Chicago

I fell in love with Chicago immediately. Chicago didn’t fall in love with me.

In August of 2013, my friends Casey and Sarah were getting married in Chicago, and folks from all around the country were converging on the Windy City to celebrate the occasion. If I believed in signs, I should have known right away that Labor Day weekend in Chicago would be anything but smooth sailing.

Laura, my ex-girlfriend who lived in Boston, was a flight attendant and had hooked me up with a Buddy Pass, discounted standby airfare on her airline. I was scheduled for an 11:00 red-eye on Thursday night. I would land for a quick layover in Boston (her airline didn’t offer any direct flights to Chicago from Seattle), meet Laura, and then we’d fly together to Chicago on Friday morning. Easy-peasy.

Knowing I wouldn’t get much sleep that night, I took a short, late-afternoon nap on my couch. When I woke up, I nearly shit myself when I saw my reflection in the bathroom mirror. My left eye had blown a vessel, and I looked like all of those statues of the Virgin Mary that cry blood in the movies. It didn’t hurt, but it was ugly as fuck. A crimson blotch the size of a dime covered the area from my iris to the outside edge of my eye like a fun-sized Red Sea. I ran to the pharmacy and was told that no amount of eye drops would make it go away immediately. The pharmacist maintained her position on the matter even after I told her that I was going to a wedding and would probably be photographed. I would be stuck with it for two to four weeks.

The novelty of taking a red-eye flight with a red eye wasn’t lost on me, but it was small consolation.

I made it to the airport by 10:00. It was mind-boggling how many people catch flights in the middle of the night; and I was afraid I wouldn’t get through security in time to make my flight, but I did. At the gate, I sat down with a magazine and read quietly until the guy at the desk called over to me. He asked if I was Douglas Haugen, I affirmed, and he told me the flight was really full. He couldn’t say for sure, but it looked like I might not be able to get on. Everyone with real tickets had checked in except one, so I just had to wait and see.

They finally started boarding the plane, and the guy at the desk told me that it looked like things were going my way, but we had to wait until everyone had gotten on. When the last passenger in line headed down the gangway, he took my ticket and ID to let me board, but at the last second, we heard, “Wait! Wait!” That one final ticket-holder was running toward the gate with all of his luggage in tow. Sonofabitch.

“Sorry,” the flight attendant said. “That’s the guy whose seat you were going to get. You were so close, but those are the breaks.”

The next flight wouldn’t depart until 5:00 in the morning. I could either wait in the airport for six hours, or I could take the train back home and drink beer. I decided to take the train.

I met Curtis at The Hillside Bar near my apartment, and we had a few beers. He was going to Chicago, too, but he had a 9:00 a.m. direct flight. We closed down the bar at 2:00 in the morning, and I walked home. I thought about taking a short nap, but I was afraid I wouldn’t wake up again or that I’d blow out my other eye, so I made some coffee and surfed the internet for a few minutes before deciding to just head to the airport. The trains weren’t running at that time of night, but it looked like I could catch a bus from downtown.

I grabbed my bag and slogged my way down to 1st Avenue. I waited. And waited. I finally checked my phone for the bus schedule, and it looked like the last bus had vanished into thin air, and the next one wouldn’t be coming until 4:00 a.m. Fuuuuuck. That wouldn’t leave me much time to get checked in and to the gate by 5:00, but I’d give it a shot. I had an hour to wait for the bus. It would take twenty minutes to walk home and twenty minutes back, leaving me with only twenty minutes to sit on my couch. It didn’t seem worth it, so I sat down on the sidewalk with my bag and leaned up against a building. It was a hot summer night, I was tired and a little buzzed, and I fell asleep like a goddamn hobo.

I woke up just in time to see my bus approaching. Close call. I hopped on, rode it to Renton, and then transferred to a bus heading the rest of the way to the airport. After sitting down, I overheard a couple of guys talking. One was getting his Master’s Degree in evolutionary biology and the other specialized in game theory and worked for a video game company. Somehow, these two strangers had landed on a topic that incorporated both evolution and game theory, and I was fascinated. I joined in the discussion, contributing my particular expertise in episodes of Radiolab and This American Life podcasts.

