Descending the Steps Into Hell

Rogers Park, Chicago - Nov. 1, 2007 - A bunch of savage creatures descended upon the intersection of W. Morse and N. Glenwood in this troubled neighborhood yesterday. It was Halloween, of course, October 31, and while many kids were throwing eggs, these maladjusted little shits were throwing - bricks. Yes, bricks. Eggs sting when they hit you and make a mess. Bricks, on the other hand, make a mess but can likely take out an eye, cause brain damage, or kill. At 5:30 p.m. I descended the Steps Into Hell from the Morse CTA station to the street. As I passed through the station, one of the CTA attendants warned me to keep my eyes open; at 4:00 p.m. a bunch of The Great Society's grandchildren decided it would be clever to call the police and report a gang fight. They did so, but there was no gang fight. It was a set up, an ambush. When the police arrived, the attendant told me, bricks started flying. She said she saw no injuries, and the police aren't talking. Remember: "Crime is down." Why is it down? Well, it's not, really. It's just that stuff like this won't be entered into the statistics that Chicago "shares" with the federal government, and so won't be in next year's federal crime report. The brick throwing incident, by the way, took place within spitting distance of that hideous mural on the CTA overpass. Thank God the mural is there to bring us all together, or things might have been much worse.