Address Void

The following is a short story submitted by Bob Metivier.

It was a mild autumn evening in the Windy City. Wednesday Night in late October, our weekly Yoga class had just finished another session. The Beautiful People chatted serenely and gathered to be a little nearer the “Guru of State Street”. Charley Wells, great-grandson of H.G. himself, and I, preferred to depart rapidly. We were the first one’s down the elevator which brought Seekers to and from the seventh floor penthouse Temple on the top of a six floor building. We very quickly were out the door and on our way down to the El stop at State and Randolph. The elevated trains of Chicago, which ride the skyline on tracks built about twenty feet off the ground, is a subway in the downtown area known as the loop. The spirit of a race had affected us as we dashed out, and I found myself a good distance ahead of Charley.

As I approached the turn-style, I noticed a uniformed Policeman stood blocking the pathway made by the stanchions. At once this cop seemed different. Something more than not being heavy set with large jowls, the stereo-type Mayor Daley cop. He was not only very small and thin but didn’t project a particular dullness that I’d become used to from most of the force I’d seen.

Then I noticed a powerful glaze over his sparkling eyes. He beamed a very startling grin directly at me as he extended his hand, obviously wishing to shake hands with me. I felt very suspicious of this ‘out of character’ response from a total stranger. Though over four years had past since the ‘Chicago Riot’ of ‘68, the memory still lingered. Especially the feeling of distrust in the local Police Department toward any young man sporting shoulder length hair.

Just then, as I shook hands with Law Enforcement, my friend caught up with me. He had many of the same feelings toward those who were supposed to ‘Serve and Protect’.

Looking much like a male Goldilocks,with yellow ringlets draping over his home-made sheepskin mountain coat, he snapped at me, “What are you doing shaking hands with him?”

“He had his hand out,” I retorted. The cop smiled devilishly at me. “Your friend is a little uptight isn’t he.”

“Come over here,” he said as he led us away from the nonexistent traffic of the turn-style.

“I demand to know what this is about, I have my rights”, said Charley.

“It’s just routine, I’ve gotta ask ya a few questions, its just routine,” he repeated.

“I work for State’s Attorney Hanrahan, I have my rights, I demand to know what this is about.” Pleaded Charley.

“Jeez, your friend is uptight,” The officer quipped, smirking at me. Then turning to Charley he repeated, “It’s just routine, I have to ask you a few questions, what is your name?”

“Charles Richard Wells,” said my friend.

The cop went on to ask him his address, where he worked and so on. All the while enjoying Charley’s discomfort and smirking at me as though I was an old friend sharing in his game of messing with the mind of ‘Joe Civilian’.

After telling him my name he asked me what my address was. To this I replied,”Void.”

He said, “What do you mean void?”

I told him I had just moved out of my apartment so my address was now void.

“Where did you stay last night?”

“In a U-Haul Van behind my friends house,” I said.

His joking around seemed tempered as he wrote ‘none’ in the space provided for the address. I hadn’t noticed any switch from his buddy-buddy joviality so I said, “Thats not how you spell void.” His Heckle and Jive disposition became apparent as he began to scowl.

“What do you do for a living?”

“I’m a teacher,” I answered.

“Where was the last place you taught at,” He asked.

“On the highway earlier today,” I responded in absolute detailed honesty, thinking of the girl I had been tutoring as I drove down the Expressway. He must have thought this to be pure BS and became visibly angry.

Not really listening to the words, wishing I was no longer in this situation, and feeling bullied by a total unmitigated belligerence, I opted to escape.

At the appropriate pause, I merely turned and ran to the steps leading down to the awaiting trains. My only thought was to dash onto a train and be gone. Subconscious fears of being shot in the back slowed me down. For what? I couldn’t imagine. Could it be a major crime to tutor an astrology student while driving down the FREEway.

As I briskly stepped down the stairs, the Officer at full sprint caught me easily. Grabbing my arm firmly he said, “Are you coming with me?”

Not having much choice I said, “I guess so.”

He led me back up the steps to the old stone station lobby. Under protest from Charley, the officer was joined by his colleague in the matter of frisking us down. As we were about to assume the position, down from the street level, approximately six to eight students finally caught up with us in this most embarrassing situation.

“Hey what are you doing with those guys, there good guys.” The girl in the lead spoke out succinctly. Charley seized the moment to directly question the goings on which apparently were getting us arrested. Being an extremely volatile speaker and quite demonstrative with his hands, he shouted in the cops face, “This is your public, aren’t you going to face your public?” All the while extending his arm with five outstretched fingers, as though pointing to the now bewildered group waiting to see what was happening to their fated friends.

The redundancy of our predicament overwhelmed me, I said, “Take it easy, he’s liable to shoot us.” hoping to calm Charley down so that what I’d said might remain an exaggeration.

Just then a familiar person came down the stairs right next to us. It was Mike, the Secretary of the Seminary we were attending.

“Where are you taking these guys?” He asked. “Eleventh and State”, replied the fat cop that was my mad smiler’s partner.

He turned to leave as I called, “See ya Mike.” This seemed to startle him slightly as I casually anticipated his help in resolving this, now tiring, situation.

After a quick frisk, we were escorted up to the street level to an awaiting patty-wagon. My smiling chum in blue got in first. Then Charley and I got in. Suddenly, with the door still open, Mike appeared. “Here”, he said shoving his hand toward Charley. “The Swami wants to bail you guys out”, he said as the door was closed. Then I witnessed the most unusual conversation as Charley decided the time would be well spent messing up the mind and generally irritating the officer who’s duty seemed to involve harassing ‘long-hairs’ in the subway.

