The hard part about hanging out as far west as Cicero and Fullerton isn’t getting there from your Lincoln Park apartment. No, at a mere $10 in cab fare, getting there is easy.
What you need to worry about is getting back. Especially at 1 a.m. on a Wednesday morning.
I was drinking with friends who were in town for a night (the same band that was in town during my last entry — they’re now heading back home) at their friend’s home on Kilpatrick St., which is two blocks east of Cicero. After about six beers, three shots and some intense conversation I’d completely lost track of time and realized it was way past midnight and I hadn’t called for a cab home yet, which, if I planned on having one come get me anytime soon, I should have done at least a half hour ago.
I call an order a cab just as my friends that are staying at this house go to sleep and my other buddy in town (who wants to hit some 4 a.m. bars) and I wait out front of the house by ourselves for 10 minutes or so before we get impatient and decide to start wandering down Fullerton in hopes that we’ll intercept the cabbie on its way to get us or find another one altogether.
We wander.
Wander.
And wander some more.
Latinos in gaudy full-size pick up trucks whiz by staring at us — two lost white boys in the middle of Little Mexico — and I imagine they’re wondering to themselves if we’ve got enough money in our pockets to make it worth them turning back and jumping our asses.
Thankfully they choose not to.
After about 25 minutes and 8 blocks I dial 411 Directory Assistance and ask for any cab company in Chicago, but just as I’m connected to one I see a cab with its numbers lit up at an intersection across the street. I hang up the phone and sprint over to it — with utter disregard of my friend following ten feet behind — only to find out that he’s actually off duty and forgot to turn his light off.
“Turn your fucking light off then asshole!” I scream at him as though the last 25 minutes were all his fault.
Just then my phone rings and it’s the cab that I’d called for over a half hour ago.
“Do you still need a cab?” The lady asks, as though she knows most people who call for a cab at 1 a.m. on a Tuesday usually flake out.
“Well, at this point I’m just walking down Fullerton,” I reply.
“Good, cause we don’t have one to come get you,” she said.
“
Great fucking service you’ve got there” I say and hang up on her.
I look back to my friend.
“Good thing we didn’t wait for that one, huh?”
I call 411 again and get another cab company, but end I grossly underestimating just how far east we’ve gotten and to tell her I’m standing at a street that is actually another mile up the road.
She says a cab will be there in five minutes, and in all likelihood was.
But we weren’t.
Finally, after about an hour and well over a mile there’s a cab sitting at a red light on Pulaski.
“God dam are we happy to see you!” I holler. He doesn’t respond.
“Where you going?”
“Kingston Mines.”
“Kingston Mines it is,” he says.
I look down at my cell phone and realize it’s 2:14 a.m. on Wednesday morning and I’m gonna have to try to get drunk all over again.
