The Barn House (28 page)

The firm, located in an old brick loft building only a few blocks from the Barn House, turned out to be one of the country's largest dealers in antique mantelpieces. The owner, a ponytailed fellow named Stuart, had become something of a wheel in the architectural salvage business, spending his days traveling to demolition sites and extracting picturesque fragments of buildings otherwise bound for landfill or the scrap yard—elevator grilles, stone lions, terra-cotta ornaments. He had chunks of structures designed by Louis Sullivan and Frank Lloyd Wright. A few items he'd kept for himself (eventually he opened a museum to display it). The rest was for sale.

Stuart invited me to inspect the premises. Most of the mantelpieces were stored on an upper floor—the space was impressively large. How many items were stacked there I can't say, but the number was surely in the thousands, each representing a building now dust, or anyway a room now dust, or remodeled beyond recognition. I wandered up and down the aisles, the photos of the mantelpieces taken from the Barn House in my hand. Not all the assembled woodwork had come from Chicago (and from what I could see, none of it had come from my house), but a lot of it had, and much more from towns elsewhere in the Midwest—places whose moment of glory had come and gone, and whose antiquities, if one may use the term, were now being stripped for export. (Detroiters were especially bitter on the subject.) A lot of the salvaged goods wouldn't wind up in Chicago, the region, or even in a city. Some friends had a Louis Sullivan rosette in their powder room in suburban Atlanta; I'd heard Texas was an enthusiastic importer of Chicago common brick.

Yet I can't say I found the scene bleak—the stuff was being recycled rather than simply discarded, after all—nor (the initial shock having passed) had the experience of being victimized left me personally all that upset. Truth was, the thieves had done me a favor—I hadn't really liked the mantelpieces they'd made off with, two fussy Victorian relics, and at the moment, to be candid, I had more use for the insurance money. Although I wouldn't care to advertise the fact, there was something to be said for an occasional encounter with chaos, assuming it didn't entail bodily injury or leave you stuck for the loss. My friend Hank had come to a similar conclusion years earlier. He was initially dismayed when his house was damaged by fire, but when he realized the settlement would allow him to modernize his outdated kitchen . . . well, I'd be exaggerating to say he'd become an advocate of arson. But he could see it had its points.

I went back downstairs, my due diligence complete. Stuart wrote up a generous estimate of my mantelpieces based on the photos, which I subsequently submitted to the claims adjuster. In the fullness of time the insurance company deducted a trifling amount and sent me a good-sized check.

I'd gotten another break. At first I chalked this up to the fact that I was in a high-profile line of work, but in time I realized there was more to it than that. Fact was, I'd gotten a lot of breaks on my project, foremost among them the intervention of Charlie, Tony and Jerry, and the Chief. Eventually I realized a larger force was at work: I was a beneficiary of the city-guy mafia.

Anyone who's lived in the same place for an appreciable length of time recognizes the web of relationships in which he's become enmeshed. I was periodically reminded of this by my Irish Catholic mother, surely one of the most social beings on earth. Anyone who knew my mom could claim at most one degree of separation from the rest of humanity, because she knew everybody else. One evening in a hotel in Jerusalem (I'd accompanied my mother on a trip to Israel with a church group following the demurral of my father, who figured there wouldn't be anyone to talk pigeons with), we shared a dinner table with an older couple neither of us had ever laid eyes on before. Within twenty minutes my mother had established that the woman had grown up on the west side of Chicago in the house next door to the childhood home of her (my mom's) sister-in-law—my aunt—from which said sister-in-law had departed in, oh, maybe 1941. “Ma,” I said as we left the table, “sometimes you scare me.”

From ancient ties like that certain advantages easily arose. You knew people, they knew you—or if not you, then your mom, your neighbor, or your best friend's sister's ex. If you needed help or advice . . . well, if you were a knucklehead like me, you could just start calling people out of the phone book, only to discover that the party on the other end of the line was a pigeon-racing buddy of your dad's.

