Inferno

Chicago July 1995

The heat had started on Tuesday July 12th and by the next day the temperature had soared to 106 degrees. The hospital where Monica worked was overflowing with patients suffering from heat stroke and dehydration. Bodies started piling up in the hallways because the morgue could not handle them fast enough.

As an ICU nurse, she was used to seeing patients die. She hated going home to her children with the stench of death all over her. There were times she blocked out the horrors of her job by drinking too much or sleeping with random men.

This situation didn’t just make her sad. It made her angry. Most of the victims were elderly African Americans who either couldn’t afford air conditioning or refused to turn it on because of the expense. These people weren’t crime victims or sick from disease. They died of negligence plain and simple.

When the charge nurse on Monica’s shift, Laura, asked her to stay for overtime Monica had to say no. She knew they were overwhelmed, and she was needed. But she couldn’t stay.

She had left her ten-year-old son and seven-year-old daughter home alone.

Monica didn’t feel like she had a choice. Her regular babysitter had escaped to Wisconsin. Her sister was most likely in a bar in Wrigleyville getting drunk. The kid’s dad was a paramedic who also worked second shift. Monica no longer spoke to her parents. So that left no one.

It wasn’t like she didn’t check on them. She called her son from the nurse’s station every hour. One of the doctors who had a cellular phone let her use it to call home. She lied and told him she was talking to the sitter.

By the time Monica left the hospital and walked three blocks to the El, sweat was dripping from her scrubs and her face. It was 11:30 at night and still over 80 degrees. She clung to the railing on the train, rubbing against bodies who smelled even worse than hers.

The El was eerily quiet and them someone with a boom box started playing “Gangsta’s Paradise” by Coolio and people started singing along and some were even dancing. You never knew with Chicagoans. They could make a party out of a devasting heat wave.

Monica exited the train in Edgewater and knew something was off when she saw the streetlights on Winthrop Avenue where she lived were out. The power was out. Dammit.

She watched the El train above her chug on to its next stop. Apparently, the power outage wasn’t affecting public transit. Yet.

She stumbled toward her apartment, tripping over a bunch of kids out on the stoop openly drinking quarts of beer and smoking weed.

“Hey, Monica. Come join us,” a boy named Will asked her as he held up a quart of Old English 800.

“Love to. Can’t. Have fun, guys,” she said to them.

She was digging for her keys to open her door when her son opened it for her. He and his sister each had a lit candle in their hands.

“What the hell, Ben? First off, you two should be in bed. And you know never to light candles when I’m not here.”

“You didn’t say that, Mom. You said not to touch the stove and not to let anyone in we don’t know.”

Her kid was such smart ass. “Fine. Next time I’ll add Don’t Light Candles to the banned list. Jesus, Ben. You could have burned the place down.”

She gave him The Glare her mom used on her and her sister when they were younger, but that didn’t work with Ben. Sarah, however, started to cry and repeated over and over how sorry she was.

She put them both to bed, reading Sarah a story by flashlight to placate her.

She knew the searing heat was wearing on her children. At first, it had almost been fun for them. The city opened the fire hydrants, and the kids roared with laughter as they got soaked and danced in puddles of water.

The two of them had slept out on the fire escape in their wet bathing suits last night. The novelty of that wore off quickly and they were back in the apartment within hours.

Monica waited until the kids were sleeping soundly and then went to the cupboard in the kitchen where she kept the vodka.

She mixed it with some flat soda. That was all she had. It had been three months since she’d touched alcohol. This day seemed like a good time to end sobriety.

She took off her stinky scrubs and laid down on the pull-out couch in her bra and panties. Soon she was dead asleep until the phone woke her up.

They had an old, corded phone that still worked during a power outage. She slowly got up from the couch and answered it.

“Hey, girl. It’s Dina. I’m down the street from you at Paddy Obrien’s. Calling from a pay phone. They have one of those generator things. Come on down and have a drink!”

Her sister’s perkiness got on her nerves at the best of times.

“Dina. It’s after midnight and I’m home with the kids. I can’t just come and have a drink with you.”

“I’m sure they’re asleep, they’ll be fine. Come on Mon. Please!”

In the end, she went. She told herself it was because she was worried about her sister.

When Monica came back from Paddy Obrien’s after two in the morning, she found her ex, Mark sitting at her kitchen table. He looked ready to pounce, and she was drunk and not up for an argument.

“Where the hell were you, Monica? Ben called me at home. Sarah was having an asthma attack. How could you leave them alone? What is wrong with you, Mon?”

“Oh my God. Is she okay?”

“She’s fine. No thanks to you. You should be proud of our son for calling me.”

“I just went to the corner for a drink. Dina called me and she sounded really blitzed. I was worried about her getting home safely. So, I went.”

Mark picked up the empty bottle of vodka. “You are a piece of work, Monica.”

“I’m sorry. It’s been a rough week for me,”

“Oh yeah? I’ve been picking up dead bodies all over the city and transporting them, Monica. Tell me about it.”

Why did he always have to be so preachy and self-righteous? She was not a perfect mom. But she loved her kids, and she did the best she could.

‘I’m suing you for custody, Monica. Don’t think I won’t. You do not deserve them. “

After Mark left, Monica checked on her sleeping children and then pounded her fist into the wall in the bedroom.

No one was taking them away from her.

The next morning, she woke up with the hangover she deserved to have. The events of the previous night were clear to her despite her drunken state.

The power was restored, and the kids were awake and clamoring for breakfast. There was only dry cereal, so she agreed to take them to McDonald’s.

They walked together to McDonald’s in the 90-degree heat. She was off work today and Ben was begging to go to the beach, but Monica had no intention of doing so. Every inch of sand on the shore of Lake Michigan would be packed with a body. She wouldn’t be able to find a spot for her pinkie toe let alone a beach umbrella and two kids with all their paraphernalia.

They went home and the three of them curled up together on the pull-out couch with their egg McMuffins and hash browns.

“Why don’t we all get out of this stupid city? We’ll move to a farm in Indiana or Michigan or maybe even Ohio. We’ll have horses and cows, and I’ll get a job in some small hospital where the biggest cases are kids getting stitches or breaking their arms playing baseball.”

“Can we have a dog?” Sarah asked.

“Of course you can. And even a kitten too.”

It was a nice fantasy to have. A farm where cool breezes always blew.

This story is based on true events. In July of 1995 over 700 people died in Chicago during a week-long heat wave. Most of the victims were senior citizens who lived on the south and west sides of the city.