Crazy in Chicago

In August of '87, I separated from my wife and two young children after a long period of high stress and difficulty at home and at work. In short, trying to live the mainstream life of the nuclear family in Markham had taken its toll on me mentally and physically. I was also off my medication.

Having just come from my 'dream house', I got tired of motel living after a few months and decided to drive to Montreal. I had a new hatchback that I had purchased with part of the divorce settlement. I enjoy driving and find it relaxing.

I passed Montreal and continued right on to Quebec City and then drove back and forth between them several times; eating on the go and sleeping in the car.

The fourth time I passed right through Quebec City and continued east. Reaching a small town at the mouth of the St. Lawrence River on a beautiful sunny afternoon, I stayed long enough for a coffee and enjoyed the view. After the coffee I got back in the car and headed back west, driving straight and napping in my hatchback until I reached Vancouver.

In Vancouver I decided to treat myself. I stayed in a good hotel and had a good meal. Early the next morning, I started east but decided that this time I would go the American way. No trouble at the border.

As I neared Chicago I realized I needed to change money into American. It was a Sunday and for some reason I decided the best thing to do was to go to the airport; O'Hare International Airport.

Parking my car and getting into the terminal building, I hadn't gone very far down the corridor before a thought struck me. I am usually very careful in mall parking lots during busy times in noting the exact spot where I am parked. I had not taken note this time.

Sure enough, going back along the corridor and looking for a sign or something familiar, I reached the other end of the corridor without finding the stairwell to the parking lot.

I tried the information desk, but they said they could not help me find my car, which I had just parked 30 minutes earlier. I started to get very worried. Over the next two days, just walking back and forth and resting and napping in waiting areas, my thinking changed from finding my car and getting money to other things.

At one point, I went out to the road that surrounds the terminal and got a cab. Going a short distance, I said, “right here” and asked him how much. “Don't worry about it, have a good day”. And that's when I did it. I slammed the door. Many years before, I had read that if anyone got a free cab ride in a big American city and slammed the door, the world was going to end!

I was in a state of shock at what I had done. I went back into the terminal, started walking, and sure enough, so many people were looking at their watches. Had the earth already started to spin out of its orbit?

My worries were further exacerbated when I stopped at a viewing window for a while and was sure that more planes than usual were taking off, and at such crazy angles. But where were they trying to go? The best thing to do was sit tight. (As difficult as it might be to believe, these thoughts were all completely real to me.)

During one of my rests, a plain-clothed man came up to me, showed me a badge and said, “Come with me!” At the police station and in a cell, a cop offered me a Coke.
“May I smoke”?
“Sure”.
“Do you have an ashtray”?
“No, just throw the butts in the toilet”.

Sitting down and hearing a typewriter clicking not far away, my thoughts turned to my ideas on how Americans view pollution. Throwing the butts down the toilet and plugging up the sewers!

Without realizing what I was doing, I called over a cop and started to give him a piece of my mind. He had no idea of what I was going through and went away without saying anything, but when he came back shortly afterwards, the whole mood had changed.

Arms roughly twisted behind my back, I was handcuffed, escorted to a police car and taken to another downtown police station. First of all fingerprinted and then photographed, I was put in a cell. Having run out of cigarettes, I asked for and got one. I just sat there thinking about the heavy negative issues of these big American cities (not that I had ever been to one before, or knew very much about them anyway).

After about four hours, a cop came to the cell, unlocked it, and escorted me to the front door with another cop behind. He said something I didn't catch, and gave me a good shove down the steps.

I guess the fact that I was there in the first place, hours without a cigarette, four hours of thinking negatively about Chicago and then to top it off, that shove down the steps made my blood rise to the surface. I turned around and started screaming in the most offensive language I could think of.

Quickly, two officers were down the steps and I was dragged and literally thrown back into the cell.

About ten minutes later one of them appeared and placed a small table in front of my cell with two objects on it. A split second after seeing what was on the table I remembered stories (or rumours) from the late '60's when I was in university about what went on when the long haired Vietnam protesters were brought into these places. I cannot really describe how scared I was.

I could hear them talking in a small office near my cell but I could not make out what they were saying. I just sat and waited and worried. What were they going to do to me? About three hours later, one of them came to the cell and said, “We've got to move you”.

Handcuffed and escorted to a van, I was then taken to another building and put in a cell. It was the middle of the night. I just sat there until around 4 pm the next day when I was suddenly released. I just glanced at my surroundings and started walking.

It was not too cold that night, but there was a light snowfall that turned into slush. I was only wearing shoes so my feet were wet and cold. Shortly after daybreak, just walking down some street, a cop car pulled up.

“Where are you going?”
“I am trying to find Lake Michigan!”
A slight pause and then, “Why are you trying to find lake Michigan?”
“To get my bearings so that I can start walking back to Toronto.”
“You got any money?” From serious to puzzled to gentle his tone was changing.
“I've got a two dollar bill Canadian but I can't get it changed!”
“You got a bank card?”
“Yes!”
“Get in!”

Not 5 minutes later with 400 dollars in my pocket I was getting a cab to the bus station to head back to Toronto. First thing, I went to Diane's house, walked into her comfortable living room with the two young children right there and she said, “We haven't seen you in a while, have you been on a holiday?”

About a week later, inconvenienced by not having a car and staying at an out of the way motel, I decided to take the bus back to Chicago. On entering the corridor of the terminal, I followed the signs and quickly found information.

“Yes sir, we know where your car is, just follow these directions”. The parking fee was $210 dollars. I was soon back in Toronto.

I don't know whether you remember the quick Communist takeover of Canada in the fall of '87, when the focus of the Cold War shifted to the Canadian-American border, but I was very much involved, being a 'Special Person' at the time with my very special mind.

Before my road trip, I had gone a couple of times to a bar in a major hotel in Buffalo to communicate with the C.I.A. and top U.S. officials; albeit completely silently and at a distance, about what could be done about this very tense situation. At the very least, trying to prevent a nuclear first strike by the Canadians. (My sympathies lay totally with the Americans).

A couple of weeks after I got back from Chicago, I decided to go to the bar in Buffalo. Instead of the usual quick “Go Ahead” at the U.S.border, it was “pull in over there”. My car was searched and I was turned straight back to Toronto. Over the next three weeks I tried four more times but was turned back every time after they searched the car. Having asked a couple of questions and doing a bit of arguing, I finally got the point.

To bring this up to date, more than 15 years later, I don't need to worry about ever having any more trouble in Chicago or anywhere else in the entire United States because they'll never let me over the border again!!