The Night of Terror

I called the parental homestead to see how Sibling #6’s Special Olympics basketball tournament had gone. Father answered the phone; I never actually learned how the games had turned out. And despite having been at the basketball tournament with Sibling #6, the most mundane of topics can quickly become hot button social commentaries for Father. “Boy, have you been watching all the trouble in Egypt?” he asked. Then, without missing a beat as the two events are connected in ways perhaps only a lunatic would immediately comprehend, he added, “Do you remember the night of terror?” I laughed. Even though I wasn’t a participant, how could I ever forget the night of terror?

Many years ago, my Irish Aunt was in town for a visit. She spent a few weeks with us before taking the Greyhound on an unmercifully long journey to the upper reaches of nowhere in western Canada to visit her daughter. Downtown, where the bus station was located, was little more than a cesspool. There was no Millennium Park, no flower boxes, and lots of criminal activity during the day, let alone at night.

The Aunt’s bus to the middle of nowhere Canada was departing the Greyhound Station at around ten o’clock at night. While late 1970s downtown was shady at best, the Greyhound depot was Starsky and Hutch type stuff. Working security there one night, Father noticed a guy hanging around that looked an awful lot like one of the country’s ten most wanted at the time. The guy took off when he noticed Father giving him the eye, but eventually Father made the arrest. It turns out he was one of the guys on the wanted poster. Like I said, the bus station was real life Starksy and Hutch.

Anyway, as Mother didn’t drive, the job of getting the Aunt to the bus depot fell to Sibling #2. Along with the Aunt and Mother, Sibling #2 brought along the Boyfriend to provide some semblance of protection. It was one of those stiflingly hot summer nights where the air is so heavy and unmoving you feel like you just might suffocate so Sibling #2 had on the air condition in the old blue wagon on the drive downtown. Now, should she have known better? Of course, but the Boyfriend had some entitlement issues so I’ve no doubt the air was on for his sake and not for the sake of the Irish Aunt so completely unaccustomed to Chicago’s height of summer mugginess.

Everyone was a bit on edge to begin with, what with the heat and having to descend into the bowels of the city to bid the much loved Aunt adieu. So naturally, about a mile from the depot, the blue wagon caught on fire. (We refer to it as the blue wagon to distinguish it from its predecessor, the yellow wagon.) Turns out Sibling #2 really should have known better about use of the air conditioner. Thus began the night of terror.

In a scene reminiscent of Scooby Doo, they decided to split up. Sibling #2 and the Boyfriend set out in search of Father who was on duty somewhere downtown, to let him know where his car, with its melted air conditioning belt, had been abandoned. Mother and the Aunt found a cab and took that to the bus station. After getting her sister on the Greyhound, Mother began walking back to State Street where she would catch a bus home. The problem, of course, is that Mother’s sense of direction is never particularly good. And when the underworld of derelicts that crawled the streets began to accost her and literally paw at her, she fled in a blind panic. I can just picture Mother, dressed in one of her signature paper thin t-shirts with the sleeves and neck cut-off and a pair of really short running shorts, streaking through downtown in absolute flight mode.

Turns out she was running in the right direction as she eventually ran right past Father, who was hanging out in a dark doorway. He called out to her as she sped past, but she was so terrified, his presence didn’t register even when he repeatedly called her by name. He gave chase and when he finally caught up with her, he had to grab her in order to get her to stop. When Father tells this story, his eyes crinkle up as he chuckles over his disbelief at seeing this familiar looking red-haired woman sprint past. We all have trouble catching our breath because we are laughing so hard as his eyes turn into two moons in imitation of Mother’s unseeing, terror-filled eyes. I’m sure the event probably left a deep, damaging gouge in Mother’s heart, but that doesn’t seem to detract from the event’s hilarity. And I’m not sure why Father was standing around in a dark doorway. In fact, it has never occurred to any of us to ask him about it. This is, after all, the man who would run home from work in subzero temperatures and shrug off our concern for the large black patches of frostbitten skin on his body by saying, “It’s nothing. Just dead meat.” Really, why wouldn’t he be hanging around in a dark doorway?

