Leaving Chicago

Above the roller-coaster rain clouds, there's a moment when the wing tip of the plane cuts seamlessly into serene blue as it banks over Chicago. It's a layover in the sunlit limbo of the hope island, its tranquil azure meadow afloat with faux sheep, each one like 'ile flottante', cotton candy, dessert of the day. This is lofty communion in the Archdiocese of the Sky, superior to that of Holy Name Cathedral where you broke bread with shades of 1870s parishioners, consigned to the company of of North Side gangster Hymie Weiss, and two luckless henchmen, whacked to a nonstop flight across the street from, not the First, Second, or Third, but the Fourth Presbyterian's Gothic gathering place where a cornerstone inscription on the church still bears bullet marks of the murders. Masses of flowers sent to the grieving widows. Nothing "personal', you understand--Just business! Ah Yes! American Organized Crime and Charity! Outside Fourth Presbyterian's Gothic facade, its carved stone tympanum a legless man sits in his stations- of-the cross wheelchair, dispensing Sunday cheer and greetings, no Tommy gun in sight. So much the pity, leaving Chicago without violence, just churches, lore of gangsters, a riveting river, and speakeasies. As the plane banks into the marshmallow topping over Minnesota in its descent to the Janus Cities, the bird-head jet pods still face Chicago. Wind flaps gape wide in a noiseless scream, and across the sky's white flatland, ice castles rise in which live the frosty angels of Yes and No.