Mill City, the Windy City and an early grave.

2:17 AM (Central Standard Time)
A shifty hotel somewhere in Chicagoland

I waited, crouched low to the floor in a position I can only imagine must have been favored by early hominids when giving birth to their young, to hear the muffled death-rattle that emanated briefly from the room next door before scuttling to double-lock and bar the door of my dumpy little hotel room. When I'd accomplished that, I pushed the ragged, cigarette-burn-hole-ridden little loveseat in the "spacious seating area" against the door for good measure and scuttled back to wait, hiding uncomfortably into the space between the bed and the window unit, for the assailant to smell my fear, break down the door and exterminate me. I was already envisioning what the room attendant's face would look like when she found my eviscerated/garotted corpse when I heard the neighboring door open and close, followed by strong, heavy footsteps moving away from my room and toward the elevator. A minute later, a largish pickup truck in the parking lot coughed and sputtered to life and motored away to disappear into the traffic heading towards the city center. I rankly wet myself in relief and passed into base unconsciousness on the filthy floor.

Six hours earlier: Minneapolis, Minnesota

"When O'Hare goes down, it goes down like a truck-stop whore on crack." - pithy Midwestern witticism

"...nature is a whore..." - "In Bloom", by Nirvana

I'd gotten about halfway through a dinner salad (comments unwelcome) that weighed as much as a newborn at a little Minneapolis Airport bistro with Scandinavian wooden furniture (again, keep it to yourself) when one of my coworkers called me.

Coworker: Hey, we're on the plane right now.
Me: [shetting pants, looking at cell-phone time display] But our flight doesn't leave for another hour and a half.
Coworker: We decided to fly standby - go see if you can get a seat!
Me: [looking at quarter-eaten salad; for $12, you'd better believe I was going to finish it] Uh, no, I think I will wait for our original flight. Also, I do wha' I wan'.
Coworker: Fine, betch.

After parting ways with Life in the Corn Acolyte Brooke (with whom I was dining), I approached the "Departure" monitor to confirm my flight's gate number. Written in crimson next to the departure time of my flight was

Muahahahahahahahaha

That can't be good, I thought, and made my way toward the gate. I harried-looking airline representative was backed into the corner of the waiting area, and several people - those who hadn't begun to plait a noose to hang themselves from any stringlike object in their purses/carry-ons - were howling, gnashing teeth, rending garments and donning sack-cloth. He'd gotten most of a meaty paw around his can of pepper-fog when a woman - and I use this term loosely, as she was more like a velociraptor with Lee Press-on Nails - leapt upon him and began to savage him with her teeth and nails, shrieking something about "her connection to Tampa."

As the representative was torn into tiny, gore-soaked man-filaments by what can only be described as a poorly-equipped death-squad, I noted that the monitor had changed to reflect a real departure time - and, while it was delayed, it was only an hour's worth of a delay. Why the carnage? I asked myself - silently, of course - as a man near me began to scrape the human skin out from under his fingernails. What was left of the representative at that point could have easily been interred in a standard movie-concession JuJuBee box.

I looked at my Chicago to Indianapolis boarding pass and did a little mental math about the layover.

Huh.

I would have twelve minutes, presuming we landed and deplaned at the instant that we were slated to be there, to get from one terminal to another.

In an airport so large that it has its own zipcode, post office and issues its own stamps. Hell, it even has its own delegation to the UN.

Needless to say, I wasn't holding my breath. We boarded solemnly, as though we were being flown to exile in the gulag archipelago. As I passed the tiny heap that was all that remained of our representative friend, I kicked it quietly. Defiantly. Clearly, it was his fault.

Forty minutes later

We'd been sitting on the tarmac, unmoving and growing increasingly agitated, for thirty-five minutes when the pilot came over the loudspeaker. It was none too soon; at that point, the tension and hostility had grown to the point where an object placed between any two random seated flight customers would have begun to smolder before leaping into greasy flame. And, since we couldn't tamper with OR disable the smoke detectors per federal regulation, that wouldn't have been a savory turn of events.

Pilot: MuhwuhWUHhuhhuhMWUHWUHHUHhuhmuhmuhnuhsuh.
Woman sitting in front of me: [fashioning a shiv with her nails out of a 2 oz. bar of carry on soap] WE CAIN'T FECKIN' HEAR YOU, FOO'! TALK ENGLISH! SHET!
"Special" Male Flight Attendant: Ma'am? Can I help you? Would you like a pillow? Or some {gagging slightly} mouthwash? On the house, honest to God.
WSIFOM: What I wan', crackuh, is to know why we not leavin'.
SMFA: [giggling behind manicured hand] Didn't you hear what the pilot said?* Also, aren't you, like, white?

In a flash - barely visible to the naked eye - she took him down and began the arduous task of trying to cram his 110 lb. frame under the seat in front of her. We would have stopped her had we a) been strong enough and b) not disagreed fundamentally with her decision. As she began to rock herself rhythmically in her seat, moaning "Dear sweet Jesus, get me to Tulsa", we taxied to the runway and lifted off into the sodden darkness.

