Strangers in the
Car and Other Stories
by Stephen P. Thomas

Presented to
The Chicago Literary Club
February 24, 2003

© Copyright 2003
All Rights Reserved

The three brief accounts which follow are based on real events. I have changed some names and minor details to protect the privacy of others. My main objective was to provide an accurate account of what happened. Along the way I learned that the events themselves were shaped by my presence. I can never know the full extent to which my account is an interpretation, an invention or a report. It brings to mind something I have always had difficulty grasping about the quantum theory in physics. That at the level of the most basic interactions, the presence of an observer or interactor (if there is such a word) changes and thereby becomes part of the event itself. Thus it seems that adventure, like beauty, is in the eye the beholder.


SCENE ONE

STRANGERS IN THE CAR



On a recent November Saturday afternoon three of us were driving west across Chicago's Midway Plaisance. I wanted to show my daughter and her friend (both age ten) the newly restored Loredo Taft sculpture, the "Fountain of Time." This is a large work which faces the grassy Midway immediately west of Cottage Grove Avenue. It was completed by Taft (1860- 1936) in 1923. The bulk of this sculpture consists of a 120 foot long relief behind a pool with the figure of Time facing the relief. "Fountain of Time" is Taft's embodiment of Poet Austin Dobson's lines: "Time goes, you say. Ah, no. Alas, Time stays; we go!" Taft used a new medium - pebble-finish architectural concrete - in constructing "Fountain of Time," Over the years weathering caused significant deterioration of the work. Hence, the recently completed restoration. Thirty years before the installation of Taft's sculpture, the Midway it faces had served as the carnival grounds for Chicago's 1893 World's Fair or Columbian Exposition. That is how the term midway' entered our modern lexicon as signifying the main avenue of an amusement park or carnival. But I digress. We were about to come face to face with the subject of time in a different context.

We stopped for a traffic light at Cottage Grove Avenue, directly facing the Taft sculpture which I was talking about to my two charges. Then two men approached our car (a gas guzzling sports utility vehicle which we dearly love) and began excitedly tapping on the side windows. One was on the driver side. The other was on the front passenger side. Both men were standing in the street, but not blocking the car. The light changed to green. I checked and saw no traffic behind us. I was a bit surprised by all of this, but not alarmed. Both men had oriental features. Then there was more frantic tapping on the side window.

I lowered the window and heard: "Emergency. We must get to Midway Airport. We are very late. Please take us there now."

I said: "There are taxis coming and going all the time at the hospital which is just a block away. You should try there."

The response: "No. We have been waiting there too long. No taxis. It is very important to get to Midway."

I lowered the passenger side window so that I could see and hear the other, somewhat older gentleman. He said: "We must get to Midway to meet the delegation. You must take us."

I replied: "This is not a taxi and we are blocking the street." I started to raise the window next to me.

The young man put his hands on top of the window and said: "We will pay you whatever you ask. We are from China. I am a student here. That is my father. It is an emergency."

The father then asked, "How long it takes to go to Midway? We must leave now."

I replied: "It is about a $30 taxi ride and takes only half an hour if there are no traffic problems."

The young man said: "You will take us. We will pay you.."

Then, after a pause, I surprised myself by saying, "I will take you for $40." My daughter in the back seat interjected , "Dad!"

The young man, to my amazement, demurred: "Forty dollars? Too much. We only pay $30."

I again pressed the button to raise the window and started to move forward. The young man quickly reversed field and said, "OK. We pay what you ask, $40."

I replied, "Get in." Again, I heard from the rear seat an expression of alarm: "Dad!"

The father sat next to me in the front. The young man sat in the rear, behind his father. The two girls squeezed themselves closely together against the door opposite the son. The father again said: "We must be to Midway in 20 minutes to meet the delegation." There was silence in the car as I drove through Washington Park, on our way to Midway Airport. The airport is a straight shot, about 60 blocks to the west from our starting point on Garfield Boulevard or 55th Street. [As some of you may recall from my earlier paper in (2001) on the public land survey conducted in the 19th Century, there are eight Chicago blocks in one mile, so we were about 7 ½ miles from Midway at the start of our journey.]

To relax the atmosphere I asked the younger man, who appeared to be about age 25 and understandably nervous, about his field of study. He mentioned his specialty in the physical sciences where he is a post-doctoral student. To my surprise, I knew something of the work going on in his field at the University of Chicago, I struggled to recall a name, and then asked my daughter: "Ellen, what was the last name of our neighbor down the street, you know, Christopher, who taught at the University?"

