A Trip to Normal

By Ethan (Kirk)

Is something like this worthy of a foreword? Well, if this is me actually committing to something, and giving something I’ve wanted to do a wholehearted effort, I guess it does. I’ve always enjoyed traveling, and despite having intense social anxiety my entire life, I can always make conversation. It’s never felt like it takes effort; I can usually judge within a minute or two whether someone is open to talking, and what they’d like to talk about. I find ways to pass the time chatting with people who seemingly have nothing in common with me. I’ve always attributed it to curiosity and a love for gossip. What the weather is like in Latin America, what scandal is rocking Emmanuel Macron, what the changes coming to baseball are, this is all gossip. Stuff you can talk to other people about. There’s intrigue and drama, and you can spend hours theorizing what comes next. To me, it’s something innate in all humans. We’re social creatures at the end of the day, so why not just socialize? This socializing has led me to some incredible stories and has given me a window into parts of the world people seldom think about. There’s the Colombian from Bogota (my mom’s hometown) who had illegally immigrated to Spain after not paying taxes for many years. There’s the Korean who said I looked like Chris Evans and taught me how to clock other Koreans based on their haircut. There’s the Franco-Belgian lady on the train who explained education and schooling as a Francophone living in Flanders. All of these people have impacted me in some way, and I’ve always wanted to write about them. And as my time in the US is coming to an end, it’s hard not to feel a bit of nostalgia for the people and places that have shaped me. It could be a way to preserve their memory and give them the respect they deserve. In any case, I’ll be making my rounds for the next year or so seeing the people that made me who I am, and whose memory I’d like to preserve. It’s worth remembering things like this. And even if it’s the last time I’ll see them, I definitely don’t want it to be the last time I think of them.

(1)

My first stop on the list is Bloomington-Normal. Blo-No, McLean County, the corn and soy capital of the Midwest. Hell, maybe even the world. If the United States ever dissolves into a lawless mafia state, I know which soil I’m stocking up on in bulk to sell to Chinese businessmen on the black market. Blo-No, like most places, is a place I somehow remember fondly. Sitting along the former Route 66, the place has always been “America, distilled” in my eyes. Its name is literally “Normal.” Elitha Donner of the ill-fated Donner Party was born in Bloomington. Abraham Lincoln spent time here during his early political career. David Foster Wallace lived here while teaching at Illinois State University, my alma mater. It’s where he wrote his most notable work Infinite Jest that I’ll definitely get around to reading, seriously, I mean it this time. Actors like Gary Sinise and Jane Lynch are fellow Redbirds; two actors that you look at and say to yourself “yep, they’re American” but in a good way. After 4 years of undergrad and a quick trip through the Byzantine underbelly of State Farm, I made connections worth keeping that were also accessible by train. Important, because I don’t have a car and want to keep my carbon footprint to a minimum. Seems like a good place to start.

The trip from Chicago Union Station to Bloomington-Normal Uptown Station is, in theory, a two-hour train ride. For now, we’ll just ignore the fact that a trip of similar duration on France’s TGV will take you twice the distance. The station itself is impressive in a lot of ways. It has a Great Hall that actually feels great, and it’s a hub for both regional and national rail transport. Most of Metra’s commuter lines terminate here, and Amtrak offers both national and state-supported regional service. The most impressive thing about Union Station is its completely wasted potential, not unlike most other pieces of infrastructure in Chicago, so getting there is a pain in the ass. The closest rapid transit connections (excluding buses which aren’t rapid enough) are the Quincy stop in the Loop and the Clinton stop of the Blue Line just to the south. I guess if you live along the Green Line you’re SOL. I’m doing some trickery with my schedule today, my train leaves at 7:10 PM and my shift officially ends at 7:00. Given the uselessness of the ‘L’ to make the mile trek west, it’s time to give money to our generous ride-share startup Lyft.

Apparently, you can reserve e-bikes for a rate of $0.42 a minute. Hurrying down from our downtown office to the Divvy rack on Adams, I have plenty of time before my train. I banked my (legally required) 15-minute breaks for 30 minutes to get to Union. I’m only rushing because I know however much money I’ll pay for this Divvy is going to be too much. Divvy, for those not in the know, is Chicago’s bike share service. You are charged a per-minute fee (higher for e-bikes) for using the bike, plus tax, plus an unlock fee, plus a lock fee if you lock up away from a designated rack. From what I can tell, prices are always changing “based on demand” which isn’t a surprise given it’s operated by a Silicon Valley startup. It’s only gotten more expensive since I’ve been using it, which tracks when you see how much money Lyft makes. Or rather, doesn’t make. As for the ride on the e-bike itself, no complaints. It is exhilarating. It’s a straight shot down Adams to get to Union, and the pedal-assisted acceleration, clueless drivers, and lack of protection for anyone on anything with less than 4 wheels make this the closest thing we have to podracing. I get to Union in 5 minutes and pay $3.20 for everything. Not a lot, but still too much.

