case the afternoon of the day she came to my office. I followed the most obvious course of action, which was to check with all the papers in town, where he'd probably gone looking for work, just another naive teenage kid from the sticks who expected the big town to spread its legs for him, never considering that the town might be on the rag. It had only taken me that one afternoon and part of the next morning. I showed his picture to the information desks and cashiers in their first-floor cages at the
Most of the next week I spent investigating insurance claims for Retail Credit in Jackson Park. Business was so good, I spent seventy-five dollars of Capone's money on a '29 Chevy that was the first car I ever owned: a dark blue coupe with a rumble seat. It made me feel like a rich man, but the people I called on reminded me I wasn't. Not that they were well-to-do- they lived in typical Chicago two-, three-, and six-flat buildings but anybody with steady work and a nice place to live who could afford insurance seemed well-to-do these days. I called on a few merchants, and a lawyer; and a professor at the University of Chicago campus, whose claim was the only one that smelled phony to me: a family heirloom, his grandmother's diamond ring, which now was his wife's, was missing, having been 'lost on an outing'; but the description of the ring was specific enough that I thought I might be able to turn it up at one of the North Clark Street pawnshops, and planned to advise Retail Credit as much.
The tree-lined boulevard that I followed out of the university campus was the site of the midway of the last world's fair, the Columbian Exposition. The only overt reminder of that fair- which had begun with much fanfare about the success of the modern age and had ended with the city in the throes of a depression- was the Fine Arts Palace, which had later become the Field Museum, and now was turning into something called the Museum of Science and Industry. Restoration was under way as I drove by, scaffolding still up, as workers worked at getting the joint ready to house exhibits for the next world's fair, opening in May.
I remembered my father talking about the '93 fair: he hadn't liked it; he found it offensive, union man that he was. Within the White City of the fair- its arcanely classical buildings out of sync with Chicago's reputation as the birthplace of modern architecture- fairgoers had lined up for rides on the first Ferris wheel, and men gawked at Little Egypt, while outside, in the Gray City, jobless men had wandered looking for parks to sleep in that weren't littered with Greek and Roman buildings.
Each day as I drove back to the Loop along Leif Eriksen Drive at twilight, angular-shaped structures would rise like a mirage along the lakefront; overtly modern buildings and towers not quite finished, some of them with their skeletons still showing, poked at the sky-, testing it. The winter had been kind, thus far, and snow and cold had not got in the way of the continuing construction of this futuristic city upon land that had, in part, been dredged from the lake.
The new fair was coming: the Century of Progress General Dawes insisted on celebrating, even if it wasn't really a hundred years yet; who was counting?
On the site of the fair, less than a year ago, was a Hooverville. The jobless, the homeless had been made to give way for the Century of Progress. Well, what the hell, maybe the prosperity the fair would bring the city would give the jobless a job or two. And losing the lakefront sure didn't cost Chicago her Hoovervilles.
And the Hoovervilles were my next stop, where Jimmy Beame was concerned. As good a way as any to avoid spending Sunday in my office. And the Hoovervilles wouldn't be closed for the Sabbath, either.
I started with Grant Park, which didn't qualify as a Hooverville, but was an outdoor hotel for the down-and-out just the same; nobody dared put up any shacks there, of course, since the cops would put a quick end to that. But otherwise, as long as things didn't get out of hand, the cops looked the other way- they about had to, since they'd long since stopped picking up vagrants: there wasn't room in the jails to accommodate
I walked up there, past the Adams and Congress hotels, and soon was showing Jimmy Beame's smiling well- fed face to gaunt, unshaven men in suits that had once cost more than mine but now were held together with safety pins and string. The men in Grant Park- Lincoln Park was the same- were those who had not succumbed to moving into a Hooverville; they had not accepted their rung on the depression ladder, and were usually not panhandling, yet, were still trying to eke out existences doing odd jobs, like shoveling snow, which is where one old codger I talked to told me he'd got the extra topcoat he had folded up to use as a pillow on the bench he had staked out for himself, this bitter cold Sunday morning.
And there was snow to shovel, now: it had finally hit Chicago; no blizzard, but the few inches we'd got mid week were clinging to the ground, thanks to the consistently cold weather. The old guy with two topcoats was in the minority?; most of the men didn't have even one. and this tall, tough, skinny old bird might be man enough yet to wake up tomorrow morning and still own two.
'I ain't seen this boy,' he said, looking at Jimmy Beanie's smiling face. 'The gal he's with's a pretty little thing. Like to've met her when I was in my prime.'
'That's his sister.'
'Looks it.' the old guy said.
'Have you eaten today?'
'I ate yesterday.'
I started to dig in my pocket; he put a hand on my arm.
'Listen,' he said 'You plan on showing that picture around? Asking these has-beens and never-wases if they seen this kid?'
I said that I was.
'Then don't give anybody a red cent. Word gets around you're giving out dough, you'll get more information than you can use and none of it'll be worth a slug.'
I knew that. But this poor old bastard was in his damn seventies, and out in the cold like this…
He must've known that was going through my mind, though, because he smiled and shook his head.
'Just 'cause I'm the oldest kid on the block, don't make me the neediest or the worse off. If I had some information for you, I'd take your dough. But I don't, so I won't. These other boys won't take that attitude, though. See, I been in this game since before hard times. I been riding the rails twenty years, ever since a woman I lived with for fifteen years throwed me out for reasons that are none of your business. But these other boys… they don't