Suddenly, the three of us looked up and realized we didn’t know where we were. I went to the front of the bus to talk to the driver, who informed me that we’d already passed the airport. We’d have to get off and catch the next bus in the other direction. We did just that. They both had early flights like I did, one to Philadelphia, and one to New Zealand. Now we were a band of brothers on a single mission.

We got on the bus heading back toward the airport, and I asked the bus driver if he’d let us know when we were at the right stop so we wouldn’t miss it again. He hesitated, saying we’d just see it when we got there, but he finally agreed to make an announcement. Seeing our concern, another passenger told us that he would be getting off at that stop, so when we saw him get off, we should get off, too. Satisfied, we found seats and returned to our conversation like important panelists at a symposium.

The bus stopped, and I saw the passenger we’d talked to get off, but the bus driver hadn’t announced the airport stop. We hesitated, not knowing what to do. Should we trust the passenger, or should we stay on the bus until we heard an airport announcement? I hopped out and one of my compatriots followed me. The other hesitated, staring at the bus driver. Just when he decided to get off with us, the doors closed on him. He pressed his hands and face to the glass and we heard him say, “Noooooooo…” as the bus pulled away.

“Noooooooo…” we shouted back, our hands outstretched like we were trying to save him while he plummeted from a cliff face. We’d lost a man.

After mourning the loss of our comrade for an appropriate period of about ten seconds, we crossed the street and followed a walkway to the airport where we said our goodbyes. I checked in and made it to the gate just in time to get on my flight. How an 11 p.m. flight could be full to the gills, but a 5 a.m. flight could be only half full didn’t make a lot of sense to me, and still doesn’t. It’s was probably just as baffling for the flight attendant when I ordered two Jim Beams and a cup with no ice at that time of day, but I submit to you that airport time and flight time are outside the jurisdiction of alcohol propriety—it’s like sailing out into international waters.

I made it to Boston, but because I wasn’t on my original flight itinerary, Laura wasn’t there. She’d already caught her flight to Chicago, the one I was supposed to be on with her. I killed the time until my next flight by going outside to smoke. When I came in, I had to pass through security again, and this time I triggered an alarm on the full-body scanner. I was asked to submit to a pat-down. The sensors had identified something in my left pant pocket, and after a brief frisk and interrogation failed to settle the issue, I was asked to slowly empty my pockets. The only thing in any of my pockets was a single piece of cellophane once torn from the top of a pack of smokes. They finally let me go.

I arrived in Chicago after dark on Friday evening. My friends were all drinking in the Lincoln Square neighborhood in the North end of the city, and although Laura had booked a room downtown to share with Curtis and me, I didn’t have any of the hotel information, didn’t have a key and didn’t even know if my name was associated with the reservation. I was also the last to arrive in town, so the only thing to do was to head directly to Lincoln Square with my baggage to have drinks.

I found the trains, but got confused over how to buy a ticket. There was one machine that offered one kind of re-loadable card, another machine that offered another kind of a re-loadable card, and a third machine that sold both. I stared at the machines trying to figure out the differences between the two cards—and I swear there weren’t any unique features—until a friendly local came over to help me. He’d identified me as an out-of-towner by the flummoxed look on my face and was just the type of proud Chicagoan to offer a newbie a little help on his first day. He told me which kind of card to buy (still, no idea why that one), and told me that when I got off the train, I could also transfer to a bus to get the rest of the way to Lincoln Square. I thanked him heartily, shook his meaty hand, and bought the card, loading it with the $5 minimum.

I looked up and saw some people sprinting to get on the train. It must be getting ready to leave! I ran awkwardly up the right side of the train, my bag swinging and banging me in the ass. The doors were closed, and people were jumping in on the other side. I ran back down the platform, crossed, and back up the other side, leaping onto the train. The train didn’t move. I found a seat in the back, and waited another fifteen minutes as more people sprinted to catch the train that wasn’t in any hurry to get underway.

