Notes From the Road: Chicago II, Day 2

I just got back from spending the day with the subject of my story for ESPN The Magazine. Headed back tomorrow morning. Heading to his old neighborhood to see his mom tomorrow afternoon. Man, I wish I could tell you all about it. I wish that, once I finished transcribing the interview, I could just copy-and-paste sections of it up here for you.

I wish I could play like video the things this man showed me, make you feel what I felt in that room, in his presence. It wasn't all pretty. Some of it was infuriating. Some was terrifying. And some of it was downright ugly. But it's like the dark colors in a masterpiece painting.

Look at Van Gogh's "Starry Night." Alone, that giant dark green/black/whatever color thing is just a gross looking blob on canvas. Like, who wants that hanging in their living room, their office, their museum? Nobody, of course. Likewise, a pretty sky full of stars is, well, nice. But it's not all that.

Then you combine them and you have arguably the most famous painting of all time. It's a masterwork. 

Maybe that big dark thing is is the crap in our lives, the things we're most scared of. The guy I just interviewed, he embraces it. He wept and cried and scowled and growled and clenched his fists and pounded things and said more bad words than I heard my entire childhood. 

But he didn't cower from the darkness. He let it be; he embraced it; and most unbelievably, he shared it as freely and openly as anybody I've ever talked with. I thanked him. He was making it the best story I've ever covered. But he was, more importantly, also making this story the best it can possibly be. 

I can't wait for it to be published. Of course, between now and then are are more interviews to conduct and hours of audio to transcribe and notes to arrange and words to be written—and then rewritten, and then rewritten, and then rewritten. Eventually though, sometime like September, it'll be in the magazine, and I'll have moved from one dream into another. 

* * * 

This is my view from my hotel room. At first I hated the noise and the wind. Then, this morning, when I threw open the blinds, I saw planes leaving and landing and realized a few things. All those planes are carrying all these people. Some, like me come Wednesday, are going home. Others, like me this past Friday, are arriving giddy with excitement at the potential their trip, their latest adventure, holds. 

For some reason I can't describe—maybe it's just the hunger; I'm sort of starving at the moment—this is as beautiful anything else man has ever made. A portal, a waystation, for folks simply trying to get somewhere. Filled with huge, aerodynamic tunnels of metal on wheels, thrown by the sheer force they place upon the air around them. 

That's funny, that I find myself feeling all profound about something simple as air travel, because I hated it on the way in. The first plane was hot and crowded and I nearly got sick when the guy next to me put in a dip. The second flight got canceled twice and then the replacement flight got delayed and so I got here five hours later than I should have. 

So I was already thinking, in my young career as a jetsetting journalist, that traveling for anything, or at least flying, was way overrated. Next weekend I'm driving to Charleston, and I'm taking my wife and our two crazy dogs, and I'm way more excited about that than I am about getting back on a plane.

But I think that has something to do with the fact that getting back on a plane, although it takes me back to my Katie and my home, takes me away from ... here. From Chicago. From the crazy and compelling and unbelievable cast of characters I'm meeting and interviewing and getting all inspired by. 

* * * 

When I get back on that plane on Wednesday I'll be going back home with so much. So much of it is vital and valuable. People are paying lots of money for me to learn the things I am (and then share them, in, hopefully, an entertaining compilation of coherent sentences and paragraphs). I wholly respect that, and I didn't come here on some spiritual pilgrimage or with the intention of seeking enlightenment about anything. Work here is priority one. 

But, being all too aware of how little I actually know about life as a twenty-something, I find myself always unconsciously seeking enlightenment, about one thing or another. Here, it's just thrown itself at me. I'll never complain about anything the rest of my life. Actually, I probably will. I'm often a crappy human: The type who has it all yet yearns for more. Not things. Not wealth. Not status or power or honor or glory. But stories. Like food, I crave them. I need them. Something in me wouldn't survive without them.

For some time, however, this story, this experience, this life I've found outside of my own and been invited to join and partake in, for the reason of sharing it with the world—it will sustain me. Check that—rice could sustain me, but rice is boring and plain and blah.

This ... this is like the crab dip at Bluewater in Wilmington, the beer I had once at the Gordon Biersch in D.C., the fried chicken and macaroni I ate at MacArthur's here in Chicago just yesterday.

It's simply the best I've ever had. 

The best part is that, like the folks shared MacArthur's with me yesterday, come September, I get to take you through it, let you experience it next.

Dear God, I don't know how I'm going to wait that long. 

 * * * 

EXTRA: Louis C.K. on airplane travel (around 1:58), which I think about every time I get irked while on a plane.