Ten Things I See from the Division Street Bus, 1967

Ten Things I see from the Division Street Bus, 1967

1.      The young man in a white T-shirt

and black slacks puts his right hand

into his pocket and stands on the corner

of Division and California. 

His left hand holds a paper shopping bag

from the A & P.  He looks down Division

as if waiting for someone, and she’s late.

2.      A black man with a necklace of plastic

baby dolls, every one of them as naked

as baby Jesus, dances in front of the bank. 

He is singing that every time it rains

it rains pennies from heaven, heaven.

I love these songs sung by men with no wives,

no homes, no dinners of southern-fried steak

and mashed potatoes, no dreams of anything

but this gray sidewalk and a foolish dancing step.

Songs like this will let a woman in a blue scarf

with yellow flowers know that he too is someone

without hope or dreams.  This song will urge her

to take him home and sit him down at a table

that smells like some Sunday afternoon dinner  

he will always remember, even in the moments

before he dies, no matter how he dies or where.

3.      And with him dances his chicken.  A beat

red rooster he found in Humboldt Park

in the bushes at the southwest entrance

to the park next to the statue called Home,

a statue of a father kneeling to embrace

his daughter, his lunch pail chiseled like him

from rock that will last as long as fathers

come home and their children wait for them.

4.      The bus speeds up, travelling eastward,

toward the lake it never reaches

because the route bends south on State Street.

5.      A seventeen- or eighteen-year old girl

walks past Pierce’s Deli.  In her heart, she carries

a secret she fears will make the boy she loves

angry.  If she could find some way to tell him

that wouldn’t hurt him, she’d say a rosary

to the Blessed Virgin this Sunday after mass.

6.      There’s Polack Joe going into the bar

next to the New Strand Movie Theater. 

If this were ten years ago, I would say

he’s looking for his father Dulek, a drunk

who survived the killing on Monte Cassino

so he could drink too much and run naked

like a crazy man in the streets.  So long, Joe.

7.      A school girl in a plaid-green skirt circles

around and around her little brother,

her arms spread wider than she’ll ever be,

wider than her mother’s love, and wider

than the white-checkered table in their kitchen. 

She’s going faster, and making a roar-

ing noise like wind in the winter pines,

and her brother shouts, “Danusha, please stop,

you’re making me dizzy and I’ll fall!”

8.      A man stands waiting for the bus.  

As it angles toward the corner,

the driver sees he has no eyes,

not even dark glasses or an old rag

to protect the passengers from this sight,

just the empty mouths of his sockets,

Red like the chicken I saw dancing

with the singing black man.  The doors open

and the blind man gets on.  His feet

are sure, so is his hand grasping the rail. 

He drops a quarter in the coin box,

and asks the driver to call out Ashland. 

The driver looks square in his eyes

and says, Mister, you ought to put

something over your eyes.

9.      Two well-dressed men shake hands

in front of the Russian-Turkish Bath. 

The younger man is smiling and saying

something quickly, the older man laughs

and we can all hear it in the bus,

even with the traffic that grinds

toward Milwaukee with its Polacks,

Jews, Puerto Ricans, Austrians

Mexicans, Italians, Ukrainians,

even farm boys and their wives and children

from someplace in Mississippi

where the levee broke ten years ago

and cursed the family to a life

of geographical evolution,

toward this city and the shopping

they’ll all be doing on Milwaukee.

10.  At the dreaming center of Chicago

is an island formed by the intersections

of Milwaukee, Division, and Ashland. 

Once, Indians stripped the skins off buffaloes

here, and lived in huts children have been taught

to call hogans.  The driver calls the stop,

and the blind man is first to leave the bus,

thanking the driver for his courtesy. 

A woman presses the blind man forward.

She’s in a hurry, and he understands. 

His grip is still sure on the rail and he’s

getting off as fast as he can.  I’m behind him,

and I’m behind her and leave the bus in turn

walking quickly to the subway entrance. 

A legless man sitting on the sidewalk

raises his wool cap to me and in Polish

offers me a pencil.  Like my mother taught me,

I toss a quarter in his cap and say in Polish,

“Thanks, but you keep the pencil.  I’ve got plenty.”

_______________

The photo of Nelson Algren walking on Division Street is by Chicago photo journalist Art Shay.