I loved the train. It wasn’t a clean, slick light rail like we have in Seattle. It was a burly, dirty, stinking monstrosity. The walls were either yellow or yellowed, and everything was covered with a film of grime from being touched by thousands of unwashed hands. I imagined all the people traveling to and from the airport in a constant ebb and flow. I imagined their excitement, their fatigue and the lives they must live between trips. The filth was a sign of functionality, an unintentional calling card from countless individuals contributing to the whole by mere exposure, the way colonies of ants fall in line by following and adding to a trail of pheromones. I adored it.

I got off the train at the correct platform, checked Google Maps, and climbed some corroded stairs to the bus stop up at street level. Like the train, everything around me was covered with cracks, rust, soot and grit. I went into sensory overload, taking in the texture of an old city. It was like waking up in the world of a Tom Waits song. I couldn’t stop smiling.

My bus pulled up, I got on and slipped my transit card into the reader. As I stepped away to find a seat, the bus driver barked at me that I still owed fifty cents.

“What? I was told that my train fare transferred to the bus!”

Nope. In Seattle, one fare is good for two hours on as many buses and trains as you can find. Not so in Chicago. The train had cost $3.50 and the bus cost $2.00, so my $5 card wasn’t enough to cover both fares. I didn’t have any cash on me. I pleaded with the bus driver who, after an exaggerated sigh, allowed me to stay on while giving me the stink-eye to make sure I knew he was none too happy about it. I sat down and diligently watched Google Maps, counting down the streets to my stop so I wouldn’t miss it like I had that morning. As we neared my street, I approached the back door, but after the bus came to a stop, the door didn’t open. I stood there, staring at the bus driver, waiting for him to open the door.

“You have to push! Jesus!” said a girl behind me, exasperated.

“Oh, sorry,” I said. I pushed on the door and it swung open. I jumped off onto the sidewalk.

In the last twenty-four hours, nothing had gone smoothly. I had a bloody eye, I hadn’t gotten on my original flight, I hadn’t made it onto the right bus to the airport, I hadn’t gotten off at the right stop on the bus I did catch, I hadn’t connected with Laura in Boston, I’d had trouble with airport security, I’d had difficulty buying train fare, I’d jilted a bus driver by fifty cents, and I’d held up a passenger by not knowing that the back door on Chicago buses don’t open automatically. So far, so good. Par for the course.

When I arrived at the bar, everyone was there. Hugs were exchanged with the people I knew, and handshakes were exchanged with the people I met. Right away, it was clear that there was still tension between Laura and I. Not because I’d missed our connection in Boston, but because she’d been mad at me since I’d inadvertently been an ass several months before. At this point, I still didn’t know why she was angry, but it was clear she felt nothing but loathing for me now.

Laura and I had been friends for years before we tried to date. Making a relationship work between Seattle and Boston was even harder than it sounds. The breakup was difficult, and we’d spent the last couple of years trying to restore our friendship. Things were going well until she’d visited recently. I didn’t know what I’d done, but it must have been terrible, because the next time she had come to Seattle, she had treated me with a combination of cold shoulders and utter disdain. Apparently, the issue hadn’t magically gone away.

Laura and I kept to opposite ends of the long table in the bar. She was avoiding me, and I was trying to stay out of her way. Still, I managed to have a good time. The beer flowed, laughs were had, and I was making new friends. Other than being told to fuck off in all seriousness by the groom’s cousin after a well-intentioned but ill-placed joke, things were looking up.

Beyond hanging out with the groom, his family and friends, I had one ultimate mission that night. I wanted to go to a Chicago jazz club. Born in the south, jazz migrated up the Mississippi River over time, and Chicago had become the epicenter of the jazz scene. I’d done the research, and I knew that I had to get to The Green Mill that night, the jazz club where Al Capone used to have a regular table. The club was still dedicated to oldschool jazz, the cover was modest, and on Friday nights, a house band came on after the headliner and jammed until dawn. I couldn’t miss the opportunity to listen to live jazz until the sun came up.

