Chatroom to Bedroom: Chicago – First Chapter

 

To celebrate the  Chatroom to Bedroom: Chicago Kindle debut and to say thank you to everyone who has believed in this book and project, I am publishing the entire first chapter here.

Enjoy and, if inspired, download the Kindle (or order the paperback edition) from Amazon.

You can also download the e-book from iTunes or from B&N.com.

However you get there, welcome to the Chicago of the late ’90s.

And, as always, comments welcome.

Cheers!

– Alex

  Editor: Jamie Moore

This is a work of fiction. Except for the brilliant music of Poi Dog.

© Alexsandra Sukhoy January 4, 2003.   © Creative Cadence LLC 2009.  All rights reserved.

Chapter 1

July, 1996

I tapped the steering wheel in my navy blue 1989 Ford Escort, as the car tape player blasted a Poi tune called “Complicated.” “And I fucked up so many times in my life, that I wanna get it right this time.” Parking is scarce in this part of town and I pulled up a few blocks away from the restaurant. I turned off the ignition and the music and got out of the car closing the squeaky door. I then put a few quarters into the parking meter and hoped that this would be enough change and that I wouldn’t get a ticket. I couldn’t afford one.

 

The early humid summer evening, with the red glow of the commencement of the sunset, was like a red light warning to stop and not go. But I refused to obey any sort of guidelines. I wasn’t in the mood. I then headed toward the restaurant, making sure that the address matched the one on my work stationery. Ouzari’s on Clark. This must be it, I thought, and walked up the stairs of the old Chicago brownstone building with the green canopy and adjacent overpriced eateries.

The narrow and dark place, with the creaking parquet floor, was almost completely empty, despite early dinnertime, with the exception of one sole customer sitting behind a table and the apron-wearing bartender who was wiping the glass in his hand.  Perhaps he was just pretending to look busy. Both men looked up at me immediately, then resumed their thoughts. The establishment was like an abandoned tunnel, prying on lost passersbys. If you could read the men’s minds, you would see these tempting offers: “For a dollar we can give you a drink for your thirst. For $10, a snack for your hunger. But we can’t give a new soul. So if you have lost yours, you are on your own.”

 

I felt out of place, uncomfortable but deliberate in my justification for being there. And then I saw him. This man, this man that made my heart beat quickly, as though I just ran on the treadmill.  He was over six feet tall, athletically built and wore black nicely fitting jeans and a black t-shirt. He had short, black curly Mediterranean hair, thick eyebrows, a look of mystery and darkness, and his eyes were full of hunger.

 

“Thanos?” I asked, but knowing I didn’t have to bother with this.  Yet, conversation had to begin somewhere.

 

“Adara?” he asked with a slight smile.

 

“Yes,” I replied and extended my hand to shake his.  He seemed more traditional than this gesture, but we both felt awkward and I knew that a woman shaking someone’s hand, with the exception of an Orthodox Rabbi, was an American cultural norm. His hand was large, warm and dry.

 

“Where would you like to sit?” he asked. “How about that table in the corner?” he answered himself and pointed at a table for two near a window. His Greek accent was strong. And it was a turn on. But, then, very little would be a turn off considering life’s unreasonable circumstances of late.

 

“Sure,” I replied and headed toward the destination that would commence a conversation that led to a relationship that grew into a three-month affair of a more intense lust and passion and sexual freedom than I ever knew. At this moment, in my hounds-tooth vest, black short-sleeved top and matching miniskirt, I had no idea that I sat in front of a man whose slightly cross eyed eyes saw through my every doubt, fear and desire.

 

“Have you ever been here before?” he asked, even though he had to give me driving directions earlier that day when I called him from my work, quietly, secretly, so no one would over hear in the adjacent cubicles. And I had to call him at his work while we spoke in code.

 

“No, not to this place,” I honestly replied. Sure, I knew the neighborhood well, but have not gotten out to the city as often as I’d like. Suburbia, with all its manicured uniformity, took over my life. But he does not need to know all this. Not now.

 

“It’s very nice, the cooking is authentic and the food tastes really fresh.” At that point the waiter brought the laminated menus and a small basket of pita, and Thanos and the waiter exchanged nods and familiar Greek conversation.

 

“What would you like to drink?” the waiter asked, also with a heavy accent. But he was not turning me on. Thanos was.

