The Great Plains 40,692

The Great Plains

By: Michael Moran McKenna

ISBN: 9781365205828

Dedicated to the one I love, my Mom, Anne McKenna

The Miracle Worker

Lulu Press

Raleigh, North Carolina

The Great Plains in Three Parts

Written 100% completely AI free.

The above information forms this copyright notice (©) 2026

ISBN: 9781365205828

Printed in the United States of America

system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means (electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise)

without the prior written permission of the publisher or Michael McKenna, author or David C. Rogers, cover artist.

This book is subject to the condition that it shall not be resold, lent, hired out, or otherwise circulated without the

express prior consent of the publisher or Michael McKenna.

Part One

Chapter One

Pool Game

I happened to be walking up an alley behind Sawyer Avenue

near 103rd street. Halfway through, I noticed a single, lonely light

coming from the basement window of one of the many, nearly identical,

six room homes lined up to my right, across the alley from an

assembling factory. I knew the house with the light on because that’s

where I spent many an afternoon in the summers of my youth. “That’s

the O’Leary’s,” I muttered and continued on my way.

I thought of Horace, my childhood friend. I imagined Horace

was sitting near that window where the light was coming from, reading

or watching TV.

Horace O’Leary was a blood descendent of the very same Mrs.

O’Leary, whose cow started the Great Chicago Fire. A blaze that

destroyed a huge wooden city in the dry hot October of 1871, though

some see it as the conflagration that transformed Chicago into a sturdy

city of stone.

Horace was quite used to the label of a fool, because he was

subject to its terms and conditions for reasons only the Universe can

explain. Horace did not go around begging for spare change in a jester’s

hat. Horace was not a fool in the sense of the word you might think, for

example he knew enough to put gas in the car before a long trip, things

like that. He believed in God. He maintained steady, gainful

employment for years. He even went on to become a long-term

employee of one of two local PBS TV stations in Chicago.

Nothing about Horace looked like a fool. He just always

managed to annoy people. I assure the reader Horace never meant to

“put his foot in his mouth” as they say, to say something that causes

someone to be embarrassed, upset or hurt. He just always managed to do

it. Quite innocently, I should add, Horace never ever expected the

reaction he often got.

Horace learned over time to not get mad, because for one

thing, he was terrible at being mad. Also, he realized he annoyed people.

Most annoying people don’t know they are annoying.

Horace’s experiences in life definitely humbled him, which is

one character trait about him I liked. Horace had just enough boyish

mischievousness in him to get vilified when he deserved it.

The easiest thing for you and I, making small talk, for

example, was, for Horace O’Leary, the hardest. The hardest things for

you and I, finding a career in a tiny niche market, in a very small world

like show business, proved rather easy for Horace.

He probably could’ve polished his appearance up for two

days out of the week- enough to be snuck into sophisticated circles and

hang out within that group. A group who are deathly afraid of looking

foolish, who listened to the coolest jazz and read the hottest mysteries,

but hesitated to mention it for fear they should be reading the coolest

mysteries and listening to the hottest jazz.

Horace seldom relished any involvement with those

types…and then tolerated them only by chance.

…the “in crowd” were also, by the way, the most likely to be quickly,

swiftly fascinated by him and utterly reject him. They were the only

ones drawn to him and yet ultimately everybody, especially the hip

crowd, eventually spurned and avoided Horace.

If, by any remote chance, someone from the “in crowd”

were a portrait painter, they would ask Horace for a photo and “Could

they paint his portrait in oil on canvas?” They would require a fee up

front and proceed to hem and haw and prevaricate as they analyzed and

studied Horace’s face in the photo. Finally they would hand him back

the photo with a portrait of some scene behind him in the background

with no explanation.

It had been a long time since I’d seen him. With Horace I

was sure we were still on good terms because I never stopped

“protecting him” (from the world’s perception of him). This may sound

strange but that’s what Horace needed the most from a friend, and that I

always offered him. I imagined the O’Leary’s must have moved. “But

even if they do still live there, I could never just drop in on him. He’d be

way too embarrassed because it’d mean he was still living at home,

never spread his wings and left the nest.” Then I realized I was too

embarrassed to see him because I had nothing to do on a Saturday night.

Then I thought its senseless to be embarrassed, him or me. I

suddenly felt obliged to see Horace, see if he still lived there, and coax

him into joining me for some exercise.

Both Horace’s parents were born in America to parents who

emigrated from rural Ireland to help create Chicago’s urban quality.

They’d been retired for years and Horace had gotten quite used to their

habits and ways.

The idea did present itself to me that Mr. O’Leary had passed on

and the O’Leary’s had moved as I said, but even if he did pass, it would

be just like Horace to have nursed him to the grave and afterwards have

nothing planned, nothing to do. So, I found myself unlatching their back

gate and walking up to their backdoor. A door I’d last knocked on when

we were still in school.

In High School, in the very beginning of his freshman year,

Horace was still an unknown student, left alone, and able to lay low and

fit in. ALL the misfits tended to act like sheep in the same way. Keep

their head down, stay out of the way and go unnoticed as much as

possible.

Then a singular event that same year took place that I believe

shaped Horace’s fortunes for the rest of his life. The incident cannot be

overstated and yet it’s one Horace may have even forgot about on

purpose.

In the back of the Biology classroom, a 100 gallon aquarium held

a school of piranha. They fascinated Horace at once. Why did these

famously ravenous fish draw him? I doubt he compared these timid, yet

killer, fish to his fellow classmates at that time.

One October day, Horace brought in a single gold fish in a plastic bag of

tap water to feed it to the piranha before class. To 500 other first year

students with strong beliefs about what is right and wrong, Horace’s

action ran the spectrum from strange at the very least, to the greatest

sin.

Of course this demonstration drew everyone’s attention. If only

because it delayed the day’s lesson. All the students in class “oohed” as

Horace poured the water in his plastic bag into the piranha tank.

Eventually the goldfish dropped into the large tank full of ferocious

South American fish. The gold fish, curious about its new surroundings,

swam up to the nearest piranha and immediately darted back to a corner.

It struggled mightily to swim away further, to push beyond the glass

walls holding it prisoner. In seconds, a piranha swam to the goldfish.

The goldfish wiggled out of its corner and swam off. The piranha

seemed to lack self-confidence and allowed the gold fish to maneuver

away.

But the goldfish swam directly into the rest of the school of

piranha and got eaten alive. So savage was that first bite, only half of the

dead goldfish remained visible to us. The rest of the tail floated to the

top of the tank and got quickly get finished off.

The teacher ordered all the students to return to their seats.

The show was over. Class would begin, it was time to read about the life

span of drosophila, or fruit flies.

Now the students began grumbling about Horace. Who would go to the

trouble of brining in a goldfish? Was it Horace’s pet goldfish? The

spectacle turned to mumbling and quiet gossip aimed at Horace

O’Leary.

I was in class with Horace that day, and I heard all the

terrible rumors. Everything from how Horace tortured his pet cat at

home, to he pulled wings off flies caught in spider webs, to he set his

dog’s tail on fire. Horace’s name got no peace. Word spread and Horace

remained silent.

Students could just not leave Horace alone. As if they didn’t

want him to be one of them. From that moment on his freshman year

through his last year in High School, bullies appeared out of thin air to

tease him. While most young men are learning to rely on their

classmates, Horace became an outcast. Partly it was his own fault.

I knew Horace since kindergarten, been to his home daily for stretches, I

knew none of the gossip was true. He was a late bloomer in grammar

school and perhaps that’s something else they noticed about him in High

School. But that’s a charge against him?

Horace eventually got in a fight purely to defend himself, out of

instinct, but it was so long after they'd begun terrorizing him that it did

little to improve his image.

One good thing that came of it. Their taunts taught him and

instructed him to never bully another living creature on this earth. He

learned that lesson…profoundly.

Three and a half years of being the butt of jokes, skipping

basketball games and Friday night football games and prom does not just

wash off after graduation. There’s no telling where Horace’s head was at

after High School ended. The hit on self-esteem had to be

monumental. It was as if he brought a goldfish to school every day

looking to feed a Biology class piranha all over again.

III

The O’Leary basement door is a private entry at the bottom of

four concrete steps, the way all bungalows in that part of town are built,

a concrete pit and a basement door. I descended and was about to knock

when I overheard some voices.

I hesitated and listened, partly just to be sure the O’Leary’s still

lived there and not someone else. I heard through the door:

“We rejoice in our suffering because we know that suffering

produces endurance, endurance produces character, character produces

hope and hope does not disappoint us because God has poured out His

love into our hearts by the Holy Spirit whom He has given to us.”

It wasn’t Horace’s voice so I turned to leave. As I spun to move I

accidentally moved a clay pot off its perch on the step and it broke. A

few seconds later the door flung open and a man appeared watching me

picking up the pieces.

“Frank,” he said smiling.

“Hi Horace.”

“Frank McGovorov, how have you been? Come in.”

Horace had a memory like an elephant, it did not surprise me that

he remembered my name after all these years.

Horace could never hide anything, especially his pleasure at seeing

an old friend. In fact, it felt like he could read what I was thinking.

Horace would be the first to tell you I was never too inquisitive or just

snooping around for gossip. That is precisely because he KNEW I would

help him, not talk about him. In fact if I dropped by and he was painting

the walls for example, he knew I’d have jumped in and helped hm tape

and paint on the spot. Our conversations were always best described as

easy and detached, until that night.

Horace was my age, 27, but he looked older because he seemed

tired. He needed a shave and a haircut, though a shave much more than a

haircut. His hair was beginning to recede and thin on the top and surely

he’d be without any on top inside of a few years.

His appearance also gave me an impression of ennui or as if he’d

been awake for days. He seemed uptight but determined to appear

relaxed. I couldn’t help but notice Horace looked heavier than last time

I saw him. This new waistline of his was not vestiges of his former

drinking days but his new found appreciation for good food or, food that

produces serotonin in the brain and calms nerves at least for a little

while.

There was a certain luster back in his eyes, but you had to describe

the rest of his face as tired looking, baggy eyes and all.

Horace had a small nose. He had a broken teacup kind of smile.

When he smiled, it seemed forced, as if you were marveling at an

expensive teacup from China and then notice your favorite pattern had a

chip in it and could only be tossed on the scrap heap.

Horace dressed like thousands of clerks like him dress, in other

words, on credit, modestly, as if he had means but really hadn’t. He did

his own laundry and on laundry days he might wear something that

didn’t match, like a long sleeved shirt with horizontal stripes and

suspenders. By themselves they were harmless but together, kind of

funny looking. Horace did things, all things, his own way. From his job

to his personal life.

One thing about Horace, he knew well how to bear solitude. I was

actually shocked he had a guest over.

“Frank, I’d like you to meet a co-worker of mine, this is Tommy

Newmanskis.” Tommy was a giant of a man, easily 6 foot 6. He’d

completely fill a large doorway when he entered a room. Tiny me, I

entered the room and Tommy stood up to greet me. I couldn’t help but

marvel at his great height.

“Hello,” Tommy said. In his hand, I’ll never forget, he held a hand

copied Holy Bible. There was something ominous and innocent about

him. His hair was salt and pepper and utterly out of place. He wore thick

framed glasses that had been broken numerous times and crudely

refashioned together. He needed a shave.

His complexion wasn’t very good, the side effects of some

medicine he was taking.

Horace and Tommy met on a playground basketball court, one of

thousands in the neighborhoods of Chicago. Tommy was a “gym rat”

before his mental illness symptoms really kicked in in college.

Horace was a late bloomer on the court. His ability at basketball

didn’t surface in grammar school or he might have played for his High

School team. Pickup Basketball would prove to be the antidote that

counteracted 4 years of High School.

Street basketball in Chicago refines the whole state of (basketball

crazy) Indiana into a city. You can find a game 365 days a year in

Chicago if you just ask. It’s also a closed ‘society’. Unless you’re really

good at the sport, you won’t be invited back or truly feel a part of it,

though hustle makes up for a lot of inexperience and skill.

Horace practiced for hours, days, weeks and months making

layups and open shots before he played his first game. Horace’s energy

and desire made up for his jump shot’s form in the beginning. And it

was a crucial balance to his High School experience.

Hitting a softball or a jump shot allowed many a misfit to play

pickup games all over Chicago. (Incidentally the same thing applies at

jobs, especially office jobs, you had to be productive if you didn’t fit in.)

Tommy Newmanskis could talk about Jesus, if, he made one game

winning jump shot and got his deliveries made on time.

A great example of local “hoops” talent was Bobby Kniecke, who

went by the nickname “Special K”. K’s ability on the court really shined

at the local University, Division 3 St Xavier, as part of the National

Association of Intercollegiate Athletics competition. His jersey still

hangs at the gym there, and the ball used when he scored 60 points in a

single game. K was also “one of the guys” who was born between 1950

and 1985 who loved streetball and played whenever and wherever he

could in city parks all over the Southside.

The collective group of street ballplayers sensed what the High

School kids sensed about Horace, but they accepted Horace nonetheless

because he tried so hard, because of sheer hustle and effort and THAT

was life-saving.

Young meek student Horace transformed on the court. Only on the

court could he relish the difference between sterile classroom and blood

pumping in his veins. On the court was where movement and effort beat

quick witty replies to other mean students seated at their rigid desks all

day.

The outdoor basketball court, the game of Basketball inspired

Horace, motivated him and energized him.

One time Horace took out personal home life frustration on the

court and ordinarily that’s unforgivable, but by then Horace was one of

the “pack”. A pack of ball players not unlike wolves who rarely cast out

of their own. On the court Horace’s blood ran red. He was transformed

from the meek student

“This room hasn’t changed at all,” I said, “Except for that.”

I was looking at a great desk in the corner. It was the kind of model

first produced by the steel mills back in the 50’s if only to find more

uses for steel. I would have really liked one for myself. I looked at it

admiringly. Horace tried to anticipate my thoughts.

Horace grew animated and said, “You can find one in any flea

market, I’ll arrange to get one for you," making it seem like the desk was

a paperback novel by comparison. I laughed.

Hopefully Horace realized I was there to see him and not get a

desk out of the deal but he equated my interest by trying to really give

me the moon.

“No, actually," Horace said, taking my laughter for disbelief, "I

don’t think you could find one just like it even in shops, here you can

have this one. You won’t find a sturdier desk anywhere. It’s in perfect

condition.”

I wasn’t paying attention to Horace but admiring his desk. I admit

I’d imagined writing many a story on a desk like that. I sat down at it.

Only Horace could have produced a situation like this and made me feel

like I was obligated to take an item he really cherished.

There was a photo in a frame on the desk.

“Nice picture,” I commented jokingly. “Who is she?”

Horace paused and said “that’s Katie Schmidt. The photo is about

5 years old though.”

By this time Tommy was looking for his coat and trying to find a

way to excuse himself. He abruptly said, “I’ll tell you how Horace feels

about this girl, (he pointed at Katie’s photo) ‘when Jesus disembarked

from the boat, and saw the vast crowd, his heart was moved with pity for

them and he cured their sick.’ That’s how Horace feels about this girl,”

Tommy said looking at the photo of Katie. “The framed photo might as

well be a shrine,” Tommy added. “She cast a spell on Horace.”

There would never ever be a photo of Tommy on any girl’s desk.

Though Tommy and Katie would eventually meet before this story is

over and on that day he might even impress her as Quasimodo impressed

Esmerelda. Not by his physical appearance but by his wisdom.

Horace went on, “I think of her every night before I drop off to

sleep. It's like clockwork, at bedtime, I think of Katie and whisper her

name, Katie Schmidt.”

I felt uncomfortable and decided to insist it was I who should be

moving along. “I’m sorry,” I said, “I’ve obviously interrupted you here.

I only wanted to see if you were still in the neighborhood Horace. It’s

good to see you.”

“No Frank, stay,” Horace insisted.

In an awkward way, Tommy burst out of the basement into the

night and disappeared. I didn’t make any comments but I knew

something with him went beyond poor social skills.

Suddenly we heard a long low moan coming from upstairs. It was

a desperate sound, one you might expect to only hear in terminally ill

hospital wards or prisons. It agitated my nerves right away.

“That’s my father you hear,” Horace said. “He’s spitting on his

pointless suffering. He’s a real druid, honestly he can spot a mile away if

you’re good or not, it’s as if he can see right through you.”

“Has he seen through you?” I asked.

Horace looked down at his feet and grew quiet. I hated myself for

making that comment because of Horace’s reaction. “I love him, I’m

curious about him, I like spending time with him.

He’s 82. He wouldn’t moan if he wasn’t really in need of

something, but sometime we, my mom and sister and I, don’t know what

that is. We may never find out as he stopped talking much. But I tell

you, the life dawning on us now is a life very close to Jesus and it’s a

miracle I can take care of him.”

Everyone knew Horace’s mom to be saintly. We all wished ours

was even half as kind. His sister Loraine was a carbon copy of his mom.

Together his mom and sister had smoothed out things for Horace more

than anyone could imagine. Loraine loved Horace enough that he let his

guard down around her. That alone is so rare it’s worth mentioning.

Horace was a contradiction unto himself. The son of a

hardworking father and the most loving of mothers. He told me these

things about his father in complete innocence and yet I last saw him,

merrier than drunk in a bar, kicked out, sneaking back in over the beer

garden wall, and laughing at the bouncers who disgraced him.

Drink had nothing to do his meekness. For every minute Horace

spent in a bar, he spent: 30 seconds in church praying. He could be

described as a pendulum under a clock. If he was mild, it merely meant

he was getting ready to oscillate to wild, normally and without any

catalyst.

These two sides, this double version of Horace, were as far from

one another as east from west. Except both versions of Horace were self-

deprecating. Horace tended to undervalue himself. In his younger days,

through his 20s and 30’s, Horace believed both his biggest cheerleader

(his mom) and biggest critic (everyone else) alike. It’s just his critics

were only that way out of boredom and didn’t care. Yet, to Horace, his

critics were beyond dispute. Eventually everyone roots for the one who

steams ahead quietly toward their goal, awaiting confidence. Horace

didn’t consider doing that without making fun of himself first.

“Tell me more about Katie?” I asked to change the subject.

“That's an old picture of her, she’s since changed,” Horace

said. “It wasn’t her fault, her boyfriend changed her completely, She got

her chest “augmented”, started to wear a lot of makeup and got her teeth

capped and her nails done... Just for him.”

“Just because of you. Your gushing you mean! You tell a

plain girl they are beautiful like I’m sure you did and that’s what you

get. It goes to their head, they believe you and start getting all dolled

up.” I said.

The notion that Horace’s compliments and praise made

Katie vain dawned on him. It struck him that perhaps he, Horace,

inclined her to wearing cheap cosmetics and perfumes and ruining her

appearance.

Chicago is full of beauty parlors where women can go and

hide anything about them that's plain or cover their plain-ness up as well

as possible but rarely where they reveal their beauty.

Horace continued, “and remember the first time I told her she

looked beautiful. She pointed to her breast and said ‘who? me?’”

“That’s precisely when Cupid struck huh? Well,” I said,

“how do you tell a girl she looks kinda plain as a compliment.”

“I dunno, but I will never forget her ‘who me?’ response. A

lot of girls are born knowing they can attract a man with makeup and

perfume, and they succeed and that is that, it’s natural. They’re attractive

and that’s that. But there are a rare few like Katie. When I first met her,

she looked truly modest…it made me want to be holy,” Horace said and

smiled the first time that night.

“She looks sickly in this picture,” I said.

“Hmmm,” Horace said, “that exact impression elicits

empathy and that feeling always restores me. I wanted to be around her,

I wanted her to be my supervisor at the factory, and I wanted to be in her

company. It didn’t matter what she looked like. It wouldn’t ever matter.

The feeling I got from her goodness, that’s what mattered. That’s what

shook me,” Horace said.

If Katie and I hit it off, for sure I’d settle down. I’d slow

down, I’d pause. But life only gives you the railroad to live next to,

rarely the station.”

The notion of them hitting it off seemed unrealistic. I didn’t

need to tell Horace that. He knew that, and not because she met some

‘clever guy’ like she did.

VII

I remember Horace living very much in the moment last I saw of

him. To me he seemed to have settled down. Last I knew, you were

running the streets, sleeping on rooftops, drinking a quart of beer in the

alley for breakfast…after being out all night.”

“Yeah, I was in full blown pleasure seeking mode alright.

Saying things just to get a reaction, always trying to sound outrageous. I

never caught my breath in those days.

I’m older now, I don’t stay out all night half as much.

”

“Well,” I said, “your dad needs you.”

Horace turned crimson. He was still trying to do both, take care

of his parents and run the streets.

He changed the subject. “God bless my mom for the persistent

prayers she said to my guardian angel to protect me. They worked! I’m

still able to walk, not crippled form some car wreck. He paused and

studied the photo of Katie.

I used to think, even if I just was her co-worker and we could

share happenings in the factory, it’d be enough to fall asleep at night to.

But maybe it would only whet my appetite. All I know is, Katie’s of this

world bring drinking all night to a halt as well as keeping your mom up

all night worrying.

Katie is the type of girl who naturally helps her partner accept

the “rules of life”, sickness, old age, death. She makes her partner a

standup man. She would motivate you to forget instant pleasure seeking,

or switch gears more smoothly from it. If you have a girl like her, you’re

peaceful. You’re liked by society because Katie likes you. With Katie

I’d become that and stay that I believe. Right now I’m just the great

great grandson of Mrs. O’Leary whose cow started the fire,

” Horace

protested.

Still Horace always held out hope she could see something in him,

and Katie just felt nothing for him. To her, Horace was the great great

grandson of Mrs. O’Leary, and to Katie, he was not even her cow.

VIII

By the way, that photo on Horace’s desk was my first glimpse of

Katie. She was in no way ugly, just pale and downcast. She wore no

makeup at all in that photo he had on his desk and barely had her hair

combed properly for a photo.

Objectively speaking Katie is a 5’6”, slender, with shoulder length

straight blonde hair and 19 or 20 years old when she met Horace. Her

ravishing youth made up for a bulbous nose and overly large forehead. I

often wondered how she could have captured all of Horace’s senses,

utterly and completely, even for 5 seconds. But she did and that was

enough for a lifetime for Horace.

“This picture of her on my desk is a trade school graduation photo.

She is the most beautiful girl in the world in this photo. I’ve told her that

too often, but she is. They either stop believing you or the comment falls

into diminishing returns by nature.

If only she were born a week earlier. She’d be a Taurus, I’d be her

“type” completely. But she stayed in her mom’s womb that extra few

days and as a Gemini, she could never really love my type.”

Horace described that perfectly in one sense, he left out the part

that Katie Schmidt was not compatible with him, that she wore lipstick

instead of eye makeup, and that all he had to do was toss her back into

the sea and fish some more, so to speak. Ever stubborn Horace decided

to try and rearrange the stars.

"Katie is simple I guess,” Horace said without knowing (she

wasn’t simple) and she prefers simple things. Maybe to the point I

sympathize with her for the way she looked when I first met her. She

doesn’t get diarrhea of the mouth, where she can’t shut up like those

girls she worked with,”

“Hey,” I said. “No girls are simple things. And above all she

cannot pity you or it’s over.”

Ignoring me, Horace went on, “She’s Southside, blue collar,

working class, likes hard rockin’ music, no nonsense, belongs on the

Southside. She’s reachable for…”

"Reachable…for a working-class, blue-collar grease monkey,

which YOU ain’t, Horace,” I said being bluntly honest. “You think she

follows basketball? Nah, prolly not. And if you tense up around her, that

ain’t good, she’ll sense that.

“Hey, I’m an hourly wage earner like the next guy, I should reach

her,” Horace said unaware of the reality that poor Horace just didn’t

command respect from most people. “But you do have a point, her

boyfriend hustles suckers at the pool parlor on 111th street."

“Interesting way to pay the bills,” I said. “But that’s the kind of

guy she’s attracted to. As far from you as can be.”

“Yes, well he doesn’t pay for a thing. Katie’s paycheck at the

factory behind us on the other side of the alley pays all the bills. And

when I told her ‘I’d give anything to be your boyfriend.’ She knew I

meant because then she’d love me, not that she’d pay my bills.”

“Are you sure she understands you? Anyway, you really want to

get involved in that?”

