Holding Hands in Chicago

I’ve never seen such an ugly thing.  I was holding hands with this Argentinean woman in Chicago.  Her English was piss-poor, but she knew enough to order a drink and she had the sense not to turn down a free one when I ordered it for her.  She spoke Spanish to me.  I liked it, mostly because I couldn’t understand what she was getting at.  I’d just smile and say “Yes, yes baby.”  When I got tired of that, I’d just go in for the kiss.  Best kisser I’ve ever tasted.  She was all hands and the perfect amount of tongue.  Some girls will swallow your tongue.  You taste that mucus that grows on their tonsils like mold on an old hunk of cauliflower.  Other girls offer too much lengua.  You wind up playing defense, using your tongue like one of those armless foosball men.  Not this Argentinean – she was a kisser.

The ugliness came out of left field.  Chicago winters are murderous.  Ice on the ground, old women and children shooting this way and that way, ass over tea kettle, landing hard.  Chicago must be responsible for the most broken hips in the country.  Everywhere I turned there was an old lady or an eight year old running in place.  That’s how it happens.  You don’t fall down straight away.  You slip, then your legs try to catch up, you run in place, that builds the momentum like a windup toy.  Then after all of that, you go down.  Painful and cold.  I’m sure there are some people in Chicago who will never be the same after stepping out in that cold weather.

The ugliness, I’ve got to tell you about it.  Me and the Argentinian were all wrapped up.  Scarves and gloves, I had newspapers stuffed into my coat for insulation.  She had about thirteen layers on.  It didn’t hurt her looks, you could still see the shape of her body through all those clothes.  We were holding hands, shivering against one another.  A woman was standing outside a shopping center.  She couldn’t have been much older than me.  This woman was leaned way to the side like a felled tree that got caught up on some phone lines.  She had a crutch.  It was more of a stick with a knob on the top.  One hand gripped the stick.  That stick and one good leg were all that was holding her up.  The other leg was twisted back behind her.  I don’t think the thing was even touching the ground.

I don’t know how that one leg got so mangled.  Maybe she was in an accident.  Or maybe she had a twin and when they were in the womb, the twin started gnawing on the woman’s leg.  A jealous twin, right from the start.  The woman’s twin probably walks around just fine.  Sleeps well at night, but in the back of her mind, she knows what she did to her sister’s leg before birth.

Everyone was tucked away in parkas and ski masks.  This woman, with the terrible leg, was in a long t-shirt.  I don’t remember if she was wearing gloves, but she had on these pink sweatpants, I remember those.  She had on pink sweatpants and one pant leg was rolled up to mid-thigh, exposing that twisted leg.

I about puked right into my scarf.  We were out here trying not to freeze to death and this vile woman.  This woman was showing off her sharpened nub.  She had a cup in her free hand and she was extorting people in that cold weather.  Freezing, ice sheets, hypothermia, pneumonia, and she has the gall to hike up her pant leg for a little sympathy change.

What bothered me was that it wasn’t necessary.  Even if her pant leg wasn’t pulled up, no one would mistake that foot for normal.  But she had a gimmick.  It seems like everyone in this world has a gimmick these days.  She wanted sympathy and she was ruining people’s day to get it.  People like to stick their heads in the ground.  They like to walk and look at their phones and hold hands with pretty Argentinian women.  They don’t like to have distorted limbs shoved in their face.  It was bad enough it was cold out.  Everyone was trying to stay right side up, and then we walked into this horror show with her swollen, frozen leg.

I put some money in her cup.  I didn’t want to, but her shtick was effective.  I felt sorry for her one good leg and I felt repulsed by the eroding tree limb growing out the other side.  I put a twenty dollar bill in that cup, hoping that she’d pull down that pink pant leg and limp somewhere out of sight.  I gave her money because I didn’t want her assaulting anyone else.

I kept on holding hands with the Argentinian, but my mind wasn’t right after that.  All I could picture was that twisted leg.  It even spoiled the kisses.  Eventually, I had to put the slip on the Argentinian.  She went in to use the bathroom at a hotel, I hopped into a cab.

I never saw her again.