The city-guy mafia was a special case of these ordinary social networks. For the most part it wasn't so different—on the contrary, inasmuch as a considerable fraction of the Chicago contingent consisted of graduates of the University of Notre Dame (about which more later), it could be as tribal as the best of them. It merely included a few extra nodes. In addition to the usual connections through family and friends, city people knew each other, or anyway knew
of
each other, by virtue of certain urban pursuits: writing for the newspapers, say, or belonging to civic or professional associations, or—let's not be too hifalutin about this—hanging out at the same bar in Wicker Park.

However you gained admittance, the city-guy mafia, in the manner of all networks, opened doors and made urban life less intimidating. This had two important consequences, both of which I grasped only in retrospect. The first was that, in contrast to suburbanites, city guys were comfortable with big-city scale—the city was their natural home. The second was that, once stirred to action, the city-guy mafia was a formidable engine for change, as we would shortly see. And so back to our story.

Wednesday, May 18.
Laryngitis in the morning, followed by shivers. Do financial projection; optimistically $16,000 in hole for year.

Thursday, May 19.
Get notice from city saying Oscar must be impounded for ten days. Can't reach Tom.

Saturday, May 21.
Work on conduit. Tom says he'll take Oscar to pound.

Monday, May 23.
Work work all week. Write pessimistic magazine column: “I like the city and hope that people like myself can work out a way to stay in it, and I think there is a reasonable chance we will. But I wish I could be more certain than I am.”

Saturday, May 28.
Ani's birthday party. Pleasant day.

Sunday, May 29.
More conduit. Despite repeated admonitions, Tom still hasn't brought Oscar to pound, but says he has arranged with Tony to do so.

Saturday, June 4.
Oscar still hasn't gone to pound, crapped all over second floor.

Sunday, June 5.
Working late at house when Tom arrives, drunk and morose: “I have an IQ that's tested out between one hundred and eighty and two hundred, depending on what scale was used, and I can't figure out why people do these things to each other.” Turns out alley kids have been throwing stuff into yard at Oscar and won't stop when asked. Still hasn't taken Oscar to pound. “What if it were your wife they wanted to examine? Not that Oscar is my wife.” Tell Tom not interested in pursuing this discussion.

Thursday, June 9
. Do electrical work at house till eleven p.m. Tom arrives late, drunk as usual. Decides to change burned-out basement lightbulb, but it's stuck and shatters as he tries to turn it. Wearing gloves so not hurt, but I shout at him to stop—fear he'll electrocute himself, don't want his death on my hands.

Saturday, June 11.
Oscar in house again. Floorboards in dining room reek of urine, will have to be replaced. Chew Tom out. “But I have emotional needs,” he says. Call Tony, say we needed to start thinking about getting Tom out.

Monday, June 13.
Tony's fireplace installer calls, says can't fit flue pipe into wooden chimney chase carpenters have constructed without having it jut into family room. Upon consultation, problem apparently that Charlie has designed offset into chase at point where pierces roof. Call Charlie, ask why offset. “We wanted to engage the rail,” he says. I love Charlie, but can be such an architect sometimes. Eventually conclude chase must be dismantled, rebuilt two feet east. Going to cost. Tony's guys take Oscar to pound at last.

Tuesday, June 14.
Lee over, finishes installing new main electric panel. Decide to have him help me finish electrical in interest of concluding job before heat death of universe. Chief installs 250 feet of coax for cable TV.

Wednesday, June 15.
Lee calls to say we have problem—inspector says two-inch conduit from electric meter to main panel can't run through crawl space beneath family room, as now; code requires cutoff switch within five feet of meter. We must run twenty-five feet of pipe with three right-angle bends along outside of newly re-sided house—will look hideous. Decide to appeal to chief electrical inspector.

Thursday, June 16.
Temp 98 degrees. Lee works on electrical with son Gordon while pregnant young woman watches. Lee's supervision of Gordon consists mainly of screaming at him. Gordon not happy. During break ask how he likes being electrician. “Gotta be an easier way to make a living than this,” he says. Later tell Lee Gordon doesn't see much future in electrical business. Lee agrees: “He says I work too hard and don't charge enough.” Gordon pursuing other ventures with assistance of “his wife or girlfriend or something” (pregnant young woman) but has had problems. I ask: Legal problems? Yes, says Lee. Gordon has been in jail on drug charges.