(2)

If some idiot undergrad gets on Twitter/X and tells you that “Amtrak is socialism,” it’s your duty as an actual socialist to kick them in the shins. Amtrak is a disgrace to the great history of railroading that this country has. Amtrak is, first and foremost, a compromise. People love to tout the EPA and Amtrak as two things that made Nixon surprisingly based, but if you look at the legacy these two things have left, you’ll see how little was accomplished. The EPA is slowly being gutted of all its regulatory power by Nixon’s former party, and Amtrak is Amtrak. It exists in a class of its own for all the wrong reasons. Outside of the Northeast Corridor and a few other branches, Amtrak doesn’t own the rails it runs its trains on. It is a government corporation that is tasked with making rail travel profitable essentially on its own, which is an impossible task. If trucking companies had to make I-80 profitable, I’m not sure we’d have our interstate highway system. So we leave the upkeep and ownership to private railroads who were dying for an excuse to cut their passenger service when Nixon graciously swooped in. But believe it or not, Amtrak actually had a successful sibling: Conrail. 

When Penn Central collapsed, Conrail was created by the federal government to rationalize and maintain freight services in the northeast. And…it worked? So well in fact that in true American fashion, we sold off Conrail’s assets to CSX and Norfolk Southern so they can extract all the profit and cause ecological disasters decades down the road. Amtrak, on the other hand, is anything but rational. The on-time performance for Amtrak is so low for the already low standards it sets I won’t even bother to fact-check it. While private rail companies can keep making their shareholders happy, you are stuck inside a tin can, the bastard child of a Boeing 737 and a Pullman railcar with fetal alcohol syndrome. If there was one saving grace this evening, it was that I got to ride in Amtrak Midwest’s new rolling stock, which was very comfortable for the first 3 hours of the ride.

Wasn’t this a two-hour train ride? The first three hours? What the hell happened? Well, mechanical issues happened. They happened on a stretch of track that was single-tracked, with the nearest passing siding a few miles back in Elwood, IL. Passing sidings exist as a way to coordinate service. If you’re strapped for cash (or if you don’t give a toss about passenger service like the freight rail companies do) you can build a passing siding based on the amount of trains you run. Ideally, the trains don’t collide and things go on without a hitch, but this is America we’re talking about. And a northbound Lincoln Service train was taking its own legally required break in the middle of one of the fastest stretches of railroad in the country. So what is to be done? Well, the freight companies don’t have to bother with it since it’s not their train. But it is on their track, so what better way to get this sucker out of the way than to use a southbound Lincoln Service train? And that is how this train ride ended up being five hours. We glided back north to Elwood with the other train in tow, dropped it off at the siding like it was a dead body, and continued our way south. Upon getting off the train, the lady in front of me apologized to the Amtrak staff. “It’s not your fault, I’m sure you get shit for this all the time.” It was midnight, and I’d been running on fumes for the past few days so I caved and called an Uber. Nixon’s legacy had really worn me out. The Uber ride was mercifully short and unproblematic. While chatting with my driver, I told her I had come down to Normal to visit. “That’s tragic,” she responded.

The next day was Thursday, and I worked most of the day. My bullshit job can really just be described as “whipping boy.” If someone fucks something up, there I am to clean it up. It’s endeared me to a lot of sales reps and to my manager, who so far has only been getting positive reviews of my work. It’s given me a sense of job security that I appreciate but am quickly growing tired of. Part of the job also caters to West Coast clients, which requires me to stay on until 7 PM, so the evenings often feel rushed. Today was no exception, even if I’m on vacation I have people to see. After a standard day in the spreadsheet mines, I hop off at the hour and head to a bar in downtown Bloomington where my old comrade Noah will be. I’m surprised to see Logan (Janicki), another familiar face I hadn’t seen in a while, and meet a few other ISU History folks. I’m then interrogated on why I’m visiting here, of all places. Well, I say, I’m moving back to France next year.