“I have no choice.”

“How did you meet Katie?”

“Fell into my lap! She was on an employee break for the assembly

factory across the alley from this very house. I was just watering our

back lawn one day when I saw her.

There was something feminine about her, despite her factory-work

clothes.

She was taking a cigarette break with her coworkers at 6pm

between the factory and our back fence. She didn’t smoke but they did

and she was with them out of solidarity. I took the garbage out to the

alley as a pretext to overhear what they were talking about. I noticed at

once all the girls taking a break were just gossips and swore in every

other word but not Katie. She was quiet. * (see appendix)

I took the garbage out as an excuse to go out into the alley and

eventually I approached her and we started to talk.

Her pale, blue eyes on her soft pale face struck me. She is so shy that

just getting beyond a simple "hi" took a while, until her break was

almost over. But that “hi” was all it took.

Tongue tied I couldn't express a single observation to her for the

life of me.

She seemed so forlorn and hopeless. My heart jumped out of my

chest with compassion. For a moment I thought I just won the lottery,”

Horace said. I got her phone number. In the beginning I could even call

her and say “Katie?” and she would reply ‘yes’, and I’d say “I love you”

and she’d let out a mirthful little laugh.

But eventually she stopped me from saying that, she wouldn't let

me say ‘I love you’ anymore. She’d stop me and say ‘you don’t even

know me’.

“Anyway, one of the last times I talked to her, she got quiet and

said nothing, only silence, then I heard someone pick up the other line to

listen in…. Katie forced a little laugh and said something, ‘dear Horace’

or something.

I exclaimed, “that’s it! it’s your voice! Katie, you have the most

charming voice.” Then I just heard click.

Strangely I was just reading about this exact phenomenon in a

philosophy class I was taking at Daley College. Horace was

experiencing precisely what Schopenhauer described in his work On

Women in 1865. It’s a very natural thing in a scientific way. And nature

plays very much to a woman’s advantage in this department.

“Nature has had in view what is called in a dramatic sense a

woman’s “striking effect on men,” for she endows them for a few

seconds with a richness of beauty and a, fullness of charm at the expense

of the rest of their lives; so that they may ensnare the fantasy of a man to

such a degree as to make him rush into taking the honorable care of

them, in some kind of form, for a lifetime.” Schopenhauer wrote.

Horace went on as if he were experiencing some unique, novel,

purely outside nature event, “For a moment, imagine you met the girl

who makes you feel a blend of sorrow and joy, sorrow for whatever she

is dealing with and joy that you’re in her presence.” Horace offered.

Horace also felt a kinship with Katie because she could

theoretically act as a mask or cover for his foolishness. If Horace were

smart enough to get Katie to be his girl, people would guess he was

clever and assume he was no fool. If he kept his mouth shut, even better.

Women value cleverness far about service, but so do male coworkers

and colleagues.

Suddenly Horace’s eyes glossed over, his eyes became dull as if he

were deep in thought. As if he transplanted his body back to when he

first met Katie, in the same alley I’d just been walking up.

Horace began to speak in a trance like state, “I must have not been

able to take my eyes off her as we talked so finally she said to me, ‘you

really want to kiss me don’t you?’ (Yes, I really, really wanted to kiss

her.) She said again ‘don’t you?’” I paused unable to believe my ears.

She looked so plainly irresistible.”

She said, “There can only be one moment when I will let you kiss

me. If this moment passes, you won’t ever have another chance.”

Then Katie reached her long slender fingers around the back of

Horace’s neck and pulled him toward her gently. Their lips would touch

any second. At the last second, Horace turned and offered her his cheek.

That moment, 6:15pm on a weeknight in the summer of 1991, in

an alley behind his parent’s house, struck, it came and went.

“I had a terrible summer cold or I’d have kissed her…” Horace

said.

I sensed he needed reassurance. I shook him, I said “Horace, that

moment represents how much you cared for her, you didn’t want to

make her sick.

Horace’s eyes returned to normal.

He said, “I would still see her on her 6pm break from time to time and

exchange hellos…The way she said “Hi Horace” brought me to sheer

exhilaration. She said ‘hi Horace’, mirthfully, bursting the two words out

with a blast of air from her lungs, like a little elf.

Then one day she started to wear cosmetics and spend money on herself.

I knew something changed in her life.

That's when she met that new boyfriend of hers, Cam. “I’d been

sending her a letter or parcel a day for months. I addressed the last letter

to Mrs. Katie O’Leary.” Then she met Cam and she stopped all

communicating with me.

She stopped taking a 6pm break altogether. I think she got another

shift.

Things changed.

“Obviously you didn’t make her laugh the last time you got

through,” I thought all the while wondering why he was so ‘in love’ with

a plain Jane. “You’ve got to leave them laughing.”

“I made her laugh but only at me,” Horace said.

I got sick of this. I said, “Horace If only you studied a joke book as

much as you read classic Russian Literature Horace,” I said. “You’d be

fine meeting girls.”

(By the way, who knows if Horace ever read Schopenhauer? I,

for one, do NOT think he was subconsciously compensating for his lack

of cleverness by accepting a lack of stunning beauty. I really think

Horace fell hard for women with plain features.)

Horace did not pretend as to who or what he was.

He understood that he might have complete will power over his

passions one moment and not even make an attempt at controlling his

fears or desires the next.

He’d go to church the following Saturday at 3:00pm and sit in the

sacrament of confession with the priest. (The sacrament of Confession is

always what separates the miserable people living in disorder and

compassionate people striving to make something of their lives. No

matter how mundane Confession may sometimes seem, it always

separates the receiver from down and outer - outcasts, the dregs.)

Horace would tell of all his giving-in to temptation and even his

near victories over temptation and how he wanted to live a righteous life

again. Then, when the priest gave him absolution, he’d go and find a

pew and say the Rosary (even though the priest just asked for one

prayer) and tell himself that if he’d done nothing else in his life worth

note, at least he said the rosary in this church on that day.

Then he’d go off and sit in a bar and that same one glass of beer

would relax his wildly fantastic imagination. He'd forget he was this

kind of double personality. He did swing back and forth on a pendulum

like that, swaying from virtue to vice.

After the disaster of Horace’s High School days ended, he had his

pickup basketball games, but when the game ended, he fell in with a

Mexican girl who came from the wrong side of the tracks. She would

eventually become a Chicago Police Officer. But back then, “Rose”

offered Horace “acceptance” to his face, while behind his back she

laughed at the crazy gringo. She and Horace ran the streets all night,

running down drinks, but then driving, tempting fate on a supernatural

scale.

Horace’s mom, already dealing with the declining health of

Horace’s father, prayed, and prayed and prayed. What Horace didn’t

know then is his mom’s intercessory invocations for his safety moved

mountains on Horace’s behalf. Horace’s mother’s prayers had the power

of a St Columba.

** (See Appendix)

Like a false god, Rose redeemed Horace from his High School

days with a $2.50 purchase of a quart of beer. Horace’s mom saved him

with her prayers. The difference could not be more profound.

That’s when Horace was both stupid and a fool. Horace’s mother

never gave up though. Mrs. O’Leary’s intercessory pleas through

Horace’s own Guardian Angel, said late at night were truly the model of

persistence. Horace’s mom prayed every night the same prayer. That

Horace’s Guardian Angel protect him, and every night Horace somehow

came home safe.

She prayed especially at night all while dealing with her own

husband’s failing health.

“When my dad was 71, the left side of his brain hemorrhaged.

The blood seeping inside his skull had nowhere to go and just dried up

right there, like paint, blocking what were once free passageways and

leaving the right side of his body more or less paralyzed.

Now, as we’re just starting to cure him, old age is having its way

with him. He’s outlived all his arthritis, his wheelchair (he never needs it

anymore because he doesn’t get outside much), even one of his doctors!

It’s true, he’s become one of the 5% or so of stroke sufferers who outlive

the first bout of illness. Get a stroke, survive it and require long term

care.”

I said, “There is a very good nursing home just up the alley,

literally so close, you could visit him every day.”

“A good nursing home? Go up there right now, anyone who really

can't look after themselves is lying alone in pretty bad conditions.

My mom would never ever, ever hear of it. Anyway we refuse to

institutionalize him,” Horace said

That’s when we heard a knock at the back door, Tommy

Newmanskis returned. Tommy forgot his XXL Chicago Bears leather

coat. He kind of barged in and took it off the chair. Horace said nothing

at first.

Tommy asked me “Have you ever read the Bible?”

“From cover to cover?” I replied with a question. “No I never have.”

“Tommy here memorized it in a ‘hospital’,” Horace said smiling

good naturedly at Tommy acknowledging his achievement.

Tommy shot back. “What would it profit us to know the whole

Bible by heart and the principles of all the philosophers if we live

without grace and the love of God?”

Tommy couldn’t resist the idea his illness afforded him a closer

relationship with God than most men. That is what allowed him to see

his condition as a consolation.

Tommy spoke up, he couldn’t resist, “Well, you can’t always get

up at night in a mental hospital and read, so I liked to have the passages

memorized,” Tommy said.

“All of them?”

“Know your Bible I always say. For example, Jeremiah has Horace

here all figured out, Jeremiah would call Horace a man of strife and

contention to all the land, he neither borrows, nor lends, (just tries to

nurse his father). Yet all curse him.”

“Curse him? That’s a strong term. What were you in the hospital for?”

I asked.

“I’m a paranoid schizophrenic and a manic depressive,” Tommy

said.

That’s when I noticed his hands trembled from all the diet coke he drank

all day.

When we shook hands again, I couldn’t help but notice how

powerful his grip was. He was an intimidating force.

Tommy quickly added “I was rushing, I go to fix my roommates

problems then I remember I left something behind I need here at

Horace’s.”

“What does your roommate do that needs fixing?” I asked.

“Oh he tells me giants like me don’t need to read the Bible because

Goliath lost his battle in that Book and I’ll lose mine. He just tries to fill

my mind with doubts, but it’s a real blessing he even mentions the

Bible,” Tommy said. “Its huge progress…He’ll know real peace

someday if he reads the Bible.”

“Do you see someone, a psychiatrist?” I asked.

“I did until she found out I had a crush on her. One day I rattled off

her car’s license plate number and she couldn’t understand how I knew

it. It was all just a fluke that I knew it. I mean I happened to see her get

in her car.”

“Lots of people happen to see people they know get in their car,

but don’t memorize their license plates,” Horace said. “You gotta stop

doing that…”

“Yeah, yeah, never saw her again, well she was Jewish and she

was tired of me preaching the New Testament to her too. But man she

was pretty.”

“Hey look,” I said, “why don’t we all go out for a beer and talk?

Can you join me?”

“Let you know in a minute,” Horace said and excused himself and

a few minutes later came back downstairs.

“What do you say Tommy?” Horace asked.

“Sure…” Tommy said because an invitation meant I was buying.

“Roommate can wait.”

“First I have to say,” Horace said, “before a sip of beer will pass

my lips, if I have done anything in my life worth anything, and believe

me, that’s debatable, I can always say, on my deathbed, I drank a cold

beer tonight on your recommendation Frank.”

We left through the basement door. Horace never said goodnight to his

parents upstairs. That sort of stuff made his mom worry for him night

after night when he was out with whomever. Anyone who Horace

caroused around with, except me, were looking out for his best interests.

Chapter 2

“How do you keep it up?” I asked Horace at the bar we ended up

at.

“What do you mean?”

“That’s a lot of work you have on your hands on the home front

…”

“Home front and beyond, listen to this... I was driving down an

eight-lane highway when another car swerved into my lane, broad sided

me and left the scene. I hopped out of my car and tried to get the license

plate number but it was useless. I stood there shocked.

For some reason a surge of something like forgiveness

entered my heart. There it was, a superabundance of energy. I started

doing jumping jacks by the side of my car. (The car was wrecked but

there wasn’t a scratch on me.) Police told me it was a miracle I survived

judging by how my car looked.

I went home with the energy to carry out great plans.”

Just then he came in.

“That’s Cameron Vamella right there,” Horace said to me and sat

up straight. "Katie Schmidt's boyfriend."

"How do you know? Ever seen him before?" I asked.

"Never, but I just knew I'd run into him sooner or later and I'm sure

that's him."

"When was the last time you called Katie at his place?" I asked.

"Last night,” Horace said.

I admit I braced then and there for trouble. I knew Cams of the

world. They get by on a constant flow of artificial euphoria’s so that

their tolerance for these “highs” means they no longer work so good. In

Cam’s case it was not booze or drugs but having a homely girl like Katie

Schmidt wrapped around his finger, or suckering someone like Horace at

pool. If things didn’t go his way in these areas, coward that he was, he’d

automatically think to get ugly and get even. And he’d be very petty in

doing so.

“I had a dream last night. Katie and I met and fell in love. From the

dream I had a great inspiration that I would finally convince Katie once

and for all that she should realize I loved her enough for both of us. Now

she should and could love me back. Of course I woke up and phoned her

before I realized I'd forgotten the exact specifics of the dream, I'd woken

her up too. But I still remembered the essence of the dream clearly. In

reality though, all I did was wake her up from a sound sleep."

Just then the giant, Tommy Newmanskis, came back to our place

where we were sitting at the bar and announced for everyone within

earshot that he just played a song on the jukebox for the female

bartender who barely noticed.

All this time I kept my eye on this guy who Horace thought was

Katie's boyfriend, Cam.

Shark is a very accurate term to describe Cam’s movements in the

bar. He looked completely in control of his image. Not a hair on his head

was out of place. His shirt and jeans were pressed with an iron at home.

His boots were polished.

“Beck's,” Cam told the bartender who immediately pulled a long,

blue tap in the shape of a baseball bat with a Cubs logo on the top. She

pulled it before she had the empty glass under it and got her hand wet

with beer. In seconds the glass was full and overflowing with the head of

the beer.

The bartender knew who Cam was, she once spilled his drink and

tried to kill him with kindness as they say. If you were so inclined you

could not kill shady people like Cam with kindness. The bartender

learned that. As hard as she tried to please him after that spill, he didn’t

even leave her a tip.

The bartender also knew to get Cam a cup of ice water. It was his

baptism water, he drank before every game of pool.

From a distance, the blonde bartender overheard Tommy and

smiled. She knew something was wrong with him but wasn’t sure what.

Tommy could pass for normal at times such as in a dark, half empty bar

with two friends by his side.

She put the glass of beer in front of Cam and took the singles he’d

placed for her to grab. Cam took a short sip, he had no intention of

drinking much.

Cam had to approach Horace. Men like Horace are the sole source

of entertainment for the Cams of the world. In even the thickest of

crowds, Horace always stood the best chance of being discovered for

sport. People need to relax, and needling Horace was the delight of

many an acquaintance of his.

Cam smelled a sucker and he pounced, taking a seat right next to

Horace. Cam had no idea Horace was the pest calling up his girlfriend in

the middle of the night. The very guy who was making Cam testy with

Katie at home of late, Horace O’Leary was right there for the taking.

Then suddenly Horace did the unthinkable, he started talking about

Katie to thin air. The last thing he should have done. He started speaking

of the girl whose boyfriend (he strongly guessed) was sitting right next

to him.

I mean he wasn’t talking to me, he wasn’t even talking to Tommy,

and he was looking straight ahead.

He had to know his rival for Katie's affection (not to mention

Katie's live-in boyfriend) could not help but eavesdrop every word he

said.

“I miss Katie like you miss home when you’ve been away from it

for any length of time,” Horace said. Of course Cam's ears perked right

up.

“It’s strange, I promised myself I wouldn’t think of her again, yet

last night she visited me in my dreams.

Last night, the very first night of my vow to forget her forever and

she visits me,” Horace said out loud.

“Funny you mention the name Katie, pal” Cam said to Horace as if

they were old friends and Horace was actually addressing him though

they’d never set eyes on each other before this night.

“My girlfriend’s name is Katie. I have some nut calling my house

at all hours to talk to her too...”

Cam had black eyes and flawless skin. He smiled a smile that any

dentist would know was gift of good pedigree.

Cam made an attempt to appear like he came from some honest

trade when any fireman would instantly guess he labored over his looks

and had not worked a day in his life. Whether they could see his

manicured fingernails or not.

I guess I’d call him the ultimate busy body. He listened with

delight to the latest negative gossip because he didn’t have a hobby that

occupied his time.

When Cam gets old he will resort to spilling the beans on anyone

because people won’t tell him anything.

He didn’t go to church so his connection to God was only through

other people and unfortunately, he didn’t look for God in them.

His hobby was pool and Katie and both of those subjects were

completely and utterly at odds with each other and mutually exclusive.

Pool playing provided him with drinking money and Katie paid his rent.

Now the woman paying Cam’s rent, Katie, was taking Horace's

phone calls. Katie paying the rent had to be automatic, the norm, and the

rule. If he dumped her for making him jealous, he’d be on the street.

Of course making someone jealous was not putting Katie in her

best light either and she knew it. In any event, her plan worked and Cam

was plenty jealous.

This was just another night for Cam. He was out looking for

another fool to be suckered in pool, someone who could be tricked for

some drinking money. But Horace ignited Cam's jealousy and that

would throw him off his game.

Cam had been on a losing streak lately as well. That and feeling

jealous was a combination he didn't need. Now Katie was more than a

roommate to clean up after him and cook...now she was in his thoughts

outside of their apartment.

Horace seemed like a sucker who he could swindle at first, but

gradually Cam got bothered about who he was. Could this be the guy

who was calling and looking for Katie? Once he asked himself the

question he knew the answer but dared not believe it.

He thought to himself, “c'mon Cam, this is an easy mark, take his

money and be home by 9 getting your feet massaged by your silly

girlfriend.”

Horace remained calm and quiet. At that moment he seemed to

become "ordained" to speak of Katie around Cam of all people.

Horace obeyed some “rule” that those of his line were required to,

that is do something subtle and silly that invites anger and is dangerous

because it was so un-thought out.

Horace took on another role as well, a surprising one for him. The

role of champion who conquers by quiet submission. Horace's being

quiet then and there made him the esteem of myself at least.

“Ah but Katie, that’s a common enough name,” Cam said aloud.

It was so obvious, Horace did not belong in a sleazy pool hall bar

on 111th street.

Don't get me wrong, Horace loved bars, but he probably was

happiest in his life when he left them alone and pool halls?? This

feeling of being out of place in a pool hall reflected on his face like the

out of place flashy neon sign over the door. To this day I wonder about

fate and that on that specific evening I got Horace out and to a pool hall.

But we did not tempt fate.

Suddenly Horace reversed his tactic again and answered Cam’s

question. “I dreamt Katie and I were together and that we'd grown closer

since we'd last actually talked. I do know someone named Katie.”

“Oh really,” Cam said and sipped his Becks. No one in there drank

German beer brewed in St Louis by the way. Everyone in there was an

Old Style or Pabst drinker.

Cam was suddenly ears up, on the lookout for the guy who was

calling Katie. He knew it was annoying to him, so he predicted it

annoyed Katie but why was she allowing this guy to call in the first

place? He wondered.

Suddenly Cam's suspicions took hold of him.

This was the guy who was making him work for Katie’s affection

of late, the guy who was lurking in the shadows, waiting for him to

make a mistake, it was the guy sitting right next to him, Horace.

Cam’s heart began to race.

“It’s funny, my girl’s name is Katie and I have this troublemaker

calling every now and then asking for her. I think that when I’m not

around, they talk for hours, maybe even about of running off together.

My Katie,” Cam said, “she’s a soft little mouse and any cat could

put the wrong ideas in her head.

Then I’d come home and my Katie would be gone. And then I’d be

really mad.”

“You needn’t worry. Maybe if you didn’t ask her to change or

need her to change for example.”

“What do you know about that friend?”

“Common name, Katie. I’m sure we’re talking about different

people. I’m only offering you a for instance.”

“Yeah, right,” Cam said, for a second taking this advice and then

laughing at himself for it and getting really angry.

Katie never produced any real information on Horace to Cam in an

attempt to protect him.

Katie always hesitated to say anything, even when Cam pressed

her. She knew he’d love to take out his frustration on someone like

Horace.

Earlier that very evening, Cam and Katie did, in fact, have a knock

down dragged out argument. Katie knew how Cam earned his living.

Cam wanted to use her car to go out that night because someone he

hustled recently found Cam's car and took a baseball bat to it.

Hustling was how he chose to make his living. Now it dawned on

her that he was also hustling Katie no less than some stiff at billiards.

Cam lived with her but he rarely actually helped her pay bills and

long relied on the fact that she was smitten with his charming good

looks. That's why she got false fingernails at first, started wearing garish

red lipstick, had her breasts augmented, her nose fixed, wore extra large

wide hoop earrings. All these changes were strictly for Cam because she

thought he was clever and made her laugh. That and his rugged good

looks.

Cam would never admit he tried to change Katie from looking

plain.

“What do you like most about your Katie?” Cam asked.

“She’s plain looking, no one would ever steal her from me. What

do you like about your Katie?” Horace asked.

“Maybe she isn't so plain looking anymore,” Cam said fighting

back his fury. “Those women who men think are corrupted by their

boyfriend into looking like trash, they had that look in them from the

beginning and they have their boyfriend to thank for bringing it out in

them…” Cam said.

“No, only thing a boyfriend who needed her to look trashy brings

out in them is jealousy...” Horace replied.

Just as Cam was ready to reveal who he thought Horace's Katie

was...something changed. An unusual nemesis of Cam’s came in the bar

and immediately started asking questions.

Horace blocked this newcomer’s view enough to afford Cam this

chance to notice and slip away unseen. This new entry to the bar was

plenty angry.

Cam swindled him out of a lot of money a week earlier.

He didn’t know when to quit and gave his whole pay check to Cam

over. Now the hangover had worn off and he was looking for blood.

Cam knew immediately why he was there. The energy in Cam turned

180 degrees. Suddenly he sought to befriend Horace instead of smash

his head in!

Cam asked Horace to guard his drink as he ducked into the men's

room, to wait out the intruder. Suddenly Horace wasn’t so much his

enemy as his rival and Cam appreciated that. The guy asking questions

with the bouncer of the bar was someone who wanted to beat Cam

within an inch of his life and certainly could, not to mention, at the very

least, remove a little of Cam’s boyish good looks.

Before Cam left Horace's side, Cam said “Hey buddy, I tell you

what… “I think we may be talking about the same girl! I tell you

what…you want to play a game of pool for her? You win, I’ll pour out

my heart to her, tell her I tried to change her and I was a fool to do so.

I’ll pack my bags and leave. I win, and I’ll pour my heart out to her, tell

her I tried to change her and that it’s a foolish thing to ask. Then I’ll ask

her to marry me. What do you say?”

At that second, before Horace had a chance to reply, Cam had

disappeared into the men’s room. (Tommy and I had gotten into a

conversation nearby). Horace motioned me over and told me Cam's offer

to play pool for Katie's heart.

Just then, before Cam came out of the bathroom, a tall, wide and

bearded man came up to Horace,

Tommy and I and politely asked us if we knew anyone named

Cameron Vamella. We replied no because at the time we had no idea

who Cam was. Then this imposing man quietly and calmly said in a

deep voice, “The man I'm

looking for is clean shaven, about 6 foot tall, wears an earring in his

right ear, plays pool. Well, he’s a hustler. Listen, if you happen to see

him fellas, please tell him bluebeard is looking for him, will you? I

greatly appreciate your assistance gentlemen. Thank you.”

“Does he owe you money?” Horace asked.

“Oh I plan to murder him on sight,” bluebeard said calmly. His

long dark beard caught the neon and did pass for Navy blue.

“You are bluebeard I take it?” I asked.

“I am,” he replied. “Good night.” With that, he went directly to

the men’s room. We all expected a melee to break out.

Bluebeard must have looked around and in the stalls and walked

out and then out of the bar and back onto Western Avenue.

Just then Cam, who had been hiding in the stall with his feet

suspended off the floor, came out. If Cam was embarrassed, he didn’t

show a trace. He went for the front door to see Bluebeard milling about

and returned to us at the bar.

Cam’s fright, seemed to give Horace the “upper hand”. He suddenly

attained the higher ground on Cam morally and psychologically. Now

Cam appeared to us in a different light. He was more a fool than Horace.

