TNT ... Chicago 12
1 On a holiday, it's a given that you just don't want to have to deal with any business matters. 2 You want to be far away from any work related drama. 3 You want to be with friends or family and not with co-workers. 4 That's just the way it is.
5 For those reasons, when it came to New Year's Eve, Mo was already far away from Detroit, where he had been relocated on the boss' orders in April of that year, and he was celebrating the holiday season with his new friends in Highland Park. 6 In his opinion, the food tasted more authentic there. 7 The candles burned more brightly there. 8 The prayers seemed more earnest there.
9 All things considered, he hadn't *completely* given up on religion, even though religion had led to his downfall time and again. 10 After all, the most recent turn of events wasn't the first time that his anger had gotten the best of him ... and he felt just as certain that it also wasn't going to be the last.
11 He was determined to make the most out of his assignment to Detroit -- the place he affectionately called Pit City -- and he did so by taking the flight from Detroit Metro Airport to Midway as often as he could. 12 His continued sanity was dependent on spending quality time in and around his people -- and they weren't in Detroit any more.
13 That coping mechanism made it all the easier when the work edict came down that he needed to be in Chicago before midnight on New Year's Eve. 14 He was already only a little over two dozen miles from a city with which he had become very familiar in recent months, and so all. he had to do was to come up with an excuse to escape the festivities.
15 He came up with gout -- an attack that would mean he'd have to cut his trip short and head back home to see his doctor first thing in the new year. 16 It would be an attack that was strong enough to change his plans but not so strong that he couldn't take a cab back to the airport to catch his new flight.
17 Except Mo didn't instruct the cab driver that he called, who knew nothing of the interrupted family plans, to go to Midway. 18 Instead, he ended up in the motel where he would be setting up shop to await new orders, in the heart of the 'hood known as Andersonville.
19 That particular New Year's eve, he arrived with plenty of time to walk out and about in the neighborhood, and he headed to his favorite place -- a park with a beach right on Lake Michigan ... with a pier that gave him an excellent vantage point of all of the lake.
20 It was his favorite place in the city, and he had visited there many times before. 21 The main impetus for going there was clearly nostalgia. 22 He couldn't help but be reminded of the glory days of his youth, and he fantasized about striking the water and just walking directly across the lake bed to his adopted state of Michigan.
23 Miracles were for the young and for those whose faith hadn't been truly tested. 24 Sadly, Mo was ancient and his faith was running severely low. 25 On that night -- on that pier -- he'd have to be content with only his imagination and his recollection of days of yore.
26 With the greatest of sighs, he turned around and headed back toward the beach. 27 He hadn't anticipated that someone else would be sharing that moment with him -- yet sure enough, there was a shadow waiting for him. 28 He noticed that even further back, there was a second shadow that looked to be waiting for him to interact with the first shadow.
29 The first shadow spoke first. 30 "*What* are YOU doing here?" it asked.