I don’t mind being questioned about my decision to leave, and I’m comfortable with my decision that I never take offense to people who may disagree. I’ve lived a pretty comfortable life here in the US. My family isn’t rich and we don’t have a lot of money, and I certainly wasn’t handed everything I could have possibly wanted. But I’m here unharmed and never dealt with starvation, which I would say is a very good thing. Still, school is expensive, I told them, and well, shit just works in France! We’re all communists here, we can agree that the US is a pit of reaction that’s fundamentally opposed to most social goods. Getting to a lifestyle that exists in Europe is institutionally impossible without an overwhelming amount of reform, and do any of us think that it’s happening here? Why should I waste my time here trying to fix it when me and my future family can just enjoy what already exists in France? I speak the language, I don’t have to put myself further into debt to move on with my career, I can switch jobs without worrying about insurance, and I can retire before I’m 65 and enjoy the rest of my life. Sure, I could be comfortable here. But is it worth the worry and the general annoyances of living here? Fresh off a five-hour train ride, I said no. I don’t think it makes me unprincipled, I just think it makes me a realist.

After trivia, I walked home with a new comrade named Aza (sic) who was reveling in our second-place finish while being crossed. We talked about our need for drugs and alcohol to cope with the mundane day-to-day of work and life, and I heard this line again: “You should try shrooms.” Psychedelics, frankly, are a step too far for me. Someone with my levels of anxiety is undoubtedly a bad trip waiting to happen. I heard the usual refrains to this. Do it with someone you’re comfortable with, try teas, microdose, etc, etc. If there’s one thing I have confidence in, it’s my ability to fuck up a psychedelic experience without putting in any effort. I would go full “there’s bugs in my skin” before I finish my infused tea. I said I’d think about it and walked home.

(3)

Friday arrived with even more exhaustion and weariness that made me doubt I was going to make it through the day. I fell asleep during my shift and knew there was only one thing I had the energy to do at this point. I was going for a run.

Running is something that I’ve always come back to. Richard, a former professor who I wanted to visit during this trip but never had the chance to see, told me during a lecture one time that it takes a certain type of masochist to enjoy a sport like running. There are a lot of things I don’t enjoy about running, to be sure. The shoes are expensive, I’ve been injured, there’s not a lot of places I like running, I could go on. But you always come back to it. Andy, who I will see later in the weekend, had talked to me about the romance of war. There is something raw and powerful about war that I think you can get with running. It’s war in a controlled environment; there’s pain and suffering, there are tests of will and strength, and there’s an unbreakable spirit that runners must have during competition. It’s one reason I always enjoyed cross country far more than track and field. Running on the track feels simulated. Super spikes on synthetic surfaces force you to run faster than what feels natural, and I was never able to get over this part of the sport. It felt too fast, and that would just feed into my anxiety and fears of competition. Out in the fields of a cross country race though, it’s just you and the people around you. No crowds. You’re on an even playing field, being tested with hills, the weather, sharp turns, mud, anything you can think of. And I loved it.

I decided I would do a cheeky five miles after work. The sun was setting already, and I knew that it would be dark by the time I got back. The place I was staying at was right next to the Constitution Trail, a very nice rail-to-trail that goes all over the Bloomington-Normal area. It’s built on the old Illinois Central right-of-way, whose freight trains my dad claims made him late to class all the time. But no matter, it’s now miles and miles of grade-separated asphalt that was perfectly deserted by the time I started my run. I knew this run wasn’t going to feel good. I’m not in the best of shape, I had slept through my lunch break and was running on fumes, and I haven’t had the energy to run consistently ever since I started back up on SSRIs. This didn’t bother me, though. I was going to put myself through this miniature Hell for no other reason than because I can.