Gordon is right about one thing, though. Lee charges only $150/day for Gordon and self, less than $10/hour.

Saturday, June 18.
Still very hot. Chief reports hearing two gunshots near Barn House previous evening; remarks on trash on nearby lawns.

Monday, June 20.
Mary wishes me happy (wedding) anniversary. I'd completely forgotten.

 

O
n Saturday, June 25, Lee, the Chief, and I spent the day pulling wire through conduit. Lee knew his business and from time to time instructed the Chief and me on fine points.
⁸⁰
In odd moments he revealed a little about his background. His father had been the first black electrician in Cook County. Now he lived with his family on the west side, where life evidently hadn't been easy—his truck had been repeatedly broken into and his tools stolen. Concluding that he resided in a desolate ghetto neighborhood, I was surprised to learn on further discussion that his home was just a block or two across the city line from Oak Park, the middle-class suburb where my parents lived. It was a different world wherever it was, but I was only fitfully reminded of it. Lee was a craftsman, a member of the brotherhood, and that was bridge enough.

Sunday, June 26.
Finish pulling wire, get all outlets, switches, and pigtails (temporary bulbs) hooked up. House blazes with light.

Wednesday, June 29.
Tony's guys put up insulation while Chief and I string telephone, intercom wires—gentlemen's work compared to previous. Take break to admire house from sidewalk. Provided inspection limited to exterior, place is stunning. Formerly most decrepit structure on block; to my eye now handsomest. Passersby stop to compliment.

Thursday, June 30.
Tony calls—front door frame totally shot, should be replaced. Cost: $900. Noticed same thing, say okay.

Saturday, July 2.
Fax Tony saying my alarm guy will soon have burglar alarm operational; we should get Tom out before drywallers start.

Sunday, July 3.
At house doing odds and ends. Tom chatty: “By 2010 there will be ten billion people in the world. That's a lot of folks. Of course by then we'll be harvesting krill from the oceans and serving it at McDonald's. Maybe we'll be eating bugs, too. Fortunately by then our extraterrestrial efforts will be removing a sizable portion of the population from the planet.”

Monday, July 4.
Supposed to go to John's for holiday but Ryan has hacking cough so stay home.

Tuesday, July 5.
Get letter from IRS—going to put lien on house for back taxes. Mary in panic.

Wednesday, July 6.
Mary calls IRS—they won't put lien on house if we pay $11,000 by July 23. Around ten p.m. Tom calls; wants to know if I left used diaper in bathroom. Say no, kids hadn't been out there. Subsequent remarks stranger than usual: “I am not prepared to deal with . . . here I am and there you are . . . I expect to find things a certain way . . . in the capacity I am providing I have an enormous degree of insecurity. I feel it's important to maintain . . . please understand where I'm coming from.” End discussion with some effort.

Thursday, July 7.
Pete returns to finish upstairs AC. Duct routing simplified by my drawings, but still more complicated than new house. Drawbacks of hiring low bidder now apparent. I stare at knotty problem in master bedroom ceiling muttering, “I don't know,” only to have Pete say he doesn't know either. After study, figure if I can get forty-five-degree whatsit to hook onto ninety-degree thingamajig, can get around funky framing without ducts protruding into room. Pete not seeing it. Say I'm certain parts exist, although as usual no definite knowledge of this. Pete says if I get he will install.

Sunday, July 10.
Have to redo radiator supply piping to Ani's room, forget why. Job takes three and a half hours; first time around took three days. Call Mom, who inherited money from frugal spinster schoolteacher aunts, arrange to borrow $11,000 to pay IRS.

 

A
t some point in mid-July I needed Lee to sign a final lien waiver, which as always had to be notarized. He insisted we drive out for this purpose to a currency exchange in a tough west-side neighborhood called Lawndale, which still had vacant lots dating from the riots of the 1960s. On arrival the stocky man behind the counter greeted Lee familiarly. “This came for you,” he said, handing a piece of mail past me to Lee. It was a compact window envelope containing an official-looking document; I couldn't help noticing the return address. It was a welfare check.