Stealing John Dillinger’s Pants

Northwest Indiana is famous for some things.  Well, on second thought, it’s not really famous for anything.

The mishmash of small working-class suburbs encrusted by lead smelters, railroad tracks, and oil refineries — mostly filled with people with unpronouncable last names that don’t contain a single vowel — is utterly indescript.  Gary and Hammond and East Chicago and Highland and Hessville and Munster and Calumet City and all these places in between are to greater Chicagoland what North Jersey is to New York City — little more than a warehouse and freightyard to a far more vibrant place.  It’s bascially like a giant Self Storage unit the size of a county, with plumbing pipes and electrical wires running along every roadway, railroad track, and field.  That’s the picture I see when now think of Northwest Indiana.

Indeed, Gary and Hammond — where I’m staying and working over the next few weeks — are nestled right across the Illinois-Indiana state line.  These are old industrial cities that pretty much look unchanged since the post-WW2 boom.  Red brick buidings.  Cracked sidewalks.  Old storefronts littered with faded out “For Lease” signs that more symbolize a loss of hope rather than any possible prospects of gaining a tenant.  As the great writer-biographer Robert Caro would more eloquently write of another time and place, this is where “windows, glassless except for the jagged edges around their frames, stared out on the street like sightless eyes.” (Footnote 1)

Where’s Inspector Clouseau When You Need Him?

A few days ago, I lost everything I have ever written.

Every article — gone.

Every draft — gone.

Two half-completed books — gone.

Hundreds of World Series of Poker official reports — gone.

Thousands of personal photographs — gone.

Basically, everything I’m now working on or have nearly completed as a writer — gone.

So, what happened?

My laptop was stolen.

After spending 24 hours crying and another 48 hours throwing up, my next instinct was to write about the pain this has caused.  Even as I sit here now, three days removed from the loss, words cannot express what comes from being severed forever from the emotional reactions I had to different things over the years that were reflected in those very heartfelt writings.

When I felt happy, I usually wrote about it.  When I felt sad, I usually wrote about it.  And, when I felt angry, I almost always wrote about it.  That laptop was a basket case of emotional bedlam.

And now, it’s gone, likely transformed into little more than back-alley barter for the next $50 fix.