Meanwhile, Sibling #2 and the Boyfriend had set off from where the car had died near State and Wacker. They walked south on State, with groups of undesirables literally circling them and making sucking noises and “come on, baby” type comments to Sibling #2 and threatening comments to the Boyfriend. Like Mother, Sibling #2 was fond of the little outfits. Therefore, she was also experienced with having sucking noises directed at her, but never by groups of people that would circle her while doing so. Eventually, they made it to the Burger King on State and Congress where Father sometimes hung out to protect the non-criminal element that unwittingly entered in search of sustenance. As he was lurking in a dark doorway at the time, they instead found a different police man at the Burger King who then radioed Father and told him where he could find his car.

Sibling #2 and the Boyfriend then caught the #62 Archer Bus home. Father also put Mother on a #62 Archer bus and she, too, got home safely. The Aunt made it to Canada and then back home to Ireland, where she was able to regale her countrymen with her harrowing tale. As for Father, by the time he got off work much later that night, the car had cooled off sufficiently enough for him to drive it home, not quite the worse for wear.

And while I only wanted to find out about a basketball game, Father, ever the police man, used a favored lunatic parable, The Night of Terror, to reinforce the importance of serving and protecting. As Father discussed in great detail, whether it’s street protests in the Middle East or criminal gangs in Chicago, both are rooted in a fundamental break down in basic humanity due to our unfailing acceptance of intolerance and inequality coupled with a devastating lack of compassion for our fellow man. When burdened with all that, I could see how a basketball game might seem rather insignificant.

The Great Fridge Exchange

It all began many months ago when I arrived at the family homestead to find that all of the shelves had been removed from the refrigerator.  I put a few of them back in to hold the food I had brought over and went outside to help clean up the yard.  When I got back upstairs, the shelves were again gone.  I was in the process of putting them back in again when Father arrived and told me in no uncertain terms that the shelves had to be kept out of the refrigerator as the refrigerator couldn’t be stuffed with food or it wouldn’t work.  Oh, and the freezer had to be kept empty, too.  So the refrigerator had essentially become an energy sucking decoration of sorts.

It didn’t take long to realize how problematic it was to not have a refrigerator.  Mother isn’t very mobile and can’t get to the store herself anymore.  Father had an Italian mother and then an old school Irish wife and knows very little about the workings of a grocery store.  He makes infrequent trips to the store and buy things like cans of hash, fish patties for the dog, chicken legs for the dog, and a loaf of French bread which would be stale by the evening.  Lunchmeat, eggs, milk, meat for the human occupants of the house were now forbidden due to the fridge’s new status as decorative. 

The idea of replacing the fridge was bandied about, but met with hostility.  Father is used to doing everything himself and he wouldn’t be able to get the old, unwieldy fridge down the stairs, nor would he be able to get a new one up.  He would never hire anyone to do it and wouldn’t think of putting us to any bother.  So the fridge hummed along, mostly empty, and my guilt increased every time I couldn’t drive over to bring them food.  Every time a new refrigerator was mentioned, he got irate and said the existing one was just fine.  Fine for a decoration, maybe.   

I’m not sure if all of the siblings suffer from the guilt that can become overwhelming at times, but at least a few of them do.  When I’m driving home from work on a bitterly cold, windy night and I see a mom holding 2 bags of overflowing groceries in one hand and a young child's hand in the other as she waits endlessly for a bus to take her home, the guilt comes.  I think back to the burning numbness that would overtake my hands and toes as a much younger me waited endlessly for buses to come.  I think how my own children have never even been on a public bus, and then I think how I have failed them yet again.  Surely I am coddling them and doing them a great disservice by not making them stand in the freezing cold while waiting for a bus.  

Sometimes the guilt overtakes me in class.  I stand before my students in my expensive, waterproof and warm winter boots while they wear the exact same clothes to class every day because they have nothing else to wear.  Then they collect money amongst themselves and buy me flowers at the end of the semester.  Oh, the guilt!

