It was a Sunday evening; the sun was about to set. I’d been reading about the politically disempowered and trying to tan the backs of my legs on the front porch; Matt had worked a nine-to-five interpreting shift at the crazy ward where the agency’s been sending him recently. There’s a woman there, he told me, who’s been pregnant for 30 years, and a disheveled Cuban man who yells Putas de Babilonia! at the female social workers and sometimes Hijo de Satanás! at him. We left to catch the sunset on the beach at the southern end of the lake path. We’d been meaning to go to Rainbow Beach all summer, but had only biked North.
We could see the pink light and we raced a straight stretch of sidewalk, enjoying the feeling in our legs. There were fall leaves everywhere but the air was warm enough not to hurt our lungs. The moon was full or one day short of it. The path narrowed to one lane and cut off on a curb, without even the smooth part for wheels. I had to get off and pull my bike by the handlebars. We were in a cul-de-sac, or maybe it was a road that went through, but its only purpose seemed to be for a bus to turn around. Ahead of us was a fence with a rusty sign that read “This fence runs 79 feet north of the property of the US Steel Company.” Bushes and trees the height of people surrounded the fence. A man emerged from them suddenly as we locked our bikes to a tree. I’m glad I was afraid of him even though he’s white, I said. At least that’s good to know.
We went a few steps into the leaves when we heard below us the sounds of what could have been meditation or the kind of curses I might even believe in. A man stood on the rocks by the lake with his arms outstretched. He chanted in something that sounded African or gibberish and I couldn’t tell if he was angry or sad or relieved. I felt afraid again, but I also envied his release. It was getting darker and I tried to step quietly. When he paused his chanting I resisted the urge to look back and see if he was following us.
Soon we found the opening in the chain-link fence. It wasn’t the usual kind of opening in a fence, into which you have to duck or flatten; the metal folded to the side like curtains and we pressed it gently and walked comfortably through. It sprang back behind us more like a sliding door than curtains. We were no longer in Chicago but a meadow somewhere; we could see the stars. There were scattered pieces of steel on the ground and the sound of crickets. Around us was water and a row of lights that looked like a giant gingerbread house—I think it was a bridge to Indiana. We drank juice from glass bottles we’d brought with us: apple and papaya, which tasted surprising.
You can guess what happened under the stars—the little burrs I’m still removing from mom’s old Radcliff sweatshirt are a steady reminder—and then I picked a bouquet of flowers to bring home to my roommates. They were beautiful and fragrant, though when I brought them home they didn’t look as good under a bulb as they did in the moon, and I realized the same ones grow on my block. They flew home with me in the milk crate on the back of my bicycle, and not one escaped.
Something lucky has happened: if I forget to be in love all it takes to remember is night air and two rubber tires—maybe it will even be like that always.
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