Degrees of Shadiness

Holla,

Life in the unemployment line often exposes me to some of the shadier elements of my environment. Instead of heading off to an office setting each morning or going to sleep at a reasonable time, I'm walking through alleyways and staying up into the deep hours of the night.

During these experiences, I have often noticed quite a few people that you don't often run into during normal business hours. It's not just the crazy homeless people or the junkies, it's the shadiest of individuals that operate in this arena.

At the start of my time in the Line, I was taking a late-night El ride in Chicago, when I noticed a man that looked and dressed exactly like Sammy Davis Junior. He was with a couple of other guys, drinking whiskey at one end of the train. There was a boozed up, homeless-looking guy that noticed him as well. He started singing a bunch of Rat Pack songs towards the group, which irritated Sammy to no end. He started yelling at the homeless man, and I was convinced that there was going to be a full out boozy fight.

Unfortunately, the fight never happened, as Sammy was distracted by a group of "women" that entered the train car at the next stop. I put women in quotations, as these persons were obviously transvestites and most likely accepted money for sexual favors. I could see a five o'clock shadow on one of them, and I'm pretty sure that another could deadlift a school bus if necessary.

I'm not sure if it was the whiskey that was affecting Sammy's judgment, but he immediately started saying things to the group of he-she's. He caught the attention of one of them (the five o'clock shadow) and he-she came over and sat next to Sammy.

The entire train was already paying attention to Sammy and his crew because of the homeless man incident. This new development exponentially increased interest in their end of the car. We were sitting on pins and needles, waiting to see what happened next.

While Sammy was sweet talking Five o'clock, his friends were desperately trying to quell their laughter. They knew that he-she was a man, but were on the same playing field as the rest of us. They wanted to see what Sammy was going to do. It may have been when Sammy started tickling Five o'clock, or when he-she started giggling in baritone, that his friends decided that this had gone far enough. The following was their conversation (as best as I can remember).

Friend: Hey, you know that she's a man right?
Sammy: What?
Friend: This is a man.
(shocked looks from Sammy)
Sammy: You think that she is a man?
Friend: I don't think. I know.
Sammy: (Looking at Five o'clock) Are you a man?
Five o'clock: What? (giggle giggle) No (giggle giggle)
Sammy: (to friend) See, this beautiful thing is no man. This is all woman here.

Sammy's friends died in laughter at that point. Sammy shouted a few choice cuss words in their direction and turned his attention back to Five o'clock. I continued to watch their interactions from the corner of my eye. A few stops later, things had progressed enough between the pair that they got up and left the train together. His friends sat and stared at them with their mouths agape, as did the majority of train passengers. The only people that were not fazed by these activities were the other transtitutes that had boarded the train with Five o'clock.

I'm convinced that the late night red-line train was their regular spot for conducting business, and Sammy was just another one of their typical customers. Boozed up and ready for action.

There are a wide array of stories that demonstrate varying levels of shadiness that I've experienced in the unemployment line. I will save them for another day.

More to come...