I had the opportunity to visit Chicago for a few days at the end of August. I took it, thinking it would be a great opportunity to spend time with my mom and arrange a tour of the University of Chicago for my daughters. Also, to check out the city I had lived in for so many years. We had an amazing meal at Avec 🤩.

There are big differences between Chicago & New York

For starters—the buildings, the amount of dead space, the amount of green space, the amount of visible garbage, the number of rat carcasses one would expect to see during a 30 minute walk, the visibility of the police, the perceived reasonableness of its people, and what I’d call the background operational tempo of every fucking thing around you (eg: the metabolism of the city). Granted, I haven’t lived in Chicago since 1999, so a little bit of my disorientation comes straight from actual disorientation—of not recognizing landmarks. For the entire visit though, I was haunted by a feeling that oscillated between mild disappointment to defcon 4 level anger, and all the intermediate points in between. I now think I have a better grip on the triggering mechanism for this feeling.

The Elevator Ride

I was with my family, headed upstairs to the penthouse apartment we rented during our three day stay. A white construction worker entered the elevator around the 20th floor. He at first stood against the wall of the opposite side of the elevator from me. His eyes scanned me, then my family. Without saying a word, he leaned in front of me, nearly brushing my shoulder, and pressed his keyfob against the elevator control panel’s scanner, then pressed one of the numbers. He went right back to his spot and looked up at the ceiling. My initial thought was—it’s kind of presumptuous to not say excuse me when you reach over and get that close to somebody. Why wouldn’t you just say the goddamn words “excuse me”? Maybe the guy’s Polish, and just doesn’t speak English I thought. There’s a lot of Polish people in Chicago working in construction—Ukrainians too. Or it could be the guy’s mute. Or maybe he’s grieving some horrible loss that none of us can see / understand. Or… maybe he’s a white guy in Chicago who sees a dark skinned man in Chicago, and thinks… he’s here to drop off sandwiches to someone, and brought his whole goddamn family. Jesus Christ. Then I thought—is it reasonable to think a white construction worker would have those thoughts? Why would I think he would think that?

I lived in Chicago for 14 years (during the way-back)

I worked a lot of odd jobs—grocery bagger, cashier, caddy, lifeguard, elevator operator, landscaper, painter of Burger Kings, knife salesman, adult literacy advocate, portrait framer, shirt steamer, forklift driver, and usher at Soldier Field. Not to mention eleven years of ONLY working in the restaurant business—as a line cook, dishwasher, busboy, waiter, barback, bartender, and shithouse sommelier.

I learned how to size people up based on their accents, cuff links, girlfriends, shoes, conversation topics, how they use profanity, and the kind and quality of bullshit coming out of their mouths. I think I understand the attitudes of Chicagoans because for a long period of time, I watched and studied how they sized up other people—including me.

I got to know cops, and the young men who wanted to become cops—got to understand how some of them viewed the use of concrete stairs. Also found out how a cozy relationship with certain cops (like you Al) could make all the difference on a Friday night when you were expecting to do 500 covers at a swanky bistro on Randolph street.

So yeah. The 14 years I spent living in Chicago makes me (I think) a crackerjack spotter of a whole range of suggestive looks, put-ons, bullshit, ass-puffery, and weasel wording that might ordinarily escape the regular old standard claptrap of a human brain.

La Luce

There was an Italian place I worked at on Lake Street called La Luce—a gorgeous renovated townhouse right off the green line at the intersection of Lake and Ogden. I remember the copper stamped ceiling—mint condition, salvaged from the old Chicago Stadium. Throughout this three floor building, there were mantels, built-ins, fireplaces, panels of wainscoting, and intricate wood carved transoms. The Moretti family, who owned the building and whose primary business was construction, had spent a great deal of time and effort into restoring the place.

Michael Moretti senior was a tall man known for throwing hammers at people standing on ladders, and breaking plates over waiters’ heads during dinner service. Mike Moretti (junior) was the general manager who opened and closed the restaurant nearly every day I worked there, at least for the first year. He wasn’t like his father at all. He had a bit of a temper, sure, but with a much longer fuse. He was an inventor, who was trying to patent a special type of toenail clipper he showed me one evening over a few too many glasses of Chianti. When we got to know each other better, he took me to an illegal all-night social club called Lunatics, where they kept a bottle of Smirnoff behind the bar with his name taped to it. We had steaks at 4:30 am on a Wednesday.