I went south 2.5 miles just past College Ave and was already uncomfortable. I had that distinct pain under one’s sternum that shows your lungs are out of shape. My legs were tight since I didn’t stretch or warm up beforehand, and my stomach was cramping from hunger. But I didn’t care. I turned around and looked at my pace. 7:20/mile would be agonizingly slow for a run Back in the Day, but that’s not the point now. I’m a filthy casual, and numbers don’t mean anything to me anymore. I run when I feel like it, and I run however long the spirit moves me. Weaving around the Amtrak station, I hopped back onto the trail and knew I had just under 2 miles to go. This part of the trail is covered with a very nice tree canopy for the rest of the way, and with the sun long since set it was time to see if my eyes could adjust. I managed to make out two figures about 200 meters ahead of me and had them in my sights the whole way while I reeled them in. This was always my strategy for cross-country races. Head empty, no thoughts, just my eyes forward at the person in front of me. One by one, I caught the shadowy figures that I had passed on the way out. I went past almost unacknowledged, and I didn’t bother saying “on your left” or anything like that. It should be known that you keep to your right anyway. I reached the camelback bridge and knew that I had just over a mile left, and I’m officially in pain. I was making whatever non-mammalian noises my dry throat could manage, and my head started to hurt. But I still didn’t care. I knew that I’d been speeding up this whole time while my body got into a rhythm. “Only 25% of what I’ve done already,” I told myself. “Vite, Ethan, et avec force.” Finally, I saw the gazebo where I started. I didn’t look down at my watch since I knew there’s usually a .02 mile delay due to satellite inaccuracies and my watch registering the lap late. I kept going. And going. Okay, I told myself, this isn’t right. I glanced down at my watch and saw that I was only at 4.90 miles. “Are you fucking serious,” I said as I approached Washington St. I turned around and finally felt the vibration on my wrist that let me know I’d hit my distance. I slowed down, staggered for a bit, and got a drink of water. I felt like shit, but I felt alive.

(4)

Saturday was going to be a big day. I was going to see a former colleague at State Farm that I admired during my short 4-month “career” there. She was my cubicle buddy, a term that accurately describes how we met but also makes me want to throw up. A better term to describe her would be a work wife. She was my age, about a month younger than me, but we were in vastly different stages of life. She dropped out of school during her Junior year because she had a kid, who was definitely not planned. She didn’t have the best home life from what she alluded to and was now hundreds of miles away from her hometown without a degree or solid support system, and student debt and a child on the way. Suffice it to say, she was going through it. At the time, I was set on moving to France but hadn’t told anyone I was officially going. Despite the reach and manpower that rivals the Stasi, State Farm didn’t have a clue that I was only going to be there for the summer. But throughout our onboarding, we had each other’s backs. It’s something that is absolutely necessary for survival in any job, but particularly in the corporate world. The work itself is mind-numbing and people are so HR-trigger-happy enough that you need someone to look out for you and vice versa. If not for your own career, then for your own sanity. When she was worried about losing her place to live, I got on Zillow and found as many options as I could. When I was worried about getting fired for lying about my intentions in the job interview, she helped prepare me for the meeting. We were there to answer questions for each other and also to vent about our idiotic coworkers and talk about the algae bloom in the Gulf. But most importantly, she was someone I had a profound respect for. Her baby daddy was about as interested in raising a kid as you’d expect a CTE-addled Division III football player to be. (No disrespect to other CTE-addled Division III football players out there, but you guys aren’t always winning Father of the Year in my experience.) She did things her way, and I knew that she always wanted what was best for her kid.

And I didn’t see her. In that same vein, her kid sprained his wrist at school and was being a kid about it so it was best for her to keep an eye on him for the weekend. That’s what a good parent would do, and while it’s disappointing, it’s another decision of hers I’ll have respect for. With the day opened up all of a sudden, I could go and visit a beer garden nearby to see Noah and his burgeoning group of Bloomington urbanists. It was too hot out to be wearing jeans, and I had learned long ago that the sun in central Illinois is way more intense without a lake to keep you cool. We spent an hour or so chatting about the struggles to get even the smallest of wins done. Fighting for painted bike lanes on a wide open road, being able to control the parking meters in your own city without dealing with an opaque 3rd party you sold the rights to, just normal American urbanist complaints. One of the things that hit me was just how bureaucratic this country is. For all our love of small government, we sure do love a bloated public sector. The difference is that Americans have this innate fear of the federal government, no doubt going back to our founding. We’ve held the idea that state and local governments should have these rights for so long that we don’t even question it. We gloss over whether they can do what they theoretically have the right to do in the first place. It’s the same problem everywhere: CTA and CDOT fight over the smallest lane changes, IDOT and CDOT fight over a crosswalk, Metra and Amtrak fight over scheduling and service changes. It’s all just a bunch of feudal bureaucracies taking out their frustration on each other. But here these people are, in the belly of the automobile insurance industry beast of Bloomington, fighting for the smallest of bike lane changes against IDOT and the local small business fascists. I wish them nothing but the best because it’s a fight I’ve long given up on. One must imagine Sisyphus happy.