With his perfect teeth and jeans, he became a clown to us.

“So, what do you say pal?” he asked Horace without skipping a

beat and almost drooling over the prospect of playing him a game of

pool.

Chapter 3

Horace chalked up his cue stick as we tried to cheer him on.

“Horace, if you win, the girl of your dreams is yours!” Tommy

said naively.

“And if I lose, my worries are gone…she’s gone, gone forever…”

“Horace,” I whispered, “he’s a born con-man. All he wants is to

lose to you, pretend to give you Katie. You’re not winning anyone in

this first game. He’s selling you the Brooklyn Bridge. The next five

games he will hustle you for all your worth. He’ll probably even tell you

the money he wins off you is to get out of town and leave you Katie.”

Horace may have not been fit for this rat race dog eat dog world,

but the one thing that conquered his unlikeable aura was that you could

pity him for suffering like he did in silence.

“Once you come over to see Katie, he’ll eat you alive. He’s just

being careful tonight because that fella Bluebeard is lurking around.”

“No,” Tommy said, “I know one thing, he looks like a man of his

word. Just look at him.”

At that moment we realized that Cam was doing his best to

eavesdrop on us. He assembled his pool cue from a flight case, not a hair

out of place, his part perfectly groomed at home. He pretended he did

not hear a word.

“Who do you know who comes in here with his own cue?” I asked

Horace.

“Say, couldn’t help but overhear ya there pal,” Cam said. “I got

this cue as a door prize at a church raffle. It’s the only thing I own that

they tell me is any good. And do you think I’d use any old cue off the

rack when it comes down to my girl’s heart?” (By this time, Cam

realized Horace was more gullible than he first thought.)

“What church? When was the raffle?” I shouted.

“Um, err, St. Linus, last month…” Cam said irritated.

They commenced their match.

Cam broke, his shot sank nothing. Horace’s first shot was a

‘gimme’. He was solids.

He missed his very next attempt as did Cam.

Horace was up. He sank a solid but then missed an easy shot. I

noticed Cam wince as he watched Horace miss, check his watch and

look at the front door.

Cam came up, missed a shot even Horace would have made.

Horace up, he made another solid.

After 25 minutes of this, Horace was shooting for the eight ball

and Cam hadn’t made a shot yet.

“You sink this pal and she is yours…”

Just then Katie Schmidt, of all people, entered the bar. She entered

right after Cam swung his gaze on the door like a searchlight does in a

prison yard looking for Bluebeard. She snuck past Cam’s vigilance, I

guess you could say, but she wasn’t trying to. Cam didn’t realize she

entered.

She looked just like she did in the photo on Horace’s basement

desk! No makeup, false nails cut off, hair in a bun, covered up in a coat

for the chilly night air. Tennis shoes on her feet.

She managed to make it directly Cam without him noticing.

The game was at the point where Horace’s match winning shot

was certain to fall. A real gimme.

Katie had been crying but long since dried her tears. She looked

like she’d been crying.

“Buddy, you make this shot and Katie is yours…” Cam said loudly

with a grin.

Katie heard this and her eyes became like Kennedy dollars. She

cleared her throat. It sent shivers down Cam's spine.

Cam had been being especially mirthful with us to offset his

nerves. And his nerves were so taught over bluebeard that anything just

then would have turned him from edgy to feeling slightly angry.

Hearing her directly behind him, Cam instantly knew it was Katie

and that she heard what he said.

“How ridiculous! You’re shooting pool for me??” Katie managed

to blurt out.

“Not some beer money for yourself and one of the ladies in here?”

Katie said.

Cam spun on his heels. “Baby…I was just…”

Katie froze up, she always thought Cam was so handsome and his

appearance always conquered her. He looked so much like the husband

she always dreamed of. She was about to burst into sobs.

Horace saw his beloved Katie well before anyone else did. He’d

last seen her at church, with a dazzling made up face and 4 inch high

heels. Now she again looked very much like the girl who initially stole

his heart a few years before. A “normal” girl. His heart rose and then he

realized the game was for real.

His hands started to tremble. There’s no way he was gonna sink

another billiard ball.

Katie spoke firmly with sobs nowhere to be found. "This is where

you come when you say you are going to work? A pool hall on 111th

street?”

“Yeah keep it down, if ya know what’s good for both of us, I don’t

need any attention brought my way just now baby, right, exactly. And

are you crazy? I just came down here to relax on my way to the office,"

Cam said with an affectation to his speech and tone. Trying to sound

carefree but worried Bluebeard would hear the commotion and return.

“Excuse me,” Horace said weakly. “Katie, it’s me Horace

O’Leary.”

Katie turned white. She did not notice who Cam was playing.

Suddenly she felt the horror overcome her that Cam was actually playing

a game of pool for her hand. Horace was crazy for her.

In the Vamella’s “household” where Katie paid the rent, it was

long since understood that the day Cam and Horace would meet was the

day Cam would kill Horace.

All the phone calls Horace placed, all the times Katie tried to talk

him out of his crush meant that Horace and Cam would never, could

never meet in person. And now here they were, playing pool together.

Katie was speechless.

“Knock off the dumb stuff dude,” Cam shouted at Horace. Not

sure what else to say, half in a world where he needed every “friend” he

could muster in case Bluebeard returned.

Horace inhaled and exhaled deeply. This is important, he didn’t

rush. An inner voice told him to take his time. He sensed his

opportunity. The eight ball hung on the lip of the pocket. All Horace

needed to do was brush it with the white cue ball and it would give way

and fall.

“That’s it!” Horace said aloud when he succeeded, “I win, I’ve

won your hand Katie. Now he’ll tell you the truth, that he tried to change

you and no one can or has the right to change another person. Then he

played a game of billiards for you as if you were a commodity.

Cam and Horace began left their positions at either side of the table

and began to wrestle.

Cam was surprised at Horace’s quickness and ability to defend

himself and remain calm in the heat of the moment.

Cam saw the fight was going nowhere and that Tommy or I were

poised to step in at any moment, and would only get them kicked out to

perhaps another, even nastier fight with Bluebeard.

Bolstered by his success, Horace demanded Cam keep his word.

“Tell her you renounce her, tell her the truth. Exactly what you told me

if I won.”

“Your nuts dude, Katie, this is not the place to talk. We’re going

home right now,” Cam said.

The giant Tommy got in his way. “I thought you were a man of

your word. Tell her what you told my friend,” Tommy said, sounding as

sane as a judge, standing even taller than Bluebeard.

“Look Katie, I’ll explain all this to you later, let’s go out the back

way.”

Tommy blocked him.

“He told us he’d play pool for your heart ma’am,” I said. “If he

lost, then Horace could have a chance to ask you out.”

“Cam, you’ve done a lot of hurtful things but this is the worst.”

“You know what, you can have her!” Cam said loudly and left out

the back door.

Katie began to cry and Horace approached her. All she could think

of was Cam and Horace reminded her of dreading another grueling shift

at the enormous hulking assembly factory by the O’Leary’s back fence.

They went to the bar and Horace ordered her a beer.

The hour grew late. Chicago’s street lamps bathed the city in

yellow light. Just a few blocks away, that alley I just walked down lay in

pitch black, inky blackness. Feeling like a fifth wheel, I wanted to return

to it.

Chapter 4

“You’re sorry!??” Katie sobbed to Horace. “The greatest man just

walked out on me. In public.”

She looked up at Horace. There was no trace of empathy for him.

He didn’t look so bad that night either. He wore a nice ADIDAS jacket

and matching trousers. He wore brand new, stainless gym shoes. His

hair was beginning to thin out but that was a long way off and it was

combed as well as Cam’s come to think of it.

His smile was warm and healthy, no missing teeth. Yes he might

have done with a few pounds off his mid-section but don’t we all?

“Are you really Horace O’Leary?” Katie asked. Then she grew

pensive. “Why did I barge in on him tonight like this? This place, it

really is where he works after all. I was wrong to come. He never

walked away from me before like he did tonight.” Then she shifted

completely. “This, oh this is…, hey, you’re not the guy who goes up

librarians and snap a picture with her and tell your parents in Florida that

you finally found her?”

Horace looked at his feet.

I am no apologist for Horace. I know what he went through in

High School and admired that he fought only when he was physically

touched, but this was becoming cruel. This was not looking good.

Katie switched back to Cam… “He’s kind, he’s generous, and he’s

sweet. He’d do anything for me. He had it rough. His father was an

alcoholic,” Katie was almost in tears.

Horace thought, “My dad is home, he is unable to move very

much on his own. I am sure with all the time he has to think, he is

praying for me at this very moment,” Horace mused silently.

“Well Cam told me really bad things about his dad. His father died

when cam was only 9. He said his mom and dad fought all the time. He

has vivid memories of their fights. And she’d go and spray on perfume

and his dad would go drink whisky. He remembered that vividly.

Cam would draw the comparison that she took a kind of alcohol to

feel better too, the perfume was alcohol based. Horrible smelling

stuff…” Katie didn’t realize Horace was consoling her. She really

needed to let it out at just that moment too.

She drained the glass of Old Style Horace ordered for her.

“Cam is kind, he takes me out when I’m really tired from working.

He knows my favorite place, Resi’s on Irving Park…Well, it’s his

favorite place too. In fact he took me there for my first time after a Cubs

game. That’s what he did, he took me to see my Cubbies…he is a huge

Cub fan too…He must have taken me there twice last year alone. He

knows my favorite songs.”

Horace didn’t know what to say. This was all a lot for him. He kept

thinking, “I’m seated next to the girl of my dreams and she is talking to

me, confiding in me. Sharing with me her troubles,” Horace thought.

What else would a man who loves her do?

“If we were a couple, we would be the envy of all the ladies who I

say the rosary with,” Horace thought.

Katie continued, “Cam lives quite a life. Is that any kind of stable

life? No. But look at him. He’s called to that life. Handsome Cam, that’s

what my girlfriends and I call him.

But we’re not together long enough where this argument will all

just pass…he might really be gone from my life…”

Just then poor Horace caught a glimpse of himself in the mirror

behind the bar. He saw his face between the bottles of whiskey. He

thought his drinking was getting the best of him. (It wasn’t true) But to

Horace, his jaw was no longer pronounced. There were bags under his

eyes. He took a deep breath and forced out the only question he could.

“How did you know Cam was here?”

“Pure chance,” Katie replied. This was the only time they actually

had a conversation, not just a monologue from Katie. “I had to get out of

our apartment. I went for a walk to get some fresh air. I saw my car

outside this bar. His Toyota is all smashed up.”

By that time Bluebeard had departed and Cam slipped around the

building and took off in Katie’s Chevy.

Then Horace looked at Katie. She looked like a used bar rag to me.

To Horace, she would never return to the beauty she was when she was

plain. She had to see her dignity.

“If you hurry, you might catch him,” Horace said.

“Thanks, oh thank you,” Katie said. For a moment they exchanged

that mutual feeling you get when you bump into someone in some

foreign airport who is from your hometown. You know they know

exactly where such and such street corner is and you instantly bond.

As she got up, Katie finished the beer and hugged Horace. “But

Cam’s a tiger, I’ll never change him.”

“Well, I know that you understand,” Horace said. I know you

know how it is. Guys like me….”

“Don’t get a second glance from a girl like me?” Katie finished his

sentence. I’m nothing special. (That line alone was proof she had

absolutely no interest in Horace.) At least no one ever thought I was.

Until I met Cam…”

“I knew who you were the day we met in the alley. You showed

me some poetry you wrote.”

Katie lit up. “That was the day I met Cam!”

“Yeah, the poetry was about him…but we met before you wrote

it.” Horace ordered her another beer. The first one did not make her feel

exactly exalted, but certainly she needed the tranquilization. She silently

accepted it.

“Are you serious?” Katie laughed. She took another sip of her

beer.

“I don’t get this much of a reaction from ole handsome. He thinks

it's enough of a privilege for me that he stays with me,” Katie said.

Secretly she loved the power he had over her.

“Oh you’re Horace…hey I forgot, you’re my stalker…ha ha ha,

sorry, that’s how I refer to you at work,” Katie said.

“You’re funny,” Katie said and took another sip of beer. She

hadn’t enjoyed herself this much in a while.

“Ahhh, so now I get it. This is fun. Resi’s Bierstube isn’t so darn

stuffy, Cam is! Cam made me work for even a glance. Now I get it,”

Katie said.

“This is how life works. It's always stressful living with someone

moody like my boyfriend. I make it work by not being demanding of

him, and not walking on eggshells around him.

Everyone wants to be around beautiful people, we just do…and

there are a handful of us who are just able enough to date them…to

marry them…”

Katie finally got a good look at Horace. He would be home for her

every night. He would wait on her hand-and-foot. He’d have to be

hospitalized for exhaustion before he’d stop feeding her chocolate and

rubbing her feet.

But she also sensed that same old thing the alpha males and the

clever jokesters at his High School saw and sensed about Horace. That

he was just unlikeable after all and that stood out. He had no common

sense, no way to solve life. But he didn’t give up or give in and kept

coming to class, kept checking on Katie. Horace needed to be

neutralized and sterilized and no longer able to threaten. This O’Leary

could not be allowed to burn the city of Chicago down like his great

great great great grandmother did.

Katie also thought, as Horace kind. “But that’s not how I want my

life to work. I need to have my heart race when I come home…"

“Are you mad at me?” She asked and as she sipped her beer.

“No, your heart's…not…racing. That’s the best sign of…” Horace

said.

“Sorry Horace,” Katie said. “You’re nice, just kind of……” She

paused for an eternity… “plain,” she said.

Part Two

Chapter One

Dawn’s Muse ~ Emmie’s Idiot

When Horace O'Leary turned 37, his father passed and was

interred nearby at Mount Olivet. The O’Leary’s were held together by

Mrs. O’Leary for the entire length of Mr. O’Leary’s battle with a stroke

brought on by the Doctors demand to inform him he had cancer. Back

then any form of Cancer was seen the exact same, a death sentence with

no hope. Mr. O’Leary, however, had slow moving prostate cancer which

was often successfully treated because it moved at a snail’s pace and

was never discovered too late. The family’s praiseworthy ten-year battle

with Mr. O’Leary’s rehabilitation could all be attributed to Horace’s

mom Anne (Mrs. O’Leary) and Horace’s sister Loraine.

Mr. O’Leary’s care was always thorough and careful. Horace

pitched in where he could too, taking Mr. O’Leary to the public pool or

for fun trips. (Horace attention might even be best described as careless

but he did give Mrs. O’Leary a much needed break from time to time.)

Because of his wife, Anne, Mr. O’Leary never spent a day in an all

too loud and bright, nursing home. Those intolerable places with zero

privacy, a TV constantly running to drown out the moaning, and a

forced sense confinement and detainment. Mr. O’Leary, thanks to

Horace’s mother, spent his last years in quiet and peace.

That’s when Horace got HIS break. He finally sought work only

where he really wanted to work.

After an airline he worked for went under due to President “Papa”

Bush’s Gulf War fiasco jacking up gas prices, Horace would still show

up at the airport and wander around. One day, going through his wallet

to see if he could come up with the price of a cup of coffee, a business

card fell out.

It said Cindy Ferenzak Noser Sophmorek, WICC PBS TV Daley

College, Channel 20. With a amateurishly executed logo “We’re

Chicago’s Education Station” etched into the card in blue.

This card just happened to land on the side with Cindy’s number

and extension facing up, not on the back side or Horace would have

probably ignored it and not even picked it up to throw it away. He called

the number right then and there at Midway airport.

Horace had called her before but the timing wasn’t right.

This time she took his call but instead of managing to shoo him away,

she said he could report for duty the following Tuesday.

Horace took a two-bedroom apartment over a Polish bar called

Maria’s on 111th Street and Sacramento Avenue, adjacent to the non-

commuter railroad tracks with an enormous Catholic Cemetery beyond

that. Over Maria’s door hung the ubiquitous “Old Style” lighted sign.

Many other taverns had the same sign, it’s a symbol of Chicago working

man’s taverns for many.

All across the length of the bar was an advertisement for a beauty

contest.

The first prize was 125.00 dollars or the equivalent in free drinks

or food at Maria’s.

The rules were simple.

The contest was open to all ages, 25 and over. Entry fee, $25.00 to

charity.

It started out that "Miss 111th Street" would be the ideal, simple,

plain, working class girl in Chicago who took the Orange Line to her job

downtown and didn’t have time to get noticed.

The thought did cross Horace’s mind that the winner would be

Katie Schmidt who dumped Cam (but not for good) in that very bar 10

years earlier.

I saw him at that bar on a Friday about 7pm and took a seat next to

him. It was a local place, owned by Maria. He was in a jovial mood no

doubt induced by the Old Styles he was drinking.

Drink made him feel “clever” or rather masked that he wasn’t. It

was more medicine for him than for a drinker who merely basks in the

tranquilization and exaltation of a drink, for Horace it really let him

forget he was a fool.

I hadn’t seen him in a while, years. Horace’s face filled out, his

hair receded a little more than it had, but overall he still had hair to cut

and part. He may have added a few pounds but he was by no means

overweight. I would describe him as slightly distinguished. Especially

compared to the Horace I knew in High School who had the deer in the

headlights look. Horace’s appearance balanced compared to his younger

days. Age hadn’t yet detracted from him in any way.

Horace was a late bloomer. But he was the didn’t take no for an

answer type in those days.

“Ah Franky,” he said to me. “How ya doin’?”

"Fine Horace, say that’s the oddest beauty contest I’ve ever

seen,” I said to Horace who was seated at the bar.

“It’s a Polish thing, Polish girls are naturally beautiful. Keeps

American girls out of the running,” Horace mused aloud. He was right.

There must be a million Poles in Chicago and many of them were born

in Poland. Our bartender was born in Zakopane and they’d all done their

pilgrimage to Czestochowa.

Horace decided to indulge me (and he) in a bit of his well-known

mimicry. He blurted out in an auctioneer style voice, ‘and the winner is

Joanna Georgski. Joanna also goes by Yoasha and is from Zakopane,

she’s been to Czestochowa several times on pilgrimage and like all

pretty girls, if you’re the guy for Joanna you better make her laugh.

Joanna only dates men who make her laugh! If you can’t make her

laugh, you’re wasting your time.”

I laughed out loud, “yep that’s right, the guy has to find her pretty

and the girl has to find him clever. She’ll date a drug addict but only if

he’s clever enough to own the country of Columbia. That’s

Schopenhauer!”

The bar we sat in looked totally different than it did 10 years

earlier. The pool table where Horace defeated mighty Cam was gone and

replaced by open space. Customers could sit on stools along the wall at a

counter and eat. The menu had not changed, fried chicken, Kielbasa and

ham sandwiches and on Sunday, a sideboard in the back would present

these delicacies for free as a buffet.

Cam’s ghostly memory always lurked around that bar somewhere,

(in Horace’s mind) though since Maria took out the pool table, Cam had

little reason to go in there. No one remembered him, except Katie, she

was the only one cared because she was still in love with him, where

ever they were they were still together after all these years. Cam fell out

of love with her though, just stayed with her out of convenience. She did

the worst thing you can do with a guy like Cam. She praised him once or

twice.

I can’t say one way or the other if Horace moved above the pub on

the second floor because he “won Katie” in a pool game there. I think he

just liked the free food there on Sundays and asked Maria about it at just

the right time. Timing is everything they say.

III

“Say I haven’t gotten a post card from you from the Bahamas

lately. What gives?” I asked. Horace had a job with the airlines and

could fly for free anywhere in North America.

“The airline went bankrupt in 1991. They told us while I was on

duty. No final check, nothing. Just goodbye, I traveled in and out of

Midway 50 times and felt I had a decent run.” he replied. “It all worked

out quite, well I got the perfect job.”

Maria the bartender liked her regular customers like Horace. She’d

find a seat for him if the bar were crowded. She’d say in Polish two guys

talking to each other, “proszę, Andy, przesuń się tutaj i pozwól

Horace'owi usiąść” knowing Horace wasn’t going to sit between two

guys talking Polish to each other. Maria was in her 50’s, she bought the

bar and made it a success through 16 hour days and her skill in the

kitchen. She was plump, blonde, needed to remind herself to smile.

I ordered a beer and asked her, “How is the beauty contest

coming?”

“Well, all the contestants are in, and one is gonna be picked by

November 11th. That’s Polish Independence day.

She’ll be a young girl, not a bored housewife screaming at her kids

because their socks don’t match,” Maria said as she poured my Old Style

from a miniature baseball bat tap handle.

"What does the winner of this pageant get anyway?" I asked.

"A date with a single guy who hit the most home runs in the

softball league at Mount Greenwood Park over the summer. Plus 100

bucks,” Maria said forcing a smile and placing a Zwiec beer front of me

spilling over slightly. “Also a plastic crown and she’ll be on our float in

the parade.”

Horace’s second drink arrived.

“How is this perfect job then?” I asked.

“Just started at WICC,” Horace said. “Chicago’s second Public

Television Station.”

“You finally broke into broadcasting?”

“I’m not exactly an overnight sensation at 37 years old,” Horace

said. “but I think I found my niche thanks to Dawn. I lucked out or I’m

blessed from all my mom’s intercessory prayers to my guardian angel.”

“What happened?”

“First day on the job I met the new coworkers. Mostly they were

pretending to be busy. That’s when I met Dawn,” Horace said. “Imagine

your first day in a new job that it took you 13 years after graduation

from college to get and you meet the perfect mentor.”

“Who’s Dawn?” Frank said.

“Dawn Browning, from Iowa, she was the only one there along

with Cindy who had some ambition and belonged there,” Horace said.

Dawn noticed Horace his first day the way an artist notices his or

her muse. Dawn was not artistically inclined, however if she were, she’d

have painted Horace or at very least written some bad poetry about him.

Still Dawn did create a Horace just as if she’d painted his portrait in oil

on canvas. She took a man barely suited to sell graves, and coached him

into a PBS executive. She was his unofficial advisor and he needed one.

On day one, Dawn and Horace hit it off. They had so much in

common, same age, same interests in music and, of course, PBSTV.

They’d have been friends even if their career arcs didn’t cross. Dawn

and Horace got about as close as could be at WICC without their desks

touching.

What also set Dawn apart was that she never gave up putting out a

first-class daily log, ignoring that several programs on it would be

repeats from last week because other co-workers in the chain just didn’t

care.

Dawn was in Continuity (creating station logs) and Horace was

thrust into Traffic (tape traffic). Horace’s job would be to fix missed

satellite feeds and there were plenty of those. Things in the Traffic

Department were in quite the state of flux on Horace’s first day.

Horace told me.

“I finally found a home (at the TV station).

Thanks to her! Things were hectic at the start but that’s why I got hired.

Dawn has helped me survive in of all places, at a TV station, and

she’ll make me succeed. I mean I studied broadcasting but mostly as it

applied to radio.”

The station, WICC channel 20, had fallen on hard times. Before

Horace arrived, more often than not, if you glanced at the TV guide and

tuned into WICC, you didn’t see the program listed in the paper. If the

paper said NOVA: searching for the elusive Great White shark, the

viewer saw was a repeat of last week’s program NOVA: Volcanos on

Mars. It seems Master Control (which recorded feeds from satellite)

were not happy with Cindy Ferecak Noser Sophomorak. They felt she

was a snob I guess. This resulted in several schedule changes per day.

Cindy’s instruction to Horace was rather abstract, she didn’t even say

“fix it,” she didn’t even introduce him to Dawn, she just let him figure

things out on his own. If Cindy did speak to Horace, she used jargon she

was sure he didn’t understand. Maybe she felt everything would be

automated soon? Maybe she felt the previous Traffic employee would

hear about it and quit outright? Dawn knew the previous Traffic

employee and said almost nothing about her.

Dawn gave Horace the lowdown on their very first lunch break.

She did not sugar coat things and she wasn’t afraid to give Horace the

honest truth as well as feedback. She told him the morale in Master

Control was terrible and with everyone in the union, Cindy, the Program

Director wouldn’t be reprimanding anyone. “Look,” Dawn told him,

“You’ve been hired by Cindy because she’s desperate. The girl who

used to do what you’ve been hired to do just stopped coming to work.

The gears have been stressed for a while but now things about to come

to a grinding halt.”