She responded: "He was a jerk!" The student laughed. The father looked impatiently at his watch. We made both traffic lights crossing the Dan Ryan Expressway and soon were approaching Halsted Street. Then the last name I was reaching for popped into my head.

"Yes," I said. "That's it - Christopher Gould. Do you know him?"

The student exclaimed: "That is my department head. You know him? You say he is a jerk?"

"No," I said, "my daughter calls him that because of special circumstances a few years ago involving his relationship with someone other than our good friend, his wife. It led to a rather messy divorce."

My daughter repeated: "He was a jerk!"

The young man again laughed and tapped his father on the shoulder as he said to us: "I have to explain to him about this word - jerk." They then exchanged several sentences in their language. The father sounded and looked irritated, not at all amused by our conversation. We had crossed Halsted Street and were now approaching Ashland Avenue, about half-way to Midway Airport.

The father looked at me shortly after this exchange with his son and said: "You talk too much. Just drive. Speed up! You too slow!" My reaction to this was: time out. I immediately took my foot off the accelerator and turned to the curb side lane.

As I did so I was composing a stern lecture in my head to the general effect as follows: "Sir, I am driving at the speed limit, 35 miles per hour. There is heavy traffic and there are children in the car. 1 will not risk an accident or being stopped by police because of your impatience as well as your poor planning and time management skills. You may seek alternate means of transportation if you desire. I will charge you nothing." The car was now moving no more than 10 miles per hour, just coasting as it approached Western Avenue.

Before I could deliver my self righteous lecture, the son intervened, saying: "Sorry for him. Please continue. He is just nervous because we are late." I sped up to 35 mph again and we soon crossed Kedzie Avenue continuing on 55th Street toward Pulaski Road.

The father, who was constantly looking at his watch, repeatedly said: "The delegation will be waiting." The two girls in the rear seat were quiet as the son and I continued to talk (front to rear) about various University matters - how long he has been here (four months); where his undergraduate work was done (China); what area in China he is from (Beijing); and so on. While stopped for a long traffic light at Pulaski Road, I was tempted to ask the son where he and his father were at the time of the events in Tienanmen Square in 1989. But, after doing some quick math, I did not. I calculated that the son would have been no more than about 12 years old in 1989. I also decided to let the father's activities in 1989 remain a mystery to me. No point in getting him further agitated at me or his son.

I did ask the son about his father's employment in China. His response: "He is in the government." I also did not pursue that line of inquiry. It had become evident to me that the father considered his son responsible in some significant measure for the present situation. I decided not to aggravate this tension with further idle or provocative chatter. I could not tell whether, as I suspected, the father understood more English than he spoke. By this time it also occurred to me that the son's unaccountable haggling over the car fare may have been a bit of grandstanding on his part designed to impress his father. We crossed Cicero Avenue and wound our way into the new Midway Airport terminal, Mayor Daley's crown jewel of the Chicago's southwest side and a potent antidote to a third area airport at the proposed Peotone location, several miles south of the City.

I pulled over at the ATA (American Trans-Air) departing passenger area. The son handed me two crisp $20 bills. The father hurriedly exited, muttering about "the delegation" with his son following, carrying a single piece of luggage. No goodbyes or farewells. No let's keep in touch.' Not even a wave. Then they were gone. I said to the girls: "Wasn't that interesting?"

My daughter Ellen replied: "Dad. Why did you do that?"

Later that evening I mentioned these events at a social gathering. As I recounted the earlier part of the story, a lady of mature years, mother of several children exclaimed: "Are you going to tell us you let them get into your car? With those girls alone in the back seat?"

When I had finished the story the same woman's husband said: "Well, there are some situations when you know that what you are about to do is supposed to be the right thing to do, but some instinct tells you it is wrong, and you hesitate or do not proceed. And sometimes it works the other way. What you are about to do is supposed to be the wrong thing to do, but you decide in that particular situation it is the right thing to do. So you go ahead. You do it."


SCENE TWO

LOST IN THE WOODS


About three years ago I decided to enroll in a program sponsored by the Morton Arboretum and Chicago's Field Museum leading to a credential called a "Naturalist Certificate." After taking nearly 30 of the brief but engrossing courses of study offered in this curriculum, some required, some elective, complete with field trips, written reports, classroom quizzes and exposure to some of the finest scientists and naturalists in our abundant Chicagoland natural world, I satisfied all the program requirements and became duly certified. In the wake of this superb experience I have often been asked - "What good is it?" or "What can you do with it?" To which I typically reply, "I am now fully qualified to walk in the woods without adult supervision." And that is what our family does, every chance we get. There are always surprises in the woods. Something almost always happens or is observed which is unexpected and makes you grateful for the experience of that day's walk. The woods are always a pleasure to us, in any season; and there doesn't have to be a payoff' in the form of some startling observation or spectacle for the walk to be worthwhile.

