.
“As you can guess, we don’t get much human contact, being philosophers.” said Thomas with a thoughtful look on his face. Mollie believed it. “We didn’t ask for it, but that’s Fate, I guess.”
“As one or two authors put it, ‘Ours is a high and lonely destiny.’ In any case, we really are at your service.”
“You’ll probably never see us again, although we’d love to see you again, if I speak for Simon as well as myself, which I usually do.”
“Actually,” said Mollie, finally getting a word in. “I don’t live that far away.”
“In that case,” said Simon. “It should be no trouble at all to accompany you, which is a pity. Unless you want us to call a taxi.”
“Seriously, guys,” Mollie was feeling more and more fed up with the situation. “I just need to get home. I have a slight headache and I’ve been working all night.”
Thomas took a step back from the bench where she was sitting. “Oh, assuredly. If that is truly your wish, we will not trouble you any more. We just wanted to help.”
With that, they turned abruptly and started whistling again. After Mollie watched them disappear between two brick buildings into what was probably a dead end alley, she got up and started toward home.
It is not often that a truly life changing experience occurs. What is even less common is that we recognize them. Mollie was too tired to think clearly, but it seemed to her that despite the increase in her headache, her encounter with the two boys was a step in the right direction, whatever that direction was. The sun had risen and over the treeline she could see downtown Chicago shimmering in all its glory. Something about it made her shiver and as she rewrapped her scarf, she started toward home and her bed. She soon forgot all about her morning as she sank into a deep sleep. She slept better than she had since June and when she woke up, she could think of no reason why.
[end of installment one]