When I worked at La Luce, the neighborhood was a functioning meatpacking district. You could still find multiple storefronts between Racine and Halsted, selling pig’s feet and entire lambs at wholesale prices. One night during my first week, a car rounded Ogden avenue going 30 miles an hour, and threw a guy out of the back seat. Mike said “Holy shit! D’joo guys see dat? Fuckin’ guy was—fuck, I gotta’ get my gun.” And then instructed everyone to not call the cops. For at least a year, I thought Mike was the boss. I was wrong. Or maybe things changed at some point.

The guy in charge was named Frank. Like Mike, Frank wasn’t at all what I thought he might be. He was tall and had green eyes and blond hair, like his Irish mother. He was extremely polite and gentle. He didn’t act like a guy who came out of the construction business. And he dressed in faded Levis and button down rugby shirts. He used to say to me… “I’m what’cha call a basement guinea. I ‘aint inta ‘da zoot suits and all ‘dat stuff.” Frank was an incredibly generous man. One day, he gave me an entire bedroom furniture set that he had—squirreled away in a storage locker by the airport. He also invited me over to his house for New Year’s, where I got pretty drunk on Campari, then went out to the backyard with a bunch of his buddies to shoot guns in the air at the stroke of midnight. “Naw, Benji, you gotta’ hold it like ’dis—’dis! At an angle—so ’da bullets don’t kill no one when ’dey come down.”

One day, my friend Tony asked me if I could talk to Frank about getting a job as a waiter. Sure, I said. They’ll love you. You grew up in Naples. You speak Italian. You’ve worked in a restaurant before right? Tony shook his head no. OK, just explain your situation. They’re reasonable. I’m telling you, they’ll love you. So, we drove in one afternoon, me and Tony. It was an off day, so barely anyone was in. Lunch was basically over, and dinner prep hadn’t even started. Frank wasn’t around, but his dad, Frank senior, was at his usual spot by the bus station, reading a paper, smoking a cigar and drinking an espresso. I spoke with J***** the bartender, to see when Frank would be back. She said something, but Frank senior all of a sudden pipes up and says, “Hold on, hold on. You lookin’ fer a job? You got any experience in’na in-dishtree?”

Then, something unexpected happened. Tony starts speaking in fresh-off-the-boat Italian accented English. Frank senior put his cigar down, and said, “Sei italiano? Io—io sono Italiano. Da dove vieni?” And then Tony starts in with dialect. He’s originally from Napoli, so this is pretty close—close enough I’m thinking—to where Frank’s family is originally from (Sicily?). And just like that, the old man and Tony hit it off—for like, an hour. I go grab a glass of wine, and sit outside with Travis, the waiter from South Bend, Indiana trying to parlay a career of being a James Dean lookalike into a serious Chicago stage actor. Me and him, we go out in the back to smoke a couple of cigarettes and drink wine on the curb. An hour later, Tony walked out of the side exit—where me and Travis were sitting—and told me in a low voice (in unaccented English) to walk to the car. When we were inside, he explained he’d be starting that evening, shadowing Travis. Frank senior would be there. Yeah, so that happened. Tony worked at La Luce for an entire year, and became very good friends with the whole family. No one expected that he was faking an Italian accent the ENTIRE TIME—partly because it didn’t feel truly fake. I mean, Tony’s first language was Italian. He initially did have an accent. I didn’t really think too deeply on it, but Tony was constantly worrying that he’d slip up and just start talking like some east coast guy from Rhode Island one day, right in front of Frank or Mike Moretti senior. Turns out, there was good reason to worry about this.

Frank and his family did other things on the side—besides grilling calamari. The summer I went to Prague with some of my friends, I returned to find out that Frank had disappeared for weeks. Later, Travis explained to me that Frank junior agreed to wear a wire for the Feds—to record his father and brother discussing details of their side businesses—theater production, loan sharking, money laundering, extortion, and murder. The entire family was later indicted in a sting codenamed Operation Family Secrets.

