A Night in the City

It was so terribly cold. Snow was falling, and it was almost dark. It was early November in Chicago. Street lights painted me neon, and I waltzed the streets. The souls of my sneakers beat the concrete sidewalk, resounding clicks through the dusk afterglow. I walked the city, my earbuds muddling the sounds of Chicago. I played the same songs I had heard a thousand times; the songs that I didn’t have to think about but were busy enough to drown out the cacophony of my city. My eyes were sunken and uninterested. By now, the Chicagoian bastilles were no more miraculous than my studio apartment. The metropolitan luster of it all had worn off ages ago, so now I just walked, and I walked, and I walked. I walked until my legs guided me back home, and I laid in my bed. I walked until I could sleep and wake up and do it again the next day. This was my life. 

Nevertheless, I kept on, bathed by billboard illuminescents and big city northern lights. As I rounded a corner and passed an alleyway, I smelt the faint scent of sandalwood wafting behind me. I continued my walk, becoming increasingly aware of the cologne. The more my feet moved, the stronger that smell got. I passed sullen roadside jilapis, obsidian alleyways, and men sitting at their porches puffing on cigars. Still, that cologne was nearly all I could smell. It superseded all other things, turning the scents of cigar fumes and bronze car hoods into nothing. After a while, I stopped walking and turned around.

There behind me stood a man wearing a torn up flannel, a pair of cacique pants, and steel toed boots. His eyes were bloodshot rubies, and his hands trembled. Every inch of him was engulfed in a lively rage. A lifeblood pulsing through his thick arteries, impregnating his body with the energy of a mad man. As I stared at him, I found myself motionless, a statue in the park waiting to be vandalized. He kept on forward. He was but six feet away from me when he pulled a small switchblade from his pocket. It gleamed pewter, scattering cascades of silver sun rays into the dusk air. I could see myself in its reflection. The man grabbed me by my neck and pushed my stunned body against the wall of a closed barber shop. I was still motionless, encompassed by disbelief, encompassed by this interlude in the normal dullness of my life. 

He held the knife to my stomach, and I could feel its silver tip grazing my torso. He stared at me with those eyes that said only one thing: don’t move, don’t speak, don’t so much as breathe until this is over with. “Drop. Your. Fucking. Wallet,” his voice was deep, and his words sounded more like gurgles than phrases. Those eyes stared deep into me, and I began to stumble my words, each syllable wrapping tight around my tongue like polyphonic nueces.  

“I-i-i-i-it’s in ma’ pocket.”

“Then get it the fuck out! I ain’t took ya’ hands did I?” I shook my head no and delved my sweaty palms into my pants. I scrambled and I scrambled for my wallet, but I couldn’t find it. I simply couldn’t. The more I struggled, the more he poked that knife into my torse, writhing and twisting my skin into caucasian licorice. “I thought it was in ya’ pocket huh? Da fuck is it?” 

“Sir-sir I dunno, I swear, ion know. It was in there earlier, I swear, I swear, I swear it was.” That knife dug deeper and deeper, and I feared it would plunge through my skin. 

“Check ya’ back pockets then! Now! Do it!” he said, looking from right to left down the city street. I scrambled to the back of my pants. I felt a bulge in my left pocket. My fingers trembled like wind reeds. Slowly, I removed it, hoping to god it was my wallet, hoping to god that it would save me, hoping to god that my money was all that I was going to lose. I pulled it out and held it in front of my face. There it was: my burgundy leather wallet, embroidered along the seams, a green bill sticking out from the top. 

“T-t-t-take it.” He released his grip on my neck and flipped the wallet open. It held an expired gift card and a single five dollar bill. He looked at it with the type of disgust that a mother shows an incarcerated son. His eyes were vampiric and sharp, and his breath trembled as he looked upon the pobre leather. He was shaking. I was frozen there, waiting for what he would do. Waiting to see if he would kill me anyway. He began licking his teeth, spiraling his tongue around his molars, wiping pink over saffron. He stared at that wallet then he stared at me. He gave me that same disgust. He gave me that same look. He threw the wallet onto the ground, and he gave me the same treatment. Clasping my neck again and turning my Adam's apple into crumbling drywall, he threw me onto the concrete. I lay amongst roaches and cityscape piss stains. I could feel the vibrations of the subway ricochet through the ground below me. He stood over me, and his flannel flew in the wind. He held that knife tight. From below, he seemed mighty, his eye sockets profiled by the amber dusk light. He had the silhouetted features of a tyrant. I was stunned. 

He flipped his blade back into its cast and stuffed it into his handkerchief pocket. Spitting on the floor next to me and kicking my ribs, he walked away. He was soon enveloped by the ebony glow of an alleyway, his body becoming just another shadow. I lay on the concrete ground, my breath heaving. I stared up at the skyscrapers, their majesty engulfing me. A few blots of blood stained my undershirt, and I was drenched in a cold sweat. My earbuds were splayed out across the street, and my phone lay cracked on the floor. I stayed belly up for awhile, breathing, hearing the sounds of Chicago: the taxicab anthems, the brownstone banter, the clicking of lighters. I was surrounded by majestic steel giants, the cold washing over me. I smiled to the golden sky, thanking it for my life.