So the fridge became a chilling source of daily guilt.  Finally, Sibling #4 took the bull by the horns as she is wont to do and just ordered a new fridge.   We knew this wouldn’t go well, but if anyone could pull it off, the spitfire sibling could.  She met the delivery guys and a very hostile father.  Needless to say, this did not go well.  The deliverymen hummed and hawed and expressed doubt that the fridge would fit up the stairs.  Father got more and more worked up by the second.  The deliverymen, with relief, decided that there was something wrong with the new fridge so they packed it back up into the truck and burned rubber driving off.  Father declared that they were just a bunch of thugs that never planned on delivering the fridge, but wanted to just scope out his house for a future robbery.  We all hoped that they’d come back and steal the fridge.   

Months passed.  The guilt grew.  Mother got skinnier.  Sibling #2 now jumped into the refrigerator fray.  This time, she went and bought one herself.  She and the husband dragged the new one up unannounced one day.  Father went ballistic.  The new fridge got packed up and dragged back down, and her status as golden child was momentarily tarnished.  The old fridge, however, chugged along in its sunny corner spot.  

My work schedule got busier, making my food drops less and less frequent in an inverse relationship to the guilt. I plotted and planned, but my new refrigerator plans all fell through. The Husband, who would be needed to help cart a new fridge up the stairs, had minor surgery that prevented him from being able to serve as deliveryman.  Then, he got the flu shot and promptly came down with the flu, another three week delay.  I thought about hiring a student to help, but I couldn’t make a student sit around outside waiting for the all clear call from inside.  In the parents’ neighborhood, it’s no longer safe to sit around suspiciously in parked cars.  

Finally, Sibling #4 announced that she was going over to the homestead on a Saturday and would drop Mother off at church for the evening mass.  Mother would be at church, Father would leave to feed his stray cats, the husband was healed, and Sibling #4 could give the all clear.  All the stars had aligned!  I wouldn’t have a better opportunity again to get the fridge, so the daughter and I ran over to Menards and bought the smallest full-sized refrigerator they had.  Later that evening, I text Sibling #4 that Operation Refrigerator was on and described her role as look out and gave her my estimated arrival time at the family homestead.  I told her I’d drive around in circles in the minivan until she gave me the all clear.  She texted back that if anything changed, I should call her on her shoe phone. 

Things went awry from the get go.  Sibling #4 called to tell me that Father had gone to church, not to feed the cats as he was expected to.  That meant I had a little more than an hour to pick up the fridge, drive to the parents, get the new one up and in and the old one down and out.  The husband, daughter, and I rushed over to Menards only to be met at the gate to the delivery yard by a really nice attendant who felt like chatting.  Almost in slow motion, he went back in to his little house to get candy for the daughter.  Then he checked in our receipt, insisted on making more small talk while we vibrated with nervous energy, and finally let us peel off to the pick up at Door #9.  Fortunately, I had called ahead and the refrigerator was brought out within minutes.  Leaving the yard, however, was excruciating.  The nice gate attendant now had two drivers before us to chat with and charm before opening up their trunks.  I was on the verge of telling the husband to just gun it and bust out through the in gate, when it was finally our turn.  I checked my watch, I called Sibling #4’s shoe phone, and finally we were on our way.  When we finally pulled up in front of the family homestead, we had exactly 28 minutes for the greatest fridge swap known to man. 