Horace frowned. Dawn smiled, “sorry to be negative, the state of

flux here got you hired and it could easily change.” Dawn always knew

better than to damper Horace’s enthusiasm.

The editor at Channel 20 didn’t do anything a viewer would notice.

There were few promos for shows airing and they were all very old.

They didn’t even edit together the Saturday night movie and sometimes

a hour into a Horror Movie the old analog tape would just rattle to black

screen. The station would appear to go off the air, who cared before

Horace? It was Saturday night at 11:45pm and no one was watching.

Horace changed all that. He got the shows that Cindy programmed

on air by any means necessary. This meant calling all the 358 other PBS

TV stations in the country and ordering video tapes from them if

necessary. Sometimes even hours before air, Horace placed the correct

tape in Master Control for air, transferred it to a blank tape the next

morning and archived it. No one else wanted to do it, especially not for

the pauper's salary Horace got by on. He did the work there no one else

wanted, or could do as it was embarrassing how many feeds the WICC

studio missed.

The operators on duty in Master Control literally had a videotape for

a show that they missed, ordered from another PBS station and placed in

their hands, they couldn’t fail at their job with Horace around.

The WICC schedule went from 7 schedule changes a week to zero.

With the WICC editor Pauly J asleep at his desk, Horace, no editor

himself, single handedly crash edited those Saturday night movie from 2

analog tapes to one digital tape. It meant the selection of movies from

the Golden Age of Hollywood went from a handful of airable titles to

159 titles. Viewership snowballed when someone told the WICC editor

at a tavern one afternoon, how much they loved WICC movies on

Saturday nights. Pauly J. (the editor), was more or less guilted into

making a promo of the movies!

:30 second spots to promote the station started airing all day

between programs and individual programs like BBC news weeknights

at 6:00am (The Chancellor of the City Colleges became so fond of BBC

news, he would watch it every morning at 6am and demanded his staff

watch as well. Heaven help the Operator on duty if he missed that 5am

BBC feed.)

Of course generic promos of prime time programs also started to

air all afternoon. The difference was, now those prime time programs

actually aired thanks to Horace located them from Maine to Hawaii and

ordering them in.

All of Chicago caught on and began to turn to WICC on Saturday

nights. Ballykissangel (set in rural Ireland) came on at 7pm and was so

popular that even Mayor Daly’s wife Maggie ordered the entire set.

Horace made a gift basket of DVDs for her. Monarch of the Glen (a

drama set in modern Scotland) aired right after. Cindy, for all her

manipulating and influencing people in a sneaky way, was quite good at

Programming.

Morale finally creeped back up. Slowly everything at the station

started trending in a positive direction. Master Control operators who all

belonged to the Electrical Union and could not be fired, began to do

their jobs. WICC finally was starting to air the right shows, week in and

week out.

This all caught the eye of Cindy Ferencak Noser Sophomorak, the

Program Director. It all lead to Horace O’Leary. He somehow found his

niche as a brilliant archivist, a seasoned expert (with no seasoning). All

Horace may have actually done was pick up the phone and call another

station and request a missed feed, that and go to lunch with Dawn and

pick her brain. But that simple act, repeated over and over, fixed Horace

as a Guru and a savant in PBS Operations.

Dawn had a plain face and normally this seemed, as we have

illustrated with Katie, to draw Horace’s attention. Her face did not,

however Dawn’s easy manner, her interest in Horace, and her expertise

in the office, did. Dawn was not unattractive but her face was kind of

puffy. And she absolutely unembellished her face. She wore no makeup.

With one exception. She had a kind of fixation most Scandinavians in

winter must share, the excessive, perhaps, with the use of lip balm and

lip gloss. Dawn wore her thick blonde hair shoulder length.

In Copenhagen she’d have been taken as a native daughter. She was

Scandinavian through and through.

Horace picked up on her rather serious nature and made her laugh

by calling her D girl and himself Scandi-Boy. Silly as it was, for the first

time since his father got sick, Horace made someone laugh, and she was

a girl. That moment was not lost on Horace. Not to mention, Horace

may actually have stumbled into a career in show business (or in this

case, a good office job in a PBS-TV station).

Standing a petite 5’5” with shorter extremely thin blonde hair,

Dawn never allowed anyone to see anything else than precision and

dedication, except where Horace was concerned.

It’s true, serious Dawn the Dane berated herself and reprimanded

herself for she instantly, at first sight, fell in love with Horace O’Leary.

VII

Dawn Browning was all Horace could ever have hoped for

professionally. She knew her job inside and out. She was there since the

station went on the air, from day one. Her supervisor, as well as the guys

operating the switches in Master Control, expected and received pristine

broadcast logs daily and always three days in advance. They trusted her

and she always delivered pristine logs every day.

Was Dawn too plain? All her life, the boys ignored Dawn

Browning. Dawn didn’t get asked to the prom in school, or out on dates

for that matter. She and her sisters just laughed it off but it had to hurt.

Professionally, when she got her first entry level job in public

TV, Master Control boys counted on her. The Master Control guys never

had to guess what to do with instructions in Dawn’s logs.

Another wonderful girl in the office side of Operations,

Christy B., did a broadcast log per day, allowing Horace and Dawn to

“flirt”.

Dawn had a lot to offer Horace and Horace noticed her. I’ve

wondered and wondered why he couldn’t see her the way he saw Katie.

In my opinion, Dawn possessed the same sort of face as Katie. It may all

come down to one attribute that stands out when couples first meet.

Katie was slender and Dawn was not.

Dawn always looked and acted strictly professional. The guys

saw her as “one of them” because she fit in and was deemed essential to

operations at the TV station where Horace worked. Fitting in was not

Horace’s specialty though he certainly fit in where Dawn was

concerned.

Dawn definitely and precisely covered up ALL of Horace’s

flaws, foolishness etc. Horace smelled like a daisy with Dawn the Dane

as his co-worker. Horace never knew the praise he received.

Dawn laughed at his jokes, she thought he was perceptive and

friendly. But above all she instantly had a crush on him that went

beyond the office walls.

What set Horace apart was, he didn’t treat her like the guys in

master Control did. He joked with her and made her laugh. He came up

with nick names for her like DERBY as a play on her three initials,

Dawn Rachel Browning. Or he’s call her “D Girl” as in THE girl. That

allusion to Dawn as THE girl was not lost on her. To Horace it was just

the first initial to her first name. To Dawn she thought he was Mr.

Right.

Dawn liked two things, Ford Mustangs and Horace O’Leary, even

though with both you noticed every single pot-hole.

Dawn and Horace talked about everything she always wanted to

talk to an otherwise eligible bachelor about. He treated her differently

than all the guys she knew before him. He wasn’t discouraged by her

looks. Dawn was not blessed with stunning feminine good looks but

could not be described as totally unappealing either. Great and plain

would suffice to describe her.

At this stage in his life, the ex-clerk at an airline making 6 dollars

an hour, found a place he really wanted to be.

Dawn excelled at her job at WICC, but working in continuity and

reconciled logs didn’t have the impact Horace had in his role.

“If you could only have one food item for the rest of your

life…what would it be?” Horace asked Dawn one day.

“Pizza,” shot back Dawn’s answer.

The serious “Dane” Dawn and the silly Irish Horace.

“Did you know?” Horace would say out of the blue over his cubicle wall

to Dawn, “every morning in your bedroom is a Browning Dawn.

”

That is precisely the day, the afternoon, the moment, Dawn

Browning knew something about her feeling for Horace O’Leary.

It was the meeting of two long lost friends.

Dawn started to allow herself to fall for Horace romantically.

VIII

“She from around here?” I asked.

“No, she’d from Des Moines. Anything I need I can ask Dawn and

it gets done. She’ll not only solve some issue, she’ll make me a plate of

chocolate chip cookies and they’ll be waiting on my desk the next

morning.”

“Sounds like she’s got a thing for ya. Office romance, it can

backfire though,” I said.

“Dawn is as hard working as they come… and smart. They’re not

dumb enough to give her a hard time in the office like they would me if I

didn’t have her as a shield,” Horace said.

“No pun intended but it all dawned on me…I never loved Katie. I

loved the pleasure of feeling sorry for her. Yes I had it right to be a giver

with Katie, obviously unreciprocated. Dawn truly sees something in me

that maybe I don’t.

"Yeah," I said laughing at his pun. “Do you feel sorry for Dawn?

“That’s the problem,” Horace said, “she’s kinda like a sister.

That’s the problem.”

“You only go for the Katie’s of the world to see their reaction

when you tell them they are beautiful,” I said.

Horace laughed.

“In Dawn’s case, that would backfire.” Horace replied a little

angry with my supposition. “From Iowa but family before that from

Denmark…” Horace paused trying to explain why Dawn’s looks didn’t

make him nervous around her. “She’s certainly nice looking.”

Horace was trying to see Dawn in a romantic way, he just

couldn’t.

“Oops, be careful I said! You might not drool over her…those are

the ones you fall madly, truly, deeply in love with.”

Horace sensed I was trying to read him. He begged my pardon and

left. As I watched him head out, I sensed he was the happiest life would

ever make him. His little job did not pay that much but he could move

out on his own. As I discovered, Horace never forgot his mother whom

he loved more than anyone and visited her daily in the old house he

grew up in. This new job paid enough for them to go on several

pilgrimages. Their favorites were Holy Hill in Eubertus, WI and

Champion, WI the only site in North America where the Blessed Mother

appeared.

Several nights later I stopped in at the same bar on 111th street. A

young girl was present, sitting by herself at the bar. She was very young,

perhaps 23 at the most.

She wore her blonde hair short and dressed in the latest fashion, no

tattoos. She did not try either way, but could not hide her Parisian model

beauty. It was all in her strikingly blue eyes and high cheekbones.

You might guess she followed the latest trends with her hair, every

other lock highlighted blonde. But her hair was a full blonde naturally.

She wore it short to impress, not for practicality at her job. She didn’t

have a job. She had other things to worry about than caring for her hair

or keeping a job.

Even at first glance, one knew there was much to admire and

attract and that a man would never tire of gazing upon her.

So of course it was odd she was alone. Somehow it seemed she

was just recently the center of a group's attention, maybe that same very

afternoon, and she’d likely even had a few drinks herself. I say that

because if you looked closely, at roughly the same time you recognized

her glamourous essence, and you could see her dress was a little tugged

at, her hair slightly out of place, that she’d been feverishly biting her

nails. She looked 'round nervously.

I would later find out she was also trying desperately to ignore a

level 8 pain emanating from her stomach due to an illness called

endometriosis. Women who experience it say it’s like a migraine in your

stomach or like being wrapped in barbed wire for a day.

It only took a second glance to make her look at me and smile. She

was out of money for a next drink and, as it turned out, out of money

altogether. It upset me a little and my nurturing instincts kicked in.

As I would discover, this was Emily, a runaway from Northern

Michigan. My first impression was to back away, mostly because of her

age.

I was sure she was waiting for someone she knew. I decided to just

concentrate on my drink when the next thing I knew she was sitting next

to me.

"What's your name?" I asked.

"Emily."

"Do you go to St. Xavier's?" I asked. (A local college for women

who are interested in becoming nurses.) “You like a nurse.”

“Nope, school is not for me,” giving off a vibe that screamed, I’m-

either-a-bum or-absolutely-adorable to you, and I need to know what

you think right away.

Emily was just too young for her own good to be interested in

“older guys” like me. She was a high school dropout. Physically able to

attract any man instantly but unable to put a magical touch on a

workplace like Dawn Browning or on a man like Katie Schmidt.

“I am a pharmacist,” I said. “I know quite a few of their

graduates."

This information instantly piqued her interest. She sensed I must

be solvent financially. Young 23 year old Emily was actually very

attractive and would be even moreso when she grew older. She had high

cheekbones and a classic kind of beauty. She didn’t overdo it at the

mirror but must have spent a long time curling her long brown hair that

went down to her hips, with a curling iron. She was slender and would

look attractively curved well-proportioned body in any dress.

I didn’t fall for the charm of this penniless pauper-in-pain. Dating

Emily struck me very much like adopting a runaway daughter. At very

first glance, she looked mature for her age, just be all the makeup she

wore. But there was no hiding she was 23 when she spoke. Her voice

mimicked a 12 year old. I think she thought that was charming. It was

scratchy and fried. That alone would annoy anyone. If I were her father,

I’d have sensed she was unprepared for the rigors of life.

"Did you go to Community College?" I asked.

"What kind of question is that? Are you hitting on me without

buying me a drink?"

I nodded to Maria who knew what she was drinking and brought

her a long island iced tea. I could see all the while Maria made the drink,

she was shaking her head from side to side.

Emily’s excessive use of makeup (while well done) completely

transformed her. In her adolescence, just a few years earlier, Emily was

an ugly duckling with a bad case of adolescent acne. Emily was in High

School in northern Michigan. The oldest of five sisters, she bummed her

way down to Chicago with what she could beg from her dad. The

ultimate goal should have been the West Coast. She could have made it

in LA as a model I thought. Because now a swan emerged.

What I did not know was she had terrible endometriosis, a brutal

pain that originated in her stomach. The kind of pain that drives people

mad and to suicide if not treated.

Emily was like a dancer who came to town with enough money to

last even if she didn’t get a man out of the exposure. She drew attention

from men easily. Demand for Emily at places like Maria’s grew more

and more but Emily wanted more than stares which she got less and less

satisfaction from. Construction workers, even when they wear designer

jeans at night and make 100 bucks an hour, just aren’t much for

interesting conversation.

"What do you do?" I asked as her drink arrived.

"Tell ya right after I smoke this outside, you wanna join me?"

I laughed, "that's alright, enjoy."

A few moments later she returned to the bar. She had her cigarette

with a couple of those very workers still in their bright orange and

yellow vests.

Suddenly their jokes weren’t funny.

“Those idiots,” she said referencing the guys she just had a smoke

with. They talk so loud. It’s like, puhlease, I’m not a block away from

you…”

"The meek shall inherit the earth," I muttered as I sipped my drink,

utterly amazed Emily returned to the stool next to mine.

"What did you say?" Emily asked.

“Oh just thinking aloud,” I said.

“To answer your question, I uh, don’t do anythin’. I am thinking of

studying massage therapy though.” I know this is your deltoid muscle

though,” and she began to massage my shoulder. Her pain suddenly

surged in her stomach and she instantly had to stop. She paused. "This

guy I met in here, he told me he is gonna give me the life I deserve! My

own boudoir! He told me that I never have to work again! After four

weeks he changed his tune. Four weeks!” Emily said. What a laugh.

I meet guys in here all the time, so I know alot of people. But they

aren’t, what did you say you were? A Pharmacist? Did I tell you I prefer

older men?” She looked at me intently. An angel with a dirty face.

It struck me she might be angling for something. That she told

anyone who would listen, all her life story, that everyone knew her,

when her life story was without achievement and no one really knew

her.

"Where are you from originally?"

"What is this? 20 questions?"

“She’s right,” I thought. I shouldn’t be talking to a child. By then

her attempt at a childlike voice to charm me was by now annoying. It

was getting late in the afternoon.

"Well, it was nice meeting you," Emily said thinking how could I

resist her and not ask her up the street to another place that was open

later. "Mind if I tag along with you? ...What about it? Pharmacist...I bet

you got all the fun pills."

"Good night," I said and left.

Emily followed me out onto the street and asked me to forgive

what she said. "To tell you the truth, I bet you’d make a great father.” I

wondered how much she’d had to drink.

I heard her sobbing under the florist shop sign. She sensed that her

tears might not work on me, like they did on many no doubt. I continued

my way and never looked back.

Chapter 2

I swung round not much later that week to Maria’s to see Horace.

For some reason, I was relieved he was alone at the bar. "How is

Dawn?" I asked.

“She’s helpful as ever. I tell you, I swear this, she has literally

made my job a success. I make phone calls all day asking for a

videotape. I start the day in Boston and end it in Hawaii or even Guam

but by the end of the day, I march right into Master Control and hand

them the right program for 7pm or 8pm. I’m making a difference for

millions of people in Chicago who are getting the episode they see

listed. Doing Broadcasting!”

“Sounds like you lucked out,” I said. “What does Dawn do?” “She

makes the log they use in Master Control, so she is very aware of how

big my contribution is.

“If I have to do a log,” Horace replied, “it’s rare, and I run into a

problem, I call Dawn on the phone and she either shows me how… or

suddenly I refresh my screen and it’s all fixed! I tell you McGovorov,

she is the best. With Dawn, I’ve got someone who is ten steps ahead of

me and two ahead of everyone else AND she likes me!”

"Horace, I think I'd give her some serious thought, I mean if she is

single?"

“Yes, she is single,” Horace said to answer my question. Then he

slipped back into a kind of reverie. “Just her voice alone, full of

compassion for anyone she talks to. She just wants to help,” he said.

“Just a helpful soul,” I said. “So why isn’t she here right now at

Maria’s? Are you in the friendzone with her?” I asked.

Horace grew quiet.

The carefree feeling she instilled in Horace didn’t also equate to

him wanting to kiss her. The dumbest and most ruthless rule in the

universe, Horace had to be physically attracted to Dawn but wasn’t. This

girl was, would be, is absolutely PERFECT for Horace. She was his age,

had the same love for Public Television etc etc.

Dawn obviously had an attraction to him. She obviously laughed at

his dumb jokes. And yet some Shakespearean rule was at play keeping

Horace from reciprocating that emotion. Ironically their lack of Eros

cultivated long happy conversations and allow them to really get to

know one another. But that lack of a spark kept anything between them

from igniting.

Suddenly Emily walked in, turned to Maria and ordered, "I'll have

whatever they're having." She meant Horace and me.

Then she took out her purse and tossed 2 twenty-dollar bills on the

bar especially carelessly.

Emily said to Maria, "I need a pack of Benson and Hedges too

while you're at it." I looked at Horace who was beginning to drool at

Emily (she was suddenly all dolled up) and thought, “Oh dear God in

heaven no. He’s gonna fall for her like a ton of bricks.”

Suddenly Emily was 'rolling in dough'. I was surprised she ordered

both Horace and I “a round”. She turned to me and seeing my

incredulous stare, she laughed and said, "Yes, it's my money, no one

gave me a cent of it."

I laughed to myself.

"Where is the beauty contest sign?" I asked.

"You're looking at the winner," Emily chimed in with a beaming

smile.

"And you got first prize..." I asked.

“Yes Mr. Busybody, if you MUST know the gossip, I won 125

dollars and free makeup for life...” She laughed. “Knowin’ how to wear

it, works every time,” she said and smiled at me. She was wearing that

makeup too all of a sudden…and expertly. It truly enhanced her face.

If Emily somehow let Horace know she was in (stomach) pain, he

would naturally sympathize with her at once. Unlike with Katie, but like

with Dawn, Emily didn’t make Horace nervous in the least bit. Only

Katie ever made Horace edgy, when she looked the most plain in the

alley that day. We pause to draw any conclusions here, perhaps it’s as

simple as Dawn and Emily wanted a relationship with Horace and Katie

simply did not, making Horace bear down.

"Frank, not for the first time a pageant is won by just a smile and a

pretty face..." Horace said.

“Thank you,” Emily said. It was important to Emily that her

features made an impression, though the pageant was over, the stage

disassembled, Emmie still looked like she was upon that stage. Emily

looked to Horace and asked “What’s your name?”

“Horace O’Leary,” he said.

Emily made no attempt at dressing modestly, her silky top

emphasized one thing.

"Thanks for the beer," I said to Emily.

"Frank," Horace whispered to me, “beat it will ya? She’s

absolutely adorable.”

Emily hadn’t read even the first page of any of the novels Horace

liked, much less the whole book. But this time Horace wasn’t relying on

that out dated, totally ineffective form of courtship, finding some

common ground that ends up in a man adoring her for it. I don’t know if

it was the beer he had or what, but this time Horace would not rely on

worship at all.

Emily quickly interrupted us. "You were hoping my father sold

part of a forest in Northern Michigan and texted me I could look for a

few new debit cards in the mail," Emily said to me beaming, her smile

transforming her face.

"Seems like you spent that money pretty good,” I said. Emily was

wearing alligator skin pointy toed high heels, a silky pantsuit and shiny

earrings, not to mention carrying a Gucci purse.

Emily was almost 20 years younger than us. Horace or I looked

more like her father than two buddies at the bar.

Horace said, “Congratulations on winning.”

Emily batted her eyelashes at Horace. Ten years ago, those false

eyelashes would have drawn Horace to chuckle, even call her a circus

clown. Now, however, maybe Horace’s duty to father children kicked in.

Cupid had drawn his bow and Horace had a chest full of those arrows.

I took a long sip of the beer Emily bought us. Horace’s remained

untouched in front of him. With all the maturity he could muster in his

voice, Horace spoke. It didn’t matter what he said. Emily thought she

even noticed his temples were grey. She loved that.

If she were as plain as a spinster, their perfection would have only

have been ruined by Horace’s innate fear.

Emily took the cigarettes that Maria laid on the bar, grabbed up her

shopping bags and paused. Sensing her lead, Horace took an attempt at a

sip of his beer, and followed her out of the bar, leaving her two twenties,

40 dollars for items that cost maybe 18 on the bar.

"Hey Frank, hey I'll see you around...," Horace said to me as they

rushed out, never to be seen again for over a week. Rush is the best way

to put their exit. I was left at the bar, waiting for a refill, thinking of my

talk with Horace in his parent’s basement the night Cam and he played

pool for Katie Schmidt. Horace talked of how Katie would slow him

down and make him pause. Emily would only “speed” Horace up.

I'll only add here that I am not the type to suffer fools gladly,

however, with Horace I made an exception because I knew he had at

least some moral compass left and strength most of the time to offset his

lack of judgement.

I will say I never wondered about Horace more than that day. He

made it to age 37 still as a simple, uncomplicated guy and he was

running off with Emily to God knows where. Emily was quicksand. An

attractive girl with issues, migraines or laziness or both but to her credit,

someone who, if she sensed something was “off” about Horace, refused

to acknowledge it but only because of her need to be married. A recipe

for elopement and a recipe for a failed marriage.

Chapter 3

It was ten years since the famous altercation between Katie

Schmidt and Cam Vamella in a bar that is now Maria’s. The night

Horace “won Katie’s hand” in a game of pool.

She forgave Cam for that night and took him back conditionally.

Cam had to get a real job and share the bills 50/50, start attending mass

with her and of course, respect her complete freedom with regard to her

appearance.

The false fingernails were gone. The makeup and high heels…out.

Even the surgeon’s “bouncing breasts” were removed. The only vestiges

of her former “glam” was incredibly bright white teeth and a sawboned

new nose.

Cam obtained a post at the High School he (and Katie) graduated

from as a coach of the freshman girls’ volleyball, golf and basketball

team. I think he also was responsible for cleaning the locker rooms too

but that may be just a rumor.

Katie saw a changed man in her boyfriend. According to my

source, Cam actually saw the error of his ways and vowed to return the

beliefs that his Catholic alma mater, and now employer, tried to instill.

The word was something like this: "Katie's boyfriend Cam is a

teacher, maybe he's settling down and growing up."

Katie, meanwhile, took up an interest in glass making. Her favorite

piece was a large colored glass vase that came out of the kiln perfectly

shaped (almost by its own accord) and which she accidentally broke and

painstaking put back together. The instructor told her all she needed to

do is put the broken glass back in the fire and make a new one, but Katie

liked the idea of repairing her masterpiece. So the vase symbolized her.

She placed the vase in a very prominent part of the apartment she

and Cam shared.

After some time, Katie convinced Cam she was now the master

and he was the slave in their relationship.

It was easier for Katie to bump into me as I took the Rock Island

downtown every day. I got on at 115th and Western. Not far from their

apartment on Hale. The 100 year old Metra train station in Morgan Park

was kind of like a meeting place. One day a friend of Katie’s approached

me as the train approached us. She looked like a model straight from the

pages of a magazine. Glamorous. You could tell she just went home

from her two bit job in the loop, dolled up at the makeup table, looked

hot, hit Western Avenue and waited for Mr. Moneybags to buy her a

drink.