Our next story started in a wooded area on a sunny afternoon in early November. We were in what is now called Bob-o-Link Meadow, a natural area just south of the Museum of Science of and Industry and adjacent to Wooded Island, all part of Chicago's Jackson Park complex. A little over 100 years ago this area was surrounded by great buildings and was perhaps the most talked about place on the planet. That was when the 1893 Columbian Exposition was in full swing. At that time there were more than 100,000 visitors each day walking about in this very area. After the Fair closed, the buildings, which had been constructed largely of plaster or paste and straw, were torn down or burned and Jackson Park emerged. Frederick Law Olmstead (1822 1903) arranged the tree planting on adjacent Wooded Island. Some of those trees are still there, alive and well. Earlier in his career Olmstead had done the landscape design for New York's Central Park.

Through the 1950s and 1960s Bob-o-Link Meadow became a Nike missile installation. The concrete missile bunkers are still below the ground on which we were walking. They were dismantled and covered over by bulldozers during the 1970s. The idea of reconverting or restoring this area to meadow occurred during the early 1990s. All of the available land, especially grassland and wetland, adjacent to southern Lake Michigan is used heavily by migrating bird populations in the spring and fall. This migratory pattern has flourished over approximately the last 10,000 years as the ice from the Wisconsin glacier and the waters of glacial Lake Chicago retreated leaving the present Lake Michigan shoreline.

I was accompanied on this walk by my daughter, Ellen, and her friend, Haley, both age 10. They were witness to all that followed, and their sharp eyes were responsible for our little adventure. It seems to me that adults in the woods usually see about what they expect to see. Younger persons, especially smaller children, notice all sorts of unusual things, I think this is not a result of children being generally closer to the ground or having sharper vision. I think it is primarily because their minds are very open and receptive to whatever unfolds before them.

Let's get back to our walk in this woods and meadow on this day. We saw a cheery young woman coming off the trail soon after we started. She smiled as we passed, but we did not speak. There was no one else around. Soon we were standing by one of the lagoons, near a large tree wrapped in chain link fence to protect against munching beavers. The two young girls spotted a fairly bright, yellow cell phone on the ground, picked it up and handed it to me at my request. After some brief discussion about how this phone came to be where they found it (I said the phone might have been stolen and then discarded) I put it into my pocket saying to the girls that we would check it out later.

We continued our walk, southward through the meadow and then around the south end of the lagoon, past the golf driving range on our left. We passed by the soccer fields, turned onto the pedestrian bridge spanning the small lagoon and entered Wooded Island, now headed north. I noticed a newly installed trail in the middle of the Island and we entered this pathway surrounded by fairly dense understory and overstory growth. Those terms mean "bushes and plants" and "trees," respectively, for those readers who have not completed a course of study in natural communities.' In the absence of a killing frost near the Lake, there was still plenty of vegetation holding on to late-in-the-season life in the mild fall weather.

A few minutes passed as we continued our leisurely walk. The sky was sunny and the air calm. It was a truly tranquil place and time and the two girls were quite content, walking a few steps ahead of me, making their own explorations and observations, talking quietly to each other. Then an unnerving sound came from my pocket. I was a bit startled. It was obviously the ring of the cell phone which I gingerly took out of my pocket. I pressed one of the many buttons on the control panel which, to me, looked something like my vision of the dashboard of a Boeing 747. I said "hello".

The voice of a young man at the other end queried: "Stephanie?"

"No", I said. "We just picked this phone up while walking in the woods."

The response: "What? Where's Stephanie? Who are you?" I provided more detail and learned that the young man was a friend calling Stephanie from somewhere in Ohio. It quickly became clear that we had found a cell phone belonging to someone whose name was Stephanie.'

I continued by saying: "If you have Stephanie's address or another phone number for her, we will try to return her phone to her today. She probably lost it while walking in this area. We might even have seen her as we entered."

The young man replied emphatically, "I'm not giving you her address."

He did say that she was a graduate student at the University of Chicago. So I replied: "In that case here is my name and business phone number. Have her call me next week and we will arrange to get her phone returned." This seemed a sensible resolution to the young man as I told him who I was and how I could be reached. The phone went back in my pocket and we continued our walk. Of course I had to explain everything that had just happened to the two girls.

