At midnight Sunday, nobody came through the doors of the Chicago Sun-Times except a tall, handsome security guard in a blue parka and cap. He whispered into his walkie-talkie as soon as he saw the clump of delivery truck drivers waiting for their load, smiled and nodded at a couple of reporters from other media, then kept walking.
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Chicago news broadcasts had been leading all Sunday night with the Sun-Times–some 250 editorial workers were threatening to go on strike sometime Monday. But not yet. The small screen showed unhappy journalists scrawling slogans on cardboard signs, but at 401 N. Wabash nothing was happening. Charles Levy trucks with their “readers are leaders” banners littered the street; Sun-Times trucks in red, yellow, or shiny new blue breathed idle smoke.
“Are they going to strike or not?” asked the driver of the only vehicle out of place, a chrome-paneled snack truck butted up against the building. The haggard gray-haired man, who insisted his stop at the paper was not extraordinary, was accompanied by a woman who needed desperately to use the bathroom.
“Ann Landers is in the Tribune, man,” laughed one of his colleagues, a doe-eyed black man with a wool cap.
“Same difference,” said the kid.
“Maybe tomorrow,” said a passerby with a briefcase in hand. The casually dressed man disappeared into an Oldsmobile that quickly sped away.
“Look,” the snack truck man said to him, “my friend really has to use the bathroom. That’s all she wants to do.”
