| Chicago, Illinois / August 2001 |
| Ed plays Schuba’s. The show goes ballistic, as it so often does at Schuba's. Great sound, a clued-in crowd, all the stars align, it's a killer night. After merch I'm packing gear and the crowd of well wishers that always forms post-show comes down to one 20-something kid. He wants to help pack gear, which I always hate because I don't want amateurs fucking with the equipment. I'm sorry to come off like Mr. Pro Roadie here, but the guitars and amps are precious to me and you wouldn't let Hitler baby-sit your kids, would you? Anyway, the kid hits us up for a ride when we're leaving. He says his friends took off without him since he stayed to talk to us, intimating that it's somehow our fault he's stranded. I point out the El is still running, but of course he's broke. We're tired, we've gotta drive all the way back to Columbus, then do a radio interview in Cincinnati the next morning, the kid lives in the opposite direction, but Ed's a sucker for a sob story, so off we go. We tell him before we leave that we don't know Chicago, that we're dropping him at the bottom of his freeway exit, then getting right back on, that we are not taking him to his door and he agrees. Of course the drive he claims will take 10 minutes is more like 40 minutes. I'm fuming, Ed's even a little pissed. The kid lives closer to Wisconsin that to Schuba's. And also, of course, when we finally exit it's a fucking ghetto and the kid asks us to run him all the way home because he doesn't feel safe here. "Hey, it's your neighborhood," I say, "deal with it." I pull into an open gas station with a pay phone and the kid whines, "It's only another 10 minutes." There's something about the repetition of the ten minute lie that seals the deal and Ed, notoriously soft touch that he is, tells the kid to call a cab if he's that scared. As we pull out of the gas station the kid is walking to the phone under the baleful gaze of two black thugs blasting DMX from a Dodge SUV. "He's going to be killed, isn't he?" Ed asks. "Oh yeah, he's a dead man." I reply as I gun the rental car onto the freeway and we head home. He brought it on himself. Sometimes it's cold in Chicago, even in August. All Material © 2004 by Ric Cacchione. all rights reserved. |