A few minutes later the phone rang again. Newly emboldened, I answered: "This is Stephanie's phone. We found it in the woods, but Stephanie is not here."

The startled lady at the other end said: "What? Who are you?" Thus began another cycle of my telling the story of who and where we were and why we were serving as Stephanie's answering service. I asked the lady at the other end of the phone who SHE was and where SHE was calling from. She told me she was Stephanie's mother, and that she was calling from New Mexico. I asked if she had another phone number for her daughter and she replied, "No. She has only the cell phone. She LIVES on that phone." I asked for Stephanie's address so that we could return the phone, and the caller, to my surprise said: "Hold on. Stephanie just moved and I need to get her new address for you." A minute or so later she came back on the line: "I can't find it, I'll have to call you back, I think it's some kind of a dormitory that she lives in."

The two girls with me were fascinated by all of this, and I explained to them as best I could what the latest call was about. They said, incredulously: "Stephanie's own mother does not know what her address is? Some kind of mother!"

Then the phone rang again. It was Stephanie's mother with Stephanie's new address. The mother then said: "If she is not there, you can just leave the phone with one of her friends at the dorm." I then explained to the mother that we were not about to simply hand a valuable phone over to one or more persons unknown at a dorm location and hope for the best. I said I would prefer to deal directly with Stephanie, if she could be found.

We were near the end of our walk, coming into the beautiful Japanese garden area of Wooded Island. This restored garden is a legacy of the Jane Byrne era. The Japanese garden and the completed subway connection to O'Hare Airport are in my view the great achievements of her Mayoral administration. Never mind the cost.

Then the phone rang again. It was a young man. He asked for Stephanie. I replied, foolishly: "Are you the same young man who called this number a few minutes ago?"

After I again told our story about finding the phone and about our efforts to return it to Stephanie, this caller said: "Who called Stephanie before? What was his name? What did he sound like? Where was he calling from?"

I sensed that this was a perilous line of discussion and said, truthfully: "Stephanie seems to get lots of calls. I have no idea who called before, other than her mother who gave us information so that we can try to return the phone to her."

The caller was persistent: "Can you check the cell phone for the numbers of the people who have been calling her?"

"No," I said, again truthfully, "I have no idea how to do that. I have to sign off. Goodbye."

Soon we were back in the car, driving around the University of Chicago campus area. There were no buildings even remotely resembling a dormitory on the street to which we had been directed by Stephanie's mother. I was about to return home with the two girls, who clearly considered all of this to be high adventure, when I again heard the now familiar tones of Stephanie's phone. I pushed the magic answer button. The caller lost no time: "This is Stephanie. Do you have my phone?"

I responded: "Yes, but we are confused about your address. It is supposed to be a dorm, but we see only apartment-type buildings."

"Where are you?" she asked, and when I responded with the details, she answered peremptorily: "You are only a block away. Drive to the number you have been given and I will meet you in front of the building." We did as we are told, and sure enough there was the young woman we had seen coming of the trail two hours before standing curbside.

I lowered the passenger-side window as she approached the car, I handed the phone to her, absent- mindedly asking: "Is this your phone?"

Stephanie was clearly greatly relieved. She said with great enthusiasm as she reached inside the car to take the phone: "Thank God, I thought I wouldn't see this phone again until Monday." She did not greet or seemingly notice the two girls in the back of the car. She said, simply: "Thanks." And then she turned and walked away, already fiddling with the buttons on her cell phone.

Postlude. I was somewhat disappointed. The two girls would have LOVED to talk, even briefly, to Stephanie. They could then have told her how they found her phone and how exciting it was to identify whose phone it was and to follow a plan of getting it back to her. But that exchange did not take place. Was Stephanie just shy, or rude, self-absorbed, uncivil, embarrassed to talk about losing her phone, socially inept, preoccupied with other concerns of her life or none or some combination of the above? I also regretted not having a chance to warn Stephanie that I nearly blew her cover with the second gentleman caller who asked about the caller from Ohio. Did Stephanie have multiple suitors? Did they suspect, but not know, about their rivals? Why was Stephanie's mother so naive as to give her address to a total stranger in circumstances which many would regard as highly suspicious? These questions may remain unanswered for all eternity, and beyond, unless I send a copy of this account to Stephanie. I do know her real name and where she lives.


SCENE THREE

STRANGERS IN THE HOOD


At about 10 pm on Thursday, September 13, 2001 I was out walking our dog Copper in the neighborhood. We were then living in Hyde Park, not far from Chicago's Science and Industry Museum. Copper is a delightful female boxer, an energetic, exuberant, people-loving young animal. As I passed under an IC Metra commuter rail overpass on my way back home, a southbound white delivery truck stopped abruptly at the intersection in front of me. This was the corner of 56th Street and Lake Park Avenue.

