A Little Chin Music

by Geno Petro

Chicago Broker Owner Realtor | RE 2.0 Blogger

Author website

I once knew an eccentric, rather secretive old movie buff named Don who could determine if a flick was going to be a stinker just by the musical score playing during the opening credits. “If a film starts off with a single instrument playing; one guitar strumming, one piano twinkling, one horn of any kind–I get up immediately and demand my money back from the ticket booth,” he insisted.  “The movie’s gonna stink.”

“Not quite sure I’m following you, Don” I remember glibly saying to him the first time we had this conversation. After all, I too considered myself a surveyor of cinematografo arte.  I paused for a moment before continuing, treading lightly onto this oddfellow’s little patch of expertise. I had been forewarned not to let the dyed gray temples and Hawaiian shirt and sandals fool me. Not even in December.

“What about Brian’s Song?” I asked, tossing a sentimental softball to the old guy.

“Stinker.” Don.

“Love Story?” The set-up.

“Open a window.”  Don.

“The Godfather?” Brushback.  A little chin music.

“Brando isn’t even Italian. Please...” Definitely Don (if not Corleone).

It was difficult not to judge the man for his quirky appearance and curious ways, or to predict how he would or would not respond to any particular topic.  A gentleman bachelor of sorts and lifelong Chicago resident, Don owned a tiny, ‘evenings only’ coffee house (called Don’s) where myself and a few close buddies would occasionally pass the remaining hours of late 1999 (and possibly existence if the worse case Y2K  scenario played out as predicted). And perhaps ‘owned’ is the wrong word anyway. After all, Don never really ever owned anything. None of us do, according to him.

Our little man group, bachelors of various sorts in our own rights at that juncture in life, would trek north and westward on Public Transit (as to save our respective vehicles from vandalism, theft, or fire bomb in the Gangster Disciple controlled ‘hood) to the tiny storefront; single and alone in its own right, tuck pointed away between tenement walk-ups and elevated train trestles, to engage in heightened conversation, cigarette smoking, and Scrabble with coffee, cake, and dictionaries–the only way to play the game as far as I’m concerned. And of course, for gentleman Don and his quirky points of view on all subjects great and small, including the ‘stranglehold’ of real estate.

“Buying property is for suckers.” Don, circa 1999.

Some old, scratchy LP or another was constantly blaring on the phonograph above the Frigidaire in the kitchen to drown out the rumble of the train overhead; young Sinatra, The Lennon Sisters, South Pacific… “Now there’s a motion picture!” Don.

The only coffee offered was from Guatemala and always served in fine, thrift store china.  No espresso. No lattes. No ‘Al Pacinos.’

“Guatemalan coffee is the only coffee in the world worth drinking. Everything else is simply tea.” Don.

And desserts were exclusively from the Louis Farrakhan family bakery on the city’s South side.  “The best bakery in Chicago…”  (Who knew?) Don made the crosstown trip three times weekly; two bus rides, one train, and a long, city block hike with two grocery bags of cake and a pound of sugar for the evening’s coffee service:

Don’s Nightly Line-Up

$6.00 bottomless cup.  Guatamalan coffee served in fine, chipped china.

$10 with dessert. Cakes from Louis Farrakhan’s family bakery. 

Plus Tip.

Plus Tax.  (yeah right)

The man never owned a car and never conducted business on Monday.  Don’s, like all legitimate theatre, was ‘dark’ on Mondays and from all outward appearances, the place was more a bric-a-brac hovel at the steps of the Red Line EL than anything, with its mismatched collection of furniture and lamps (all plugged in), WWII decor, and simply horrible artwork pouring out the front door and onto the sidewalk.  A hooker lived upstairs (and I must add; a Pretty Woman, she was not) and a french guy named Guy (pronounced Gee with a hard G) was a permanent fixture at the front window table. Rumor had it that he and Don shared more than a passing interest in Xavier Cugat, but again…no judgment here. Just speculation.

“Bang the Drum Slowly with DeNiro?” I asked.

“Hate him.  Always the same.”

“Dude, you’re flat out wrong on that one. What about Max Cady in Cape Fear?” I protested.

“Re-make.” Don.

Here was a man, a lifelong urban dweller, who had resided in over 40 different Chicago apartments in as many different neighborhoods since young adulthood without ever shelling out more than $350 per month in rent, ever signing a formal lease, or ever obtaining a business license to offer food and beverage for public consumption.  He began his travelling coffee house journey (always called Don’s from what I understood) on the far South side in the 1970s (Farrakhan’s hood, thus the cake connection) and gradually migrated north (always just ahead of urban renewal) in regular intervals gobbling up chunks of city blocks each time, until ultimately landing at the rim of Rogers Park, the last and final latitudinal bastion before Chicago, as we know it, ceases to exist and real estate prices drop off the edge of the earth onto Howard Street and all things Evanston and beyond.  Now even that gritty ‘hood had found legs and was coming around. The coffee house buzz in the air was the building just got sold to some Irish guys for condo conversion. Don was more worried about the hooker upstairs than anything.  “She has so few skills and she’s not a pretty woman…”  No she was not. And looking at him now, his mind had already seemed to vacate the premises…

“Deliverance,” I finally say, my own brain wrung dry from caffeine and sugar, eyes stinging from smoke and bite-sized, wooden block letters.  No reaction from old Don Ho.

“Come on,”  I add, nudging him with my elbow. “Burt Reynolds, for crissakes. Banjos. Gay men…”

Silence.  Don stared out the frosty floor to ceiling window with a pensive look. A group of college kids descended from the Elevated Red Line platform and approached the front door in a huddled mass of flannel and pot smoke. It was almost midnight.

“Oh no,” said Don, more to mankind as a whole than anything.  “More customers.”