Smoke gets in your eyes

   

     The air downtown tasted bad on Thursday. I had to go over to police headquarters at 35th and Michigan to pick up my new press credentials — good for getting into museums in Europe, if nothing else — and then decided to go to Navy Pier, to the Sun-Times office, to collect my mail. Followed by lunch at the Cliff Dwellers Club with an old boss.
     How did the air taste, exactly? Part wet campfire, part vinegar. A sour, mineral odor. On John Williams Show on WGN, "brisket" was suggested, prompting me to think, "not my wife's brisket, that's for damn sure. That smells incredible." For a time, the worst quality air of any major city in the world, according to one source. I was grateful that all my public transportation connections were smooth — step out of Union Station, cross Jackson Street, and the 124 bus practically rolled up.
     Huge wildfires in Canada, trapped by a temperature inversion, causing the haze. The new normal, we are told. More fallout from that global warming that doesn't exist, according to Republicans. I tried to smile when posing for my press pass.
     "See you in two years," the police officer running the camera said cheerfully.
     "I won't be here in two years," I replied, perhaps with more glumly than I intended.
     Caught the Green Line north. Waiting on the Bronzeville Platform, the city didn't look particularly hazy. The field at De La Salle High School awaited an infusion of Meteors. Alma mater of both Daley the father and Daley the son.
     Stepped out at Washington and Wabash, walked a little west and the 124 rolled up. Something was going right. I walked through the pier — a colleague greeted me warmly. At the office, I collected my mail, chatted with my bosses, complimented the new managing editor, whom I had taken to lunch — also at Cliff Dwellers — when he showed up, as a kindness. It's hard to show up at a new office, not knowing anybody.

     "I didn't realize I was sucking up to the future managing editor at the time," I said. We laughed. 

     Caught the 124 back to Michigan.
     Cliff Dwellers is not the fanciest club — no Union League, no Casino, no University. But it has a million dollar view, across the street to the Art Institute, north to the Bean. I'd planned on sitting outside, on their big deck. But the windows were white, like we were in a cloud. I should have taken a picture.

     "I usually ask for a table outside..." I said, to the maitre d'. "But today..."
     Waiting for my guest, I did something unusual — went directly into the bathroom and scrubbed the atmosphere off my face. That helped.
      After lunch, I made the mistake of hoofing it 15 minutes down Adams Street to Union Station. It didn't leave me feeling ill, but rather like having smoked the worst cigar in the world. When I read about all the tiny particulate matter in the smoke, I believed it.