Chicago: Chasing Love Jones
By Megan R. Smith

“What brings you girls to Chicago?”

I hate questions like these—ones that may be innocent, but border on a pickup line. With no desire to respond, I act like I’m completely enthralled with my surroundings. It’s a stereotypical poetry club. It’s smoky as hell, and the crowd is a mix of urban hipsters, black bohemians and club regulars, nodding their heads to a mental beat and snapping their fingers. The poet on stage is comparing sex to global positioning. I don’t get it, but I love this stuff.

We’d been planning this trip since we saw Love Jones for the 36th time. In the film, set on the South Side of Chicago in the late 90s, a group of young African Americans spend their days tackling relationships and spirituality and their nights at poetry clubs and jazz haunts, quoting late African American writers and intellectuals. In their Chicago, it rains all the time, and everyone is clad in dark colors. My friends had never been to Chicago, and they wondered if the world created by the characters in the film could be found in visiting the city. They urged me to make the trip, which was not a hard feat for I was trying to reconcile the film’s dark and moody depiction of a city boasting of a nouveau riche Black experience with the image of the city I knew as my father’s hometown.

It had been about five years since I had visited, and that was for a funeral. Prior to that, many of my summers were spent visiting my grandfather, ogling the huge buildings, and wondering how men got away with sporting purple suits.

When I think of Chicago, I’m reminded of buildings created by the best architects the world has seen and homes designed as though they were meant to withstand generations of abuse. This is the home of “Chicago stepping,” polk sausages, and people who are disgustingly nice and polite. Then there is the city that, even years after enforced ‘regional’ integration, still bears the affects of an extreme economic and racial divide—lines are drawn and you are shown where you belong.

We arrive on Wednesday night; and, because my friends want to be real tourists, they check into their downtown hotel. I choose to stay with family. The next morning, full of rest and stale bagels, we trek around parts of the North Side.

For a city known for its harsh winters, it’s unseasonably warm—perfect for elbowing people out of the way as we shop up and down Magnificent Mile, the northern part of Michigan Avenue between the Chicago River and Lake Shore Drive, and Chicago’s version of the Champs-Elysee. We began at around 9 a.m., but by 1p.m., the sales people in MaxMara can simply smell how broke we are. We decide to play tourist. Walking along Navy Pier has a calming effect, and the obligatory cityscape shot shown on nationally televised Bears’ games does no justice to the real thing.

When I was young, everything seemed so huge; and I assumed it was because I was so small. But at even two feet taller and a whole lot of pounds later, I still feel tiny. Downtown, the buildings are huge and close together, like they are fighting for space on each block; and yet it doesn’t look crowded. There’s no denying that this is a beautiful city. Nauseatingly pretty. I get excited at a blur of tackiness, as a pink subway car rumbles overhead; and I get all bubbly inside when I see trash on the street.

We end the night at Smoke Daddy, a jazz spot on the West Side. Music’s good and food is even better. I forget to take some wings to go, and I’m still pissed many days after the fact.

The next day, I take my friends to the South Side-- specifically, Bronzeville, where my father is from. The area has definitely come up, though you would be hard pressed to find it on a tourist website.

Thanks to a community that wishes to restore the beauty and passion the area once had and an alderwoman who effectively feigns interest, picturesque brownstones line the streets and many black businesses have found a home again. Tacky billboards still advertise Steve Harvey’s new line of men’s suits on almost every corner, and one too many Kentucky Fried Chicken’s can be found just walking down West 53rd Avenue. These mainstays remind any passerby what side of the city they are on.

We cross King Avenue, and I hope to see one of the 20 cent jitneys my father used to talk about, that would drive him and his friends anywhere around the Southside for the same price. We pass a group of older men sitting in front of the Harold Washington Cultural Center, named after the first and only black mayor the city has had. Inside, you can find the history of the South Side, from Englewood to Pilsen, from the first people to set foot on this side of the city to the last black-owned business to leave during the early 80s.

We visit Lorraine’s for dinner and then head over to one of the community halls for the Stepper’s Convention. I have no rhythm at all, but I fake it because I feel that if I don’t participate, I’ll be missing out. Women in tight outfits that range from electric blue to pastel yellow crowd the floor as their male counterparts in color coordinated fedoras, patent leather and other shiny material match their partners step for step. Everyone’s breaking a sweat. Everyone’s having fun, but it’s obvious that this is a serious matter. Learning how to step is a right of passage here – and doing it effectively and infusing your own style makes you a star of sorts.  People just vibing off each another, creating dance steps in a kind of physical conversation. A guy dressed head to toe in green and sporting a gold tooth dares me to strut my stuff for him. In the past I’ve given myself whiplash while trying to dance, but I shelf my inhabitions and ease into a two-step I hope he is proud of. He smiles approvingly. This goes on into the wee hours of the morning, and even then, I don’t want it to end.

Our last night there is spent at the poetry club. So what brought us to Chicago? We were trying to marry an experience we saw in a film with what we hoped to see in reality. If that was our mission, I’m not sure if it was accomplished. Nonetheless, having figured out the correlation between sex and global positioning, I smile inside.

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