 

“A Coke, please,” I replied as Coca-Cola was a wonderful substance that gave me energy. I joked with people that I was a Coke-addict, because I could easily drink four to six cans a day. Yes, cans. Soft drinks in plastic bottles aren’t in, yet.

 

Thanos frowned his forehead at me ordering the Coke, but, then, relaxed it. I was quite younger than him, and my naiveté was a fresh break from his own crazy life.  His home remodeling business thrived, but the pressures were insane. He looked at my face and he noticed something, perhaps an optimistic openness in my eyes that his wife of twelve years no longer possessed.

 

“What would you like to eat?” he asked, looking at me like a restrained wolf looking at a wounded deer. Was I bleeding already? Was my heart that transparent, even to a stranger?

 

“What do you recommend?” I responded.

 

“Well, the dolma are good and so is this appetizer. The plate is full of different items that you can try, like feta and olives and a few more good things.”

 

“Why don’t you order for both of us,” I replied.  Having the man order for me was not common practice for my internal feminist. My first year of Hebrew day school, I even remember asking the Rabbi, “Why is God referred to as a he?” For once, I liked someone else being in control, even if it only involved ordering a simple, early evening summer dinner. It was one less decision that I had to make.  And I liked this.  I didn’t want to make any decisions tonight. I didn’t want to use the allegedly gifted mind I was granted for anything but a relaxing adventure where someone else played the role of the navigator.

 

When the curious waiter left the table with a full order on his notebook, I looked at Thanos and, finally, took in his facial features. “You look a lot like my cousin. You remind me of him for some reason. He’s very good looking.” And for the first time I smiled and then he smiled. Genuinely, this time. The tension broke. A certain relaxed flirtatious atmosphere enveloped us, two people who had no business being together. But the domestic bliss eroded years ago for both of us. Then the waiter brought my Coke and an alcoholic clear drink in a small glass for Thanos. He drank this beverage and kept toasting my glass as a gesture of good will.

 

I looked to my left and noticed a picture on the wall.  It was a 1920’s make-up advertisement with an image of a woman’s profile, her left hand drawn near her cheek. “The hand. It’s positioned wrong.”

 

“Why do you say that?” the architecture school graduate asked as he put his elbows on the table and then put his hands together, looking very inquisitively at this poster and at me.

 

“Well,” I, a former art student, replied, “her hand – it’s supposed to be the other one.  If she did hold up her left hand in that position, she’d have to twist her whole body.” And with that I proceeded to show Thanos how awkwardly the model would have sat if the picture were correct.

 

“You have a goot eye,” he replied with his hungry, playful smile.

 

The conversation proceeded with naughty, under the brow glances, self-conscious, eyes-down moments and simple, straight-forward looking silences.  “You didn’t eat most of your meal.  You did not like it?” he asked, genuinely, almost paternally, concerned.

 

“Oh, it’s very good.” Truth is, the food was very good, but the company was even better and right then I wanted to leave my life behind, the job, the husband, the city and go to a Caribbean Island. Thanos would kiss my hands and my thighs and my neck.  He had to be a great kisser, I thought. A man who looks like this has to be an amazing lover. This may sound cliché, but when your life takes a one-way road to the center of hell, a hell you never deserved, running away to paradise, and any ideal of what that paradise is, perverts the brain with unreasonable fantasies that lead it to meeting strangers in dark, tunnel-like restaurants on post-work evenings. Then letting the imagination run marathons as if crack filled your blood vanes and your brain. Everyone has his fix and I have mine.

 

“I feel like we met in a past life,” I told him in a quiet manner, because the connection between us felt so strong, like our souls have come in contact before and had a long life together, in a different place, in a less complicated time. An overwhelming familiarity and comfort took over in the presence of this man. A certain understanding existed, like when you meet your closest guy-friend’s new girlfriend and you want to hate her, but then you realize she’s just like you and you can talk to her for hours and wonder where she has been all your life. Of course, then you start thinking as to why the guy-friend never asked you out. But that’s a different story.

 

“I only believe in this life,” Thanos responded in a manner that left me feeling a bit down, as though I believed in possibilities, but he felt like a caged lion, roaring in pain and discomfort but, knowing the cage door is loose and still not choosing to pursue his freedom. “I am an atheist and this is the only life there is for me.”

