Ukrainian Village, Chicago 1997

I had just been dumped by my twenty two year old fiancee. At the time, we lived in a new construction three bedroom apartment in the Ukrainian Village on a stretch of West Walton Street between Ashland and Noble — less than a mile away from Nelson Algren’s old house. Our place was on the 2nd floor of a 3-floor walkup equipped with an intercom system, video monitor, and paved parking lot in the back. Inside was a working fireplace, two bathrooms, and a deck. Our bedroom had one of those connected ensuite bathrooms you see midwestern homebuyers insist on having on all the fixer-upper reality shows nowadays. There was recessed lighting on dimmer switches in every room, 8 foot high ceilings, brand new windows, stainless steel appliances, a dishwasher. It was a god damn palace to us.

After a months-long teary and pathetic break up involving me moving out of the apartment, followed up by me later barging into the apartment at 2am secret-squirrel-style only to find her cheating on me with someone named Peter, followed by lots of alcohol-fueled gestures of despair (on my part), followed by not-too-discrete queries from concerned mutual friends asking if an intervention might be needed, the following true events unfolded.

I agreed to meet her at our apartment to collect the last of my things: a frying pan, a colander, a few books, some art supplies, and a bunch of vhs tapes of South Park episodes. We took Tank and Beana out for a walk along the alley in the back and around the block. Along the way, we spoke to each other calmly, each trying to act more aloof than the other, recapping in a very business-like manner all of the small details of how to work out the apartment rent for the remainder of the lease, what to do with large furniture - stuff like that. Things were looking OK. When we were coming back toward the alley, I sort of off-the-cuff repeated a claim I enjoyed making.

Let me qualify that for the reader: 75% of all dogs at your average city park in Chicago circa 1997, randomly selected of course — without question, no doubt in my fucking mind. I’d smoke three quarters of those little bastards in a 100 yard race. Maybe not 50 yards, but definitely 100 yards. When I said those words in the alley, my ex just kind of groaned and looked away. Previously, when we were a couple, she’d find this funny. She’d laugh and explain to our friends, oh, he’s always saying crazy shit like that. On that day, she was having none of it.

There was something a little different in that snort. Something that went past doubt, and meandered into the territory of dare. I let her words (plus the snort) ping pong around my head a bit before sensing she was lacing up her testicle-stomping cleats. So I pulled at Tank’s leash, and came to a stop.

She didn’t say anything; just let out a sigh, and kept walking down the alley.

This managed to get her attention. She stopped and turned around, her eyes aimed directly at mine like frosty popsicles, full-on blasting me with FUCK-YOU death beams. I had crossed the Rubicon.

What Came Next

I don’t really remember the details of how I got her to agree, but we laid out some ground rules for a race.

1. Tank would be leashed to a dumpster, which would also serve as the starting point — kind of symbolic (?)

2. My ex would run in front of Beana, get her all riled up and excited, and directing her to run straight down the alley

3. As soon as Beana got 10-20 yards out, I’d take that as my cue to start

4. We’d stop where my car was parked — a little bit more than 100 meters down the alley, maybe as far as 200 meters

Enter Beana: MTV Dog from the Real World

This is the part that’s kind of weird.

Beana was a Rat Terrier my ex had agreed to dog sit for my friend — let’s call him “Chris”. Chris and I were not friends in the sense that Dothraki horsemen are “friends”. We were more like, “hey, can you spot me $20 until tomorrow” kind of friends. We worked at the same restaurant, drank heavily, and smoked a lot of cigarettes. Chris listened to Social Distortion, and liked to wear dark denim jeans and short sleeve plaid shirts. He had tats along both his arms, and a few that crawled up his neck. He liked to think of himself as a taller, rock-a-billy version of James Dean. He was, more accurately, a tall unathletic white guy with crooked teeth who coughed a lot. However… the most interesting thing about Chris was his dog Beana, who just kind of wandered onto the set of MTV’s Real World, and momentarily became a fixture of at least 1 episode of season 3.