One hour later

We got to O'Hare near to midnight in the wake of a storm that had, apparently, soused things up a wee. We were informed by a young woman airline representative that, because we'd missed our connections because of weather - an Act of God - we'd have to either sleep in the feckin' airport or find a hotel for the evening. As she fired a warning round over our heads to keep us in line, she threw pink hotel discount slips on the floor and ran, her pumps abandoned for the sake of speed.

Twenty minutes later

As hotel rooms near the airport began to rapidly fill in the wake of massive cancellations, those who earlier were able to calmly get rebooked by their airlines became utterly unglued. As my impromptu travel companion managed to book the last two hotel rooms within a half-hour radius of the airport - using a shrewd skill-set of cunning, speed and ruthlessness - she motioned to the door to the awaiting taxis. She'd made the mistake of speaking loudly of our hotel confirmation within earshot of several passengers who, from the look of things, would be spending the night dining on filth they'd have to dig out of the shiny metal garbage receptacles located every ten feet in the terminal.

Impromptu Travel Companion: Jump in one of the feckin' taxis! They heard me! THEY HEARD ME!
Me: Yea, though I walk through the valley of the shadow of OH MY GOD SHE'S GOT A TIRE-IRON
ITC: Drive, motherfecker, DRIVE NOW PUT YOUR FOOT ON THE GAS AND DON'T TAKE IT OFF

Our taxi driver peeled forth from the curb not a moment too soon; the dead travel fast and they'd nearly succeeded in breaching the cab and slaughtering us for our hotel rooms. As we put more and more distance between us an the unholiness of O'Hare, our taxi driver - a West African immigrant - asked us where we were going.

ITC: BlahBlah Hotel, please.
West African Taxi Driver: Where is that?
ITC: How should I know? We're not from here; we're just stranded in this godforsaken hole for the night.
WATD: I don't know where that is. Do you have their number?
ITC: No - I called them through the airline rebooking number and they patched me through.
WATD: I need their address. Or their phone number.
ITC: I have neither. Hey: shouldn't you know where this stuff is?
WATD: Umm, it's my first night driving this cab.
Me: Jesus jumped-up Christ in a chariot-driven sidecar! Will we ever catch a break? [beginning to hysterically sob]

As my traveling companion handed me a bottle of water and a Valium, she called the hotel through 411 Information, got directions and, at nearly 1 AM, we arrived at a hotel that was - and I am being generous - poised at the intersection of Barrio Avenue and Demilitarized Zone Street. As I watched a fifteen-year-old smoke something out of a test-tube while awkwardly trying to crouch behind the hotel Dumpster, I thanked the Baby Jesus that I would have to pay $79 for this experience.

The proprietor barred the door three times behind us and reholstered the Beretta he'd leveled at us upon our knocking and checked us in. I stumbled, reeking and broken, to my room and attempted to broach it with my little card-key.

*flashing red light*

OK, again,

*flashing red light*

I gave the door a rude hand gesture and kicked it before staggering back down the stairs to the reception desk. The desk manager looked harried and worn down, but any compassion I might have felt had died and lay stinking in the moldiest corner of my soul three hours before.

Me: Key...doesn't...work....feck....feckfeckkeckityfeck.....
Harried Desk Manager: Yeah, none of them work.
Me: So...why...giving...to...me...fecker?
HDM: Well, one can always hope, yeah? [wan smile]

I wanted so very much to leap across the desk and tear his throat out with my teeth, but instead I smiled weakly and made double-sure to fart loudly in the elevator as he escorted me to my room to open my door with the masterkey. And, considering that I'd had eaten phở
for dinner the night before...well, God be with the lad.

One hour later - 1 AM

I was woken out of broken sleep by a rhythmic creaking sound. As my sleep-deprived mind began to comprehend what must be transpiring in the adjacent cell, the woman began to moan. I'll spare you the details, but the general trend of the conversation was based on commands for continued, and more rigorous, coitus, as well as queries as to whether the owner of the phallus was enjoying himself. About ten minutes later, their headboard began slapping against the wall and, as I went to the magical place with all of the unicorns and the Snicker-bar bushes, they brought themselves to savage climax. I anticipated that they would light up, go to Flavor Country, have some pillow talk, and pass out from dehydration (him) and hoarseness (her). Something must have gone awry, though, as I am fairly certain that an hour later he gutted her like a trout before disappearing into the night, leaving me smashed into the crawlspace between the bed and the window AC/heating unit, soaked in my own urea.

But what can you do, eh?

I got home to Indianapolis Airport - I nearly genuflected in the terminal in gratitude for making it finally - six hours later, reeking of piss, b.o., and heaven knows what else. My bag made it through on my flight, and as my traveling companion and I parted ways, I made my way toward the cab stand. The gent at the little podium commented offhandedly that I smelled like a hobo and hailed a cab for me. I heaved my luggage into the trunk and clambered in. The driver pulled away from the airport turned to smile broadly at me.

Another West African Cabbie: Are you having a good morning?
Me: I've soiled myself twice in the past three hours and I no longer care.
AWAC: So, where are we going?
Me: Greenwood, Xxxxxxxx Road.
AWAC: I don't know where that is. I can't get there. Does that exist? Where is that? Are you sure of that? Hello?

[sound of my medulla atomizing at the speed of sound]

Until later, I remain,

Domonic (Satanismymotor) Potorti

*Girl, Chicago's not, like, letting us take off! There's like, some storm and some junk! Yea!