I’m Beginning to Hate This Town

Last Tuesday morning I found myself sitting in the waiting room of a local neighborhood muffler shop. A typical mom and pop car repair waiting room with a handful of mismatched chairs, a small tv blaring daytime commercials, tile floor with a third of the tile missing, and brown wooden walls — the type of place where you know the work is good but you’ll pay a fraction of the price had you gone to a commercial shop. I drive a truck from the late 1990’s and the original muffler finally needed to be replaced. As I handed over my keys to the mechanic and went to sit down in one of the rooms waiting chairs, an old man waiting said to me, “they got you, too huh?” Caught off guard I responded, who got who? “These motherfuckers cut my catalytic converter from underneath my car. My car was parked right at the corner, too — I’ll never park it there again. The old man begins shaking his head as he continues, “nothing the police can do either.” The old man looks down at the floor, still shaking his head, “I’m beginning to hate this town.”

There have been very few times in my life where I am at a loss for words. This is one of those times. Here sits an old man, crying out for help and I am speechless. The old man goes on to say that he’s lived in Chicago for 66 years and this is the worst he’s ever seen. “They take your car. Shoot you. And go down the street and do it again”, he explained. I wanted to…