Cubs Suck
I shout through
Kathy’s screen door
“Good news the
Sox beat the Cubs ”
while she
puttszes over fluffy lettuce plants.
She whispers,
“Shh, I have Cub fans for neighbors”
I reply, “My
dad, brother, and I rooted for the Sox.
I grew up in
Chicago’s Northwest on Waveland Ave.
where out of
the park home run balls land.”
Unescorted
white middle class 7th graders
step into the
Addison bus,
6 miles 2
blocks east we step out on Clark Street
a Puerto Rican
neighborhood in front of Wrigley Field.
A dollar gets
us in where NASA conducts experiments
on the 300 fans
who absorb lost games
like black
holes absorb light.
We whoosh pass
Andy Frain Ushers, sit in box seats
away from the
columns blocking fairy-tale ivy.
A block east,
the Red Line El stops for passengers.
Hinges connect
the five cars pivoting
metal wheels
screech a high pitch on a curvy track
arm-length from
apartment windows
submerge into
the tunnel at the loop –climb out after
speed on the
Dan Ryan through the Color slums
to Comiskey
Park in Bridgeport where Daley lives
with his Irish
blue-collar loyalists
like the IRA
patrol Armor Square Park
buffering them
from the projects on the other side.
The stockyard
stench hangs
inside the
colossal concrete stadium.
South-siders
anticipate the exploding billboard
displays the
losing Cubs’ score
cheer like
Romans watching gladiators bleed.
Today, June 28
2008 among Quad Cities Cubs’ fans
like at recess
in O A Thorp’s playground in 1973
I give the
crowd the finger.
—Sal Marici