The Regulars

There were a ton of regulars that came in and out of La Luce—a few even worked there. Pat, the livery driver who spent $80,000 decking out an old Greyhound bus with tinted glass, luxury bathroom fixtures, a high-end bar, satellite tv, rococo carpet runners, and a stripper pole—it was basically Mar-a-lago on wheels before anyone could possibly understand that reference. He had some kind of complicated side deal with the restaurant to shuttle people to and from the United Center for games in his bus. And Bob Rock: a sixty five year old bald-as-f*** Italian man, built like a mack truck, who always wore shimmering grey or blue suits and heavily starched shirts. He loved cuff links, and his hands were so big, I remember at the bar one night, he removed a ring from the third finger of one of his hands, and passed a quarter through it. He’d like to say things like… “Did a sett’a curlz at ‘da gym today. Hit 135 for three reps. Not bad ‘fer an ole geezer right?” And there was Jack D*** whose family owned all the beer concession rights to all the big events at Grant Park. This guy had a ton of cash, and loved to get loud as hell drunk in front of an audience. Jack fancied himself a man of the world who could sashay in and out of conversations that ran the gamut: big construction contracts being bid on along the Eisenhower expressway, the state of west bank politics, how much money he donated to Sinn Féin, who really had power in Chicago during the days of the first mayor Daley—stuff like that. And Mike Calfiore, a 380 pound union employee who was the regular thursday night bartender. This guy, who was probably no more than 5 years older than me, was constantly sweating, barely able to make it up the stairs. He’d do impressions of Pacino or Deniro that were dead on, and some of the things he’d say were so offensive, but absolute gold. I don’t think he was aware of the physics of acoustics, because the guy would say things AT people as they were walking away at a volume setting that made no sense. Stuff like… “Benji, did joo see ‘da fart box on’nat broad? Where ‘da fuck is spider at?” He had a thing for the movie Good Fellas, and constantly wanted to call my friend Martin “Spider”.

GARY

One of the regulars was a guy who showed up one day—from Miami—I can’t remember his name, but I do remember it was unbelievably banal sounding… something like GARY. I will call him GARY. He just showed up one day around lunch time, and fell in love with the stamped copper ceiling tiles and the grilled calamari. Told everyone he was opening an “underground” art gallery on Damen. He was constantly having lunch with older women, and perpetually looked like he was in some stage of being coked out, zoned out on pills, or just trying to power through syphilis. He wore interesting suits that fit differently than the ones that Frank’s friends would wear—the construction company owners, building inspectors, and civil engineers. GARY described his gallery as very gritty, urban. He was kind of a visionary, and had mastered the lexicon of business dude lorem ipsum before anyone even knew what the fuck that was—a kind of half-ass semi-intellectual chain of adjectives and verb phrases that sounded wonderful, but said absolutely ziltch in terms of substance. When I waited on him one day, he came back for dinner with another guy. I figured they were pervs trying to see if they could talk me into something weird. Turns out he wanted to offer me a job selling paintings. Well, I know a little about art history, but I’m no artist. is what I said. Apparently, those qualifications made me a stone cold ringer for the likes of GARY. The gallery had lots of paintings and metal sculptures, and one thing I have to admit—the guy could throw an amazing launch party. Opening night was amazing. I’m pretty sure Chicago Magazine did a big spread on the place. But that bastard never paid me. Turns out, he was also wanted by the FBI for embezzlement and fraud.

CRT is a measure of…

The “Sandwich Deliveryman” Hypotheses

I’ve lived for long periods of time in both Chicago and New York City. I think the primary difference in the two places isn’t so much in the layout of its urban planning—though these are significant. It’s in the CRT levels of your average run-of-the-mill white guy. In New York City, this hypothetical run-of-the-mill white guy exists too. Difference is, the NYC version has higher CRT, meaning… he’s not as quick (on average) to believe that a dark skinned man is in an elevator of a posh building simply to deliver a sandwich.

I’ve seen instances of the sandwich delivery hypothesis many many times before in Chicago, taking on different flavors. But it’s really about implicit bias—white men making assumptions about the world, the people in it, the available roles those people have, and the kinds of consequences they (as adjudicators of the world) might face for being a little bit wrong—eg: counting on the fact that you’ll never bump into any consequences for harboring incorrect assumptions about how close you can get to dark skinned strangers in elevators.

New York City is different. There are consequences for being just a little bit wrong. And the average white construction workers (here) act as if they’re more aware of it than their Chicago counterparts.