Wicker

I moved to Wicker Park and got three tattoos. I rationalize it by telling myself I’m only a product of my environment, but I think it’s beyond that. I moved here and was estranged from the city I once knew. People dressed differently and walked differently. Drivers seemed more aggressive, speeding through red lights. Bikers wore jeans that had been caught in their gears, now flapping in the wind as they tore through intersections. I stood seemingly indifferent at the corner of North Avenue and Milwaukee as I watched all of these happenings. To engage with the neighborhood I’d walk around, taking note of everything. Where do I fit in, I’d ask myself time and time again. My draft day came in mid-April, on a cool and gray morning. I stood at the corner in my long brown coat and was approached by a local artist named Lajuana. She was toting a bag filled to the brim with drawings and asked me, “are you an artist?” As flattered as I was, I responded with a sullen, “No.” She proceeded to ask me if I was French, “Je ne sais pas,” I rebutted. We laughed and had a conversation about her work, the majority of it was nude drawings of people. I bought one for $20, two nude women on a green canvas with glitter strewn about. As soon as I was saying goodbye, a girl came up to Lajuana and asked how she was doing. Lajuana introduced me to her, saying that she was a fashion designer. I tucked the small green canvas in my coat and went on my way with a renewed sense of belonging. I met my first neighbor.

Spring came and so did exploration. My roommates and I made a habit of going to any bar with a pool table, cigarettes for sale, you name it we tried to find it. I looked at these nights less as a waste of time or money, but more as an opportunity to immerse myself in a noble journalistic pursuit. Writers have said time and time again that in order to write, you must go out into the world. Maybe that’s me trying to rationalize things again. With each night out I felt my sense of belonging grow. I’d spend days in the park writing or reading, noticing familiar faces, and wondering if they noticed me, too. There’s a homeless man here whom I’d consider as being conventionally homeless in appearance. He wears an old battered blazer, and his pants have one leg that’s completely ripped, so I decided to call him pant leg. He has two moods, one being meditative, where he’ll stand completely still for a long time. The other is rage, where he’ll walk into oncoming traffic, scream at the top of his lungs, or bang on storefronts. He’s always here, no matter where I go, I see him and smile because he was my second neighbor.

Before I knew it summer consumed the air and made the streets sweat. This, I thought, is the greatest time to be alive. I have an affinity for summer unlike anything else. Something about the sun beating down on you, in all places but especially Wicker Park, makes the mind hazy. It’s almost like a natural high, dizziness that you don’t mind but indulge in. Everyone is out and going someplace, you can get a sense of that by seeing the pace at which they walk. There are people to see, places to go, and each time I pass by a stranger in the street I wonder what story they’re getting themselves into. This town piques my curiosity like no other.

I don’t know how many more tattoos I’ll get, what artist I might meet next, or the likelihood that pant-leg will develop a third mood. I can only be certain that I’m in the right place at the right time, and possibilities are in abundance each time I step out onto these streets.