The Untimely Journey of Veronica T. Boone, Part 2 - The Jeremy Bentham

Chapter 13 - The Date

Chicago - 1952

Veronica hurried Molly outside and into a taxi.

"It's not a failure," she disagreed. "It's a temporary setback."

"But we didn't make a date," Molly protested. "Ruth doesn't want to go out with Harold."

"No, she just doesn't want to cancel her movie plans. She'll want to go out with Harold once they meet – history has made that clear. So we'll just have to get Harold to come to her."

"And how do we do that?"

"I have no idea," Veronica said. "Not yet."

Five minutes later the taxi stopped at a train station on Michigan Avenue.

"Another train?" Molly asked.

"Yes. Don't worry, this is a local."

"But I thought we were going to the museum."

"We are."

"And you know how to get there?"

Veronica smiled. "I should think I do. Come along."

The girls jumped on an Illinois Central commuter train that was just pulling out of the shed.

"This is a strange train," Molly said. "Where's the locomotive?"

"There is no locomotive," Veronica explained. "It's an electric train."

Molly leaned out the window and looked up. Two metal rods on the roof reached up to cables running overhead. The cables were electric and passed electricity to the rods. Every now and then Molly saw a blue spark as the rods bounced along.

"Whoa," she said. "Isn't that dangerous?"

"Not as long as you stay off the roof," Veronica replied. "And don't touch those wires."

The train rolled through the city. The tracks were built on a berm so Molly could see over the neighborhoods all the way to Lake Michigan.

She felt lost. She had been to Chicago plenty of times to visit her grandparents but everything looked different now: the cars, the billboards, the factories, the baseball stadium where the White Sox played...

"Hey, that's not the ballpark I remember."

"That's the old stadium," Veronica told her. "They won't build the new one for another forty years."

Another mile on they passed an area that Molly knew should have been filled with fancy townhomes. Her Uncle Herbert lived there. But now as they went by her eyes almost bugged out of her head.

"What is that?" she exclaimed. At the same moment she held her nose.

"Those are the stockyards." Veronica pointed out the window at acres and acres of pens filled with cattle and pigs. "They're the pride of Chicago."

"Cows and pigs in the city? Oh my gosh, it smells like poop. I never knew about this."

"That's because the stockyards closed in 1971," Veronica told her. "Long before you were born. But they were here for more than a hundred years. It's what Chicago was known for."

"Oh boy," Molly said as they rolled past. She watched the animals wander in the dirt and mud. "Don't tell Uncle Herbert. He's allergic to cows."

Soon they arrived at their stop, a small station built over 59th Street. The girls descended to the street on an iron staircase, bought hot dogs from a corner stand, then followed signs pointing toward the lake. The signs directed them down a boulevard called the Midway which was green with grass and shaded by trees; it reminded Molly of her school. The feeling of knowing where she was doubled when they approached the end of the Midway where it flowed into Jackson Park. There she saw something she recognized without any doubt at all.