So after our party shutdown around 3:00am, my roommate receives a call from a couple of girls who would like to meet for a drink. Derek and I are the only people left standing at our house, so we decide to go ahead on this little adventure. We meet the girls at Joe's and then head over to Nick's on Milwaukee Ave. (I guess we needed to be on a first name basis with our bars that night). We park, get out and go into Nick's for, as Derek and I had discussed earlier,
one drink. The plan soon changed as Derek was offering me shots, etc. but I had to respectfully decline - I was getting pretty tired.
Around 4:00am, we decide to leave Nick's only to walk outside and see a tow truck about to take off with Derek's car. Derek runs out into the street to try to talk/reason with the tow'ers but they get into the tow truck and try to push Derek out of the way. Derek then stands on the running board of the truck and hangs onto the door so they can't close it, trying to deal with the pissed-off drivers. After starting to drive off with Derek hanging onto the truck a few times, they finally push him off and drive away.
Derek is now furious and ready to sue the City of Chicago until a cab driver who witnessed the entire incident explains to him that the city tows
all cars on Milauwakee Ave. after 3:00am. The cab driver drove Derek, myself and the girls to the city impound, while explaining the history behind the towing laws which he was able to connect to "the machine" in power which rules
Mayor Daley and the rest of Chicago. If one thing is certain, you can always count on cab drivers for an interesting perspective on the city.
The scene of the crime: Milwaukee Ave.
We show up to the city impound - a enourmous lot of cars near Humbolt Park, protected by chainlink and barbed-wire fences. A crude trailer house/shack served as the offices and waiting area for the impound. The line was long and only got longer as the night progressed. Derek made it to the front window after 30 minutes in line, only to find out that he wouldn't be able to pay the $160 towing fee with his credit card because the title of the car was not in his name. I asked the girls to get in line again while we got into a cab and hunted down an ATM machine. By the time we had gotten back, the girls were about halfway through the line, now populated by drunken thugs.
Information that would have been good to know before coming.
Sure enough, the drunken thugs start talking shit to everyone.
"I'm going to shoot everyone in here so I can get my damn car out!" I was
pretty sure this was all talk but definitely did not add to my enjoyment of the city impound now at 5:30am. But I did get worried when one of the thugs started harassing some of the girls in line which then provoked their boyfriends and caused the whole waiting room area to start yelling names, profanities and threats. One of the guards at the impound walked in and announced he was calling the police.
I am patiently enjoying every minute at the city impound.
10 minutes later, with the spat between the drunken thugs and girls still going on, two policemen come in and assess the situation. The drunken thugs are now apathetic saying "we just want to get out car out." A guy who is standing out of the line, sipping frozen Mountain Dew out of a can starts telling the police what has really been going and one of the drunken thugs calls him a "sonofabitch" or "motherfucker" or some other name - I don't remember and it's not important. But the otherwise calm and chilled out Guy-sipping-frozen-Mountain-Dew-out-of-a-can leaps at the drunken thug, throws him down to the ground and starts pounding on him - right in front of me and the police. The police break up the fight, arrest the now volitile Guy-sipping-frozen-Mountain-Dew-out-of-a-can and tell the drunken thugs they can get their car tomorrow. That didn't seem like justice to me or anyone else in the room, but we were just glad the drunken thugs were gone.
Drunken thugs and Chicago's finest in a scuffle.
Finally Derek makes it through the line again, jumps through the necessary hoops, fills out the proper receipts and gets his car back. The sun is coming up and we drop the girls off who thankfully did not live too far away. Derek and I stop to pick up breakfast at Arturo's and head back to our place. We find it difficult not to laugh hysterically about the ridiculousness of how our evening ended. With the sun rising into morning and my eyelids having a hard time staying open, I finally get in bed at 7:30am.
2/10/2003 06:10:13 PM
