I immediately took out a Chicago Sun-Times, New Yorker, and Twix bar out of my backpack, and started gnashing away at the candy and reading intently about Burmese pythons spun out of their cages and into the Everglades during Hurricane Andrew. One would think this signaled unavailability - I really did want to just read, since I was too tired to maintain the chumminess that the sport of talking to strangers requires - but my new friend seemed very intent on talking to me, so finally I set aside my periodicals, shoved the last bite of my chocolate finger into my mouth, and said, "Hello, I'm [NAME]. What's your name?
His name was Gary. He started our conversation by saying several times that the conductor had asked him to lash his bike against the train using bungee cords he didn't have. Yes, but what's the worst the conductor could do if you didn't lash your bike down? I said, with a shrug. Gary replied, I don't know, pitch a fit? We laughed, and I said I could probably stall the conductor with sweet talk for the forty minutes it would take us to get back into Chicago.
We did the usual: where are you from, how long have you lived in Chicago, how do you like living in Chicago? Immediately the topic of conversation turned to Israel, because although Gary had lived his entire life in Chicago, he decided some years ago to become an Israeli citizen and had spent the last two winters in Galilee. I asked him if it was difficult to become an Israeli citizen. His answer: If you're Palestinian, yes; if you're an American Jew, not at all. It's probably too easy, in fact. This was interesting. Why do you think it's too easy? I said. He gave a thoughtful response about zionism and AIPAC, and I said some things to indicate that I had a grasp of the geopolitics. He said he wasn't sure he was comfortable with his own decision to become an Israeli, and then I said something anodyne about disagreeing with foreign policy from a global perspective but not judging the individual for his personal decision, and then there was a pause to commemorate our shared politics.
Gary had a return ticket for Israel in nine months, which seemed to me like an awfully long time in the future. It was a ticket, he said, but it was not a commitment to go back to Israel, since he could always just get a refund. He was trying to see if Chicago would take again, but already, in his second month home, he was starting to feel disappointed by the city's slow pace of change. He had taken the train today to the north suburbs to buy a bicycle, with the intention of biking home, but he got tired and hopped onto the commuter rail. I joked that his $150 bike might be enough to keep him tethered to Chicago. He said he would sell it.
He asked my occupation, and then confessed that he was thinking about going to law school. He was unemployed but had worked primarily as a bartender until leaving for Israel. He said he had consigned himself to never making any money. He considered himself a "wannabe failed academic," because of his interest in English literature, but decided to forgo the doctorate's debt and "the fifty-fifty chance, at best, of finding work on the other side." He wanted to try war crimes in the International Criminal Court. I'm aiming for the Hague, he said, but with a smile to indicate that this was something that would never happen. He confessed that he was more of a dreamer than a doer. I encouraged him by saying that it was difficult but humanly possible to get a law degree and be trying war crimes within five years. You would think this part of the conversation would be tinged with rue, but it was not. It was matter of fact.
He mentioned off hand that he hadn't done so well at keeping the jobs he'd had. Then I asked him a question I knew would be too personal: why do you think you didn't keep those jobs? "Personality conflicts" was his response. I pushed again: what sorts of personality conflicts? You see, the reason I did this was because I didn't get a sense from him that these topics were out of reach, and the conversation, even treading in this touchy territory, was light and quick. It is amazing how quickly you can become intimate with a stranger.
Gary's response to my second question was, Oh, you know. Anger management, rage, bitterness, problems getting along with others. To name a few? I said. He chuckled. We then talked about a recent job interview he'd had for a bar position, where the manager of the bar asked him a series of questions about the maximum capacities of the bars he'd tended, his philosophy for how to handle crowded bars, and something about a mysterious "positioning in the ring." I said this was absurd, since a bartender's ability to tend bar had nothing to do with his ability to answer questions about tending bar. Gary concurred, and then told me about the other hoops of fire he'd had to jump through for previous positions: drug tests, several rounds of interviews, questionaires, oaths, etc. We paused to commemorate our shared distaste for meaningless exercises of authority.
As we entered Chicago, I finally said a few barely personal words about myself. I was happy to have chosen Wicker Park to live in rather than Lincoln Park because I was not exactly the Lincoln Park type. He said, Yes, I knew when you came in that you were not that type. What gave me away? I said. He said, You didn't seem like a sorority girl. Sorority girls don't have bikes covered in mud. They can't speak intelligently about the world. (His exact words were not as patronizing as these.)
We arrived at his stop somewhat by surprise, and he hurriedly gathered his belongings and wheeled his bike to the door. Our last bit of chatter was me telling him I hoped to read about him leading the prosecution of Ivan Demjanjuk, the Cleveland Nazi. There was no pretending that we would exchange phone numbers or that we'd ever see each other again or that we even wanted to. We simply wished each other well, and then he walked his bike off the train.
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