Halsted is just visible from my bicycle westbound on Adams. Three gray polyps–heads?–rise from the backboard of a bus-stop bench. Seen up close, they belong to three unshaven guys, lost in their work. They plunge dirty hands deep inside an open cardboard box, the size of two milk crates, that rests on slats between them.
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Following each examination, the inspector unself-consciously chucks the chicken onto Halsted Street.
“You fellas got something against chickens?”
But wait–the legs are moving: signs of life too steady for rigor mortis. The tilted figure is duking it out with gravity, gyrating against the metal box. Easing loose takes several minutes of methodical movement.
Randolph Street between LaSalle and Wells is a magnet for illegal curbside and double parking, the continuous scene of brief stops and quick hops even during this inclemently cool Friday evening.
The Malibu is there an hour later, its occupant going nowhere in the night.
