Still thinking about Stacy Keibler as Catwoman, but I keep promising the following melodrama, so here goes. The printing plant I work at has moved, as I have mentioned before, to the ghetto end of Oak Forest. I normally get a ride from Bart, my fellow color copyologist, near the Simply Sinful and Bear Liquors on 125th Street. Last month, I had an early doctor's appointment and took the bus to the end of the line, 159th and Cicero. The bus pulls into Oak Forest Hospital, I walk past the mental ward in a separate building, walking a diagonal towards a new subdivision, trying to get to 127th and Kilbourn. I walked a half mile in knee high grass-why mow the lawn near the mental house, right?--and I find myself trapped by a FUCKING GATED COMMUNITY!! I scream Son of a BITCH, trying my best to sound like James Brolin in CAPRICORN ONE. Fuck it, I say, and climb the fence. And get stuck. Then fall upside down, still stuck. Everything I have falls in front of my face, coins, keys, then contents from my backpack slide over my waterfall-like head. Pizza Rolls. Fuji water. Avengers comics with Skrulls on them. SHOEDOG by George Pelecanos falls last. All is quiet then. The traffic on Cicero is blocks away, past trees and some kind of sign, probably one that admonishes climbing fences. Blood was rushing to my head, but it was one of our rare sunny days, the doc had given me anti-inflammatory shots, so once again I said fuck it. I shook the damn fence, pulling my legs away as I did. I was able to kind of Jerry Lewis as Daredevil position--you'd really have to be there--and I dropped the last two feet...face down in a Pelecanos novel. I've taken a webcam shot using my Bruce Willis Sin City action figure to illustrate. Note that it's not to scale. Look at the photo of my jeans, though. I fell and some kind of pipe went right through my pant leg as I crumpled into the book. How I didn't have this pole, it was just that, not a spike, not a rusted, broken thing...just a pole, a marker, didn't even scratch my leg, or better yet, choose to come out from behind it's cloak of invisibility as my face decided where to land. None the worse for wear, as many of my co-workers swear ripped jeans to work, I gathered my belongings, walked through the subdivision screaming I'M OUT OF ORDER? YOU'RE OUT OF ORDER!!! at the top of my lungs (not really), got to 167th and marvelled a bit at the overpass above Interstate 57, seeing how far I had come by foot. Work that day had its moments, and I had a tale to tell. Now if only I can get the girl who works at the pharmacy at Walgreens off my mind...Wayne
