Saigon to Superior: The Monster and a Punjabi Beauty

Awoke yesterday to a warm day of sunny splendor – one of the first in these Chi-town parts since balmy last August – and figured it a fine time to test out my new kayak on a serene waterway that would pass a lazy day. Since the Chicago River is only a hop, skip, and jump from home, I called my buddy Sam and recruited him for an urban paddle. We started off the morning at the local Hari Krishna breakfast joint, grabbed a few beers from the fridge, then threw our craft in the water, forty blocks from our endpoint beacon, the Sears Tower, its two white-pointed spires rising like goal posts from its 110th story. Having just been upgraded from toxic to merely absurdly abused, the river was a metallic, chocolate hue with a fragrance that was not all together repulsive in the yet-to-explode Chicago humidity.

We set off, past a shanty town of wintered-up lake boats, among whom dwell a few hearty souls who call their floating digs home; around a large and ominous dark, gray, and rusted cabin cruiser, piloted by a bunch of barbequing, black concert t-shirt wearing, good ol’ boys straight out of some meandering scene from Apocalypse Now; then onward past the many under-bridge dwellings that a unique assortment of folks call home. One had a queen sized bed under it, one an entire boxing gym – punching bag, dip bar, and stationary bike – arranged in a concrete living room on the brink of an eight foot drop to the current below.

There were some signs of animal life, including a few geese with goslings – though I must admit, the quietest bunch of the species I've ever crossed—and a healthy population of ducks contently floating among the discarded drink bottles, basketballs, dodge balls, soccer balls, and amorphous petri blobs of shmung. We continued to float past two new and gated industro-condo communities with surprisingly few fired-up grills; past the loading docks of Costco, Office Max, and Home Depot; past glass boxes of corporate offices with stacks of white signs declaring "No Docking!;" and on to the meat of what made this city.

I'd heard my dad talk about the wacky industry on this river. When I was a kid and his paycheck came from Procter & Gamble, he'd come up here to have a look at their riverside soap factory. Across the water was this metals recycling plant, with a grinder that could supposedly gnash a ‘78 Chevy to confetti in seconds. Apparently, now and then the thing would get the hick-ups and—BOOM!—send a huge chunk of metal hurling hundreds of feet into the air and across the river into some unsuspecting neighbor's factory roof. As we crossed 3000 North, I began to hear the hum of the few die-hard companies that still churn ahead of us. They got loud fast, and as we passed the next bend, in a wide stretch of dead river, there she was in all her glory, probably having an easier time of it with the fuel-efficient car bodies of today, but loud as ever as a conveyor belt laden with piles of discarded metal did her feeding.

Slowing river current, ever-rising roar, walls throbbing in angry breaths that coughed out shredded metal: We paddled like hell to get past that thing. Then, onto the hundred-foot piles of rusted confetti no one seemed to have a use for, brown twisted tributes to tetanus taller than most Illinois hills; past the gurgling cement plant encased in the shell of an old towering steel factory – two buildings side by side, skin and roofs entirely made of sheet metal, each a block long and a hundred feet high, the tin housing of a conveyor belt running along the top of each - not so loud, but immense.

Past the old swinging bridges with gears bigger than most life forms and a weighted hundred-foot high black iron railroad drawbridge, on top of which some brass-balled spelling bee flunky compensated for his deficiencies through painting in five-foot letters the courteous warning, "TRANE!" Past caved-in docks, twisted rails, decaying pilings, and 4x4 foot cement erosion control cubes stacked against the steep shore and bursting at their beltline. Under weathered draw bridges of a distant era with quaint lookout houses still bolted to their sides, municipal employees enjoying a very mellow watch.

Around the next corner the water grew wide, a quarter mile maybe. On the left, huge open air warehouses sat on a barren flood plain; and beyond… the sound of rock and roll music - say that again!? Eyes squinting, we spotted a red-tour bus on the far right shore. We rounded the bend. A bar sat on the bank, leaning decrepitly over the water, an array of colorful window panes swung out over the water like the cabin of some jovial pirate ship marooned on a sandbar. Not a boat at its dock, yet hordes of people above, hanging out the windows, on the roof, ambling about floors as untrue as a water-warped deck. We took one look at one another, tied on, and climbed up.

Immediately, we were greeted by two lovely lasses who picked on us incessantly for our redneck entrance and non-Cinqo-de-Mayo-like Aussie and Gilligan hat wear. We’d paddled right into a Mexican-American holiday. Nonetheless, our campy spirits paid off, as the med student and the PhD in philosophy hung with us for many Coronas under the sunshine of the city’s first truly spring day. The med student, a six-foot Punjabi beauty, kept asking inquisitively of Sam, "Don't I know you from somewhere?" They weren't sure but carried on, one increasingly interested in the other. "Thailand, yeah, been there, love it!" and on and on and on. Seventy bucks on drinks and he utters his last name… "Johnson?! Johnson! You were my teacher!!! Back when I was a JUNIOR!... We thought you were gay." He'd been a student teacher at the time, actually, finishing up college. She was now 23.

Things got wilder when the band Rusted Root appeared at the circus tent on the street in front. PhD girl had an actual Aussie boyfriend who made a late entrance, so at the ripe hour of 10:00PM I gave Sam a wink and shoved quietly off in the boat, alone. I should have just bobbed there seated in the thing, as many a cute reveler leaned out a window with raised glasses in approval of my floating steed. Nonetheless, I was out seventy bucks, flat broke (as was the ATM), and Sam was too. But heck, he had a future doctor as company. He'd make it home. I pushed off into the darkness, which isn't really darkness anywhere in this town, the perma-glow of the human race ever steady. I could only connect the dull glint of four of the Big Dipper's dots. The cement mill was asleep, as was the monster; though a few other smaller neighbors chugged on.

The cell phone rang - I know, not exactly getting back to nature, but we might have needed the poison control center at some point today. So, fully charged in my pocket, I pulled it out. "Dude, come back!" As gorgeous as she is? No way! Find your way home, bonehead. It rang again. And again. And again. The Punjabi beauty's voice: "Freshwater! I've got his phone number, now come get your friend!" I should have left him. Nonetheless, blasted integrity kicked in and I doubled back through a sea of bobbing bottles to pick Sam up.

A lingering dockside kiss and he jumped the railing to the boat. Two bottles of brew from below deck and his story: "Ok, here's how I view it. At first, I was cute, cool-guy-in-a-boat, hook-up for the evening; then I was former-teacher-gotta-jump-on-this conquest; then she realized she actually really likes me - and with that comes an early night. So, alas, I have a phone number." And, wow, was she cute! And of course, women have telepathy. So, as we dug in our paddles, the spirited glow of a good night pushing us zig-zaggedly along, the cell phone rang, other interested lady friends of ours wondering where the heck Sam was for the evening – in a kayak of course, paddling an obstacle course of refuse, under an urban moon.

(05/06/2003)