I wondered how she recognized me and asked me if I knew Katie

Schmidt. It did make me pause, that’s twice in one season a girl came up

to me and asked me a personal question right out of the blue. That’s very

unusual for our neighborhood.

Not long after that I bumped into Katie herself on the track

platform at the Morgan Park Metra. A silk scarf covered the lower part

of her face. She looked plain as day. She was waiting for a train headed

for the Loop (downtown Chicago). I could not help but wonder if it was

a coincidence. We both boarded and I took a seat in her booth. The seats

a bench style and face each other. I took a seat opposite from Katie. She

smiled.

“Excuse me,” I said knowing exactly who I was talking to. “Were

you the same girl Horace O’Leary played pool for?

Katie blushed the famous modesty Horace dreamt of all his life.

“I believe people even refer to the bar to this very day as “the place

those two dudes played for a girl’s heart.” “Yep,” Katie said. “I’m

her.” That’s when I noticed, with her scarf pulled away, her slightly

asymmetrical lips, perhaps from some plastic surgery that wasn’t

holding up well.

Katie’s hair was shorter than the last time I saw it. This produced a

professional affect, as if she'd taken a job where she needed to lose her

pony tail for the sake of an immediate supervisor.

She did not look much different from how she looked at the

famous pool match for her heart except for her shorter hair.

Some girls wear a lot of cosmetics to make it look like they aren’t

wearing any, but Katie just looked natural.

She was secretary for an Actuary downtown but they were opening

a branch office in our neighborhood on Western Avenue.

“I’m headed downtown for the last time I guess,” she said as the

enormous blue engine suburban train inched forward and began to pick

up speed. Her desk would be the first thing you saw when you entered

the one level, stand-alone office building next to the Cork and Kerry

pub. She would deal with the general public.

I would venture to guess she got the job because of her voice. How

can I describe Katie’s voice? Not necessarily professional but very

endearing and even charming. Some girls try that voice and come off

sounding like a child. In Katie’s voice you felt like you were speaking to

someone who could help you. Even in matters of the heart.

By the way, her voice hadn’t changed much over the years and I’m

sure that’s how Horace heard her when they first met and the many

times he called her late at night to profess his unrequited feelings for her.

100

I was dying to ask if she was still with Cam but kept my mouth

shut.

“That was quite the pool match,” I offered. The only way I could

get at her status with Cam was to ask about in an offhand way. "I've

heard your boyfriend has reformed his ways."

"Cam? HA! No, yes he’s switched from hustling schemes to

teaching, but…" Katie said and frowned, “I keep having a feeling he’s

installing cameras in the girl’s locker room…”

“I heard he was working for his alma-mater.”

“When I ask him how his day is going he doesn't look me in the

eye. People are calling late at night. It’s funny, used to be me getting all

the late night calls…from your friend Horace." Then Katie turned red.

"How is your friend?" she asked.

"Horace is now quite the bon vivant," I replied with a smile.

"What does that mean?"

"He is out living it up,” I said.

It was not lost on me that the girl of Horace’s dreams was asking

after him.

Katie sort of giggled.

"Can you tell him I asked about him? Oh wait, maybe you better

not, I know that would rattle him pretty good if anything."

"I will pass along your wishes. As exhilarating as his life is now,

hearing you've asked about him would be quite a breeze of fresh air."

101

"Why is that? Has he won the lottery?"

"Much better, he's being pursued by a 23 year old beauty queen,” I

said, “please note… sarcasm.”

"Horace? He must be 37 now. At his age, 23 is too young,” Katie

said anxiously.

The peculiar look on Katie's face then was exactly, precisely what

Horace fell for. It was full of concern and compassion.

"Well, Casanova should be back someday. He still has an address

around the corner over Maria’s bar. His front room windows just

opposite the glowing Old Style sign,” I said. “He didn’t request

vacation-time as far as I know.”

Katie asked, “Are he and this girl… living together?”

I didn’t want to throw him under the bus. “He’s impulsive"

Katie frowned at the thought. "He is an innocent sort."

"Tell me, is Horace your type at all?"

"If he only were able to relax. To be honest, I flirted with Horace

at first. The first day I met him I put my hand around his neck and pulled

him towards me to kiss me.

At the last second he moved and kissed my cheek. At that point I

knew…" Katie said.

“Maybe he had a cold and didn’t want to give it to you?”

“I hope his finances aren’t taking too big a hit from his 23 year old

gal pal…,” Katie said.

102

"Funny, I sort of went down that road with Cam,

I put up with alot of immaturity for the way it felt to be together. Now

and then when I hear a song, I still get that feeling. But mostly we are

just finishing what we started as teen agers. I think if he met someone

who swept him off his feet, he'd disappear.”

Katie was so forthright, I had to ask her, "Are you planning to

marry Cam?"

"This week it will be 10 years without him hustling people at pool

halls. I said I'd marry him if that condition was met….so…. he'll

probably take me to Vegas to elope…eventually"

"Doesn't sound very romantic, just very tempting for an ex-

gambler..."

"It's not romantic and it is tempting,” Katie said.

"Horace really saw something in you," I said.

“Horace doesn’t even KNOW me,” Katie said emphatically in her

rather hushed tone. "It wouldn't have worked with Horace."

"It will work with Cam?" I asked.

"Dunno, but Cam has that way of reminding you life is a blast.

Horace takes things so seriously. For all of Cam’s faults, he is exciting

and fun. One quick-witted line form Cam and I’m still swept away and

happy for hours, inspired even. We still manage to manufacture alot of

fun,” Katie said. With Horace, it’s exhausting, for both of us.

103

Horace will listen to me all night. Cam doesn’t need to, just a few

minutes and everything is sorted out," Katie said.

"You found love?"

"Yeah, I found love," Katie said unenthusiastically.

"It's the Southside of Chicago, man-made, littered sidewalks,

smokestacks, mile wide rail yards and closed down factories. I would

imagine it's natural for us to project that image on love too..." I said.

“You’re different, you’re who I would expect Horace to know,”

Katie said and kind of giggled. “I never thought of it like that," Katie

said.

"Horace is doing the exact same thing, I think he's found the joy of

kissing too." I said to try and defend him, I didn’t know for sure. "You

two have more in common than you think."

Katie laughed. "I'd like to talk with his new girlfriend. See if there

is a tiger in Horace after all," she said.

"But it's all moot, what Horace has got...now, it seems will last.

But maybe that’s because it HAS to if you know what I mean,” I said.

“That’s one thing that’s different from Cam about Horace. If he

gets a girl pregnant, he’ll be there for life. I’m not sure I can say that

about Cam. Just don't say anything about me asking after him ok?"

I admit it somewhat surprised at the new Katie.

I said something that also surprised her. "You're Mary to Horace.

He once told me you are how he imagines the Blessed Mother to look."

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"What?"

"You could save him just as easily as Our Lady could save him.

Instead of wearing a miraculous medal around his neck, Horace chose to

invoke you. That's what I believe,” I said. “He hears your voice, literally

you have a pleasant voice.”

We arrived at the Gresham stop.

Chapter 4

Horace disappeared the night he left the bar with Emily. No one

knew where he’d gone. Suddenly, as mysteriously as he left, he returned

exactly one week later.

When I saw him I said, "I have ALOT of questions for you.

Meanwhile, I can only assume Emily is a nun somewhere and you are

back to watch some baseball with me and have a few Zwiec’s.”

"It's a long story my friend."

"What happened? How’s Dawn, you didn’t lose your job at the TV

station did you? Did you? Horace did you elope with Emily?” I boomed

and even Maria looked over at us.

"In the end, I see I expected too much of her,” Horace said blankly

staring off into space.

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"She is very young Horace, in ten years you will notice it,

Horace?” I said.

"She is young and attractive. When I met her with you a week ago,

we left here, and we even spoke of waiting for the marital embrace,”

Horace said.

“Oh no,” I thought. “Horace, is Emily pregnant? She was looking

for a well-spoken father figure, that’s all.”

She knew she was a treasure, not a toy," Horace said vacantly, as if

he’d been to a Thailand prison instead of Michigan.

"Oh Horace, what the hell happened?”

"She wanted me to ask her to marry her..."

"What? You just met!” I pleaded.

"That’s right,” Horace said.

"What plans did you make? Do you need a divorce??”

"Emmie and I returned to her family's estate in Northern

Michigan.”

“Did you get time off your job?”

“Dawn saved me my place at the TV station…miraculously…no

I’m not married!

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You wouldn’t believe where Emily is from! Frank, I’m not

exaggerating her home is a modern lodge in the middle of a forest, it

really is a chateau carved out in thick timber country, by Wolverine,

Michigan. I met her parents, Peg and Jon. I was friendly and honest.”

“Your first date destination was her parents’ house?”

“We left here and we went there. All it really took for us was one

look at Maria’s to know we were in love.

”

“So your first date, you gassed up your car and went to her parents

house…Northern Michigan is 8 hours from Chicago.”

“Not a house Frank, a lodge in the woods, just a few minutes from

the straight of Mackinac bridge.

The drive up to Michigan was kind of awkward and took all day. I

admit it was odd, the first date was our first dinner with her family. Her

fam as Emmie called them.

Two strangers going to meet her parents!”

“Your huckleberry friend and you,” I said wryly. I knew he was

being put on but couldn’t interject. His naivete and Emmie’s swindle. Or

was it Emmie’s naivete and Horace’s swindle. “Her only hope was that

you feel sorry for her, that’s how you feel love.” Horace ignored me.

“Emmie’s excitement rubbed off on me,

” Horace went on. When we

got there, my being so cordial with Jon and Peg allowed Emmie function

with them for the first time since she was in junior high, I allowed her to

get along with them because they accepted us as a couple.”

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“Horace,” Frank said, “you’re about as cordial as a gold fish. Polite

yes, honest yes, but your social skills leave a lot to be desired.”

I knew when ever anyone did anything nice for Horace, he had to

make them not regret it, thus making them instantly regret it. This made

Horace even odder. He’d laugh harder at their jokes. He’d say something

when it was best to remain silent. He’d get tight. And Michiganders are

known for their generosity. I knew it was a bad combination. For

example, on a basketball court, until Horace made a play, he had an

utterly blank expression on his face. Until he contributed points or

rebounds or steals in a particular game he wore this dazed look of added

pressure. I’m sure that’s how his face looked to Emily’s parents until he

felt like they accepted him. What would he have to do to earn that? I

don’t know? Catch a fish? Hitch the boat to their pick up?

“Well, maybe you’re right,” Horace said. They didn’t know what to

make of things regarding their oldest daughter. I am sure. Her parents

actually aren't much older than me. Jon was a kind of town handyman,

Peg a stay-at-home mom.

Here I am, a 39-year-old bachelor from the Southside, suddenly

thrust into their world, a chalet made of enormous logs in the remote

woods of northern Michigan holding their oldest daughter’s hand,

literally.

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I couldn’t help but think Horace had a glazed look on his face the

whole time. His glazed look was not from the 8 hour drive but because

he was Horace and he wasn’t sure what to do (with Emmie’s affection).

I had to say something. “Let me get this straight, your first date

was at her parent’s house?”

“That’s the technical definition of it, but really it’s more like a

lodge you would see in Yosemite. You couldn’t get your arms around

the individual wooden beams that stack up to form the walls. They all

glisten with a kind of clear see-through varnish.

The ceiling timbers are even thicker and longer. The make the

shape of large Vs every two feet. Over one wall they create an interior

balcony where bedroom doors look down from. Over the other wall,

they protect a giant stone fireplace.

From the turn-off at the nearest two-lane highway, it took half an

hour to drive to the gravel parking lot by the lodge’s front door. It took

longer if a herd of deer stopped your car. The trees were not soaring that

far north, but for miles they stretched as thick as any forest primeval. All

within the boundaries of the White estate. That’s Emmie’s family last

name.

It’s very polite, gracious living.”

Horace took a sip of beer and laughed. “Anyway, that first week

was a doozy. Each night at the dinner table with her family, with no talk

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of a wedding from me, Emmie’s neckline plunged lower and lower.

Each day her eye makeup got darker and darker. She was all out to get

me to marry her.”

“What did you do every day for a week up there?”

“I just wandered the estate…Emmie always bumping into me from

behind if I stopped suddenly. If I could have taken those walks alone, I

think I would have very much liked it. Emily insisted on joining me and

she walked in 4-inch heels. I think she lost her footing every 20 paces.

It turns out her father was in debt way over his head. This

enormous timber lodge was not paid for. Every daily purchase they

made, groceries to soap, was on a different credit card. Jon had about 12

credit cards in his wallet. If one was maxed out, he just reached for

another. In order to break even they’d have had to sell the land they were

on….cut back immensely.

They were living on borrowed credit. The monthly interest had to

be staggering.”

“But it was just the three of them, Peg, Jon and Emily?”

“Oh no, 6 of the cutest sisters you ever saw, they made Emmie

look like the cleaning woman. Emmie also had five brothers besides her

sisters and 127 cousins."

"That’s why they needed all that space," I thought aloud.

“The White family could populate a small town. Jon has 7 brothers

and Peg has 9 sisters.”

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“And they all had large families I see.”

“If the town is so small, where did they get the money to build this

grand Lodge?”

“Grandpa Joe built it, he had an auto supply business in Detroit in

the 60’s, he sold the business and holdings to General Motors in the 90’s

and got a fortune,” Horace said.

“So all seven of Jon’s brothers live in rustic log cabin lodges too?”

“There’s just one lodge and they rotate it among the brothers, this month

was Jon’s turn.”

“Ok, and so dinners were an affair, I bet they asked how much money

you earn in Chicago?”

“That subject came up, I told them I was living in a one bedroom

over a Polish deli and liquor store. That I was a clerk at a PBS TV

station. But Emmie looked so happy, so they overlooked it. They were

determined to let Emmie have whatever she wanted…keep her happy

was the mantra I’m sure.”

“But you barely know each other. That’s why long distance

relationships are a difficult way to start…”

“Peg and Jon got married after 2 weeks,” Horace told me he kept

hearing.

“Oh no,” I said, “well at least you’d known Emily about one day at

that point…Wait a minute? Are you and Emmie….married?”

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“It was only normal for me to ask her to marry me,” Horace

sighed.

“Do they know how much you earn? Are you even still

employed?” I shouted.

I calmed down. I took a drink. “Horace,” I said and took a long

breath, “I don’t think Emily can work a real job, you’re the breadwinner

for you and her and…maybe a family.”

Horace looked at me like I was crazy to think Emily couldn’t

work.

“Emmie gets nervous, she has stomach pains, but she can work.

Frank, it was really a wonderful week in Michigan. I needed to get

out of the city! I stayed in one of the small cabins on the estate all to

myself. It was right on a lake. Just outside the door was a fresh water

lake that bubbled in the center. It was spring fed. You could bottle it or

gaze at it.

Emmie snuck down to see me every night.”

The lake had a diving board. Ice cold ice-cold water and believed

me those dips saved my soul! I cooled off after nightly visits from

Emmie that would have otherwise gotten out of hand.

They could have charged $1,000 a week for the cabins to some

family up from Southern Michigan. It had absolutely had every modern

convenience.

“It’s so rushed,” I said trying to process all this.

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“Oh relax Frank. When all his daughters are married off, Jon and

Peg and all the brothers will sell the lodge and pay off all the debt…

At first, I wasn’t quite used to a pretty girl showing me so much

attention. Emmie would sit with me on the couch by the great fireplace

in their family hall and chew her fingernails.

“Horace, it’s all Eros, it’s all superficial at this point. How do stand

her child like voice??”

“Nothing mattered, her voice didn’t bother me” Horace said.

“Whenever I told her it was too soon to get married, she just laughed.”

"You were smart not to rush. You didn’t rush did you? Horace?

Did you?

“She wasn't bluffing either, she just wanted to get married," I said.

“Well how happily are her parent's married?" I asked. "That will

tell you alot."

“They had 13 kids in 12 years so…Nowadays, Emmie's mom has

no idea the family is in debt whatsoever. She has no idea how close they

are to bankruptcy. So I would say their marriage is the same as their

finances, juggled with plenty of borrowed money," Horace said.

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"Sounds like you had quite a week up there in the Great North

Woods," I said.

Horace may as well not have heard me.

“Last Wednesday, Emmie and I sat on the porch of my cabin. The

bullfrogs were in full throat.

I felt so happy. Emmie would not stop asking about getting

married.

That night was different. Her stomach pains were at bay and she

was massaging my face. Kind of like tracing the lines on my forehead.

Then she pretended to draw a line on my throat with her chewed

fingernail as the knife.

‘Marry me or else?’ she said and laughed. I was in more exalted

and tranquil from that massage than from any Zywiec Frank. Finally I

said yes.”

“Horace NO!” I shouted.

Emmie jumped up and grabbed my hand. We walked the

unmarked trail back to the lodge. There were stars but no moon so it was

very dark. A very real threat of black bears lurked and we didn’t have a

flashlight.

In the warmly lit lodge, Jon was reading and Peg was doing dishes.

“Dad, Horace has something he wants to ask you…

“Peg! Peg! Horace has a question for me,” Jon said alarmed.

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I took it by then Horace’s ‘O’Leary Curse’ was in full effect. No

way you ever marry a girl like 23 year old Emily so soon.

“Jon shook my hand vigorously. ‘Welcome to the family, welcome

to the family, it’s about time you asked my permission!’

Two days later, just this past Friday, Emmie and I were walking

down the main street in Gaylord, MI. Emmie was all dressed up (she

knew how to look glamorous even if she wasn’t). She could always ne

just what she was, no different than when we walked the trails on her

family’s estate.

By then I knew where things were in downtown Gaylord. The best

restaurant, the fudge shop, the hot dog stand and the jeweler. I said to

her mirthfully, we can make a left and have roasted Pheasant, all the

trimmings and fine Michigan champagne, or….or, we can make a right

and you get a ice cream cone and an engagement ring.

She replied immediately, as if she knew what I was gonna say,

“I’ll take the ring!”

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“You gave her a date then?” I asked.

Horace looked down. "The wedding date was everything to

Emmie and sooner the better. God help the man who gives a Michigan

girl a ring but doesn't mention the exact, precise wedding date. Of course

I got cold feet.

Leave it to me to make things awkward! Well, actually I

think Emmie sabotaged things to make me sick of her. No one could act

like that and expect they were being reasonable. After a while, I realized

our closeness, my staying up there, was pure temptation that no man

could resist. I didn't think I had the discipline for it and so I gassed up

the car, said goodbye to her family and to Emmie and drove back here,"

Horace said. “In the driveway she headed me off and jumped in front of

the car. She was holding her overnight bag.”

"You brought her back to Chicago?" I asked.

“Yep,” he replied.

It killed me to think Horace would end up with a girl who

just manipulated him. The thought flashed before me that Horace would

end up with just about any girl except Katie.

"And that 8 hour drive from Wolverine, Michigan to Chicago

gives you a lot of time to talk," he replied. “The first wedding date is for

September…I’m hoping to push it back…”

Knowing Horace as I did, I wished to help him more than

ever. I hesitated but I was sure “Emmie” was no good for him. I wanted

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to tell him that…but all I could muster was a cynical “you sure your

credit cards won’t be maxed out by then?” With a people-pleaser like

Horace I was afraid he’d marry a burden…but deep down I trusted

him.

That's when the giant Tommy Newmanskis entered the bar.

"Hey guys, guess what? I am hearing voices. For a few days it was

the weirdest thing, but now I am used to it... and I figured out exactly

what they are and where they are coming from."

Chapter 5

Horace got up and went to the restroom. Tommy ordered a glass of

water. “Tommy, we have a problem…” I said.

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“Horace is with a girl who is no good for him. He doesn’t know

what love it and he’s engaged to her.”

“I know this,” Tommy said. “Horace loves his parents.”

“Right but you don’t marry your parents. He is with a girl named

Emily, I don’t think she thinks of the Eros side of things (except to wear

a lot of makeup and show cleavage), and I think she just loves the idea

of love, not Horace. The thought of their union is heartbreaking. They’re

all wrong for each other.”

It's fine that Emily thinks she might carve out a small niche in the

city, but it will be hard work for both of them. He has a girlfriend who

wouldn’t take no for an answer, looks hot, but needs a migraine

specialist and a therapist and a job.

Tommy we need to get Horace to think this all through before

she’s pregnant and they have to marry.

I am not at all convinced Emily would work very hard for

something that wasn't love, or could work, or was certified for work, or

even had a will to make breakfast.

Horace might untangle what the other young men Emily's age

couldn't because they were too full of testosterone and lacked experience

in the world. But it can’t last between Horace and Emily, I know it,” I

said. Tommy listened intently and then Horace came back to his bar

stool.

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I explained to Tommy, Emily would love whoever the wind blew

in. Horace heard me and knew exactly what I meant.

“Hey, what are you telling Tommy here?” Horace asked.

“He was telling me you met a real beauty Horace…” Tommy said.

I couldn’t help but randomly think of Cam (Katie’s boyfriend) with

Emily. I t was so obvious.

In a union between a Cam and an Emily, the rest of the unwashed

masses, covered in tattoos and piercings are brought forth. It became

clearer and clearer to me who was meant for whom. Between Katie and

Horace, could a savior be born!

Yes, I understand there are two souls spread out in the world

whose meeting saves them both.

Tommy looked much thinner, especially in the face. His glasses

had gotten much worse for wear, he'd smashed them, not in a rage, but

just carelessly.

Tommy's food pantry had gotten somewhat slim lately and it

reflected on his waistline. The local church supplied Tommy and they

were experiencing shortages. So, so was Tommy. He subsisted on

canned beans and day old bread.

Tommy was saying, "...anyway the first voice is telling the second

voice, 'isn't it exciting'? And the second voice says ’No, it isn't!'

…and the first voice in my head replies…

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'We all get the chance to be so brave'

To which our second voice says

'To die!'

Then the first voice replies

'You certainly don't want to live forever do you?'

And voice number 2 says

'Maybe'

And the first voice says

'And then worry about things forever??

...we're not born into the elite of this world, we're the elite of the next...'

These two voices in my head go on all night like that....finally one night

I didn't hear them and I actually missed their banter...I was so happy

when I heard voices again...

It’s then I knew anything I said to Tommy went in one ear and out

the other. He must have just taken some medication or had too many diet

cokes. He reminded the bartender for a courtesy plastic cup of water. He

needed it.

"Do the voices ever speak on behalf of Jesus?" I asked him.

"No, never do," he replied.

"Do you ever see Jesus?"

"Well, Jesus does reveal Himself to me in certain ways, but not

like a hallucination. You can see the Lord much more clearly when you

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seek him in other's hearts, or in the Bible, in any passages of the New

Testament.

We have a Bible, it exists. Direct access to Jesus. Some people

prefer to speculate what the Bible is rather than read it.

I prefer to read it. It has brought me unearthly peace and brother, I

got a disease that offers no peace otherwise,” Tommy said.

“And meanwhile why do Muslims murder Catholic priests in

Turkey and nuns in Africa? What are they afraid of? Must be because

the New Testament is true!" Tommy said beginning to blush. His face

began to turn crimson.

He drank his plastic cup full of ice water. He wanted to baptize us

then and there with it. We sipped our beers.

"Hey Horace," Tommy said, "What’s new with this love of your

life…Emily?" I was wrong, Tommy WAS listening to me.

"Really Horace, Tommy here reminds me what I needed to tell

you. Do you ever think of Katie and Cam?"

"I haven't in a while. I faced facts when I was riding the CTA and I

saw a sign, unwanted attention is harassment. A little harsh because it

has to be. Anyway that CTA sign I saw changed everything for

me. Katie doesn't want me," he said and laughed.

I had to take a different tactic. "Well think of it, who do you know

that would be perfect for Cam?"

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"Katie, because he lives off her generosity and she seems to love

him."

"Imagine if Cam met Emily."

"Yes, with God all things are possible," Tommy said. By this time

he'd drunk several cups of ice water.

"Then someone as superficial as he is, I suppose, would…, they

would be perfect, she’s got that look he’d go for…but I’m sure he’s in

love with Katie," Horace said.

"Someone like Emily would make Cam forget all about Katie," I

said.

"I imagine they'd work out somehow, come to think of it,” Horace

said.

