Nighthawks

 Nighthawks.  Sure we have nighthawks.  Usually drop by it whenever I drop by the Art Institute,  The counterman is there because he is getting paid.  The couple are having a tryst, or maybe plotting a murder, likely her no-good hubby with the fat insurance policy.  But what about that guy with his back to us, the brim of his hat pulled down maybe a bit more than fashion would allow.  Is he an undercover copper or is he just a guy who likes a good cup of joe at two in the morning?  Why is nobody eating pie?

Can't say as I have every noticed the nighthawks here.  I don't remember them from Homan Avenue and probably they don't come downtown.  But it's nice to have something to welcome you to a new town.  In Champaign it was it was a Playboy magazine in an otherwise empty drawer in my dorm room.  In Herrin it was a big sign in front of  Red Top Liquors that read Cook's Beer, $2.80 a case.

That rat hole thing has been super-hyped here in Chicago.  Seems to me that since there is no real animal there like that Humboldt park alligator or that fat turtle in the river, that it doesn't deserve all that  attention.  But we Chicagoans like anything that can bring us together, and knocking catsup bottles out of tourists' hands in hot dog joints gets old after a while.