Dear Reader,
This past Friday, Chicago was predictably November brisk but not unbearable with a sweater.
Once off the train, first on Word Raccoon’s agenda was a quick early lunch stop, because the insatiable raccoon must be kept fed.
She asked for Shake Shack, because Kristen Bell mentioned it on a podcast once and WR likes Bell.
More, it turns out, than WR likes the chain’s food.
The restaurant is unexpectedly set in the historic, ornate Chicago Athletic Association building, and we had time to survey the building’s beauty as we waited for the dozen high school boys just ahead of us to order at the self-serve kiosks.
We even let a straggler student just behind us join them as we stared down the length of the restaurant at a display case full of memorabilia of Chicago’s athletic past.
WR was miffed because even when she went closer to read the tantalizing fronts of the aged envelopes in the case, they were too high up for her to make out anything.
After the shared burger and fries, WR and co. wandered down Michigan Avenue. A comic book shop was spotted, though not by her. (That comes back into play in another installment of what is now fast approaching what I can only call a long-running series of posts that seems destined to last longer than the trip.)
WR’s upper half swayed to a sound in the distance. The sun seemed to pulse along with the familiar thump that Word Raccoon recognized way down the street from the Art Institute.
Drumming.
Not just any drum was being played, though. WR has a Stupid Pet Trick: she can generally identify the particular source and nature of a noise. In this case, she pulled on my sleeve and muttered: “Someone is playing a plastic bucket” before she saw a thing.
And a young man right in front of the museum was.
WR wriggled delightedly and pulled out some ones she hoped to toss in his bucket as soon as she got close enough.
I reminded her that we had already given a few ones to a man at the train station who swore it was his birthday. Even WR had raised her eyebrow at that pretext but had happily contributed to his “celebration.”
She said she still had a small stash of ones, inspired by a group trip to the museum she had taken years ago in which the leader had pulled out money to give to an unhoused person who sold newspapers.
She had never forgotten the seller’s booming voice or the kind deed by the leader when the others in the group had frozen.
The drummer was ahead, still out of reach, when she heard a familiar voice offering newspapers, and her eyes widened and quickly filled as she opened her purse wider.
How much cash did she have left?
If she got out of line, would she be able to get back in?
Worse, the line was curving away from the drummer and moving up the great stairs to the museum faster than her mind could process.
And was the newspaper seller already moving down the street?
Her dancing feet decided for her as she dashed over to where the young man was wailing on an upside-down blue bucket, drumsticks flying.
The sound vaguely reminded WR of a marching band in a parade, and it amped up her euphoria at the prospect of entering her holiest of holies.
As her paws dropped some cash into the white bucket in front of the drummer, he paused. “Thank you, you’re the first person to give anything today,” he said and fist bumped WR.
WR said he was an awesome drummer and should keep it up.
In her head, she was sad that such talent had to drum for bucks outside a museum, and she wished for the millionth time that she were independently wealthy enough to personally fund the arts.
Then again, maybe he just enjoyed performing. She hoped that was it.
Once back in line, she danced along to the rhythm until I told her we were not in public spectacle mode, and that she had hours of walking ahead. She reluctantly acknowledged my point and stilled her feet while simultaneously cocking her ears for the sound of the newspaper seller.
His distinct, commanding voice echoed from further and further away, though she certainly remembered it and had also encountered it on subsequent visits throughout the years.
She also thought she remembered his name but wasn’t positive. And she pouted at me for not having let her be two places at once. I told her that was a physical impossibility, but I promised her we would keep an eye out for him later.
I also told her not to be sad, that he was almost certainly a ghost of earlier visits and maybe that was his role in this one, just a sweet reminder.
Too quickly she found herself going through the metal detector and opening her purse for an entirely different reason and praying she would be allowed to keep her protein bar.
She was.
And thank god, because she needed it badly later.
Dear Reader, I promise we WILL get to the art, but WR wants to savor the entire trip, if you will indulge her. The Art Institute is what she cheekily calls her “home art museum.”
Drema