(5)

With another affirmation of my decision to leave this country completed, I got the low down on where I could watch the Cubs game. Alcohol and angry rants were much needed after the first half of this day. I walked the mile and a half to Maguire’s, a sports bar that smells like a horse stable and advertises its allegiance with a big Cubs sign in its window. The walk there was unbearably hot. The second I left the shaded tree canopy of the Constitution Trail to go through East Bloomington I could feel myself baking. There are not enough trees in this country, and because everything is so far apart I found myself walking between huge parking lots and wide roads with very little relief. To keep my mind busy, I was looking to see the occupancy of the houses I passed. Chicago has very obvious multi-unit buildings. The classic two-flat can have 2 or 3 separate units before a sales manager at Google decides to buy it as a single-family home and hang whichever Big 10 school’s flag out front. Here though, there aren’t many buildings of that same stock. It’s houses. Houses all the way down. Sure, there are some apartment buildings that are aesthetically pleasing and made of brick, but the majority are these old, 19th-century mansions that have 2, 4, or even up to 8 units. They have rows of doorbells for each individual unit, and I spent that walk trying to figure out their layout. SROs? Is it deceptively deep like a shotgun house? Secret underground bunker? It’s a mystery I’ll never solve. I get to Maguires and sit down. I got the feeling that the Cubs are going to blow another close game and order a stein of Bud Light.

Baseball is America’s pastime, no matter what the haters and losers say. This sport has been in our popular consciousness since the beginning of the 20th century, and it has lent just as much vocabulary to us as the Yiddish language has. Sandy Koufax should be proud of that, without a doubt. The Cubs were playing the Diamondbacks, a young and exciting team that’s outperforming expectations. The Diamondbacks are what I would call “the future of baseball.” They’re all young, athletic, rangy, and versatile. They have Alek Thomas, a local kid from Morgan Park that has a pretty swing and can cover a ton of ground in centerfield. They pair him with Corbin Carroll, who is basically Alek Thomas except his pretty swing actually does damage. They have a million guys like this in their farm system (who aren’t all as good as Carroll) but it shows where the game is moving now. Faster pace, athleticism, and speed. Baseball grew up alongside the United States, and in turn, alongside our economic system. Baseball has become an entertainment product, end of story. Sure, you and I can go grab a bat and ball and play somewhere. But baseball is consumed as any other product; players, owners, and fans alike call it by this word. “Product.” And if the product isn’t good, people will take their money elsewhere. Baseball last had its moment in the 90s and early 2000s, with guys juiced to their gourd hitting the absolute shit out of the ball. Barry Bonds was one of the greatest ball players to ever exist, and then he took steroids. It was never the other way around. We were watching home run chases, insane offensive outputs, and most importantly, highlights. This was all easily transferable to the TV screen, as a product. Once the league got enough pressure to start clamping down on steroids (which they were turning a blind eye to since it made them money), its reputation was already tarnished. It’s only now recovering from this legacy, but things have already changed. People have no attention span to watch a 3+ hour game on the ancient technology of the television. It needs to be quick, exciting, and flashy to get the youth involved. It has to lean into advanced statistics and sabermetrics to make a more optimized and efficient game. Data. More and more and more data. They’re showing the exit velocity of batted balls on screen now, whereas the old WGN broadcasts would only flash a player’s batting average for a brief second. This is what’s required of baseball to survive now. “Adapt or die,” as Billy Beane/Brad Pitt once said. And baseball finally seems to be adapting, whether grumpy old men like me like it or not. Baseball needs to be quick and clippable with a lot more action to stay alive. But you know what? It’s still fun to watch. It’s a damn good product.

Justin Steele, a homegrown Cubs pitcher, threw another gem. I finish my stein in 2 quick innings and get the feeling they’re gonna blow this one. I ordered another. The game quickly reached the 9th and the boys in blue couldn’t do anything on offense. The bartender asked if I wanted another, to which I said “we’ll see if this goes into extras” knowing that it absolutely will. We went to extras, and I ordered my third. I’ve always been a lightweight, but I also pride myself on holding my alcohol. I’ve tested my limits in the past and learned what I can and can’t handle, but I’m in a self-destructive mood again. From my crude math, I guess that a stein is around 2 beers. I had a big breakfast so I’ll feel the effects later, but that’s 4 drinks in 4 short innings. And I’m cruising to 6, which is beyond my normal cutoff. I watched Daniel Palencia, a young Venezuelan with an insanely good fastball, blow up in his half-inning and the Diamondbacks took the lead. It was over, it was time to skull this thing. I got up to take a leak and noticed how much I’d drunk at this point. I did the classic rest-your-head-against-the-wall-above-the-urinal and sat back down. The Cubs offense put up a pathetic display in the bottom of the 10th and I finished my drink and paid. I got outside and was hit with that central Illinois sun again. It was 4 o’clock, tons of daylight left, and it was time for a walk home. It was time for a journey.