Now I had a dilemma. Katie mentioned in passing to not mention

we talked. If I disclosed that we had, she would find out and become

hyper cautious. I had to figure out what to do next.

An epiphany truly came to me. “I think Katie has outgrown

Cam and all that Cam needs is to realize is that he's outgrown Katie.

And if a pretty young girl like Emily flirted with Cam, Cam could just

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snap his fingers and have a girl like Emily eating out of his hand.” I

said.

“Hang on buddy, I may be dreading getting married to

Emmie but I will never see her in the arms of Katie’s boyfriend ever,”

Horace said.

"Emily is kinda young for Cam, right?" Tommy asked

us.

“I couldn't do that to Katie," Horace said. "I do have a

ring in my drawer, bought it for Emily, I picked it up at a jeweler in

Gaylord, MI.”

“Horace,” I implored, “women are clever like cats, men

should be cleverer than dogs."

Horace sighed. I knew I had him thinking about it at

least.

“I need to escape Chicago. I'll buy a plane ticket for

Siberia and find myself a pretty girl,” Horace said.

“You are going to Russia?” Tommy said.

“You have all you need here, a ring and a Russian

Katie waiting to accept it," I said.

“I can’t let you go to Russia Horace,” Tommy said

taking him seriously. “The laws are too strict there…”

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“Frank,” Horace turned to me, “you really think Katie

would leave Cam for anyone?"

I had to state myself bluntly….”Yes,” I said. “If she sees

Cam is with another girl in front of her own eyes.”

Tommy stepped in at that point. "God wants you to return to

repentance and regeneration Horace.”

I simply said to Horace, “You yourself told me Emily calls

you cruel, a hypocrite, a cruel hypocrite. If you go on with her, you will

become just that. And any other life without Katie will make you a

monster. A life without Katie would make you wonder in your old age,

why someone wasn’t lying next to you.

I’m guessing that ring you bought Emily cost a few thousand

and once purchased it’s worth 600. Use it, but use it on Katie while she

is still unmarried,” I said. “You were a better man when you loved Katie

Schmidt,” I whispered and smiled.

“As long as you both shall live huh?” the giant Tommy

mentioned, ever the preacher.

“I’ll never forget when I told her…”you’re beautiful in the alley behind

mom and dad’s place. She grew so humble. But I gotta snap out of it!

I’m engaged to Emily!!” Horace exclaimed.

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“Yes, you do have to snap out of that mind set,” I gasped. “I

know Emily would run to Michigan for the slightest pre text and leave

you high and dry chasing after her.”

“That’s a long drive,” Horace remarked. Horace was at that

age where he was still willing to forego all his dreams for her dreams.

Still throw himself into whatever job or jobs it took to make his

girlfriend cared for. In other words, he wasn’t thinking clearly. It made

me think. “What’s the latest with Dawn Browning?”

“She is like glue,” Horace said quickly. “She hears me out on

everything. She is patient and has a time or two done extra broadcast

logs I couldn’t finish or she will double check my logs when I am about

to turn them in and notice all sorts of errors I made…things I’d get fired

over… Emmie doesn’t even let me talk about my job because she thinks

it doesn’t pay enough.”

This got me thinking, I was not sure Katie was ready to for Horace,

but Dawn was. They worked together every day. How to get Dawn to

look like Katie? I didn’t believe Dawn would ever look like 23 year old

Emmie. As for Katie, she may have been done being a martyr with Cam.

I had a lot to figure out to save my pal Horace. “You have gold in the

palm of your hand in Dawn, you know that, right?”

“Of course,” Horace said…

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“But you’re with Emily and wish you were with…say Katie

because Katie and Emily bring you pleasure and they are fun to look

at…”

"Of course," Horace said almost dumbfounded. “I’m not sure

though…try as I might, I just don’t see myself kissing Dawn.”

I have to make a confession here, and this is partly the reason

I’ve written all this down.

My idea was simple, get Cam introduced to Emily The result

of Emily and Cam flirting would open Katie’s eyes, and spare

Horace.

I felt terrible for Katie just then. Maybe as deep an empathy

as Horace felt for her back in the beginning behind the assembling

factory she worked at 10 years earlier. I ignored my nagging guilt and

kept telling myself, “Everything hinges on getting Cam to fall for Emily.

Katie will find someone better and Horace will eventually (this could

take decades), eventually see Dawn is for him!

126

Chapter 6

Cam had to pick up smoking because his brain had to have an

outlet. He didn’t hunt or fish, he didn’t follow sports except to make

small talk with the guys and let on he was a fan like them. He was the

type who would go stark raving mad if he didn’t have Katie and his hair

to comb. He didn’t like sports, he couldn’t understand the fascination in

it. He once put ten dollars on the White Sox and for nine innings in a

row they got hits, but never with men in scoring position. It seemed to

him to be a racket. He liked to gossip though because it occupied his

mind. He had this great vacuum to fill. I needed some luck. Find the

time Katie and Cam were arguing and present the attractive Emily

before him.

I had to find out when Cam would be around Ding Bats, the

last pool hall on Western. I heard Cam frequented the place on

Thursdays around 4pm.

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I’d get Emily there first, around 3:55pm. Then Dawn and

Katie to have lunch at Ding Bats, at the bar about 4:30, where they had a

view of the tables, not the other way around. It would leave Katie either

furious or turn on the teardrops or both. She had to be unaware of it.

Then get Horace there last, about 4:45pm. Horace and Katie seeing

Emily flirting with Cam might draw them together…or draw them apart

further and if I coached Dawn on how to look (no lip gloss!!) it might, it

just might bring Horace and Dawn together.

I thought about it, I agreed with Horace I guess, Katie is the

idea, the form, the reason whole new suburbs exist. She is clever and she

knows how to enjoy life. She has figured out where the best buys are,

the best part of town to live in. She didn’t follow trends. Dawn is why

cities function, she is smart too, takes a dime and gives you a dollar, and

she made life economical and smart. Katie’s friends would have all

admired her so much if she was with anyone but Cam. Dawn’s friends

would all admire her so much just if Horace would open his eyes and

marry her.

I texted Katie. She did not agree to meet with us anywhere

under any circumstances. She was upset she said she was sorry we

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bumped into each other on the train that day and gave me a way to

contact her. So it was on to Plan B.

I waited for Thursday, just so happened that was the same day

Emily was unhappy with Horace’s effort in their relationship and I

dragged them both over to Ding Bats. Horace was still engaged to her.

Now I just had to call the TV station and talk to Dawn. She was as

surprised to hear from me, a complete stranger, as I was that they took

Horace back at the TV station. Most likely due to Dawn’s adept

intervention. I invited Dawn to Ding Bats. She agreed when she heard

Horace would be there at 5:00pm. I never told her about Emily because I

was sure Horace hadn’t.

Horace, myself and Emily found ourselves ordering drinks at Ding

bat’s about 3:30pm. I sat Emily as close to the pool table as possible

maybe 40 feet away from it. Fate was working on my behalf too, Cam

was already there at his usual reserved pool table. The spider had his fly,

the fly was any sucker just looking for a game. Cam was pontificating to

him about how no one uses the side pockets on a pool table properly.

“That’s where all the action is…” Cam said truthfully. “You can sink all

the shots you need to win, if you just know how to use the side

pockets.”

Somehow Cam had to notice Emily!

As Cam went on about the side pockets, he glanced up and beheld

Emily White. Cue the saxophone. Cam’s testosterone wouldn’t let him

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take his eyes off her. .40 cents of eye shadow was all it took. Cam barely

noticed Horace and me.

I bought a pack of Benson and Hedges and put them and another

40 dollars on the bar in front of Emily. She smiled like the kid she was.

That’s when I gave Emily an excuse as to why Horace and I had to leave

for a minute. She said something childlike about the juke box and we

left out the front door. On the way down the alley, Horace said, “Are

you sure I should be meeting Katie? I mean it took me a while to figure

this out, but even the sweetest compliments are harassment if she

doesn’t want them.”

III

Katie was not smiling when she saw Horace and I approach the

front door of the Actuary where she worked and she had good reason.

Any surprise at seeing Horace did not show on her face.

Katie evidently had a moderate medical procedure done to make

her lips look fuller. It only succeeded in making them look slightly

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unnatural. The plastic surgery altered her smile so it could no longer win

Horace's heart as it did so many years earlier.

Everything else she “had done cosmetically” was sort of hidden,

her ultra-whitened teeth because she didn’t smile, her fuller bosom

because she wore a loose blouse. But her eyebrows still stood out. Katie

had gone to a professional to make her eyebrows look ultra-well defined.

The perfection stood out because they were perfect, and perfectly

unnatural.

Her eyebrows looked tattooed on. And yet for all that plastic

cosmetic effort, Katie stopped wearing heavy dark eye makeup and extra

wide hoop earrings like she did to attract Cam, she returned to looking

more like the girl next door than the girl who had too much done. Katie

was plain again.

Yet a decision had been made on Katie’s behalf by Katie and she

seemed quite at peace about it. Suddenly Cam no longer had the

appearance of a linebacker on the Northwestern University football

team. Now he appeared to her exactly as he was, a pool sharp tricking

any sucker who he came across.

Horace’s heart was pounding. He’d only actually seen Katie twice

in his entire life. In the alley behind his parent’s house and right this

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moment. For Katie he was someone she never wanted to know and was

forced to suffer only because of a chance encounter. She had long since

grown fatigued of being polite with Horace, someone who should have

remained a stranger. Now she found her good manners to be tedious.

This time, Horace was perfectly healthy, no head cold to pass on

to Katie with a kiss, however he would’ve only kissed her cheeks

European style had the chance presented itself. The original impression

she made on him hadn’t at all faded. Thinking about it, Horace only saw

Katie in all her plainness. He’d only heard second-hand of her cosmetic

enhancements, he’d never seen them.

He stood before a girl whom he thought of every night for 9 plus

years. This time, he told himself he was not getting his hopes up.

She her hair in a pony-tail. She wore a pink blouse and very little

jewelry. That was all it took, Horace began getting his hopes up.

In a certain light you could see her perpetually broken out

forehead should have been covered with makeup. I had no choice but

wonder and even marvel at what my friend saw in her.

Horace wore a formal suit, incompatible even for his job at the

TV station but certainly for this occasion.

"Where you off to? A wedding?" Katie’s teasing voice was meant

to nullify Horace’s attraction, and it worked. Gone was the highly

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intelligent, yet soft and feminine voice Horace heard in the alley so

many years ago when he first met Katie.

Horace's face turned red. Her approachable appearance, instead of

allowing him to relax, put him in a trance. Suddenly it dawned on Katie,

in the last 11 years, he never stopped dreaming of her, thinking of her or

longing for her. She blushed and then, instantly, shrugged the feeling

off.

Horace could not speak. Katie’s voice, an effortless ‘where you

off to, a wedding?’, hit Horace like a drug, rendered him absolutely

speechless. If he needed to embrace her, his paralyzed arms would not

have been up to the task. Here he stood before a girl who needed a laugh

in her life more than most people. And furthermore here was a girl who

would laugh at anything. It did not take much. But Horace couldn’t think

straight much less tell a joke.

"Well, what are you here for?" Katie was no longer teasing

but dead serious and she asked this very matter-of-factly. She was polite

because she and I parted on good terms but also very disappointed in me

for disregarding her direct request to not mention anything to Horace

about our chat.

Katie frowned and there could be no denying she had a lot on

her mind. But there was something different about her, as if she’d made

up her mind about Cam. She was free.

We looked at her puzzled. Then she dropped a bomb on us.

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“My sister lost her baby. It was due in 2 weeks. All last week

she went out and bought clothes for it. I said I didn't think it was a good

idea to buy all that before the baby was born. I guess I'm superstitious.”

Horace swallowed and finally said. A beaten or humiliated

man would not have been listened to just then. But for maybe the first

time in Horace’s life, every word he uttered was heard. He was about to

speak and Katie Schmidt really was listening. She was not just

pretending to because she knew Cam was listening in on the other end

phone extension. “Why or why,” she thought, “was this man so

interested in me?”

The words finally left Horace’s throat. "A baby into the

world changes everything. Even a baby that lives in its mother's

memory. Our faith is tested. But we are not allowed to know why."

Horace just laid it out. Tore the bandages off and let that

wound bleed.

Katie began to sob and let it out. Horace took her by the hand

and then they embraced. “Cry it out,” Horace said. “Don’t keep it

in.” They hugged for a long long time. Horace carefully kissed Katie

three times each on each cheek, as Europeans do. If only she were born a

few weeks later, a Taurus instead of a Gemini, the stars would have

shined on these two.

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Horace’s heart was in the right place and I knew he was

going to ruin things, but I had to let it play out. This couldn’t end well! It

struck me that we’d take Katie to Ding Bats, she’d see that Cam was

back to his old tricks on the pool tables and maybe even give Horace a

try!

“Look my break is over,” Katie said. “I better get back to

work.” Katie paused. She gave Horace a thorough looking over and said

sternly. “Look Horace, I know you seem to like me. That’s all you ever

managed to tell me. You never once said anything different or replied to

anything I said. As if you didn’t hear me. Because you like me doesn’t

mean it is enough love for the both of us or that I’m somehow reserved

for you.

A girl wants conversation, like what we just did right now.

(she finally smiled a half smile) not just that I’m beautiful or that you

love me.” She wanted to add, you have to move on.

This is where I also sensed Horace begin to rise above that

label I and others and even he himself gave him, the fool. He actually

had a conversation with Katie Schmidt, even if it was like meeting her

somewhere in Europe and chit chatting about some Chicago restaurant

on 103rd and Cicero they both liked.

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Before we knew it, Katie was back at her desk behind a large

barrier that fronted a separate reception desk. She slightly sat up and

repositioned her chair under her to face her slightly away from us.

Katie no longer looked “natural”, either due to the plastic

surgery BUT SHE LOOKED AT PEACE deciding to leave the

bitterness of years with Cam behind.

If for no other reason than to break the silence, I asked

"Where is Cam?" I asked hoping to get Katie to investigate. Her reply

showed me exactly how sharp Katie Schmidt really was. As I spoke,

poor Horace glanced furtively at his prized, dream once plain girl Katie.

If we were allowed to stay, I’m sure he would have continued those

same sad, plaintive yet moving peeks at her. For hours.

"He's with some floozy not even worth mentioning. She

probably is just like him. Never worked a day in her life. No idea where

she is from..." Katie said. “Now you have to get out of here, I have work

to do,”

“Like from a tiny little town of 500 named Wolverine in far

northern Michigan,” I thought silently to myself.

III

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Horace and I left Katie and walked back to Ding Bat’s bar

at the end of the alley.

"Poor girl, her sister losing a baby,” Horace said lost in

reflection on Katie. He was not stunned he just embraced the girl he

dreamt of, he was not taken aback from their meeting….just now… in

real life. He only thought of and felt bad for Katie’s sister. He felt love

because he wanted to ease her suffering any way he could. If she’d have

let him, he would have given her a neck massage.

Of the 3 types of girls…. Awkward girls like Katie, pretty

girls like Emily and then a combination of the two, I have never met a

combination of the two. Horace had made a believer of me, Katie wasn't

so sickly looking, but rather cute. And yes, she was awkward in a way.

Back at the bar we heard a roaring voice…"Tolerance!" Cam

boomed and we all heard him. "Very good. That you have it," he said

directly to Emily at the bar at an otherwise empty Ding Bat’s.

“What is tolerance?” Emily said.

“It means that Long Island is gonna take a while to kick in

baby!” Cam replied.

Emily batted her (dare I say beautiful) blue eyes at him and

laughed. Every guy likes it when his cut-up makes someone laugh and in

this case it was doubly effective because it seemed to bring Emily under

his thumb.

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We kept to the far far end of the bar, I didn’t want Cam

making any connections between Horace and Emily. Emily did not see

us.

I knew Horace still had feelings for his fiancé but at that

moment, all his thoughts were directed to Katie. His one and only. Cam

being attracted to Emily was enough. If he knew she was Horace’s

fiancé, sham engagement though that was, he would have really put his

hooks in her.

A side note, I caught a glance at Cam. Ten years after their

pool match for Katie’s heart, he added a silly earing and smoking had

caught up with his teeth and skin. Meanwhile Horace’s looks, despite a

few binges here and there, had not yet given into age. He was a good,

strong man. No doubt about it, between the two, Horace had physically

drawn closer in looks to handsome Cam as the ladies called him.

Launched by Katie’s resurgence in his thoughts, Horace

knew it was not going to work with his Emmie. Up to now he just

ignored that fact. Now Cam was doing him a favor. Cam was actually

performing a very delicate operation, with a hammer. He was showing

Horace where Emily’s heart was, more than a glimpse. Horace’s balm,

meanwhile, was the very girl who Cam lived with.

Horace may have served Emily like royalty until he was

exhausted and yet he forgot or pretended to forget she was half a bar

away flirting with, of all people, Cam.

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Since they got back to Chicago, dinners between Emily and

Horace were dull affairs, Emily more or less unable to cook and not

going out of her way to even look presentable at home. Out at dinner,

she would be texting her other girlfriends her age back in Michigan with

Horace staring blankly ahead. Not because he wasn't hungry (he'd eat)

but because he knew once his Emmie returned to her meal, they might

actually have to make eye contact and risk realizing there was nothing

between them of any substance.

Then he'd feel quite rightly, superficial himself. He knew what it

was and it wasn’t love.

And to my way of thinking, Katie was not the absolute girl for

Horace either. As much as he thought of her, she was not necessarily

born under the right star for him. The Universe was against it. He needed

to be with Dawn!

Dawn was the perfect girl for Horace! Someone who allows him

to forget all his self-consciousness over his own shortcomings and yes,

all the bullying he got in High School. Someone to hold hands with at

Catholic mass (little did I know Dawn was a staunch Lutheran).

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Seated as far from the pool tables as possible at Ding Bat’s, I knew

what I’d see. As Horace looked down dejectedly over Katie’s sister

losing her baby, Cam and Dawn sat next to each other by his reserved

pool table. It was easy to see how far Emily had gotten with Cam, I

mean how far Cam had gotten with Emily. They were perfect for each

other. Cam in his mid-30’s was a prime candidate for a midlife crisis and

here was baby Emily batting her eyelashes right at him. Emily was

telling Cam jokes, Cam was telling Emily jokes and just then they went

out the alley door for a smoke. It didn’t matter if they returned. It was no

longer Emily’s motivation to make Horace jealous. She was getting only

pleasure from Cam’s attention, Cam was taking only pleasure in the

Eros he was feeling for Emmie.

It was Good Friday at 4:30pm. Stations of the Cross were at every

church that afternoon at 3. A service recounting Jesus’ painful

crucifixion would take place in half an hour.

Horace said, “Well, Emily can have whoever she wants. The ones

you call plain, the ones like Katie Schmidt are forged in a mightier

furnace.”

“Well then we just need to pray that Katie has a twin then,” I said.

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“Why?”

“I think her twin’s name is Dawn,” I said.

Katie Schmidt remained at the reception desk after Horace and I

went back to DingBat’s a few doors down. She liked this job because

she could sit down whenever she wanted and lately she found she

needed to. Seeing Horace by now, 10 years after he used to call her in

the middle of the night, didn’t bother her as much as it would have even

a little while ago.

In this job with the Actuary, Katie had plenty of time to think.

She wasn't smiling.

For Katie, everything changed and everything stayed the same.

She made it clear to Cam, she did not want to stay together and live

together without a public ceremony or covenant. She wished to be

“married”. She needed to have a real heart to heart talk with Cam that

night. If she knew he was with Emily just then…she would have truly

exploded with rage.

Cam obviously saw her differently, how could he not? To him

she took off a mask. He noticed her smile more. He missed her looking

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sultry. But subconsciously he treated her with more respect. His Eros

style love for her was not “being fed” so to speak. He began to treat her

like he’d treat the mother of his children. (They never had children til

then by choice.)

All this weighed on Katie. Would he ever ask her to get married?

Even elope? Just then her boss Harvey appeared over her shoulder and

put a few folders on her desk to file. She needed the break from her

reverie.

At last Katie smiled and even laughed as she filed. She thought

of Horace wearing his silly suit. “Now he knows where I work”…she

thought with a fright.

When she got back to the reception desk, she noticed Cam texted

her.

He was texting her AS he was flirting with provocative looking,

23-year old Emily.

“Hey babe, I’m at work til late.” Read the text.

Katie’s boss Harv returned. She lowered the phone immediately

but didn’t have time to put it away. "Katie, can I talk to you for a

moment?"

“Sure”

“In my office.”

“Kathryn, how long have you been with us?” Because he caught

her day dreaming and looking at her phone twice in the last few minutes,

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and because this office on Western on the far south side was brand new,

she felt a quick rush of blood from her face and a mild pain in her

stomach.

"I started downtown 8 years ago this June 19th," Katie replied.

"How would you feel about becoming a manager here?” Harv

asked. “You’ll get a salary instead of an hourly, better benefits, think it

over.”

The salary was a significant increase over her current one. Enough

to offset her feeling she'd trade one set of problems in for another.

Just at this instant, Katie's shyness plastered her mouth like

wallpaper. She turned bright red.

This was not so much because her boss was staring at her waiting

for an answer. She worked at the company for 8 years without a single

“write up”. It is because at just that moment, Katie realized she'd rather

tell anyone her good news than Cam. And she felt a little bad at how she

just treated Horace.

Her phone beeped indicating she had another text message.

“Please excuse me Harv,” she said to her boss.

She took out her phone and saw it was Cam texting her. She

hesitated but clicked it open to read it.

“Hey I am so sorry.” It read. She pondered what to text Cam

back.

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Part Three

Chapter One

Easter Sunday

Is Katie Schmidt gullible? Horace saw her as beautiful despite her

plain features and raised her to the level of patrician (must have been

her Germanic features), though she was a clerk on the Southside who

rented an apartment with a live in boyfriend.

On one hand, Katie would give money to the Salvation Army

kettle, be kind to strangers, take in an alley cat, but on the other have

prolonged dealings with a dishonest person (like Cam). Were those days

over?

I’d refer the reader to the real life of a famous TV actress from

Portland, Maine. Ms. Phyllis Thaxter (1919 to 2012). She started out on

Broadway at 20 years old. Got invited to Hollywood and starred in over

a dozen movies. Back in New York, her husband became head of CBS

TV network. Suddenly every girl who wanted to be on TV found their

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way to his casting couch and these nobodies had no problem throwing

themselves at him. Phyllis ignored the rumors she was hearing as she

forged a career on the big screen a continent away all the while staving

off the flirtations of real stars like Gary Cooper and Robert Mitchum.

Phyllis knew her husband was committing adultery but stayed

loyal.

Finally MGM broke her contract through no fault of hers (she

contracted polio). She got well from the disease yet was forced to join

the line of starlets throwing themselves at her husband to get on “Wagon

Train”. The insult was just too much and she finally divorced him.

If you see Phyllis in her roles before the divorce (Alfred Hitchcock

1958) she still looks tense, but in her roles after she divorced her

cheating, arrogant husband (The Fugitive 1964), she looks at peace and

it’s no wonder. This is very similar to what Katie Schmidt was about to

experience.

Just 40 yards or so from where Cam was busily texting Katie,

Horace said to me. “Did you hear how her voice sounded Frank?”

If Cam knew Horace was speaking of Katie, he’d have exploded with

rage.

“You mean how she looked Horace,” I said.

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Horace insisted, “no her voice, it’s so pleasing. I barely paid

attention to him. He needed to wake up to seeing his future was with

Dawn.

As far as voices go, Dawn’s was natural, at least not like

Emily’s voice that sounded fried and raspy, or in other words, in her

mind, alluring.

There was no use in telling Horace anything. He was

wrong to pine for Katie and wrong to technically be with Emily. By then

I he realized how beautiful Katie Schmidt, she must have decided she

was leaving Cam.

“If men are bees,” Horace said. Emmie is a flower,

Katie is the honeycomb," he said to me. The just as quickly he returned

to his gaze and to his beer and said no more.

“And you must find your future with Dawn,” I said.

“You have nothing in common with Katie and Emily like you have with

Dawn. Your both in showbusiness!”