 

The meal was coming to a depressing end. For both of us the end of the meal meant not only the end of our encounter, but it also meant that each one of us had to go home, a place where neither one of us ever wanted to be. Ever. Home has extraordinarily positive connotations in the media, whether it’s the magazines at Barnes and Noble, the Campbell’s Soup commercials where the sick man in a blanket eats a bowl near his fireplace or the eventual rise and addiction of HGTV, home is where the heart is. And, allegedly, people who love you, comfortable blankets, grandma’s chicken soup and a sense of rest and comfort await for you. To me home was like the Middle East: divided, un-resting, dangerous, controversial and with two opposing view points. Home was the last place I wanted to go right now.

 

“What do you want to do now?” he asked.

 

“Um, well, we could go have some coffee.” I didn’t drink coffee, but it’s what you say when you want to spend time with someone.

 

“Where’s a good place?”

 

“Well, have you ever been to the Four Seasons? They have an incredible lounge.”

 

“No, I haven’t.”

 

“Do you want to go?”

 

“Alright. Tohtahlee.”

 

I knew his enthusiastic response meant three things: First, it would give us just a little more time together.  Second, against my conservative nature, it meant that I would be getting into a car with an older and physically stronger man who I had never met before.  No one knew about our meeting, so if anything happened to me, I’d have no one to blame but myself. Finally, it meant I could postpone driving back north to 8-4-7 land, a place where suburban malls served as cultural amphitheaters of childhood development.

 

As we took Clark Street south, towards downtown, to 3-1-2 land, we passed the changing neighborhoods, full of store fronts, Victorians, high rises, street lights, the Days Inn, and then there it was right in front of us: the Chicago skyline begun at the north by the John Hancock building. The energy, hustle and bustle of downtown Chicago can not be duplicated or replicated anywhere. Yes, New York City is amazing.  But New York has no alleys. Chicago had a fire and as a result it had a chance to rebuild itself. All this meant that the city received an organized grid and this included the planning of alleys. So, unlike New York, Chicago doesn’t have its fire escapes or garbage on the streets.

 

“Here, you can make a right on Walton and park right inside the building,” I told him in an all-knowing voice.  As he turned his truck off the boulevard which began the Magnificent Mile, I felt like we didn’t belong on that street, or, really, with each other. But here we were driving up the parking lot of a world-class hotel. And we just met two hours ago.

 

We got out of the car and I led the way: first we had to take the garage elevator to Level 6. Then once inside the building, passing Bloomingdale’s and a toyshop, we walked through the glass double doors next to the art gallery and took another elevator till we reached the hotel lobby. The dark wooden elevator doors, richly textured carpet and antique dishes in the polished wooden display furniture transposed us, two mismatched souls, into a different world. We then passed the large round table with the oversized fresh flower bouquet, more display cases and the occasional businessman. Thanos walked slightly behind me as he was on new turf and felt a bit uncertain.

 

“You’ve been here before?”

 

“Yes.” Yes, I was here when my husband proposed to me in front of a wealthy Friday night crowd. He even had the hostess pull up a silver tray with roses and another with Champaign and set me up in an emotional fantasy scene that very few would have turned down. After I said yes, the surrounding aristocracy interrupted their conversations of weekends in the Hamptons, children’s trust funds and new plastic surgeon recommendations and applauded the unrehearsed commencement of what they thought, as I did, was a life-long commitment.

 

Oh, yes, and this is also where I was in the elevator with a very short Robert Downy Jr. And where I saw the fresh faced Donny Osmond. I would later also see the very tall John Cleese, Bob Villa (being ripped off on a cigar sale that included fake labels) and the surprisingly short Ben Kingsley. And so many other celebrities. Yeah, I’ve been here before. But not with you, Thanos.

 

We then took a small table for two near the window, where we could see below all the people walking on Michigan Avenue and where, from the right angle, the lake hinted its blue depth. We sat on plush embroidered chairs with high backs and faced each other in the atrium-like room.

 

The hostess took our order. Thanos had red wine and I ordered a cranberry juice with vodka.

 

“It’s very beautiful here.”

 

“Yes, it’s like this secret escape that very few people know about. Very relaxing and classy.”

 

He drank his drink, while I sipped mine. It took very little to get me buzzed and I still had a long drive home. The sun began to set and it was getting late.

 

“We should probably go.”

 

“I agree.”

 

The drive back up north on Clark moved much faster, perhaps because there was less traffic, or, perhaps, because now the night was coming to a sad end. And I didn’t want my adventure to end.

 

He pulled up his truck in the alley behind the restaurant where we ate.

 

“You know, you did a very dangerous thing there.”