I sat down next to the Abraham Lincoln statue in front of the McLean County Museum of History. It’s a statue I know quite well, as the last time I was this drunk I tried taking a nap on his lap while going on another journey, unbeknownst to my friends. This time though, I was determined. I’m going home no matter what is conspiring against me. This is where I had another chat with God.

I don’t know whether there’s a God, but if he exists he’s definitely malevolent. The amount of suffering we all see on a daily basis is hard to fathom. Every day throughout the city, I see homeless people. They have mental illnesses, drug addictions, abusive home lives, stories from war, or a history of poverty and disenfranchisement. The suffering is out on full display, and we all just seem content to move on with it. But there comes a point where people like us can only do so much for others, right? What if we had the power to rid the world of all pain and suffering? Why wouldn’t we do it? Oh, because we want to have our ego stroked and be told we’re the best. I was grumbling this to myself during the one-mile-long walk home. You know, God must not have empathy if He’s doing shit like this and sitting back. He wants others to just sing his praises, He doesn’t have a heart. All the shit people on this earth do out of the goodness of their hearts, believers or not, and they don’t get the same adoration as Him. Whatever happened to the dignified life of quiet suffering? Why does He get to sit around doing nothing and be worshiped and given all this time, money, and praise? What has He done to show me that there’s goodness in His heart? I arrived home. At this point, I was slurring my speech and raising my voice. “You know, fuck you man,” I said towards the ceiling while laying down. “What the hell did we all do to YOU? We’re made in your image after all, why are you making us all suffer? Even people that kneel before you get treated like shit. We don’t know whether you’re even real, and we put up with this for a small chance that you’re real? Fucking show me then!” I held two middle fingers up to the ceiling and closed my eyes. “Fuck you, man. I could do this shit better than you.” I passed out and woke up at 9:00 PM with a dry mouth, but no hangover. SSRIs are better than Pedialyte.

(6)

It was finally Sunday, and it was a chance to see more of my bearded communist friends. Andy (Weeks) was a German professor whom I came to know through local socialist organizations, and through my friend Andrew. Perhaps I’m biased as someone who studied history and French in college, but I was always struck by how much these professors knew. You could ask them about anything; an event, a person, a country, whatever, and they could go on with how important, relevant, and unique it is. Which was all probably true. I spent the morning in a coffee shop doing some trip planning, then took the bus to Andy’s house. Andy is someone who does things, plain and simple. As a retirement trip, he trekked all the way across Russia to Vladivostok and Kamchatka, because why not? It’s got a lot to offer. And I also knew that he shares the same respect for humans as I do. He manages to make friends wherever he goes and can always make conversation with locals. It also helps that he speaks like five languages. Suffice it to say, he’s another person I have a lot of admiration for. He texted me that he wasn’t as mobile as before, which surprised me a little given how active he always was. I figured he had had surgery on his knee or hip and that he was only temporarily out of commission. I walked into his house and saw him lying on the couch, and shook his hand. He was always in shape, but this time he looked frail. It wasn’t the Andy I remember from a few years ago. In my own naivete or perhaps willful ignorance, I asked, “How have you been?” I don’t know you moron, how does he look?

Andy was living in Paris when he noticed something was wrong. He said it started with his feet, but he couldn’t figure out what it was. A doctor gave him the news that it was ALS, something we all know for one reason or another. I first learned about the disease through Lou Gherig, who is often the namesake of the disease. Many people know it now as ALS through the ice bucket challenge from a few years back. But this was the first time that someone I know personally has been affected by the disease. Not on social media or in textbooks, but right in front of my face. Andy was nonetheless as pleasant as ever. We talked for a long time about France, politics, history, language, travel, any goings-on in the news, you name it. Noah and another comrade Zach came through to chat. It was the first time Noah had seen Andy in a while too and also had the news broken to him that he was diagnosed with ALS. I think we all had a hard time believing it since it was so unlike the Andy we remembered before the pandemic.

