I was in college at the University of Chicago
in the late 1970’s. I had gone through
adolescence in a blue collar part of Eugene, Oregon on the other side of town
from the University there. I was an
intellectual nerd and so had had no social life to speak of. I never had to study much, and I was never
grade oriented but I managed to be in the honor society and I got great
standardized test scores.
The University of Chicago was Nerd Central
and I was surrounded by like minds. I quickly
developed friends, real friends! and then slid into bad habits and wild
company…. such as it was at the U of C,
where the unofficial motto was “Where Fun Goes to Die”. So I partied and slept late and had to repeat
some classes, while learning a tremendous amount. Even at parties you discussed science and
philosophy.
But the upshot was that I was not able to
graduate in four years.
In the fifth year my more studious and
disciplined friends were gone. I found
myself among screw-ups and people associated with the university only
tangentially if at all. Among these assorted people were Ray and Diny. Diny’s grandparents were supposedly Russian
aristocracy who escaped the revolution.
I do not know if this was true, but she was petite and fine boned, with
a broad high forehead, thin fine blond hair, high cheekbones, a small pointed
chin, and large sad blue eyes. She
looked the part of fallen Russian aristocracy.
She had gone to the U of C. Ray
was her exact opposite. He was a big
man, very muscular with short dark curling hair. He worked out. He was part African American,
part Native American, part Polish, and part Irish. He had a menial job, he drank, did drugs, and
had an explosive temper. He also had the
one thing few of us had, a car.
Ray could take us to the clubs. Ray could take us to concerts.
The problem was that Ray would get wasted and
then drive us all home. It was
impossible to get car keys away from Ray.
It was scary. You can pretend that you are in a taxi, glue your face to
the window and watch the tall buildings careening by, but in truth I did not
want to die in a car accident.
The third time Ray took us to a club,
probably O’Banions, we closed the place down at about 2:00 a.m. Ray was reeling, bashing into things. The three of us that lived in my apartment
decided to get home some alternate way. We even tried to get Diny to come with
us, but she wouldn’t leave Ray.
Unfortunately for us the Howard L which goes
directly to Hyde Park was shut down for the night so we had to take the Dan
Ryan L which would drop us in the ghetto west of Hyde Park where we would have
to wait for a night bus.
So there we were, one guy and two women, all
of us white as snow and in our punk finery; black clothes, black eyeliner and
all, standing near the Dan Ryan L at Garfield, waiting for a bus in the small
hours on a deserted street in a bad neighborhood in Chicago at a time when
Chicago was one of the highest crime cities in the country. Still it seemed
like a better idea than letting Ray drive us. At least it did until a gang of
youths sifted out from an alley.
There were about five of them. There were three of us. Two of us were
women. The one guy among us was a small,
slender artist. The gang surrounded us
and told us to come with them to the alley.
Now there were gangs even in Hyde park in
those days, and in fact our apartment was on Blackstone and part of the
territory of the Blackstone Rangers. I was no expert, but I knew a little bit
about dealing with gangs. No Way in Hell
was I going to go into an alley with these guys. I had no desire to be raped and murdered. So
I ran into the middle of the street. It
was largely deserted, but during the day was a big busy street. I could see headlights in the distance head
slowly in our direction. One of the gang
members said he had a gun. My response
to that was to duck behind a parked car on the street side. My female roommate (Anne) was being pulled
towards the alley by a couple of the gang-members. My male roommate (whose name was Jeff I think)
was nowhere to be seen.
“Anne!” I yelled, “There are cars coming!
Come out to the street!”
Anne, who was not much of a physical person
yanked herself away from the gang and ran into the street with me. The guys started to come after us, but the
lights of the coming cars were finally starting to light up the scene and
instead the guys skittered away into the ally.
One of the cars turned out to be a cab. A cab!
In the ghetto! Sheer luck. I
hailed the cab, but where was Jeff?
Jeff staggered out of alley, badly beaten,
blood running down his face and matting his hair. So we took the cab to the hospital in Hyde
Park. Jeff had had his wallet stolen, a concussion and lots of
big bruises, but fortunately nothing more serious than that.
Thanks Ray.
We lived in a strange winding warren of a
basement apartment with three bedrooms a kitchen, and two good sized common
rooms that were reasonably suitable for parties. We had our own front entrance a few steps
down from the street, and on the back side of the building our own back exit, a
few steps up to a small lawn a tree and a parking lot.
Some months after the gang in the ghetto
incident we had a nice big party. Of
course Ray and Diny were there along with the whole general circle of friends,
and friend of friends etc. As usual Ray
was all hopped up on alcohol and some other unknown substances. He was already in a foul mood and Diny was
annoyed with him. Then some typical U of
C nerdy white kid said something. I do
not know what it was. In the noise of
the music and all the people I don’t know that ANY of us knew what it was. But Ray was sure that the kid had insulted
him. Between black and Irish and Polish
and Native American Ray was always finding insult, rightful or not. But Ray flew into a rage and went after the kid
who was shocked and promptly panicked.
So I had Ray lunging after this kid
like a Kodiak bear after a salmon.
Diny tried to intervene and Ray flung her aside Her head hit the corner
of the dining room table and she went down.
Ray didn’t even notice.
I am not sure quite how I did it, but I got
in front of Ray, put my hands gently on the center of his chest (roughly eye
level for 5’5” me) and looked straight up into his angry dark eyes, and just
quietly said “Ray, Ray, Ray, Ray” until it registered on him. Somehow the hands on his chest stopped his
lunging about.
“Ray, I need to talk to you” I said over and
over. He eventually focused on me and I
said, “Too loud in here” and keeping my hands on him gently, stroking lightly
like you would a fearful cat lead him along the winding halls to the front
door, walked him up the steps, told him to close his eyes and take a deep
breath of the fresh air…. then I turned and leapt down the stairs ran inside
and slammed the door behind me, locking and bolting it. Ray roared and crashed
down the stairs and beat on the door. I
zoomed through the halls, found the kid, who had been slugged a few times but
was ok and sent him running away out the back.
It was complicated to get from the front of the building to the back
without going through the inside.
Diny was sitting up which was good as I had
worried that Ray might have killed her.
I suggested that she too go out the back and head home and perhaps lock
Ray out. She did not want to do that. She would go out the back, yes, but then she
was going to go around through the parking lot and alley and around the block
to the front of the building and collect Ray and take him home. She said he’d be sorry by the time she wound
her way to the front.
And so he was, but I had had it with Ray. He was too much trouble. In fact my whole life was filled with too many
problematic people. Not long afterwards I
left Chicago, shaking off most of my “friends” of that time with few regrets. I was one credit short of graduating, but I transferred
that credit from the University of Oregon in Eugene rather than go back and get
sucked into that dysfunctional group which included my one and only
boyfriend, who I have not even mentioned in this story, who I was also eager to
be far, far away from.
Dysfunctional people are often very accepting
of others and easily become “friends” with misfits and lonely people.
Sometimes it is much better to be lonely.
It is certainly far better to have a select few
good friends who are sane, thoughtful people than a whole circle of problematic
types surrounding you.