No one else was particularly interested in The Green Mill, but I was determined to go. I didn’t care if I had to go alone, and the all-night jam sessions only happened on Fridays, so I didn’t want to wait. As things were wrapping up in the bar, I told the others that I was heading to The Green Mill and that I’d see them the next day. I asked Laura for details about the hotel so I could get there and let myself into the room when I was done, but she and some of the others finally reluctantly decided to join me. I was so excited, I didn’t even pay attention to who was going to come. I just wanted to hear some oldschool Chicago  jazz.

We hailed a cab and headed over to the jazz club. The place was everything I hoped it would be. The headliner had already finished playing, but the house band was swinging. The club was old, dusty and perfect. While you couldn’t smoke inside, the air felt haunted by the ghosts of cigarettes past, and I could imagine all the hatted men of the last century smoking and drinking to the sweet timbre of trumpet and sax. I got a big dumb grin on my face like a kid at the gates of the Magic Kingdom. I completely forgot about my friends, ordered a whiskey and sat myself and my duffel bag down next to a stranger at a small cocktail table near the stage.

“Mind if I sit here?” I asked the guy.

“I’d be an asshole for trying to keep the whole table for myself,” he replied, gesturing for me to have a seat. One girl from our group pulled up another chair and joined me, and the rest grabbed a booth at the perimeter. I was oblivious to them all, just soaking up whiskey and jazz, bobbing my head to the syncopated rhythm, hooting and hollering after each solo, and watching the fingers of each musician on their instruments.

At four o’clock, my friends were ready to leave. They considered letting me stay there by myself and started to write directions to the hotel on a cocktail napkin, but they were afraid I wouldn’t be able to find it and insisted that I go with them. I was disappointed, but I knew they were right. After I closed my tab, we said our goodbyes. Laura, Curtis and I hopped on a train heading downtown, and then walked to our hotel.

We headed inside, had a few drinks from the supply Laura and Curtis had picked up from a liquor store earlier in the day, and then everyone was ready to crash. It had been decided that Laura and Curtis would be sharing one of the two beds, because obviously she didn’t want to share one with her asshole ex-boyfriend (me). Curtis hopped into bed next to her, and I felt jealousy begin to well up. Clearly, I had unresolved issues, so I decided to take a walk to clear my head. Everything was closed and there was nowhere to go, but getting out into the fresh air was a good idea. I walked along the dark streets thinking those melancholy thoughts that seem poetic at the time until you realize that they fall on the lower end of the scale between Rimbaud and a thirteen-year-old girl’s diary. I calmed down, headed up to the room and went to bed as the sky began to lighten.

I only slept until 9:00. I quietly showered, dressed, took one of their room keys and headed out into Chicago while the others slept. I took a copy of The Atlantic with me, and found a great little coffee shop, where I spent a couple of hours reading and sipping Americanos. Around 11:00, I got a text from Curtis saying they were awake and coming to meet me, so naturally I left. I didn’t feel like hanging out, because I didn’t want to be a downer. I felt pretty silly about my jealousy the night before, but I still didn’t know how to act naturally. Just as we had in the bar the night before, the best solution seemed to be avoidance.

I decided to walk to the Pier, but road construction made that next to impossible. I could see it, but it was like chasing a mirage. I tried several routes, but couldn’t seem to get there. I followed Google maps toward roads and paths that didn’t exist anymore, ran up against others that were blocked off for construction, and spent an hour going in circules. After consulting with a police officer for directions, I calculated that the detour would take too much effort to be worthwhile. What now? Then I heard the siren’s call. Jazz.

I followed the sound to Centennial Park and found a high school jazz orchestra playing on an outdoor stage. I took a seat near the back and listened to them belt out Pennsylvania 6-5000. When they wrapped up, another young band came on. These kids were really talented, and I was soaking it up.

Another text from Curtis and I told him where he could find me. Laura was heading back to the hotel to get ready for the wedding, but we had enough time for Curtis to come hang out. I walked back down to the sidewalk to head him off, and discovered that I’d stumbled upon much more than some high school bands. Bands were playing everywhere. The entire park was lousy with jazz musicians. It was the weekend of the annual Chicago Jazz Festival. With all the internet research I’d done about Chicago jazz clubs, I couldn’t believe that I’d missed the fact that this huge festival was happening that weekend. I was thrilled. Curtis indulged me; we grabbed a beer from a vending cart, and walked around in the sunshine listening to one band after another until it was time to head back to the hotel and get ready for the wedding. I was happier than a mouse in a cheese factory.

