Stories lurk among the bedbugs. Doves in a cage, find their home in the lobby window. No one sees them. No one pays attention. At times, a man—his hair like a riot of felt weather-strips ripped from a window-sill—sits outside, raving at invisible antagonists. He rolls his own cigarettes, pinching tobacco from a green pouch bag, and holding the joint-shaped roll of paper between dry, leathery lips. He is not a guest of the hotel. He is a resident. He is not always visible, not always present. When one encounters him, he is a loud and animated absence. Mind and body, in his case, exist in two separate places. I did not see him in the hour before sunset, on a cloudless Saturday. I did not hear him raving, cursing one phantom antagonist or another. I heard traffic, however, and overlapping layers of random talk from Lakeview’s other residents. It was Saturday. Belmont Avenue was crowded. The Abbot Hotel stands—defiant and sullen—amid apartments and new condo stacks, like a tooth brown with decay, but with healthy roots sunk deep into the jaw. It glares with red neon in the late, late hours of the night. It promises free color TV. It promises air conditioning, proof of this second promise, in the shapes of old air-conditioner units protruding from windows like retro-futuristic birdhouses. The Abbot Hotel is the last remnant of an all-but-dead era of Chicago history. It is color. It is skid-row-elegant in ways that the city would rather forget. Its days may be numbered. The Abbot Hotel harbors ghosts. I’m sure of that. It also harbors visions: strange stories lurk in evocations of its name. In fact, I’d written a story based on my impressions of the place. I’ve never been inside, but I know what it’s like. It is an honorable place. It does not offer rooms to rent by the hour. One must stay the night. The bedbugs, I assume, need to eat; amatory indiscretions--I assume--must occur slowly. It is a place that recalls the flop-house adventures of William S. Burroughs, and at times (in passing the Abbott) I wonder if Bill Lee resides inside, or if Kiki plies his trade within…with his pants down, or pulled off and folded neatly on the radiator with flaking paint and the smell of steam and rust. At times, when I pass the Abbott (with Corey, or alone) I recall the Burroughs screenplay/novelette entitled Blade Runner: a movie. (Ridley Scott appropriated the title) I look at the neon sign and the doves in their window-mounted cage and think: Every underground doctor needs a blade runner. And I wonder what the famous old Mr. Burroughs would think of the Abbott. Would he envision blade runners on Belmont or Halsted? Would Dr. Benway and other members of the surgical profession fight with rioters on Belmont and Halsted, keeping them at bay with scalpels, bone-saws, and bedpans? Would he see visions of Kiki (with his pants pulled up) in random guys walking beneath the sputtering neon sign? I wonder... ** I took this photograph while playing with different camera settings, last Saturday. Though I’ve had my current camera for quite some time, I’ve only just discovered its Sepia setting. I was curious about it. I wanted to see what would happen if I took completely contemporary photographs in digital sepia, rather than tweaking them. In terms of this shot: I can see the Abbott sign and imagine Bill Lee inside, hiding from Clark Nova (the giant talking beetle who occasionally turns into an orgasm-triggering typewriter.) I can imagine Dr. Benway inside, in robe and slippers: smoking a cigarette while performing an illegal operation with one ounce of morphine, a book of matches and a rusty bottle opener…and having said that, I should probably stop scrutinizing this photograph too closely. Clark Nova I can deal with…Kiki too…but Dr. Benway gives me the hinks. And so here you have it: one more digital sepia shot. And, as always, thank you for viewing, reading and commenting, and I hope you’re all having a great week.