In late December 1973, I returned to Chicago after a visit home to Rhode Island for the holidays — a twenty-seven-hour trip on an over-packed Greyhound bus without enough seats for the all the passengers. The Arab oil embargo put air travel out of reach of my budget so like many of my co-travelers, we packed into an overheated bus, dressed in winter coats, snowy boots, suitcases stowed in the luggage rack above the seats and under the bus.  I stood in the aisle, like a vulture, ready to pounce on an open seat. But I was young and there were older people, women with children, and others more worthy of a seat. I stood until we reached Sandusky, Ohio when a department passenger freed up the aisle seat. The very young woman next to me asked if I could hold her baby while she got something to eat at the next rest stop. The baby fell asleep in my arms for a few hours. Her steady breathing on my chest gave me a few hours of the best sleep I had had in a while. I felt unanchored when I gave the child back to her appreciative Mom who was also happy for a rest.

When I arrived at the Providence bus station, I saw the holiday lights in downtown and the Christmas tree in front of City Hall.  Last-minute shoppers, their arms full of bags and boxes, filled the street. From there, I took a local bus home. Familiar sites appeared as we drove through the streets and little towns on our way. The A&P, the Outlet Company, Frank’s Fruits and Bakery, the old police station, the elementary school I attended, my parish church. The bus stopped at the intersection of Main Street and Branch Lane where I got off, saying Happy Holidays to the driver and the few passengers that remained.  I walked the long steep hill to our house. There were white candles in the windows, and a Christmas tree in the middle window.  No other lights on in our house. I knocked softly and went to sleep on the couch. My mother was already asleep.

I spent less than three days at home. Not all of them happy. I felt empty and hollowed out, my mother less than receptive to my simmering depression. Nothing seemed to matter to me. I went upstairs to my closet to pack some warmer clothes for the Chicago winter. None of them fit. All two sizes too large. I had a lost a lot of weight during my short stay in the city. In truth, I was scared to back to Chicago. But I said not a word. When you know exactly how a conversation will go, it’s better to dispense with the actual exchange. In response to my expression of anxiety and fear, I could imagine my mother saying something like, “Well, you’ve made your bed. Now you must lie in it.” 

On my return to Chicago, the bus discharged its passengers at the center city terminal. The city was dark and quiet with a heavy wet snow. I walked north out of the busy downtown area toward a more residential area with less traffic and fewer streetlights.  The snow fell steadily as I walked ten long city blocks to my studio apartment on the north side. Sidewalks were full of slush and ice. It had snowed most of that winter –- the snowiest winter in a long time. I was carrying my mother’s old suitcase and a portable TV that she bought me for Christmas. I had tied some twine and looped it through a wire handle to make carrying the fifteen-pound television easier but in the snowstorm, I struggled to carry both packages. I stopped often to take a break, putting down the load to regain my strength, then switching the packages to the other hand for a bit until I had to stop again. 

I took a short cut through some back streets. This area was full of abandoned cars and vacant houses.  Dark alleyways punctuated this long block where men sold drugs and girls sold sex. The few streetlamps cast dim light, the snow dropping thickly like a waterfall. Garbage and mattresses sat on the edge of the sidewalks.  A golden glow shone through the second-floor window of a boarded-up apartment – the only light in the building. It smelled like wood smoke.  

At the end of the street, I rested my packages on a staircase that led to an office building.  I took a deep breath, shaking the snow off my hat and brushing it off my shoulders. I tried to dry my wet face and my glasses on my scarf. At the corner, a car was parked, with the engine running, the driver at the wheel, cabin light on, and windshield wipers running. The driver lit a cigarette and turned his head to get a better look at me. He nodded to acknowledge that we saw each other. I nodded back, quickly picking up my bags and slipping backwards on the icy pavement. As the TV fell, my gloves followed into a slushy puddle. I stood up, wringing out the gloves, feeling a cold trickle down my back. I was shivering, my coat heavy, soaked with snow and smelling of cedar chests and wet wool. My boots full of snow.  I thought of abandoning the suitcase and TV. But I picked up the bags. One block to go.

In the middle of the block was a bodega, just about to close. I had shopped there often for fruits and vegetables. It was a small market managed by a family from Pakistan, always happy to see me. I peeked in the window to see if anyone was in the front of the store.  I would have gone in just to say I was back in town and wish them a good night. But no one was around.  

I climbed the icy stairs to my apartment building. I opened the heavy door and stepped into a lobby full of old newspapers and discarded food containers. I walked down the hallway to an alcove that held a large metal panel of one hundred mailboxes built into wall. There were no names on the mail slots just room numbers. Across from this panel was a small windowless parlor where four men sat in upholstered chairs. Most were smoking, some reading, some at tables playing solitaire or making a puzzle – all in complete silence. Even though the table lamps were all lit, the room had a sinister feeling, casting deep shadows onto the faces, hands, and clothing of the men. 

I had lived in this building for just a few months, in a studio apartment on the eighth floor. A Murphy bed faced a pull-out table on the opposite wall. A small refrigerator froze bottles of Tab, exploding them, usually in the middle of the night. Cockroaches scattered when the light came on but lingered. I seemed no threat to them at all. The radiators overheated the apartment, with a steady flow of hot steam, soaking the carpet. I never closed the windows, even in a two-day blizzard. Looking northward was a frozen Lake Michigan, blue and gray, stretching out forever like a tundra without relief.

Down a long dark corridor covered with faded floral wallpaper was a closet where we deposited our trash. Halfway down on the left, the door was always open. I could see a man him sitting on the couch, dressed in shorts and a sleeveless t-shirt, surrounded by stacks of newspapers and magazines. As I passed, he got up quickly as I passed, hiding behind the door to his apartment. I made my way to the closet, sensing him in the hallway, watching me. As I walked back to my apartment, he passed by me in the corridor walking toward that closet. 

I entered my apartment nearly closing the door but not before seeing him return to his apartment with the bag of garbage I had just left. I sat on my bed, letting my imagination run away. I was thinking about what was in that bag. My name and address. A letter from home. An envelope from my employer. Empty prescription bottles. Regular trash. Feminine hygiene products. Who knows what else? I felt violated. I wanted to call my sister but there was no phone in the apartment. It was late at night and the only phone was in the lobby.  It had one of the folding doors and a little seat with an overhead light that went on when you closed the door. I needed a lot of change to make the long-distance call to Florida and what could she do so far away. 

 Instead, I wrote her a letter describing him, just in case something happened to me. Tall. Bald on the top of his head. Prominent cheekbones. No facial hair.  Wore shorts and undershirts in the winter. Black rimmed glasses with thick lenses. Maybe with a limp. Furtive. Unit 817. Brown hair. Fidgety. Hoarder. I called him, The Creep, but that really didn’t do him or me justice. He was much more than just a Creep to me. 

I grew frightened. I never saw him leave our building or talk with anyone.  When I saw him in the lobby, his eyes darted around and his gait was unsteady. He avoided human contact, sliding away when approached, giving others wide berth around him. There were a lot of men like this in building, remote and strange.  They never made eye contact, as if we were all threats to each other.  I tried to avoid being followed. I never took the elevator up the eighth floor. I would get off at a random floor and walk the rest of the way up or down. Or start at the stairs and then take the elevator. I walked up and down the dark corridors, leaving my garbage where my neighbor couldn’t find it.  I thought of getting a boyfriend or a dog, something to show this man that I wasn’t like him, somebody cared about me. But the longer I stayed in that apartment, the more like him I became, alone and abandoned.