After showering and changing into our dress clothes, the three of us took the train back up to Lincoln Square. Casey and Sarah had gotten married by a local Justice of the Peace in a private ceremony. The real event was the wedding reception. They’d rented out a room in a great little restaurant where course after course of food and wine were delivered to our tables while we mingled and drank. Sarah’s friends and family had been added to Casey’s friends and family, and the synergy was nearly as perfect as the bride and groom’s. Toasts were made, stories were told, jokes were exchanged, and we practically drank the place dry. So, we moved on.

We moved to a little German bar up the block, where a bunch of Casey’s friends returned to an old tradition of Long Island Ice Teas. I stuck to rye whiskey. We moved to yet another bar, and then back to the German bar, at which point the bride and groom were ready to call it a night. But, the bride and groom’s friends were not ready to call it a night. We continued to knock back drink after drink, headed to another bar, and finally decided on karaoke.

At every stop along the way, Laura was drawing crowds of guys. She’s the type of girl who can make new friends in an instant by making everyone she meets feel special and important, and her charm was naturally drawing drunk local men to her like moths to the flame. One even followed her as we walked a mile to a karaoke bar, and jealousy was working a number on me again. I knew I was being dumb, so I kept busy by repeatedly pursuing the bottom of my glass.

The bar closed down, and a ragtag group of us hailed a cab to head back to the hotel. When I got out of the cab, I walked over to a bench away from the entrance to smoke while everyone else said their final goodbyes, still trying to give Laura a wide berth. When I looked up, I saw that she was actually kissing a guy goodnight, some dude she’d met that night. My stomach knotted up, and I almost vomited on the sidewalk. I tried to look away, but I couldn’t. It had been two years since the breakup, but I was still an idiot. I sat down on the bench. I stood up. I paced in a circle. I sat down again.

Curtis came over and sat next to me. “We’ll go inside when they’re, you know, done,” he said, smiling. It was the first and only time I’d felt hatred for my best friend of more than twenty-five years. I said nothing. After an awkward silence, he asked, “You OK?”

“I’m fine,” I blurted out. I stood up and walked away.

“Doug…”

“I said I’m fine!” I yelled back without turning around.

I walked right past Laura and the guy, and I stormed into the hotel. I didn’t want to go to our room, because I didn’t want to be standing there like a moron when they finally came in. Instead of taking the elevator to the 8th floor, I went to the 7th floor. I found a chair in the hallway and sat down.

I sat there for a good long while with my frenetic thoughts. I knew I was being stupid, but I couldn’t help it. I was secluding myself so I could be completely irrational by myself instead of making a scene. It had been my idea to call off our relationship, so why was I upset that after two years she was able to flirt with a guy, and kiss him goodnight? I tried to talk myself out of my anxiety, but it didn’t work.

It was 4:30 in the morning, I’d only slept for a little more than three hours the night before and in the previous thirty-six hours I’d only had that short nap on the couch and the even shorter snooze on the 1st Avenue sidewalk. And I’d had plenty to drink. I buried my face in my hands while my mind raced, and when the race was over, I was asleep in my chair.

“Sir?” a voice asked from nowhere in particular. “Sir?” the voice asked again, directly in front of me. I opened my eyes, and a guy in a blue blazer was bent over, staring me right in the eyes.

“You can’t sleep here,” he said.

“Oh, sorry,” I told him.

“You’re going to have to leave,” he told me. “Come with me.”

“Why?” I asked.

“Because you’re not allowed to sleep in the hall,” he said. That seemed perfectly sensible. I followed him to the elevator and we got in. He pushed the button for the lobby. He was going to walk me out of the hotel.

“I was just waiting for Casey Chapman,” I said. “You know Casey?”

Of course he didn’t know Casey. Casey wasn’t even staying in that hotel, but I’d been pulled out of a dream state and the lines of reality were blurred. The context of the situation was completely different in my head than what was really happening around me. In my mind, I’d been waiting for Casey Chapman, and everybody should know Casey Chapman.