Andy was definitely trying to declutter what he could, and with his time being limited he has to focus on what really grabs his attention. He had a lot of French books that he had read, annotated, and spoke highly of that he kindly gifted me. As I’m on my last book in my French language queue, it was a much-needed stock-up but also something I hope to hold onto for a while. It’s sentimental, but I see myself as a collector. I enjoy having physical memories of places and people, and these books will be one of them one day. But not now. Andy is still walking and climbing up stairs because he’s a tough bastard.

One of the topics we talked about together with Noah and Zach was the difference between Trump and Nixon as figures in our popular imagination. Nixon was absolutely loathed by the young leftists of the time, in a hatred that can only be described as pure and visceral. Trump, however, doesn’t have the same effect. Certainly not as widely as Nixon. Personally, I find Trump funny. The things he does are bad, but he’s mostly a rubber stamp for what the GOP was going to do anyway. This is a guy who just wants to be on TV, and there’s no bigger celebrity in this world than the President of the United States. So of course he’s going to run, he’s going to be on every news bulletin. He will be the news itself. But by being in that position, you do have to play politics, and he will rule like every other Republican would if they were in his position. They’re not in his position because this country, this wet dream of English liberals, could only have led to him. A TV celebrity with a decaying brain that’s lived on fast food for the past five decades is the president of the United States. Of course he is. Why wouldn’t he be? But Trump does not have the psychotic dedication to evil that other Republicans have, and therefore I cannot hate him in the same way. And I believe most people feel that way too. Though as Andy said, Nixon was different. He was utterly reviled, and I don’t blame people for feeling that way either.

As my Amtrak home approached, Andy and I made a stop at Noodles and Company. We talked about the war in Ukraine, the future, and our admiration for the French state while enjoying fast-casual pasta meals. I knew that this wasn’t the last time I was going to see Andy, but it definitely felt like a farewell in a lot of ways. ALS is a degenerative disease, and it progresses with every passing second. If I was able to come out of this day with any hope, it was that Andy had found peace with his fate and had a strong head about him. He’s not moping or wallowing, he’s not desperately seeking treatment with unapproved drugs or new-agey bullshit. He’s living on this planet just as he was before. Reading, smiling, and enjoying conversation with the people he’s met during his incredibly rich and interesting life. I stumbled out of Andy’s car (he can still drive well) with some of his books cradled in my arms. This Amtrak, believe it or not, was on time and would arrive early to Chicago. No non-revenue moves this time around. On the train, I was treated with the sounds of the agora, namely people hopelessly trying to give directions. In the age of smartphones, it’s a wonder how anyone gets lost. The man sitting a row behind me was explaining to his significant other where to pick him up. “I’ll be at Union Station. I think it’s on Jackson,” he said. “It’s on Jackson and…listen I don’t know which other street. Just use your damn phone and look it up.” I smiled at the irony of that statement and went back to reading. I was trying to plow through the rest of Le lys de la valée, a novel by Balzac, which has been a slog to get through. The main character is a loveless young man who finally meets a woman he loves who’s much older than him. The ending was spoiled for me right away, but I knew that this guy wasn’t going to seal the deal. I’m not a betting man, but I know where to put my money and I can smell a hopeless romance from a mile away.

I hopped off the Amtrak and hurried to catch the Brown Line home. It’s not like there wasn’t going to be another train, but with how unreliable the CTA has been I really didn’t feel like taking my chances. As I made my turn onto Wells St, I made eye contact with a tourist/suburbanite who was clearly lost. I heard the rumble of the train approaching and made the decision to start running. He looked at me, then at the group he was with, and then at me again, almost pleading for me to stop and help him out. But there comes a point where you have to help yourself before helping others, right? You have a computer in your pocket, so it’s time to figure it out yourself.

As I walked from the Francisco Brown Line stop to my apartment, I tried to process everything that I’d been through the past few days. I came back with 10 French books that I’m excited to dive into, and with an ever clearer perspective on life and what my future holds. Or rather, I have a clear perspective on not knowing what my future holds. Andy repeated a few times “Well, you’re still young” and it is finally ringing true to me. I have no idea what will happen in the next few years, but I know I will keep these experiences close and move forward. And even if it was only $13 to get from Chicago to Bloomington-Normal by train, I learned that I really fucking hate Nixon too.

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