"Yes,” I finally admitted, “I DO see Katie is plain in a

way that’s…lovely. It took me a moment to see what you see, but I think

you are absolutely correct," I replied. "Humility is special.” (I had no

idea I was seeing Katie undergoing the same transformation as real life

Phyllis Thaxter when she decided to divorce her cheating husband. But

what do you have in common with an Actuary vs a woman in your line

of work, showbusiness. Forget Emily, she is just show and no business!”

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III

Tommy had arrived at our end of the bar and I bought

him a diet coke. For some reason he quoted Proverbs 23, Give strong

drink unto him that is ready to perish, but the Song of Solomon Like the

best wine . . . that goeth down sweetly, causing the lips of those that are

asleep to speak.

I thought, wouldn’t it be great if Katie showed up,

and found out what her Cam was really up to. The thought crossed my

mind to even give Tommy 20 bucks to run up to the Actuary’s office

and tell her to come to Ding Bat’s. Tommy was a courier by day. He’d

have taken it as a regular commission.

Two cold beers arrived at my request. I paid for

them.

And what is Katie doing? Working at this very

moment, working on a holiday (Good Friday) so that she is no man's

kept woman but in charge of her own fate. Katie, she understands that if

you do not work, you do not eat. Unlike Emily who relies on her looks

for everything because she is 23. Horace completely ignored Emily,

although we could hear her scratchy voice across the room, he was lost

in reverie for Katie.

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“Horace, what about Dawn?” I suddenly boomed.

“She’s no Emily, she doesn’t talk like a child with that “vocal fry” that

Britney Spears so famously coined on her first album. Horace looked

up, “there’s really nothing special about Dawn’s voice.”

“Yet Katie’s voice seems to drug you. Does

Dawn’s?”

“Look Frank, I know what you’re getting at, kissing

Dawn was like kissing my sister ok.”

I glanced at Emily and Cam. All Cam could see

were Emily’s piercing blue eyes. She was dressed the way Katie used to

dress, tantalizing. Just then Emily’s pains surged. A cigarette would

help. She bummed one off Cam who was more than happy to oblige.

They headed back for the street to smoke.

“Poor Katie,” I said. “I guess she and this Romeo Cam are still

living together and she supports him. From the looks of what’s

happening down at that end of the bar, it’s shocking,” I said. I had to get

Horace thinking straight on the whole situation.

"Well, I have a mother who taught me two things, be humble

and fear the Lord. It's high time I ignore this folly of mine. What has it

gained me? I'm sitting here drinking in the afternoon? Is that a sign of

self-respect?

My mom and dad taught me better. So it seems Emmie doesn’t

need me, Katie never needed me," Horace said. "What do I even have in

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common with her? Katie is out of debt, Emmie has me back in

red.

A smile flashed on Horace’s mouth. “Who needs that?!” Horace

whispered.

Cam, you are welcome to Emily. Katie you are welcome to

Cam. God Bless you Frank McGovorov. Whatever you did, whatever

you said, it worked!" Just then Dawn Browning entered the bar. I knew

it was her.

Dawn possessed a completely different look than either Katie or

Emily. She was no natural beauty like Emily and a different kind of

plain than Katie. She had a Danish face and wore very little makeup.

Dawn was not unattractive and her appearance replaced Katie’s feminine

plainness with a different sort of plain. Dawn had to have a flaw? Dawn

was a professional. After 20 years at Chicago’s other PBS TV station,

Dawn was earning well over 70,000 per year but still doing the same

tasks she did when she started. She was reliable, helpful, and stable as a

goat. Then it struck me, in Dawn came from a long long long line of

tough hardworking Danes. “Hey Horace look up,” I encouraged him.

“Who just walked in the bar?”

“D GIRL!” Horace said smiling.

Yes, I observed Horace becoming himself with Dawn right before

my eyes, but not to kiss her. Just that he was a man with a peer and a

friend, a patron and a protector in her. She, like Emily, definitely

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overlooked there was something “off” about Horace but unlike Emily,

would go on overlooking it even after marriage. Was Dawn perfect for

Horace? There was no spark physically. She was from Iowa, not

Catholic, like he was, and he would go on, eventually, to attend mass

every day. But I began to place my bets on her, if she could get past his

temporary infatuation with “Emmie”.

Emily and Cam were sitting by the door to Ding Bat’s so it was a

direct line to the street for them to walk to their smoke.

Emily and Cam were still in the alley smoking and they even

shared a brief makeout between cigarettes. Emily thought Cam’s earring

was the coolest. She asked to borrow Cam’s phone and she was so

carefree with Cam she answered his phone when it rang. "Hello?" Emily

answered in her scratchy overly affected voice.

"Who the hell is this? Cam?"

"Hey hon, it's me...I'm here," Cam replied as he seemed to struggle

with something. Emily was asking in the background ‘who is Katie?’

"Who's there with you Cam?"

"No one...that must have been the radio you hear," Cam said.

"Do you have a girl over there with you?"

"What? Honey. What are you talking about, Of course not."

At that moment, Emily realized she wasn’t making anyone jealous

and that Cam had a girlfriend if not wife. “You son of a…” Emily said.

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"Cam, if I find that you have a girl over there," Katie was

furious..."Your vacation is over!" Katie clicked off her phone in disgust.

She knew what her instincts were telling her and that she guessed right.

A feeling of nausea overwhelmed Katie. She kept swallowing to

relieve it. She had to go to a clinic.

Katie drove to the health clinic on Archer and shortly after, a

smiling nurse told Katie Schmidt she was pregnant.

She drove home with a sheet of instructions for pregnant women,

utterly befuddled and confused.

Cam left Ding Bat’s and went home, with a stop off at Maria’s on

the way for a much needed Zwiec.

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Chapter 2

Katie got home from the clinic about 5:30, she felt better and

stopped to get groceries. She’d left some meat out on the counter to

thaw. She was thinking of Cam the entire time she was shopping for

their salad and a fresh loaf of crunchy French bread.

She didn’t know what to do. Part of her wanted to take the raise

and find another place to live. How would she break it to Cam?

Cam, of all people, taught her about how to open up any

conversation. Katie by nature would start talking to him in a good mood,

cooperative as could be but change her tone when Cam replied with a

passive aggressive tone.

Cam always told her, “That cute opening of a conversation is not

effective.” He’d say “you’ve got to start out hard and tough, maybe even

snap, THEN when you’ve got them on their heels a little, that’s when

you’re nice. That way you’re much more likely not to regret anything

afterwards you see?”

Katie suddenly again felt queasy. The clinic said it was an upset

stomach and told her to get some Pepto-Bismol. The thought struck her

that she was pregnant. Frightened, she called Cam, who was still at

Maria’s, on the way home.

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While all this was taking place with Katie, Dawn, Tommy,

Horace, Emily and I sat at the bar at Ding Bat’s. Emily looked very

jealously at Horace and Dawn seated next to one another. If I showed

any interest in her at all, or if Tommy didn’t suffer from manic

depression and was not a paranoid schizophrenic (you could tell he was

suffering from something), she’d have openly latched onto to either of

us.

Horace now had some leverage with Emily after her little attempt

at making him jealous.

Emily was still getting over Cam was more or less married.

Tommy Newmanskis had long since finished his diet coke. (The

drugs he took for his condition often left him feeling sluggish.) Tommy

didn’t go to Ding Bat’s normally. He’d spent the 3 o clock hour at

Stations-of-the-Cross at St. Cajetan’s Catholic Church nearby. Maria

had already refilled it three times that afternoon and Tommy was feeling

very stimulated.

I was happy, I felt my plan to show Horace to light of day had

worked. Emily just smelled of smoke and looked hungry. “C’mon baby,

let’s go out to eat,” she said.

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“It’s no time to eat,” Tommy told her. “We’re recognizing Jesus

sacrificing his own flesh for us at this very hour. We should sacrifice

something.”

“Who are you?” Emily said trying to make herself smile.

“This is Tommy,… Emily, you remember him,” Horace said. I

noticed just then that Dawn was up to speed on everything “Emmie”.

There was tiny rub, Emmie was also Catholic and Dawn was very very

Lutheran. Subtle but huge difference.

Horace felt as low as possible. I knew it, Tommy sensed it. His

fiancé was flirting with the bane of his existence, Cam Vamella. She

seemed to have no concern she was flirting in Horace’s presence.

What can be said of Emily? If you gave Emily a dollar, would you

get back a dime? Emily’s track record (Emily cut class in High School

and never went to even Community College) could all be rectified by

finding one wealthy bachelor. But her reactions to life in general were

all staged around her pain. The disease never left her calm and at peace.

Though she came to the Big City, she ended up in the working class

Southside where the aristocracy are busy cops and firemen. Chances are

if she met wither of those types, they were just looking for a fun with

her. So far all she’d met were Horace and Cam. A clerk who was

nothing without Dawn and basically a married pool shark.

The giant Tommy said, “How you been brother?” and slapped

Horace on the back.

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Horace ordered a Long Island drink for Emily. Getting it free

perked Dawn up to no end. I was fairly amazed he was so calm after her

flirting with Cam. Before Dawn felt pranked on candid camera, I

ordered her whatever she wanted.

“I’m not so good Tommy,” Horace said. Horace absolutely looked

crushed.

Tommy knew exactly what to do. He began to recite an Old

Testament from memory specifically to console Horace. We all sipped

our drinks and listened except Tommy who recited perfectly by rote

without skipping a thing.

He had no beauty or majesty to attract us to him,

Nothing in his appearance that we should desire him.

He was despised and rejected by mankind,

A man of suffering, and familiar with pain.

Like one from whom people hide their faces

He was despised, and we held him in low esteem.

Surely he took up our pain

And bore our suffering,

Yet we considered him punished by God,

Stricken by him, and afflicted.

But he was pierced for our transgressions,

He was crushed for our iniquities;

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The punishment that brought us peace was on him,

And by his wounds we are healed.

We all, like sheep, have gone astray,

Each of us has turned to our own way;

And the LORD has laid on him

The iniquity of us all.

He was oppressed and afflicted,

Yet he did not open his mouth;

He was led like a lamb to the slaughter,

And as a sheep before its shearers is silent,

So he did not open his mouth.

By oppression and judgement he was taken away.

Yet who of his generation protested?

For he was cut off from the land of the living;

For the transgression of my people he was punished.

He was assigned a grave with the wicked,

And with the rich in his death,

Though he had done no violence,

Nor was any deceit in his mouth.

Yet it was the LORD’s will to crush him and cause him to suffer,

And though the LORD makes his life an offering for sin,

He will see his offspring and prolong his days,

And the will of the LORD will prosper in his hand.

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After he has suffered,

He will see the light of life and be satisfied;

By his knowledge my righteous servant will justify many,

And he will bear their iniquities.

Therefore I will give him a portion among the great,

And he will divide the spoils with the strong,

Because he poured out his life unto death,

And was numbered with the transgressors.

For he bore the sin of many, and made intercession for the transgressors.

“Thank you Tommy,” Horace said. That’s a very unique

consolation.

“Here is the KEY,” Tommy said. The key is just to have a

sense of humor about everything that happens to you, laugh in response

to whatever they say about you. You remember that and you hold the

key.” Tommy said. “Don’t take yourself so seriously!”

Dawn’s sweet pureness was by then a little rattled and she

wondered why I invited her. Horace became rigid. He smiled when he

saw Dawn but was not able to come out of his shell and I was

completely to blame. I dragged him before the nightmare of Katie and

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Cam on my own. Everything backfired on me. All I seemed to be able to

do was order everyone drinks they did not need. “Dawn,” I said. “It’s so

nice you came out. Horace has told me so much about you and the TV

station.”

Workers at TV stations are vaguely aware they work in

rarified air, most of them would do it for free if they could. They realize

they “work” at one of a handful of jobs in the city. They realize they

made their childhood dreams come true. They were making a living at

what they were passionate about, not just headed off to a job to pay

family bills.

In that sense, Dawn was even more unique. As a wife,

Dawn would support a guy like Horace by making him look good and

useful in the office and the TV studio. Because of Dawn’s help at

making broadcast logs, and because the station was short staffed due to

budget cuts, Horace was given the opportunity to work in the studio as a

videographer. It was so obvious how perfect Dawn was for Horace and

how imperfect Katie and Emily were. Katie loved handsome Cam and

his earring, just as Emily was infatuated by him (and she hadn’t even

seen him dazzle her at pool yet.)

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That’s when Horace tired his best to return the favor on

Emily and flirt with Dawn in front of her. For a moment, it worked. “D

girl,” he turned to Dawn and asked, “How goes it at work?”

“It’s truly amazing they took Horace back there after he

ran off to northern Michigan?” I added. This infuriated Emily who was

mad enough Horace wasn’t paying attention to her and had downed just

enough of her drink to get relief and lower her inhibitions in speaking to

Dawn.

“Yeah just what is going on? Emily said to Dawn with

zero clue she should have been grateful to her. “Is there a thing between

you two?” Emily said in full on sabotage mode.

Dawn may have been sweet and pure but she was full on

Dane and possessed a thousand years of Danish toughness. “Oh Horace

may not know where this is headed but…hem, I do,” Dawn said. All she

needed to do was put her arm around him and Emily would have run off,

or at least announce she and Horace were leaving and ran off to the

bathroom to fix her makeup. Horace sat between his future and his

recent past. Unable to get mad or happy or even to speak.

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"Who the hell answered the phone when I called you this

afternoon?" Katie screamed at Cam.

Of course she was happy she was a new mom and that’s why

she felt nausea but she decided to take Cam’s advice and come out

swinging.

"That was me babe...I guess I hadn't cleared my throat when I

picked up the phone," Cam replied.

"Listen to me buddy, I’m…” Katie paused knowing Cam did

not want to hear the next word… “Pregnant," Katie sat down,

trembling.

"What? You're what??...." Cam said, his words trailing off.

Cam's mind was confused as well. "Hey, that's what we

want...right?"

"That's what we have. And they offered me a promotion at

work. A promotion means better Health-insurance for all the costs of

having the baby.

All well and good except I know what went on with you and

some floozy this afternoon you’re trying to be charming with. You love

having your cake and eating it too.

Well your vacation is over. You need to shape up. By why

should you? You've gotten away with it this long," Katie said. She was

furious.

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She wanted to sit on the couch and cry but she just went into the

kitchen and poured a pop. Then she realized she couldn’t have pop.

“Babe,” Cam said struggling to be nice in response to Katie’s

angry tone. “I do love you. We’ve been through a lot of years together.

Maybe I never said it but I’m saying it now. Look, honey. I have to go

somewhere. I will be back home tonight, I promise. I have to get some

money someone owes me,” Cam said.

“Tell her I'm pregnant,” Katie said guessing he was lying about

where he was headed. “Maybe she'll run before you do this to her too.

Then again, if she's with you, she’s too stupid to do that.”

“Katie, I am the proudest papa in town,” Cam said nervously

without any faith in those words.

“You realize you love me and you’re leaving? That’s a special

kind of mental cruelty,” Katie said softly.

Cam walked out to Katie’s muffled sobs. He didn’t drink but this

revelation Katie carried his child sobered him. He whispered to himself

“I don’t think I can be sober for the next 18 years til the kid she’s

carrying is grown.”

Chapter 3

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The Saturday before Easter Sunday, when traditionally Christ can't

be with us in Holy Communion but is in Hell saving the souls rotting

there was Katie’s first day of knowing she was pregnant, she had

relations with no one else, Cam had to be the father.

"A child is a gift from God," she reminded herself, unable to feel

as happy as she should. God blessed Katie with a form of peace only

provided for by the Holy Spirit.

"What if Cam came back? He would ask me to get an abortion,”

she thought. He's out calling in an old bet just to pay for it now I think,"

Katie said and the peace dissipated.

“I want to marry a cad?” If only I could think straight. She knew

when he left her alone, that was the only time she found peace.

The nature of their relationship suddenly shocked her.

“Katie," she thought, “you’ve got to get out.” She went to the

couch thinking about all her chances to walk away that she squandered

until the moment she was pregnant. Her teardrops started.

Out of nowhere, Cam returned.

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“Katie, I need to talk with you,” Cam said. Katie arose, her heart

pounding.

Cam paused. Katie was prepared to hear him out. She was

shocked, he looked so handsome to her just then. Unlike he'd ever

looked before to her. She couldn't have said anything if she wanted to.

Later on, Katie would say Cam never looked so grotesque.

Cam spoke. "All my life my mom and dad gave me everything, I

was cursed with this...I’m spoiled. You know the scene from the

Twilight Zone where Rance McGrew is the TV cowboy who never loses

a draw and never loses a fight…?”

Katie, shocked by his sudden candor, sensing the solution to all her

problems just nodded her head yes.

Cam continued, “then suddenly they enter the Twilight Zone,” Cam

said emphasizing the three words of the Title of the show. “It’s no

longer a movie set but all real and the real Jesse James comes into the

saloon and makes Rance shape up. THAT’s how it’s gotten with me and

this baby is the real Jesse James! Hon, being spoiled has gotten me into

so many situations. The girls calling and me not knowing it’s you…it’s

YOU I love.

Well I thought about it, Rance was spoiled but he was also selfish.

The way he acted on set, how rude he is towards the other actors and

director, well I’m not selfish. I’m NOT. I’m not gonna be with selfish

you...any more EVER.”

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"My whole life,” Cam continued was one big temptation to do the

wrong thing, to make the wrong choices. Can I be a saint? Probably

not," Cam said.

"I’m not looking for a saint,” Katie said and pictured Horace in her

mind. “Are you going to be the father of this baby or not? I am not

asking you to marry me."

Cam didn’t hear what she said. He just kept talking. "I have had

every chance to do the right thing. But my talents are...illegal."

Then Katie said something with an angry tone, "illegal or immature,

selfish or not, you’ve got nine months to figure out if you want to be a

stand up person…."

She no longer captivated Cam with her natural looking face. Her

anger just now made her even ugly, not even plain. If you call looking

natural - looking plain, so be it, Katie barely passed for plain nowadays,

tired is more like it. Her plainness was gone forever with her youth.

"See, there you go, giving me all these changes. Let me finish

please,” Cam said interrupting her. “Then I met you. Katherine. You did

all I ever asked of you and more. You gave me "shelter” from

temptations. You pointed me in the right direction.

You yelled at me for relapsing and playing pool.

You asked me to go to mass with you. You listened. You got me to

do things I never could alone.

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And we fought. We fight so much. Can a child in our home be a

success?

Isn't it better, isn't it more ideal, if we are not seen fighting in front of

a poor kid?" Cam said.

"Yes, if you grow up and get a job, not as a professional pool sharp.

Then when you come home you will be too tired to argue with me. We'll

all three have some dinner and go to sleep," Katie said.

"Katie, you don't understand at all. My whole life, my whole life, I

have had to make a choice between what all my talents say you were

born with and what is the right thing to do.”

“Thou shalt not gamble,” Katie said. “End of story.”

“I see the three kids and their mother lounging by the public pool

and the kids are all saying, look how good daddy is at shooting baskets

at the poolside basketball goal…he could have been a pro…but

no…he’s gotta go to the factory every day and lucky if he gets to relax

on Sunday at the pool…” Cam said.

“You really think highly of that face of yours huh?“ Katie said. And

he really did look like more handsome to her than her biggest school-girl

crush. He looked otherworldly handsome to her just then. "You had a

job at the school. You told me you liked it.”

"Me and the high road, it isn't gonna last," Cam said.

"We've lasted."

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"We have. We have lasted. We've lasted a long long time,” Cam

said.

"I am not a robot, Cam. But I'm not pushing you to do anything.

Just one thing I ask. We need to stay together like we have these last 10

years despite our differences. We need to stay together now more than

ever. Make a leap of faith,” Katie said.

Cam sighed. “I haven't been able to tell you this. But the last few

months, I was here in body only.” Katie looked at him. She finally saw

an ape wallowing in vice and his own litter.

The female voice who picked up the phone when Katie called Cam

at Ding Bats repeated in her mind aurally. Her stomach sank. Then

something extraordinary, perhaps even peculiar happened. Instead of

screaming, and perhaps bottling that emotion to no good result, Katie

listened calmly. She internalized the hurt.

To this final insult, him preaching about being selfless as an intro

to being selfish, Katie whispered to herself something like this, "...let it

be to me according to your Word..."

Then Katie stood up and felt a sharp pain in her stomach. She

doubled over for a moment, agonizingly straightened herself and made it

to our table before she fainted and an ambulance was called.

III

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Katie miscarried her baby.

Cam’s first reaction was genuine but only because it meant he was

off the hook. "Honey, I am so glad you're ok," Cam said to Katie the

next day in the hospital.

"Yeah," I'm fine,” was Katie’s lackluster, unbelievable reply.

"I'm really really glad," Cam said knowing she miscarried, “that

you're ok.”

Katie paused. She measured her words carefully. She knew being

pregnant was not any leverage with a fellow like Cam. "I have been

made a manager with the Actuary. I can get by on my own financially."

Cam didn’t know what to think. “Are you breaking up with me?”

He paused waiting and hoping to hear her say ‘yes’. He had no wish to

be a father at 31.

Katie took a cup from her bedside and took a long drink of water

from a straw.

On one hand, Katie certainly knew being single at her age with no

real family meant oblivion.

As for Cam, he didn’t need Katie to explain further, he had

rabbit in him. That rabbit in him never frightened Katie. If anything Cam

excited her. He could reaffirm her whole existence in a single witty

sentence. His “are you breaking up with me?” could be taken as a plea

that they stay together after all.

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Chapter 4

The next day was Easter Sunday. Katie wanted to go to

Catholic mass more than ever.

She woke early about 7 am and created an Italian Antipasto

platter loaded with fruits, vegetables, American cheese slices, cured

meats and Peperoncino. She prepared a Polish ham and all the trimmings

as well as defrosted two eclairs from the fridge. At 10:30 am they

attended St. Christina Catholic Church on 111th Street at Homan. The

elderly there noticed the size of the crowd that Easter, and said how

every Sunday mass was that crowded in the past. The choir loft was jam

packed, as well as the vestibules.

Despite doing no sacrifice for Lent, Cam was immensely

proud of himself at the end of this Lent (he had no idea it was Lent). He

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was proud of himself for not pushing Katie down a flight of stairs to

induce an abortion when she told him she was pregnant.

Cam dressed in the sharpest suit he owned and agreed to go

with her to Holy Mass on Easter morning. His narcissism exploded as he

passed by the holy water and strode up the main aisle at church. In a

church full of off duty policemen and fireman and their families, Cam

was better dressed than any of them. His narcissism was the only aspect

of him that ever matured.

He considered the night before his finest hour. He didn’t

even bring up the word “abortion”. He felt he allowed Katie to “take

over” that Easter like a second mom of his.

Almost all the females at mass wore heels adorned with

some sort of flower. Katie opted for a classy expensive black pair of

boots, the kind she wore at work.

As they made it to the last two seats in a pew about halfway

up the center aisle Katie noticed how kind the people were to one

another, wishing each other Happy Easter and would think the beauty of

the church lay in all the kind people who wished her Happy Easter.

Katie noticed the altar, all marble, black marble flooring and

red marble walls on all sides. The altar, covered in pink, blue, yellow

and white carnations and white lilies in decorative green foil containers

looked resplendent in pastel colors.

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Katie and Cam hadn’t been to mass in years and they could

sense at once how something truly momentous was being celebrated by

these folk.

By chance, Cam’s ears picked up during the first reading

which mentioned the stone that the builders rejected has become the

cornerstone. Cam identified with that, he felt accepted by this God of

theirs and could be proud of himself. Instead of being there, forced to

this church to marry Katie, he was free as a bird! The thought made him

shudder with a kind of joy.

Though Katie would not have a baby, a miracle did happen

that weekend. Katie found great peace in that year's Catholic Easter

mass. She found this peace even while sitting next to Cam with his chest

puffed up though they just lost their child.

The calm Katie felt on that Easter was simple. She now knew

everything she once feared had no hold on her at all. Katie knew she had

the power to be on her own. She realized Cam, who had been in her life

since she took that job in the factory behind Horace’s parent’s house, no

longer needed to be in her life. It would be fitting for it to happen on

Easter, the day Christians can shrug off the fear of death because of the

Resurrection.

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Celebrating Christ's Easter Rising was not lost on Katie. She

experienced her own “rising” at that Easter mass. She now knew Whom

to replace Cam with.