“Actually, follow me,” he said, pushing a different button on the elevator. The doors opened, and he led me to the security office, where he told me to have a seat. I sat.

The security agent got out some paperwork and asked me for my name.

“Douglas Haugen,” I told him. “I live on Capitol Hill. You want my ID?”

“Um…yes,” the agent decided. He hadn’t considered it until I offered it to him. I was just trying to be helpful. He took my driver’s license and made a photocopy of it on the other side of the room before returning it to me. He asked me to sign the document. It was a Criminal Trespass form. I signed it without hesitation. He got out a Polaroid camera and took my picture.

“Can I ask what this is all about?”

“Look, you’re not allowed to sleep in the hallway of the hotel,” he said, “now come with me.” He led me into the hall and down a flight of stairs to an emergency exit.

“I was just waiting for Casey Chapman,” I said to him helpfully, just in case he hadn’t understood me before.

“You understand that you’re now no longer allowed on the premises without a reservation, right?” he asked. “If you come back without a reservation, you’ll be arrested.”

“OK, sorry,” I told him. He pushed open the emergency exit, and gave me a little shove into a dimly lit alley. The door slammed behind me.

The alley was some kind of service tunnel below street level, lit by a combination of overhead lights and floodlights on the buildings. There were dumpsters and parking spaces, but I couldn’t see a way out, so I just picked a direction and started walking.

I got a text from Curtis, “Where are you?”

“I’m walking home,” I replied. This was the second sign of my delusion. In my mind, if I could find my way out of the tunnel, it would just be just a short walk up Stewart Street to my apartment. It didn’t occur to me that I wasn’t in Seattle.

The phone rang and it was Curtis on the other end of the line.

“Hey, man,” I answered.

“Dude, where are you?”

“I got kicked out of the hotel, so I’m walking home,” I told him matter-of-factly. I approached the end of the alley, blocked off by chain-link fence. I hadn’t seen a way up to street level, so I turned around and started back in the other direction. “I can’t find my way out of the alley,” I told him.

“Doug, where are you? We’re coming to get you,” he said, concerned.

“I’m in an alley. It’s some kind of tunnel and I can’t find my way out. But I’m just going to walk home, so don’t worry about it.”

“We’re coming down. Figure out how to get to the street, and meet us at the front of the hotel,” he demanded.

“OK,” I said and hung up. I intended to meet him just to say goodbye, and then head up the hill to my apartment to sleep in my own bed.

As I walked down the alley, I approached two guys in their twenties horsing around.

“Hey,” one of them said to me, “don’t you think he look like Powder?”

“What?”

“Doesn’t he look like Powder? You know, from the movie,” he said, pointing at his friend. His friend didn’t appear to appreciate it. In fact, he looked nothing like Powder, except for the fact that he’d gone bald early. He also looked mean.

“Yeah, I guess so, a little,” I said, trying to be friendly. The first guy laughed, and his bald friend punched him in the arm.

“Hey,” I asked, “you guys know how I get out of here?” They pointed at one of any number of cars toward the other end of the tunnel and said there was a ramp there. I figured I’d see it when I got there so I didn’t ask for clarification.

“Thanks, you have a good night,” I said. “You too, Powder,” I added. Powder lunged at me with the full intent of punching me in my big dumb face, but the other guy caught him and wrestled him back. I walked quickly away while they shouted at each other.

I walked all the way to the other end of the tunnel, which was also barricaded, and I hadn’t seen the ramp. I turned around and just headed back again. Then I saw a man in a white construction safety helmet and an orange vest getting out of his pickup truck, so I approached him. If he’d just made it into the tunnel with his vehicle, he must know the way out.

“Excuse me, could you tell me how I can get out of this tunnel?” I asked.

“Oh, just walk that way a little ways, and you’ll see a ramp on your right,” he said, pointing back the direction from which I’d come.

“Thanks.”

