Calumet City
A Novel
鏤'Officer Patti Black
There's this place in Chinatown.
Off Wentworth Avenue in the 25th Ward, where the four足-足story walkups lean out over the street. Buildings not yet leveled by urban renewal, mattress fires, or debts to the wrong politicians. The kind of neighborhood that scares people who look too close.
A block east the 'L' screeches overhead, sharp like it's mad, metal足-足on足-足metal that bitters the back of your throat. Amtrak runs up there too, on iron bridging painted gray to match the concrete it shades. Above and below and beyond the trains, twenty lanes of loud expressways rumble and honk in four directions. Everything at ground level vibrates, the sense of movement so strong you can lose your balance.
During the day Great Lakes sailors and bus足-足tour adventu ... read full excerpt from Calumet City, A Novel ebook
