Kings of the Numbers

The Old Baguette grew up in the area Erik Larson wrote about in The Devil and the White City.  Some of the finest architects in America argued about how to construct a World Class Exposition on a patch of land that once lay at the bottom of Lake Michigan.  They pumped the water out, built buildings, created walks, a grand mall, and a magnificent park.  Voila!  The Columbian Exposition was exposed, the Disney World of the 1890's.  Did it have a ride?  It did indeed:  the world's first Ferris Wheel.  The Exposition's  mall, then flanked by great halls for this and that is now flanked by the University of Chicago.  The great park, Jackson Park, with it's trout streams, and golf course, and lagoons, was called the wooded island because it was both an island and was wooded.  How imaginative!  Children no longer can wander about safely by themselves, but in the era when the Old Baguette was a Petite Pain children could and did roam, climb trees, wade in water, fall in water.  Such sights there were to behold!  Replicas of the Nina, the Pinta, the Santa Maria.  A Japanese tea house and gardens.  Fishermen with rods and reels and trout.

And then, if you have read Larsen's book, you know of 63rd Street, once a halfway respectable street on the Southern border of the Exposition.   63rd became  a den of iniquity under the tracks of the El train which was built to bring people to the Exposition.  There were more seedy bars on 63rd than on any other street in the world.  The street's one redeeming feature was a magnificent Chinese restaurant.  Students ate there, and professors ate there.  That restaurant probably paid big bucks for  protection because no one ever heard of any unpleasant incidents.  The Old Baguette had one of her adventures when she went to dine there one frigid February evening with friends.  We arrived like pioneers in a wagon train.  We each arrived and departed in separate cars.  Inside the restaurant, Dan Boorstin wandered over to our table and invited me to go to his house for after dinner coffee with him and his wife.  He'd won the National Book Award for the Federalist Papers and would become Librarian of Congress.  I'd met him when he was a brilliant young professor zooming along the tenure track.  He was a lion during his zooming days, actually a little scary.  And here he was, a pussycat, not scary at all, but friendly, hospitable, inviting me to his home.  Of course, I accepted.  I didn't say, "Oh, sorry old National Book Award winner, but I have better things to do with my valuable time."  Nope.  I did not say that.  I said the equivalent of:  "You betcha!  Just give me your address."

I ended my meal as the Boorstins ended theirs and headed, alone, for my car.   Having faith in the system of protection, I parked in the only place I could find to park -- in an icy, lonely, dark, dark alley.  Not exactly a good decision because while the Petite Pain, a rather stale Petite Pain, was in the restaurant her tires and the ice in the alley froze together.  The stale Petite Pain tried to rock the car but couldn't.  Thinking stupidly that she might be able to push the car clear, she got out.  She left her purse, her wallet, her money in the car.  She'd have left her passport and birth certificate behind, too, but she didn't have them with her.  Were the keys in the ignition?  I'm afraid so.

Suddenly, a middle-aged man who was staggeringly drunk but affable materialized with five young men who looked like linesmen for the Chicago Bears.  Muscular hunks.  They would help the Petite Pain, said the drunk, who leaned against her while they both watched the linesmen get in the car.  They  rocked it and pushed it with great vigor.  But, they kept the doors open.  As soon as the car budged from the ice, would they all hop in and take off for warmer climes? These linesmen wouldn't.  As soon as the car budged, they all hopped out of it.  One of them handed over the keys, and the drunk, indeed an very affable fellow, said, "I'm Big Red.  Whenever you get in trouble around here, just say you're a friend of Big Red."  The Petite Pain mumbled an okay, got in her car, and found everything she'd left behind right where she'd left it.  As she drove to the Boorstins for a lovely after dinner coffee and a liqueur, she concentrated on remembering the name she should remember:  Big Red.  One never knows when help will be needed.

Time passed.  Daniel Boorstin became the King of the Dewey Decimal Numbers as Librarian of Congress.  And what about Big Red?   His name, too, hit the papers.  I saw his picture near the front page of The Chicago Tribune.  He had been the King of the Numbers Racket in the 63rd street area.  While Boorstin ended up in our nation's archive, Big Red ended up in one of our nation's jails.  I don't know what happened to the linesmen.