I found the ramp. It wasn’t small or hidden. It was a two-lane goddamn road. I walked up to street level. I looked at the street sign and saw that I was on Dearborn Street, not Stewart Street as I had expected, and I wondered how the hell I’d gotten all the way down to South Seattle. Then I looked around and saw the Dearborn Street Bridge stretching over the Chicago River. The buildings were all unfamiliar, and it slowly dawned on me that I wasn’t in Seattle at all. I was in Chicago, Illinois.

It was pretty disorienting finding out that instead of being a mile away from home, I was a couple of thousand miles away from home. I stood there completely bumfuzzled, but everything started falling into place.

The security agent had woken up a guy sleeping in a chair in the hallway of the hotel. A guy with a bloody eye who smelled of alcohol and mumbled absurdities about someone named Casey Chapman and about living on Capitol Hill. A guy who never even mentioned that he actually had a room in the hotel. It’s no wonder I’d been kicked out; I would have done the same thing in his shoes. I started to feel really dumb.

I made my way down Dearborn, hung a left on West Carrol Avenue, and approached the front entrance of the Westin. Curtis was on the sidewalk smoking, waiting for me. Laura was talking to the doorman.

“Dude, are you OK?” Curtis asked.

“Yeah, I’m fine,” I said sheepishly, lighting my own cigarette.

“What the hell happened?”

“I fell asleep in a chair on the seventh floor,” I told him. “Security woke me up and kicked me out.”

Laura waved us over, so we put out our smokes, threw them in a trashcan and headed over.

“You have a good night, too!” Laura said to the doorman, who waved us in. “He’s from Uganda,” she informed us, “and we just had a nice conversation about how Sarah just got back from Uganda.” It was unclear if she’d actually talked to him about me, or if she just chatted him up so it wouldn’t look suspicious sneaking me in. I didn’t know if I was now allowed back into the hotel, or if I was being hidden like Ann Frank. We silently took the elevator up to the eighth floor and went in our room.

Laura gave me a quick hug and told me to sit down. I sat on one of the beds.

“First of all, are you OK?” she asked with genuine concern.

“Yeah, I’m just an idiot,” I told her. Curtis handed me a hotel water glass with two fingers of straight vodka in it. “Yeah, that’s just what I need, more alcohol,” I joked awkwardly. I took a sip.

“What happened,” they both asked simultaneously.

I started to explain, but Laura interrupted me. “You know what? I don’t want to know,” she said. “Do you realize that I booked this room through my work? Do you realize that any shit that happens in this hotel could impact my job?” Anger was welling up in her, pushing any concern or sympathy right out of the room.

“I’m sorry,” I said quietly, staring at my feet.

“Jesus! What were you thinking?!” she demanded.

“I don’t know.” Now was not the time to explain that I’d had a completely irrational freak-out moment about her, followed by several dumb decisions that culminated in an absurd series of events marked by my complete lack of lucidity. Instead, I just kept staring at my shoes.

“I’m glad you’re safe,” she said, trying to calm down, “but fuck!” her anger welled again. “I’m going to sleep.”

It was well past 5:30 in the morning. She climbed into one of the double beds and turned off the lamp. Curtis and I silently finished our drinks.

“I’m going to sleep, too,” he announced.

“OK.”

Curtis climbed into bed next to Laura, and I was again irrationally jealous, but I wasn’t in a position to react again. I couldn’t take a walk like I had the night before, because I may not be allowed back in the hotel again. I couldn’t roam the halls.  I just had to bear it, and try not to make another scene. I turned out the rest of the lights, and sat down on the end of my bed again, mulling things over in the dark. Finally, I climbed into bed in all my clothes, and stared at the ceiling until I couldn’t anymore.

My new friends and I kept in touch after we’d all gone home. Over the next few days, word got around that I’d been ejected from the hotel. They thought it was hilarious, and by the time I told the story, I could see the humor in it, too. I was given a nickname to differentiate me from “Chicago Doug,” another member of the group who lived there. Embracing both my stupidity and the new moniker, and as an homage to having my picture taken while being forced to sign Criminal Trespass paperwork, I photo-shopped a mugshot of myself and shared it with them. To all of the lifelong friends that I made in Chicago, I’ll forever be known as “Criminal Doug.”