Des Plaines

Des Plaines, Illinois, 1989: Visiting Dad

An hour away, on the north side of Chicago, he lived in a foreign land Four or five times a year, as Mom waved goodbye he drove me in a white Oldsmobile into his working-class, Polish neighborhood where immigrants congregated in drab hives for an afternoon that lingered into evening Stark, square and soviet low-slung, one- and two-story buildings huddled along bleak, treeless streets crowded lanes of shoe-box stores, mini-malls, of soulless, small-windowed apartments wet, plaintive pavement reflected stoplights asphalt punctured with scrawny weeds always grey, no matter the season perpetually raining, overcast skies dense and disorienting, opaque as candlewax Litter-strewn sidewalks where pudgy babcias plodded in their plastic babushkas protecting their grandmotherly perms from the rain in knee-high, dark stockings that sagged beneath shapeless skirts and masculine, boxy shoes, balancing plastic grocery bags in both hands that had twirled and wrapped around their wrists as they waddled home from the Jewel/Osco and were rudely passed by thick-chested young men in sporty winter coats, tight jeans and crew cuts, with pallid faces and distracted eyes

The city was summer-less: always a pinched, wet November or a February of blackened snow, clumped at the edges of parking lots whips of wind snapping as you turned the corner of buildings and were left breathless a cold that overwhelmed you, weakened your bones, cowered you like a slave

For miles these semi-suburban blocks rambled sluggishly toward the sleek downtown— its crisp, blunt blue lakeshore and sharp shock of skyscrapers

We pulled into the driveway guarded by two stone lions perched on a high gate adding a touch of pretension to the dreary avenues inhabited by plumbers and cleaning ladies The house: upon entering, you were stabbed by cologne, by perfume that soaked into clothes, absorbed into drapes, permeated wood and carpet, clung to your twice-kissed cheeks, masking an earthy odor of bodies mingling with the stench of fried sausages

Shaggy white-carpeted floors, mirror-lined walls, a spotless white couch, rooms clogged with pastel rugs and sparkly trinkets, lamps pointed and long-necked like gleaming metal herons, blinds perpetually closed, even in daylight: we were entombed in oppressive whiteness Devoid of the warmth of pets, the scent of potted plants, the grubbiness of children, the house felt sterile I was a foreign body in this space stiff with worry of spilling, of breaking something A synthetic, plastic place, a taste for the gaudy, for gloss and glitter, aggressive newness layered over old memories— the tradition, the folk, the superstition, a whiff of the archaic seeping through, underneath a layer of modernity— decadence covering over years of poverty A portrait of Our Lady of Czestochowa, swarthy and gold-rimmed, was relegated to the sliver of wall next to the bathroom tucked with baseball-sized cards of John Paul II bedecked with cheap, plastic rosaries And always my step-mother, parents’ friends, distant cousins, women heavily made up, hair-sprayed and high-heeled dressed in tight patterns of leopard, snake skin, draped in feathered boas a rhinestone-fingered, red-lacquered femininity buzzing about their blanched and hollow-eyed, mink-faced men And spoke among themselves in a buzzing backdrop of gnarled tongue a purring, shushing speech, cluttered with consonants: “k’s” and “ch’s” and “sh’s” and “zh’s” a snaked, thickly braided porridge of sound— something exotic about it, this language of my ancestors, a world adjacent to me that I could not enter

The dining room table draped by ornate cloth of shimmering purples, burgundies, children harassed into eating, eating— a feast of blood-red borscht, cold cuts, pickles, pierogi, sauerkraut and small sausages wrapped in bacon, dry, choking slices of poppyseed cake, doughy kołaczki, sugared paczki, thinly-cut, limp cucumbers soaked in sour cream— everything pickled, fermented, or creamed

Hours playing with the one toy I’d brought as Dad asked me stilted questions in broken English bombarded with camera flashes demands to smile, to pose sweetly, tell my age, say something nice compliant at first, but by the end my annoyance frozen in sneer, captured for eternity

Feeling like a paraded circus animal— on display for viewing, for tricks and compliments as friends and relatives whom I have long forgotten bombarded me with vermillion lipstick kisses open-armed hugs releasing whiffs of brawny pungency My father, tall and slim, obsessively combing his thinning black hair, with shockingly pale, mole-scattered skin handsomely Slavic, wearing a powder-blue suit with pantlegs too short, that rode up his calf when he sat exposing his black-socked, pale legs

No matter how familiar, how kind, there was always a formality, a distance— I had to dress up in ribbons and tights, patent-leather, buckled shoes and be on my best behavior He was like a laconic uncle you see only at Christmas and Easter as you endured awkward hugs, a forced intimacy, someone you were supposed to love but for whom you felt only indifference Sometimes we dined at dark-draped or windowless restaurants crowded with greasy-skinned, leering men as I fidgeted in rubbery booths amid scents of cooked lard and stale cigarettes where grown-ups lingered too long around soiled, empty plates Hours dragged on until finally they bid me farewell and I was laden with new winter coats a size too big, envelopes of cash, and strange, inappropriate gifts – a robotic dog that barked, or a toaster And he drove me back through the grim streets conversation drying up to a relieved silence passing the fluorescent-lighted intersections windshield wipers swishing in the unrelenting drizzle blurring together until the landscape gradually greened the trees returned like shy friends the roads became recognizable a dog greeted me in the yard and I was home.