A young man on the passenger side jumped out of the truck and came hurriedly around the rear of the truck to speak to me. "Where is freeway 55?" he asked.

I was puzzled. "Do you mean 55th Street? It's one block north."

He was insistent. "No, Freeway 55."

I then asked, "Do you mean Interstate Route 55?"

"Yes," he responded, "Freeway 55. How we get there quickest?"

I then asked, "Where are you going?"

He replied, "To California."

All of this took about 30 seconds. The dog was restless, but only because of the interruption in our walk. I became a bit suspicious. The young man speaking to me and the driver who remained in the truck clearly resembled the Chicago cab drivers who universally say they are from Pakistan or Turkey, never that they are Palestinian or from Iran, Iraq, Jordan or any other Mideast location. I also noticed that there was nothing printed on the cab or side panel of the white truck, no company or rental agency name, nothing.

The young man was insistent. "Which way to Freeway 55."

I decided to be evasive, so I said, "It's several miles away and there are problems with low railroad bridges blocking your way. Best to go down to 57th Street. Turn left one block to Stony Island. Then turn right and go south on Stony Island. Watch for signs to Interstate 55 after you pass 95th Street." I used my hands to diagram these directions. They had the virtue of being both marginally correct and at the same time incorrect or misleading. The young man headed back into the truck. As it sped away in the direction I suggested, I saw a California license plate on the rear, but I could not make out the number.

What was I to do next, if anything? For once I would have been grateful to have a noisy and obtrusive cell phone in my pocket. A University of Chicago campus security patrol car came by, but my dog was straining at the leash, pulling in the opposite direction. Although I waved energetically at this patrol car, I could not catch the driver's eye. I was still standing on the corner as the white van dutifully turned left toward Stony Island at 57th Street. It then occurred to me that Powell's Bookstore was just one block away. I could use their telephone. We walked swiftly in that direction. Copper was happy to be moving again.

I entered the bookstore with the dog on her red leash, to the somewhat startled look of the young woman at the front desk. She had orange hair, a lip ring, a row of diamonds inset in the side of her nose and quite long artificial nails painted in a variety of colors. She was wearing a low-cut Mother Hubbard type dress. This scene brought to mind echoes of President Bush addressing the nation a little more than 48 hours before. "Today,. . . , our way of life, our very freedom came under attack. . . . The search is underway for those who are behind these evil acts."

The young woman looked at me and then at the dog with a puzzled smile as if we would soon head in whatever direction our bookish interests would take us that evening. I had seen dogs in this bookstore before. "Please call 911," I said, "I need to speak to the police."

She continued to stare at me and at the dog and then she pushed the telephone in my direction, saying, "You call the police."

I dialed 911. An operator answered on the first ring and I told my story of the white van to the woman who answered. I gave my name, home address, home phone number, present location and agreed to stand by, all quite willingly.

The police operator then said, "Thank you, Mr. Thomas. You can wait if you like. I'll pass this information on to a patrol car in your area." A minute passed. I stepped back outside with Copper, I thanked the young lady at the front desk of the bookstore for the courtesies she had extended. She looked at me as if I were a strange apparition moving off her screen and said nothing.

Outside, waiting for whatever patrol car might arrive, I thought, "Racial profiling. That's all this is. If those men were black or white or Latino and confused about directions, it would be a matter of no consequence. I would have spoken to them giving accurate directions as best I could, and that would have been the end of it. But the men I saw were Muslim, Arabic, Middle Eastern or something similar, and anything could be or could have been in the back of that truck. Anything which might have been loaded off a dock in California. Still, what if they are just ordinary deliverymen working in a rented truck for a Devon Avenue grocer or warehouse merchant? I have fingered them just because of their appearance." Those were my thoughts.

But I was not regretful. Sorting and profiling are how humans and other animals make sense of their surroundings. It is how they identify real or potential danger. A Chicago Police Department squad car soon pulled up. Then another; then another. And then one of those unmarked black Chevrolets with the "M" license plates used by plainclothes officers arrived. A single officer dressed in black got out and walked over to me. He slowly collected, again, all the information I had given to the 911 operator. He confirmed my name, address and phone number, thanked me and started to walk away. I asked: "Officer, are you going to do anything with that information?"

He turned to me and responded, "Mr. Thomas, every available squad car on the south side of Chicago is already looking for that white van."