“I think you’d probably have to give up your uniform, but I think I could get you into a really comfortable place in one of the mental rehabilitation units I know of.”

“No,” the officer responded, seemingly nonplussed, “My Psychiatrist thinks this job is good for me, it helps me get out my frustrations.” On precisely the same wavelength as my friend. Charley said something to undermine his basic self-worth, pushing the point, facetious as it may be, that this cop was nuts! Then Charley started in on me, expressing more of his exasperation about the pickle we were in, corny and as unbelievable as it seemed,”Why did you tell him you lived in Void Space?”

“I didn’t, I told him my address was void,” I argued.

Now I felt somehow responsible for this officer’s peculiar game. At Eleventh and State, the downtown lockup, we were placed in a receiving room to await processing. It was a moderate size room, with fold-out institution tables in two rows, forming the seating area for alleged felons and others awaiting there fate. In front of these tables was a large desk with two plainclothes detectives working on papers to place two unusual criminals in the slammer. The two ‘gentlemen’ in question were skid row bums who could have easily been rounded up by the hundreds in a casual walk from State Street up Madison Avenue for about ten blocks. Whatever the crime of these two, I had no idea, but noticed the strange fact that both of these wino’s were reading their own Bible. I wondered how dangerous can two old farts be, dedicated drunk, nearly unable to walk, sitting reading there Bibles. The two detectives and our smiling buddies partner, the fat cop, we telling some dirty jokes. As the color of the joke became particularly filthy I was completely struck with the contrast, the polarity, the irony….holy dichotomy batman. Two bums reading Bibles, and a pair and a half of cops uttering sickening filth. Dualities aside, I was shocked at what was then said. One of the Plainclothes turned to the fat cop and asked,”What are these guys in for?”

“Ah, Jimmy just had a coupla reefs and these guys gave ‘em some lip,” was his exact reply. We were then led to the intake desk which was actually a window where they relieved you of everything in your pockets, less you’d be seized with an urge to gag yourself with your comb or some such article. As soon as we were put in a cell, Charley began some kind of sing-song chanting that got a real good reaction from whomever it was in all those little cages. The chorus was echoing in full volume as my feeling of hopelessness reached it’s peak. I then withdrew, a mere four feet to the back of the cell. I stood on my head for about fifteen minutes before they released us, in some unknown automatic way. Presumably because twenty-five dollars each had been removed from our belongings.

Upon being sprung, we were given a Court date on which we should be judged for this heinous crime of living in void space, though still an unproven allegation. About a month later, as the eve of our appointed Court appearance approached, I arranged to spend the night at a clinic Charley worked at. He was coming in to work all night, in residence. I was left in the lobby area near the front door. It was furnished with a couch and a T.V. up front. With a desk for the twenty-four-hour Hotline that was staffed by volunteers. I became bored with television so I curled up on the couch and went to sleep.

Awakened early by Charley, we went downtown for our day in Court. As we were called to the bench the word came down to the Bailiff, a uniformed Sargeant of Chicago’s finest. Our smiling buddy had been on duty all night, but wanted us held till he arrived because he was going to burn us on this case. I couldn’t imagine what grounds there could be for any case he might be fabricating. Finally the arresting smiley cop came in looking like death warmed over. He was wearing very dark sunglasses, behind which I could see his eyes were sunk and blackened. I only guessed what level of self abuse this strange bird was now subjecting himself to.

I had no idea of any ace up our collective sleeve, but was then surprised. Charley turned to him, as he occupied the seat, more like church pews, directly behind us. Handing him a business card the cop reeled back, visibly shaken, “He wants you to call him,” Charley said.

“What’s he want me to call him for?” He blurted out.

“He just wants to talk to you,” my friend replied.

The next thing I knew we were on our way up to the lobby. I figured the guy on the card must be pretty much of a heavy weight, but I didn’t even know who was the Head of Criminal Investigations. I knew Charley had connections, but never anticipated quite this reaction from a character bent on having us prosecuted on such arbitrary grounds. Charley handed the card to the officer again. After dialing the number he began rambling about the trouble we had given him in the subway, which he referred to as the ‘tubes’. Charley took the phone and without holding back or mincing words, explained what really happened, calling this a pure case of harassment. Handing the phone back to the cop, who listened somberly, nodding in reluctant agreement with what he was being told, obviously quite let down. We walked back in, barely genuflecting at our seats, as our names were called again. The smiling cop was now whispering something to the Bailiff/Sargeant who responded with a large nod, indicating he understood. We were in front of the bench immediately. The Bailiff turned to the Judge, sliding the paper about our alleged crime toward him. The Judge was an eightyish gentleman wearing Ben Franklin bifocals, the kind with only the bottom half of a pair of glasses. In a very audible tone the Sargeant said, “We’ll take a left knee on this one.”

The Judge mumbled, “Dismissed”, without looking up, seemingly very detached and totally uninterested. I wondered if he could even see across the bench. I was nearly certain he had never seen us, let alone knew absolutely nothing about this case. The most perfect example of blind justice since Julius Hoffman. Looking back, I often wonder what a ‘right knee’ might have meant, but thankful I would never have to find out.

Address: Void, a short story by Bob Metivier.