A Greek Meets the City’s Bravest

     Last month my mother fell and broke her hip in the bathroom for the second time in as many years. She floats high above her hospital bed at Lee’s Summit Medical Center on a cloud of Vicodin and Antitussives, struggling to cram any one thought into sentence form during our conversation. I’ve recently asked her about things, certain things, and where they happened. I’ve been asking her more rapid fire lately, like when I was 11 and interrogated her to find out who my real father wasn’t. I should take it easy on her, but I figure all this thinking she is doing when I’m around may keep that brain of hers from any further atrophy. She certainly has tales to tell, more than I do. She’s led a pretty wild life.

     One place she lived was Chicago, Illinois, on the North Side in a community called Albany Park. This is also where I was born, in Swedish Covenant Hospital on 19 January 1982. She worked in a bar on Lawrence & St. Louis called “Bonanza Lounge”, which boasted “the longest bar in Chicago” long after the boast was true. The owner was a Greek man, 20 years my mother’s senior, who knew very, very little English when she first met him. She used to tell me a story about him, about when he first moved to the States. He lived in a little brick 2-story and on a hot summer day it caught on fire while he was cooking. Well, in Chicago, some of those buildings are so damn close together that you could jump in the neighbor’s window, which is exactly what he did. He lived on the second floor, so I imagine this leap of faith looked pretty cool from the outside, but it was nothing short of frightening from the old neighbor-lady’s point of view. Not knowing the word for “fire” in English, (its “[fayr]”, btw), he began screaming: “SMOOOKE!!! SMOOOOOOKE!!!”. At this point in the story my mom always laughs, imagines aloud the elderly neighbor-lady thrusting a Pall Mall in his direction. Honestly though, what could be more frustrating? Disaster strikes and you might as well not have a mouth. Before the lady could mace/shoot/stab the Greek, she noticed the smoke through her window and undoubtedly dialed the city’s bravest.

Anyways, I think that’s how the story goes. It’s been awhile since I heard that one, and my mom is now fast asleep, unable to confirm the particulars. I sneak a bite of her pudding, tell her goodnight, and slip out of the 48”-wide door of her temporary digs.