In the show, the Real World friends agree that they have to return the dog to its rightful owner. This somehow happens, and a little later, my friend Chris is contacted by the show producers, and instructed to show up at a pizza place to collect his dog. On camera. He actually appeared on the show for about 30 seconds. That little unscripted wrinkle made Puck and the other roommates very sad. It was emotional. But they struggled, got over it, and managed to carry on. A couple years after Chris was reunited with Beana, he moved to Chicago and became a line cook at an upscale Asian Fusion restaurant on Randolph Street called R** L**** — which is where I worked as a waiter.

Chris was a solid line cook. Not bad at garde manger either, but when it came to devising ways of steering any old conversation back to that MTV appearance, he was like a Delta Force sniper. The dude had some lady-grifting skills too, despite his overall ashtray-like qualities. He once told me about this trick he claimed worked on 75% of all girls he convinced to come back to his apartment. He’d stage his coffee table with a copy of Love in the Time of Cholera, face down, opened up to a spot somewhere in the first few chapters. He even underlined a few passages. The guy really thought things through. Chicks would see that book, and immediately arrive at a completely wrong assessment of Chris — which was exactly the intended result.

The Race

I began thinking that this might in fact, be the last time my ex and I would speak to each other — my last opportunity to leave some kind of impression. I cast that thought aside, and focused instead on my future anterior self. Of how, if that version of me could reach back into time — into the right now — and advise me on whether or not to race this dog, or just walk away, what would that person want me to do? I even pictured some good looking biracial kids nestled up next to me, asking… “Hey dad, can you tell me the story of how you raced the dog in the alley?” And that is what clinched it for me. I snapped back to my present moment.

******* took off with Beana — at a clumsy trot at first, but then picked up some speed. After 15 feet or so, she unhooked Beana from the lash so she could accelerate on her own. My butt puckered up a little, watching that little dog shoot down the alley. It was like seeing a cartoon balloon zip around after the air is released.

I stood there at the starting point, stupidly toe-tapping the ground, imagining blood-red exclamation points shooting out of my ex’s orbital sockets directly into Beana’s derriere — the entire alleyway surreally transported into a garish fever dream of will and representation. It occurred to me that in this low-stakes utterly pointless contest, each of us wanted the other person to fail more than anything on earth. I quickly acknowledged that as a couple, we were lousy together, then bit down and wriggled my lower jaw around, to gird myself for a possible hernia. There was no fucking way in hell I was going to lose this race. I might’ve even mouthed the words, “NO FUCKING WAY”.

As soon as Beana got to the agreed-upon head start marker, I took off. My initial acceleration to that spot was agonizingly slow, but after realizing my longer strides put me at a huge advantage, I became confident I’d catch up. And I did — quickly. What worried me was that maybe I had underestimated how much faster Beana would run once I caught up with her. So I toyed around with her for a bit, playfully calling her name like we were just goofing off at the park, even sideways skipping. When I was within a short sprint of the finish line, I exploded forward at a full sprint. I looked back maybe once, and saw Beana was far behind me — perhaps, had even stopped, I wasn’t sure. When I reached my car, I threw my hands up in the air to celebrate my victory.

When I turned to look down the alley in the direction of my ex, the popsicle eyes were back. She was pulling at Tank, glancing from side to side, stomping really. She was like an angry slightly malfunctioning cyborg — quietly processing an incomprehensible stack trace — ready to eject ballistics from multiple exit portals. I looked around. The alley was quiet and empty. There was nobody in the parking lot or out back on their balconies. No witnesses — as if this silly race were intended from the get-go by the powers that be, to be a private affair. I considered saying something witty, something cold. Maybe just something short and snarky like I told you so you bitch! — but decided against it. Whatever I could muster would only diminish the moment. I quietly put my colander and other miscellaneous things in the back seat of my car, and left the parking lot at a low speed. When I turned right on Ashland, I rolled down the window, and thought of how I would recount this story to my future kids.