 

“What?” I asked, already knowing the answer.

 

“You got into the car with me, a tohtahl stranger, and you took a big chance. This was very risky.”

 

“I know.” But this is what I wanted, I wanted to take a risk, because I never have. I have always played it safe, did the expected. And where did it get me? Working two jobs for pennies after college, owning property in a neighborhood I detest and living a stranger’s life? I always took what I was offered because I never thought that simply asking for more was an option. And right now I needed more. More of something, but exactly what? I suppose I had to start somewhere. And perhaps getting into a car with a married man over ten years older then me was the beginning of the change that I needed. Because complacent good girls who try to please everyone around them for the fear of being rejected end up being rejected by the very people they try to please. And I had to, for the first time, break a rule, break a moral code, do something un-kosher as a statement to myself.

 

I sat in his big truck and looked at him. He looked at me.  It was summer, and the nighttime darkness outside created an intimacy not found during daytime. I could hear the clean rolling sounds of the cars driving on the nearby street. The street had a different echo to it in the summer, an echo masked by snow and slush in the winter. And right now, it was warm and the yellow alley light broke the stillness.

 

“Can I kiss you?” he asked.

 

“Ok.” The leather seat shifted underneath him as his muscular torso leaned forward and he kissed me.  Gently, at first, then harder.  His large tongue went inside my mouth and explored it the way an archeologist explores a cave.  I felt simultaneous excitement and guilt.  I realized that he was the first man, besides my husband, that I kissed in eight years. I wanted this man so badly, but I had another man waiting for me at home.  Has this kiss just made me an adulterous wife? Maybe my husband was not even at home.  Maybe he was out smoking cigarettes and playing cards with his buddies.  Maybe he was at work.  Maybe he lost another job.  Maybe he was cleaning up a mess the cat made. Maybe he was buying more Grateful Dead tickets on borrowed money that he’ll never pay back.  Whatever he was doing, I knew I had to return to him now. I chose this man as my husband, for better or for worse, for richer or for poorer and took an oath to God, and signed a legal state contract. So with the moral depth of a dehydrated river, I pulled back from Thanos.

 

“When can I see you again?” Thanos asked.

 

“I can’t see you right now.  I have to finish my marriage before anything else can happen between the two of us.  I can’t do this.  Do you understand?”

 

“Yes, of course.” He replied knowingly.  He also had a first affair once, a long time ago. “But any time you’d like, please send me an email.”

 

“I will, mon ami,” I responded knowing that email and chatrooms were what got me into this position.  How virtual can electronic reality be if a hard-working, educated woman from a close family finds herself making out like a teenager with an older married man in the parking lot behind a strip mall while a suburban life awaits in a different area code? There was nothing virtual about this reality. This was one reality that I truly didn’t mind too much. Life at home turned lonely.

 

My initial conversations with Thanos, back in the Spring, were about art and culture. Sometimes, we even exchanged some words in French. One day, I revealed to him that I wanted to leave town.

 

“You should take advantage of your freedom,” he typed back.

 

“We are all free, mon ami.”

 

“I have certain commitments. I am married,” he disclosed.

 

“So am I.” And this sealed our fate. And that is how I ended up here, in his truck.

 

But I then left the truck, left this cheating Adonis and headed toward my Escort. No ticket.  Relieved, I opened the door, sat inside the car, turned up the stereo, turned down the window and drove home as the tape player blared my favorite tune, “Complicated????? It’s all right. Ta Ta Ta.”

 

Poi Dog Pondering was a band that my husband introduced me to when he surprised me one year. The band had a show at the Double Door, a concert hall strategically placed on the intersection of Milwaukee, North and Damon. I first heard a few of the band’s songs on XRT, Chicago’s greatest station, but that Valentine’s Day, was the first time I actually witnessed the energy first hand. Ten or twelve people on stage, playing drums, percussion, saxophone, trumpet, violin, keyboards. They danced, they sang, they flirted with the audience and Frank Orrall, the lead singer, exuded understanding and kindness. And my love affair with the band was born.

 

In 1995, the band released Pomegranate, and the hit “Complicated”, condensed my life situation into one verse:  “Sometimes I get so afraid of life. I’m not afraid of death I’m scared of going through this thing twice.”

 

As I drove the highway home, music volume turned up high, tapping the steering wheel, humid wind blowing in my hair and, still warm from the cranberry juice and vodka and the kiss, sat back and enjoyed the moment.

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