As the choir sang the words “the stone that the builders

rejected” a few pews behind Katie, Horace snuck into mass from the

tavern on 111th. Both she and Horace felt a power enter them. For Katie

it was to carry on without Cam, for Horace it was to ask Emily to go

back home.

As the priest vowed he’d keep his promise to a short

sermon, Horace received a text from me that I was in the church with

Emily and Tommy and we would meet him after mass by the altar. I

myself hadn’t been to mass in years, and I didn’t know the etiquette is

not to text during mass. I got no glances however.

The church seemed warm and alive.

(NOTE: Had she had the baby and had Cam held it in his arms, it’s even

possible he’d have resembled a man someday. But at that critical

juncture in his life, the "adolescent Cam" was much better fed than the

actual 32 year old person, and therefore the adolescent side was

stronger.)

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Horace and Emily, Tommy and I bumped into Katie and Cam

after mass under the statue of the Blessed Mother.

I couldn't speak to Cam for the simple reason I broke my

biggest rule, never speak ill of someone to a third party, you can never

look them in the eye when you need to. And I spoke ill of Cam to Katie.

Cam remembered us from the night before but had no idea

Horace and Emily were united romantically. He chuckled to himself and

smiled. Emily laughed upon seeing Cam.

Horace felt a strong sense of sympathy for Katie because he

knew she was finally dealing with all Cam was incapable of. Horace

always knew, if Cam went to Confession just once, ONCE, his mindset

would move from “stealing” to “giving”, two confessions and he could

go from “giver” to “pious”. That’s because a Sacramental Confession

with a Catholic Priest removes a lifetime of sin and stain and the

profound effect of that brings peace and willingness to forgive others, it

brings out compassion. All the layers of sin are peeled back at once.

Cam had only petty vendettas to ponder. Cam never forgave anyone.

Katie’s anguish and pain were palpable but there was also

present a stoic calmness that she was not facing life alone anymore.

Katie came around to the idea that there was something

worthwhile in Horace, something Quixotic and so unsuited for this

world. But that’s as far as she ever thought of it. And if Horace was

better described as Quixotic than Christ-like, it's also true he wanted to

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be like Joseph more so than Cam ever wanted to be a good husband and

father.

Cam grew so edgy and fidgety for standing and sitting and

kneeling for an hour that he had to have a smoke. Emily, ever dying for

a smoke herself for the same reason, saw that as her chance to sneak out

as well for a cigarette and joined Cam just outside church with a big

smile.

Finally Horace and Katie were more or less alone at the altar

at St. Christina. Those who loitered about after mass chatted away

loudly and filled the church with ambient noise. Horace, still exalted and

tranquilized from the beer he had before mass, heard none of the chatter.

He only sensed his chance to stand next to Katie who looked just as

plain as she did the first time he ever laid eyes on her. Horace kissed

Katie on the lips, right before the Blessed Mother and right out of the

blue.

The feeling he longed to experience for decades finally

happened. An ice cube melted a few drops! Later Horace told me it must

be what it’s like to kiss a nun on the lips!

Suddenly Tommy awkwardly approached them and took

Horace by the shoulder and said, “please, (as if they were kissing like a

new couple) no PDA.” Then Tommy said to Katie, “I don’t know you,

but I’ve heard a lot about you from Horace.”

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Katie replied, “I know you have. Horace here is actually

kind of shocking,” Katie said. It’s been years and he still thinks of me so

tenderly.”

That’s when I knew Horace kissed her, not the other way

around. Tommy's words struck Katie and it showed on her face.

Tommy whispered to Katie, “It’s all alright, “God is

sovereign. God is ultimately in control of everything that happens in this

world, including right here on the Southside of Chicago.”

Katie looked up at the giant, Tommy and smiled.

Horace of course was struck by this first real kiss with

Katie Schmidt! A moment he thought of for years because he missed his

chance and because life dealt him another one.

Katie was not having a rebound from Cam. This was a one-

off kiss. Still if Katie allowed Horace into her life after that, somehow,

someway (for the record she never expressed if she enjoyed his kiss) she

would elicit empathy and humility in his heart. Steadily, constantly

reaffirming his faith in mankind. Horace would have straightened his act

out, he'd have cared for her and if she became deathly sick, when he

parted her company for the moment so she could pray or be bathed by

her nurse, Horace would have went to another room and cried real

tears.

III

174

Though they were officially broken up, and Katie had to

drag Cam away from his cigarette with Emily outside of Church, she

still didn't have the heart to throw Cam out on Easter Sunday. They

went back to her place and had Antipasto platter and Easter ham and

wine. She did break with him once and for all shortly thereafter

though.

Cam waited til the very end to empty his side of the closet

at Katie’s apartment. I call it that because Cam never paid a penny in

rent in 10 years. He took his time, not so much so she’d have to kick him

out, but because it would end his reverie of not having to work. He

snuck out quietly and went to a bar up the alley to shoot pool.

I never heard from Katie again, but of course heard about

her.

Tommy, Dawn, Horace, Emmie and I ended up at a

restaurant on 111th Street after mass. I paired off with Dawn and got the

rest of her story.

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Almost any observer would unequivocally see Dawn as

perfect for Horace. For one thing, she really wanted him to succeed at

his job at the TV station. She helped him avoid all the pitfalls there. For

Horace that job was a dream come true. (Watching PBS TV was one of

his first magical memories as a child.) Dawn shielded Horace at work,

allowed him to write, to day dream, to be happy and carefree at a job

she made him look good doing.

Dawn was THE girl alright, the girl who single handedly kept

Horace’s employed when he ran “up north” to meet Emily’s parents on

their first date. Dawn did all his work for him so his absence went un

noticed…She remained Horace’s coworker, even when everyone was

asking where Horace shipped off to, and wanted her to fink on him. She

managed her department as efficiently as ever.

Dawn made no mistakes, except one, she fell in love with

Horace. Even after that wretched afternoon at Ding Bat’s where she

quietly sat through all of Emily’s drama, she still loved him.

Dawn’s other mistake, her only other mistake, was that she

ignored anything would ever truly happen between Horace and Emily

and thought Horace would see (Dawn’s) value and perhaps even move

in with her.

Dawn swore to herself she’d never lord her win over Emily (if

Horace chose Dawn) and she wouldn’t have.

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Why shouldn’t it go that way? They shared so many moments of

success at work. Dawn didn’t realize until too late that those successes

were mostly only when Dawn lit a light bulb over Horace and he was off

and running with his new idea.

I bought Dawn a beer. I think she decided at some point I was a

dear friend to Horace and we would be in the same circle for the rest of

our lives.

Even as late as that Easter night, she still held out hope Horace

would see the light.

Seeing Horace with Emily, she was beyond disappointed. She

would not let me see her defeat. (Oddly enough Horace was sitting by

Emily but thinking of Katie!) It annoyed Dawn the most that she even

tried for Horace and someone like Katie didn’t have to try for Horace

and he was hers, someone like Emily did try for Horace and he was hers.

No one will ever know the depth of despair that Dawn and girls like

her go through when they offer a man such a profound home and hearth

and he just can’t kiss them.

The crushing blow for Dawn would come that summer when

“official word” spread to almost all the other 359 other PBS TV stations

in the continental US and Guam via a PBS system-wise newsletter that

Horace was engaged…to an Emily White.

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Dawn had contacts all over that system whom she called from time

to time to order video feeds that were missed. She shared her feelings for

Horace with colleagues all over the system who also knew Horace.

Program Directors, Traffic Specialists, Operations Assistants, her friend

Bonnie, at Wisconsin PBS whom she knew for years. She intimated that

Horace doesn’t know what he wants but maybe, maybe he wants…her.

Dawn always said to that point that someday Horace would see

what she saw, that they were more than just best friends.

That PBS professional newsletter, under announcements, reading,

Horace O’Leary, WICC in Chicago, is engaged with Emily White, a gas

station attendant, and they have set a date for their wedding. September

17, 20__ hurt.

Even stoic and calm Dawn Browning reacted with shame. She was

not even angry at Horace, she was upset with herself. She never spoke to

Horace again.

As for Tommy, I am convinced the medication he took was not

enough to him out of an asylum without having the New Testament

memorized. Tommy makes deliveries in his beat up American model

car.

Well, it used to be American. It’s well past 300,000 miles (his

roommate is a mechanic) so now half the care is replacement parts from

Japan and may as well be Japanese. He is on his third diet coke by

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10AM so he is a little jittery if I get a chance to talk to him but he is as

happy. His smile is the most genuine in town.

Tommy’s the opposite of a nosey busy-body because somehow his

faith reaches out to him and consoles him. If he hears gossip or bad

news, he breaks down in prayer at once. This is absolutely foreign to me.

I try to think outside the box, imagine a hundred different reasons why.

Tommy merely reached for a hundred different verses in Scripture that

assured him not to worry, that reminded him he had a powerful Patron.

Tommy sees parts of town completely differently than even the

most devout people. For example, Beverly Park on 103rd Street is the

Garden of Gethsemane to Tommy, the front lawn of the Fifth District

courthouse in Bridgeview, IL is where the crowd demanded Jesus be

crucified. Behind the courthouse is where Pilate lets the crowd have

Jesus. A rose bush stands there to this day and from it, Tommy imagines

a crown of thorns is fashioned.

A steep bridge in Blue Island, IL over a dozen parallel railroad lines

is where Jesus drags the cross. Tommy imagines the very spot Jesus is

consoled by His Blessed Mother, halfway up the pedestrian walkway of

the bridge. Finally the park on the east side of the bridge in Blue Island

becomes Golgotha in Tommy’s imagination. It brings to life what the

Lord went through for us all, Tommy says, we rely on Christ in their

times of suffering.

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Chapter 5

Horace somehow got motivated to stop visiting the bars on

Western and 111th street. You would think that would please Emily and

it did.

Horace reminded her that marriage to him still meant she had to

go to work. Those words would’ve had Emily bolting for the door upon

even hearing them, but she stayed and doubled down.

Once while Horace was at work, Emily lazily got up from their bed

and wrote ‘I love you’ in lipstick on the bathroom mirror. She cracked

the mirror. Something superstitious Horace would not miss the

symbolism of.

Ever-cautious Horace waffled and hesitated and pushed their

wedding date in September back to March 17th the following year.

Emily finally figured that trend was going to repeat itself. She realized

the effort to get a guy to marry was more work than going to school and

train to draw blood and be a nurse.

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When Horace lobbied to move their wedding date…Emily went

for a walk, found Cam at the pool hall and took him up on an offer for a

cigarette at a motel outside of town on Route 6.

We regret to go into too much detail of that night. Cam felt

unfettered by young Emily. He hadn’t been intimate with Katie for a

while and spent all his sexual aggression on Emmie. If Emily wished she

could have gotten Cam on rape charges, but she didn’t. She left Chicago.

Eventually Emmie mailed Horace back the $3,000 engagement

ring from Wolverine, MI in a padded, sealed pouch. The ring Horace put

on her finger in downtown Gaylord, MI when Emmie chose a ring and a

dollar hot dog over the roasted duck and champagne dinner. Horace

traded the same ring in on Wabash Avenue downtown for $300

dollars.

Was Emmie dedicated to anything? Emily White can’t be judged

too harshly. She was a high school drop out with a well-endowed

bosom. Once she made the decision to drop out of school, all her

remaining decisions just kept sending her from the frying pan into the

fire. Her flaw was that she tried to improve herself by attracting suckers

with just her good looks and smile.

In the end, Emily got a job at a gas station in very remote

Michigan. She got better at wearing makeup and attracted a trucker who

was passing through for the Mackinac Bridge. She ended up riding with

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one across the country. The White family didn’t say much about her

after that, except she was happy.

I visited the pool halls that Cam was known to haunt and can say

with certainty, no one ever heard from Cam again. Maybe in the light of

day he knew what he did with Emily in the motel room was a crime and

he needed to drop out of sight.

Katie’s promotion at the Actuary allowed her to put some money

aside.

She began attending Catholic mass weekly, then daily, then going

to an Adoration chapel where the Blessed Sacrament is exposed in a

Monstrance. Believers sit and bask in the glow of the risen Lord.

Unbelievers are shocked by it.

Katie was not shocked.

Her hair returned to brunette and she began to wear a simple black

hairpin that kept the hair from her eyes. Her main attractiveness burst

forth much more effectively than ever.

Now, her chief form of attractiveness was her holiness. Katie

didn’t recognize this however, she only noticed that without wearing

182

makeup the flares of her nostrils were sometimes red as if she had a

head-cold.

The most accurate image of her is illustrated on the cover of this

novel, serene and peaceful, even orderly and especially living without

Cam. It's how she looked in the end. Horace himself declared, “If she

didn’t belong to God the day I kissed her in church, she was headed

there.”

Her mask removed, Katie Schmidt’s astonishing natural beauty

revealed itself.

As for Horace O’Leary. Our city’s Sacred Fool, it would take a

whole other novel to describe what came of him. And perhaps I will

someday. Today you would not recognize him.

The TV station which through Horace’s hard work moved up in

the ratings, got so popular that it added two channels. Their second

channel became full time Japanese news, the second was called First

Nations (native American programming).

Christy B did the all three station logs and Horace became the

Program Director. His career assumed a perfect arc. (It was discovered

Cindy was caught making fraudulent statements on a yearly review and

was terminated.) Dawn was not assigned to help Christy B with logs.

Horace’s romance with Emmie exposed Dawn wasn’t just

interested in friendship alone. Horace lost her patronage when he

moved from his desk touching hers into Cindy’s former office.

183

Dawn’s covering for Horace wasn’t quite as necessary because now

Horace was sourcing programming and signing vendors’ contracts. He

was out of the office almost every month for a week at a Programming

Conference.

To Dawn’s great credit, she didn’t try and sabotage Horace’s new

position with her coworkers in master Control, she quietly went about

her work and ultimately moved back to Iowa and took a job with Iowa

PBS. Her search for a husband in crowded Chicago ended.

Horace now was in charge of filling air time for the main channel 24/7.

He submitted his picks to Christy B. who expertly put them in the log.

After two years in Programming he’d been in Public Television 17

years altogether.

Horace became an executive now, no longer in the “salt mines” of

Operations. He could boast of many accomplishments. At a BBC

conference in New Orleans he paid $16,000 for the rights to air a famous

British Science Fiction series, Doctor Who for three years. Fans in

Chicago reacted by flooding the “I’ll watch this” app with WICC

because Doctor Who was airing Saturdays at 10:00pm. (Cindy would

have never bought that series, the special effects were not Star Wars

caliber, ignoring the chief merit of the series, it’s cult like following and

excellent storylines.)

Meanwhile, a Chicago family in Wilmette were so happy with

Horace’s/WICC’s decision to air Doctor Who that they presented WICC

184

with a $50,000 check expressing their gratitude. (This was just before

Pluto TV and Hulu started airing watch on demand seasons of hundreds

of shows including Start Trek and Dr Who. So having BBC Sci Fi

(especially Dr Who) return to the airwaves was a singular event!)

An Act of Congress allowed all PBS stations to join a once in a

lifetime reverse spectrum auction. Of 359 PBS stations, WICC decided

to take this opportunity sell the license. City attorneys, with no idea of

the value of such a thing, sold a $150 million dollar license for pennies

on the dollar. It barely paid off their lease on the attenna atop the John

Hancock.

Horace and the whole staff were quickly out of work. Horace’s

luck ran out.

III

He still lived over Maria’s on 111th and Sacramento and he

retreated there to his LaZy Boy recliner to watch the very same PBS

shows he watched in Cindy’s office the very day before. (Channel 11

broadcast news from foreign networks broadcasting from Tokyo and

Berlin just as WICC had).

When he couldn’t pay rent, Maria allowed him to pitch in switching

the barrels behind the bar, sweeping up and taking out the empty bottles.

185

He was a tenant long enough that Maria cut him some slack. After 6

months of no rent however, even Maria started giving him dirty looks.

Horace avoided her.

Horace’s sister Loraine (his savior), who bore all their parent’s

caregiving without a single complaint, was always ready to help if he

asked. Between Loraine and Maria, he never would sleep on the streets.

With that safety net, he looked around for work. A radio station

hired him but the job required an intrepid reporter, Horace was anything

but intrepid.

He eventually found a job doing what his father did for 30 years,

driving professionally.

Horace’s “good Double”, a good version of Horace, prevailed after

all. Horace’s mother and her intercessory prayers also triumphed. Her

oft used phrase of advice, “turn over a new leaf” got through to Horace.

For now I shall say this, the famous literary creation Don Quixote

was a fool, but very likeable. So much so in fact, everyone who came in

contact with him, humored his whims. That phenomenon exists. For

Horace, being liked was the rare exception, not the norm. If you asked

Horace about how he was perceived, he would never bring up the

186

obvious insults and resulting injury he was familiar with. If you

reminded him what life put him through, he may not have forgotten

Tommy’s good advice to not to take himself too seriously and…

“The thought of Calvary changes your perspective at once. No one

was insulted more deeply than He,” Tommy would say.

Doctors would say Horace suffered from a frozen heart, and it

was a catchy disease, he left more than one companion with the

condition as well.

We began this story describing Horace as a fool. And he surely

might have given us reasons to agree, even within just the telling of this

story. However wise men say it is better to be single and live an

uncomplicated life than to marry the wrong person. Even couples who

firmly put the other first will surely run into bitter and angry

disagreements over fundamental issues.

Today Horace lives an uncomplicated, healthy life. He is still

playing basketball even at age 59.

Horace finally realized he’s not the marrying type. Quite a feat

of self-awareness actually. He does not live beyond his means and owns

his own home. He is what I’d consider happy and content. He realizes

his ideal girl may not exist at all. (Or she may be milking a cow in rural

Mayo, Ireland or Bavaria, Germany.) In the end, Horace never allowed

187

the foolishness of a forced marriage or a rushed marriage or a marriage

to a “roommate”. His regrets are few.

Maybe Horace’s wisdom surfaced like a poignant blessing

when he needed it most, and prevented him from ever marrying Katie,

Emmie or Dawn.

188

I produced 35 hour long radio shows that chronicle the Irish band Thin Lizzy and

they air non-stop in syndication from St. Patrick’s Day 2021 until present on

terrestrial radio.

Author Bio:

Michael McKenna was born and raised on the Southside of Chicago in 1965.

From the age of 9, Michael listened to radio dramas. CBS’ Radio Mystery Theater

hosted by E G Marshall aired at 11:00pm every weeknight on WBBM in Chicago.

The series would profoundly impact him and lead him to study Broadcasting.

189

Michael caddied at Beverly Country Club from 1979 to 1987. He attended

Marquette University as an Evans Scholar from 1983 to 1987.

In 2016 Michael began producing radio plays from stories he’d written over the

years.

Ultimately he wrote and produced 38 radio plays with himself as the narrator.

Below are the titles with synopsis of the plays Michael wrote, directed and

produced with multiple sound effects and all have aired numerous times on radio in

Chicago and elsewhere. Every play is archived at Marquette University Archives

in the Raynor Memorial Library, 1355 West Wisconsin Avenue, third floor. The

best edits of the plays would be those entered into the archives in July of 2024.

My radio plays with short synopsis:

The Haunted Lighthouse. First radio play. Aired January 10, 2016 on WCEV

AM 1450 at 8:00pm. A young man swims out to a lighthouse off shore from where

he lives. Upon reaching this navigational aid, he frightens off the keeper and his

family, why? Followed by Spirit Slips Away by Thin Lizzy.

Why Rome Never Invaded Ireland. A giant living on an island in Dublin Bay

frightens off a garrison of Roman soldiers. Followed by Emerald by Thin Lizzy.

I Didn’t Know I Didn’t Love You. Two starlets appear at a talent agency for the

same job. Featuring Southbound by Thin Lizzy.

190

Honeymoon in Siberia. Scott takes Susie to Russia for their honeymoon. Did they

marry too quickly? Featuring We Will Be Strong by Thin Lizzy.

Entering the 7th Stage. A man takes a walk in the forest preserve outside Chicago

and meets the Devil. Followed by Pressure Will Blow by Thin Lizzy.

How to Trap a Leprechaun. Counting his shiny money, Captain Farrell attracts a

leprechaun. Followed by Whisky in the Jar by Thin Lizzy.

Wow! Signal. Two bungling SETI operators get contacted by an advanced extra-

terrestrial race and they think it’s an ex-girlfriend pranking them.

Ghoul on the Air. An overnight Dee Jay gets a job at a remote radio station high

in the Rockies. Followed by Killer on the Loose by Thin Lizzy.

Visitor. In Smolensk, 1953, Alexei’s wife is imprisoned for telling a joke about

Stalin.

The Great Bank Robbery That Almost Wasn’t. Butch Cassidy considers

backing out of his first bank robbery in Colorado in 1881.

Phone Call that Almost Blew up the World. Lisa and Jack are having trouble in

their marriage. Jack is in charge of nuclear reactor and needs anger management

intervention. Will he start a war with Russia to end his personal problems?

191

Radio Inferno. A desperado breaks into a radio station in Eagle River and

demands to be put on air, so he can talk to the girl who is ignoring him but who

loves the station. Featuring top 40 hits of 1987.

Without Warning. CIA operatives meet with lobbyists in the Pentagon to plan

9/11. A pen pal from Chelyabinsk pays the top CIA man a visit.

All the Rage. How did AC/DC’s Bon Scott die?

The Offer He Could Not Refuse. Living in exile in sunny Capri, Gorki dreams of

his frozen homeland, Russia. He is invited to return by the Supreme Soviet

Command as their VIP guest.

Haunted Skyscraper. Fresh out of Marquette University, Marvin Johnson signs a

one-year deal with the Chicago Bulls and needs a place to live.

The Last Days of Edgar Allan Poe. How did Poe really die? We take you to his

crypt the day after where he tells you himself.

The Night Elvis Bombed. In 1956 Presley was changing music and radio. Teen

aged fans couldn’t get into his Las Vegas concerts and the conference goers and

World War two vets wanted comedians and orchestra music.

The Count of St Germaine. Who was Phil Lynott? Some say he was born 3,000

years ago and couldn’t die.

192

Das Shamrock. Germany can win the war by not invading Russia. A wee

leprechaun sees the danger in that and lands on the German Chancellors shoulder

for a conference.

Soldier for the King. Pierre is sent to guard the fort at Starved Rock in 1681. His

wife Sophie is left back in Paris in the shadow of a brand new Cathedral to ponder

his fate.

The Bobby Band! A Spinal Tap look at a local rock band no one has ever heard

of. Featuring the never heard on Final Frontier before Live and Dangerous.

Drifters! Two astronauts find themselves drifting way off course on a mission to

Mars.

Other titles:

The Crippled Kaiser

The Stakes are High (dedicated to Marquette University’s St. Joan of

Arc Chapel)

Allah is but a Nap

Alfred Bravehawk

193

Lost City of the Dolphingod

Robyn Hode in Barnsdale Stode

57 Kuchhausen

Wrigley Spectre

Beautiful Thief aka A Black Cat

Five Martyrs

The Alchemist

A Celtic Giant in Torshavn

Meet the Dagda

The Man Who Beat the Undertaker

194

Appendix:

(From page 28)

Somewhere there’s a Catherine in some alternate universe.

A Catherine Schmidt, who’s Katie’s twin but who does not feel unattractive.

She is comfortable drawing attention to herself. She talks out of the side of her

mouth when she is monetizing passion or drinking to feel like god.

She is Katie’s age and of similar experience but unlike Katie, Catherine talks to

earn, she monetizes her voice.

That voice is an affectation of her natural voice to emphasize her jokes.

She uses voices utterly unlike Katie whose normal speaking voice so lulled and

tranquillized Horace’s heart. Catherine cannot mimic Katie who speaks calmly and

without swearing. Catherine cursed and swore like a sailor to emphasize a feeling.

(From page 34) St. Columba (521AD - 597AD) was an Irish monk,

founder of three major Abbeys in France. His harsh but fair rules within

the Monasteries he founded led to detailed documentation of his faith.

His detailed prayers (coupled with fasting) were known to be almost

instantly answered without delay, from feeding his hungry monks to

commanding wild animals.

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