Vic Socotra

26 July 2008

The Arena

The Arena lives, and the one next door here in Wrigleyville is one that resonates in me. It is of an era- Fenway and Briggs were the two that I knew, Briggs Stadium in Detroit the best. There is a last-ditch attempt to save a section of stands at Briggs, and the dugouts and the infield.

I doubt they will succeed, depsite the great championships that were won there, since the sounds of the crowds have all died away long ago from that place, and it will soon take an archeologist to determine if an arena existed there at all..

The lure of the Arena remains, though, as it has from ancient days. An old pal wrote to me about this morning, and I know it lives still in some of the venues where it always has. It is very strong here, the smell of sawdust and cooked meat and stale beer.

It seems that everything and everyone is focused on the Arena here in the Windy City. It is quite remarkable. It was Friday, after all, and I traveresed the great metropolis (most recently the home to the Dark Knight) on what should have been a working day, there was nothing but Cubs, the Cubs, and the Cubs. No bridefcases, no suits, and I had to change orm the Blue Line from Ohare at the Loop- Jackson stop- the to red line out to Addision Road and Wrigleyville where my son lives.

I thought I would be there in plenty of time, but the crowd was already surging around me, awkward with my travel bag over my shoulder.

They boarded by the hundreds on the great steel train, not the ate-pof-the-art toy Metro like at home. A big train that works and comes reularly and thunks and bumps its way across the rails. No nonsense, like New York or London or Paris. A real transportation system, not a botique creation of artists and bureaucrats and inept planners as it is back home in the Imperial City.

Detroit had something like this, the sturdy trollies that criss-crossed the town and linked it together. All the cars were sold to Mexico City years ago as the freeways were carved across the neigborhoods. Now there is no Detroit, not as there was, and the old arena that servied it is coming down this very week.

It was the Marlins that the Cubbies lost to, and it was like a fairy tale, since they are a great team, have been great at moments through the last century that they have not won the World Series. After nine innings- yes, I stayed the full nine since there was no car waiting, nor endless lot full of them to battle to get to the freeway. Just a walk to the liquor store and back to the apartment on Waveland Street.

We have deep dish pizza brought in, since the Boys were going out on a drink trolley around the city at nine, coming back whenever, and there was no way I was going to cramp their style. I don't know when they got in- I will find that out anon- but when I rose first to the light, and lolled under the fan, all was silent, the Boys recumbant on the couches near the window air conditioning unit.

I now understand the lure of Michigan to the far northeast to the denizens of Chicago, the moist swelter of late July in the city opressive though the great lake so near. The houses are built to stay warm in the brutal winter, and even the relative mildlness of the midwestern summer by our Virginia standards is oppressive.

I ventured out early to leave them in peace, down the newly-constructed deck stairs off the back of the apartment and out the wire mesh fences around the dumpsters. They had not left keys out, so the front door would have meant buzzers and unwelcome noise.

There is another game against the Marlins today, first pitch at one or one thirty, and even at seven the place was coming alivfe. Truckloads of beer being delivered, a few bleary fans already in Cubs regalia and forming a line to get the choice first-come, first-serve seats in the bleachers. They would be here all Staurday, drinking methodolically, whether the Cubs win or not.

I got a dozen bagels at the Einstein Bakery up the street. A 1970 Camaro was parked outside, behind a 1959 Ford Fairlane tircked out in the faded colors of a Police Chief. I ordered and assormtment of the round dough creations, and two tubs of plain schmear (I presume that is cream cheese, it looks like it) and I am typing standing up in the kitchen, awaiting signs of life within.

Out there by the old stadium of steel girders, it is already happening.

Back tomorrow, but we have no tickets fo rthe game today although the festival will be aswirling all around the place, the fever emanating rom the Arena, and the sweating fans and the athletes within its walls. At one with the America that was, and all the Arenas before it, right back to Rome.

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