Saint Badda Bing

I know someone who knows a guy who might know of a ‘pocket listing’  back in the old neighborhood. That’s how everybody refers to a certain kind of good fellow in one particular ‘Near West’ Chicago block of stoop and brick row homes—guys. They call them guys. Guys from the Neighborhood.

“He’s a guy.”

“Who?”

“Him.”

“Him?”

“Yeah, him.”

“He’s a guy?”

“Yeah, he’s a guy.”

“He ain’t a guy.”

“Sure he is.”

“No he ain’t”

“He ain’t?”

“Nah.”

“I thought he was.”

“Nah. You’re thinkin’ of his cousin.”

It’s the sort of community where adult children inherit the homes from their parents and never move away; the same homes their parents inherited from the grand parents.  The housing stock is a  block-by-block mixture of  row homes,  traditional city bungalows, wood framed Two and Three Flats circa 1900, and turn-of-the-century brick Multi-Unit tenements. The same Italian restaurants, corner bars, and beef joints have lined Grand Avenue from Ogden to Ashland for generations. Guys, both young and old,  loaf in front of their social clubs three seasons a year blocking the side walks in both directions, their Caddys and Buicks double parked against the curbs.  Nobody gets a ticket.  Nobody seems to have a job.

“His cousin?”

“Yeah.”

“But not him?

“Nah. They got the same first name and hair.”

“I did not know that.”

“Yup.”

“I thought they was the same guy”

“Nah. Different guy. Same hair though.”

“I did not know that…”

And so on for hours.  Or years. Generations.  Anyway, I know someone who knows someone who has a place he might want to sell on the down low  (that’s Not Listed on the MLS for all you traditional RE peeps).  A real guy, apparently—and like I said, also someone from the old neighborhood.  Of course, this guy my friend speaks of doesn’t live in his building anymore and hasn’t for almost a decade. He’s been…well…he’s been away.  Away, serving his country and the great state of Illinois to the tune of  concurrent life stretches which, I learn from my friend (who is my age and stills lives at home with his mother who is also seated at the table in a house coat this snowy morning) is much better than consecutive life stretches.  His mother nods in agreement. I look around the kitchen and think I spot a St. Joseph statue  on top of the Frigidaire ice box next to a bottle of Benedictine.

Either way, I do not  wish to  know the intimate details of this prospective seller or his collection of concurrent stretches. My friend tells me this guy just lost his last and final appeal and figures now is as good a time as any to ‘finally bite the bullet and sell his last building.’  I clench my teeth and close my eyes, mentally blocking the imagined gun powder and enamel sensation in my own mouth as I ponder the tangled mess of quit claim paperwork that’s probably involved.

“Dear St Joseph,” I silently pray toward the general direction of the antique ice box, “Oh how I don’t want to be the one to break the grim news to this or any other guy and his mother on this particular block.” Not yet.  At least not until the Stimulus Package passes the Senate.  Messengers get squashed around here all the time I’ve been told. It’s still a very Roman neighborhood in that regard.

You see, the most acclaimed, albeit notorious, loafer of this tiny Chicago enclave over the last 45 years is a fellow named Joey ‘The Clown’ Lombardo who was just recently handed a life sentence or two of his own. The papers say the conviction was based on some very harsh hearsay testimony from the few remaining family turncoats he apparently never got around to whacking  (none of whom, I understand, were Realtors or Bloggers, praise the Lord).  Bottom line, neither The Clown nor this other guy I’ve been talking about are coming home for Spaghetti Wednesday this or any other week and as bullet biting luck would have it, both unfortunately have properties in the family portfolio they may be forced to unload in the worst market in the history of housing history.

And to further add to the pasta fasul simmering in the cooker, Joey The Clown’s building, a yellow brick 1920’s un-restored Four-Flat  just down the block, out of respect and courtesy, has to get sold first. Then this other guy’s  building is free to go on the chopping block (as it were), from what mother and son are telling me.  Both buildings are on the down low meaning instead of appealing to the Chicago Association of Realtors for my inevitable, impending procuring cause case for commission (if I’m even so lucky to snag a buyer at all) I’ll probably end up dealing with the Teamsters Local 705.  I reel my thoughts back to the present as my friend continues…

“And no sign. Nobody wants to see a For Sale sign on this block.  You understand?”

I swallow the back of my tongue and nod. We sit around the kitchen table in silence now. The house smells like cabbage and coffee grinds. And cats. I wonder what the vacant building down the street smells like after ten years.

“So what do you say?” my friend asks. He thinks he’s doing me a big favor.

“I don’t know,” I respond slowly. Buying time, mere seconds really. My eyes rest once again on top of  the ice box.  “Maybe try burying Jimmy Hoffa upside down in the front yard?”

His mom looks at me as if to say “Jimmy Hoffa?…We haven’t seen him in years.”