A few days ago, I found myself in a highly unusual situation.
I was walking. Outdoors. In the cold. It’s winter in Chicago, and it gets quite cold here.
And yet there I was, walking around with no coat on, only a black sweatshirt that I would be wearing to work that night.
It was Friday, and looking around my surroundings, I had the sense that it was morning. It was brightish, and surely it would only brighten more. I think I saw a sign on a bank that said it was 5:00.
Where was I? I was on North Avenue. That much I remember. North is one of those Chicago streets that goes from the city, far out into the suburbs. And I was walking. Towards the suburbs.
Little by little, I became cognizant of more and more things. Major details, that hadn’t struck me as weird, not at first.
The big one? I had no shoes on. I was walking through Chicago, on the street, with a pair of socks and no shoes to cover my feet. Just trotting along, all casual-like. OK; this was strange.
Then as I kept walking—wherever I was walking to—it started to get darker out. I realized that it was not morning. It was becoming evening. Got it.
On my person, there was nothing. Nothing in my pockets, nothing anywhere on me. Had I had something? Was I robbed? That’d check out, with whatever the hell I was presently doing. But what was I doing before this?
Details were hazy, but I managed to establish some basic framework for the events leading up to this:
I remembered waking up, going to a coffeeshop called Cafe Oromo. I live in the Bucktown/ Wicker Park area with my friend Rey—Oromo is next to the train, a two-minute walk from home. I was most certainly at Oromo that morning, working on my book, drinking a banana smoothie. And then I went home.
At home, I had some time to kill before working at the Irish bar that evening. I remember playing Nintendo—Splatoon, my favorite game—kicking ass, dominating other dudes online. I had won three games in a row—four games?—and that is the last thing I remember.
After that, it all goes blank. A void in my memory.
From what little evidence that I had, I was able to deduce that I had had a seizure.
For those who don’t know, yes, I have seizures. Sometimes I do, and sometimes I don’t. I hadn’t had any for a very long time, but had one of the worst ones of my life in Paris, about 2 months ago. After the Paris one, I woke up in an ambulance. They told me that my seizure lasted 10 minutes, which was a new (unfortunate) record. I’d never had one that went more than 2 minutes—if you’re having one that lasts over 5 minutes, that’s when you’re supposed to call the ambulance. That’s getting into brain damage territory.
So it seemed like my present mystery situation was the result of yet another seizure. I can’t think of too many other situations where I’d be walking around the ghetto with no shoes, no coat, nothing in my pockets, and no idea what I was doing.
I decided to keep walking. I have parents that live in the suburbs. They live nowhere close to my place downtown, but at least I was on a path that would get me to their place eventually.
I walked, and walked, and walked. I stopped and asked for help a couple times, but nobody would help me; the bus driver wouldn’t let me on the bus without shoes; the Asian lady working at the dry cleaners wouldn’t let me use her phone. Everyone thought (with good reason) I was some random junkie crackhead from the street.
Eventually, after lord knows how many hours of walking, I made it to Harlem Avenue, bordering the Oak Park/Forest Park area suburbs where my parents live. And then I became aware of the fact that: people around here knew me—I had to hide, take the back streets, to avoid the eyes of anyone I knew. That set things back even more, and it was nearly 8 PM when I’d arrived at my parent’s house.
The lights were all off; nobody was home. I went around the back, used the spare key, and went inside. An alarm started going off. I grabbed the house phone and called my dad, asking “WHAT’S THE CODE FOR THE SECURITY SYSTEM??” He was like “What are you doing home? Aren’t you supposed to be working?” I said “Yes, and uh… I walked here.” He said, “Wait, what in the fuck? From downtown??” I said, “Yeah, apparently.”
An hour later, my dad was back home, his little vacation in Wisconsin spoiled.
He walked in with a jumble of emotions. Pissed. Confused. Baffled. Just incredulous. What the fuck had happened to me?
I wished I had answers, but I had none.
Details became available little by little over the next few days. When my roommate Rey got home from work Friday night, he thought the place was broken into. Tables pushed aside, shit scattered all over the floor—the front door left wide open. BUT! By good fates, all of my stuff—money, phone, keys—were still in the apartment. I was not robbed out on the street.
Our next-door neighbor offered some insight too. She was in her apartment that day when she heard a banging on her door, loud and abrupt. She didn’t open up, because why would she? She was terrified. Next thing she hears is a large, heavy individual falling down the stairs. An individual who was apparently seeking help, even from a blacked out, just-had-a-seizure state.
It’s all pretty surreal, the events of that day; the journey I made across Chicago in no shoes.
Especially factoring in the distance I must have walked. I’m not sure what that distance is, but I’d estimate that it’s north of 15 miles.
My toes are riddled with blisters. There are tiny cuts up and down my body. I am plagued by a cloud of gloom and depression. I do not get depressed. And yet, here I am.
I’m not sure where I go from here? It seems, whatever my next move is, in life, that it will involve pills. Pills that I will have to take every day, for the rest of my life.
There’s no coming back from this one. My life is forever changed. My mind is broken. My body, scarred.
