Miles Read Free Page B

who really
didn't have any other friends and had a tough time getting along with his
hard-working father.  Alex liked painting and drawing, which weren't very
reputable pursuits to anyone who lived in Roseland, and was a sharp contrast to
Simon, whose sterling academic record and athletic accomplishments had gained
the notice of the local congressman, a big-hearted Machine hack named Kasza,
who also attended too many White Sox games.  Alex's father (and Simon's
guardian uncle) worked for the honorable gentleman's ward organization from
time to time, and Kasza liked the idea of promoting a fellow Pole to one of the
national military academies.  However, the glow of Simon and Frederika's
romance dominated everyone during what always sounded to me to be a warm, happy
time for both families. 
    Until
our curse made another appearance.
    As
they all geared up for graduation week, one night, a massive fire swept through
the corner bakery, and killed both Frederika's mother and Simon's uncle, who
became trapped in the upstairs apartment.  The entire neighborhood grieved
for Alex, Simon, and Frederika, who spent the rest of that horrible night
crying in opposite corners of Palmer Park. 
    Their
adult lives began there.  Alex blew off the cap and gown ceremonies and
took a train to New York and fell in with the Greenwich Village art scene, where he began to make a name for himself as a painter
and a sculptor.  Simon and Frederika decided to marry, but Simon wanted to
wait until he finished college.  He was overruled by the Machine pol, who
virtually bribed him into marrying beforehand.  So they did, at Holy
Rosary, a small turn-of-the-century Catholic place of worship near the ruins of
the bakery.    
    Simon
graduated from Annapolis in 1962.  I was born a year after
that.  Mom and Dad went back to the old neighborhood to baptize me. 
Uncle Alex was my Godfather.  His second wife was my Godmother.  I
don't even remember her name, and I'm not sure Uncle Alex does, either.  I
saw very little of my dad in my early childhood, since he was a young officer
with the Pacific fleet.  Mom refused to accept life on some drab military
base from day one, so I did most of my growing up in a large Roseland bungalow
"loaned" to us by the now-retired Congressman Kasza.  Mom
enrolled in and struggled to finish nursing school at night while she worked at
the local bank during the day.  Dad got around to resigning his Navy
commission in 1970, came back and moved in with us, and went into law school at
Northwestern a few months later. 
    I
swear, my parents were closer when Dad was in Asia , writing letters back
and forth almost every day, than when he finally came home.
    Both
of them came from families broken apart by some tragedy or another.  They
raised themselves while others worked or became distant memories.  Their
ultimate tragedy was that they became the kind of invisible parents to their
only child that fate had cruelly given to them in their youth. 
    Dad
was a smashing success as a brave officer and then as a lawyer, a right
corporate torpedo with a six-figure income, a beautiful wife, a beautiful
little boy, and a beautiful house in the suburbs, an upper-class burg where a
lot of the exiles from Roseland ended up after the neighborhood changed a few
years ago.  And now he had our beautiful life ruin, sitting alongside him
at Thanksgiving dinner, to add to his list of accomplishments.  
    Mom's
natural tenacity and ruthlessness found a home in her nursing career.  She
wasn't content to check pulses and stick needles in the asses of sick
children.  No.  In less than a year, she was not only assigned to,
but running, the night shift at a large inner city Chicago hospital's emergency
room like she was a Kriegsmarine admiral.  I guess you need someone like
that dealing with gunshot wounds and diseases of the poor.  I just didn't
like the cold, driven, Cybernaut mom she became (to spite my absentee Dad, I
often