Sibling #4 was waiting out in front and we quickly got the new fridge out of the back of the van.  The Daughter, understanding the pressing nature of the situation, flew into action.  We got the fridge up the front porch steps and jammed it through the front door, slightly crushing the Husband’s hand in the process.  We tried to get it up the front hall stairs, but it was futile.  We quickly took it around back and had to bring it up the back stairs.  On the first landing, a cat cage, cat trap, and rolled up piece of carpet blocked our way.  In desperation, the husband tossed the things out of the way and the carpet went sailing over my head, raining down lung damaging debris.  I felt my lungs begin to close up.  Somehow, the husband finessed, angled, and just forced the fridge up the stairs while I did my best to push it up.  His other hand got crushed.  We had 13 minutes to unwrap the fridge, set it up, get the doors off the old fridge (the shelves were already gone), and get it down the back stairs.  “Go, go, go” could be heard as we flew about, the daughter gleefully shouting orders with the rest of us.  Naturally, there were five thousand pieces of tape holding the doors of the new fridge closed and holding the shelves in place.  These all had to be removed after the protective outer plastic sheeting that was stuck on like skin was finally taken off.  Then the bottom part of the crate had to be screwed off, one excruciating screw at a time.  5 minutes to go.  

In a frenzy, the daughter, Siblings #4 and #6 all gathered up the packaging and tossed it out in the garbage cans in the alley while the husband removed the old fridge doors.  The few contents of the old fridge were transferred to the new.    The hardware from the doors was thrown out separately, to ensure that the fridge wasn’t coming back up.  In a barely controlled panic, the husband dragged the old fridge down the stairs while I helped lean it and angle it.  In the process, the dust from the top of the fridge rained down on me, completely putting the kibosh on my asthmatic lungs. The fridge crashed down onto the second landing, then the first, and was rushed out into the yard.  The husband ran back up for the dolly and then it was wheeled to its final resting place in the alley.  1 minute to go.

We rushed back up the stairs, wild-eyed, feeling as if we had just climbed Mt. Everest.  The new fridge was humming almost silently in its corner.  “Maybe they won’t realize it’s new,” I say hopefully as we look at the clock and listen in fear for the sound of the front door closing.  Sibling #4 says, “Do you think they’ll figure out how to open it?”  It has notches in the doors, instead of handles.  I open one of the notches and look inside, just to be sure it is on and really is working.  I realize that the whole thing is wobbling.  “Fuck!  It’s not level!” I cry.  Yes, the daughter is in the room, but she has heard far worse and surely foul language is less damaging than never having been on a CTA bus.  The husband flies into action.  “Hurry,” we urge him, needlessly.  He tightens and twists and then hops up, gives the fridge a shake, and says, “Let’s get out of here.”  

En masse, we stampede down the front stairs, hysterically shouting out our rallying cry of “go, go, go!”  We burst out the front door and can see the parents tottering along, a half block down.  They haven’t seen us as it is now dark.  The husband throws the dolly into the back of the car, and we tear away from the curb and around the corner.  It is only then that we take a deep breath.  Only, I can’t breathe at this point so I take a puff of my inhaler.  It doesn’t work.  The lungs get worse as the night wears on and I consider going to the hospital.  Fortunately, steroids and the nebulizer do the trick over the next few days.  Sibling #4 points out that surely a few days of impaired lung function are well worth it?  As we drive home, we all feel high from the adrenaline rush, although in my case it might be from a lack of oxygen.  #4 texts that she now knows what it feels like to pull off a great bank heist.  She floats for hours after. “You’re going to get blamed for this,” I point out to her, as she had been there visiting prior to the arrival of the new fridge.  She is too pumped up by the whole operation to care much.  

We text periodically to see if anyone has heard anything from the homestead.  Not a word, and we are all afraid to call.    Finally, the next day, Sibling #6 calls and learns that the new fridge is actually liked!  We can’t believe it.  Then I realize that Sibling #4 will get all the credit for this, despite my lungs being totally fucked.  So I call to set the record straight.  “I just wanted to be sure you didn’t drag the old one back up,” I say.  Father responds, “I couldn’t if I wanted to.  The junkmen took it.”  He sounds slightly despondent, but says the fridge is "quiet, the motor barely runs."  That’s Father speak for he loves it.  

It took a good 4 days for my lungs to recover, but the guilt has been assuaged. I must confess I’m a little worried about Sibling #4.  She keeps talking about the adrenaline rush of it all.  As she is crazy like we all are, I can only hope she won’t take up a life of crime just for the kicks.  Should she end up on the run, who would serve as look out when the next major appliance breaks?