Goin’ Down Slow
There are no more blues on Maxwell Street.
It is a sunny Sunday morning market day and the street is nearly empty. A fellow named Lockhart who has sold tube socks on the street for the last fifteen years is still hawking his wares to anybody that stops for a Polish at Jimmy’s on Halsted and Maxwell. Business is not good. He looks down the deserted street and sees only ankle deep garbage piled in the gutter. If the city of Chicago ever provided services to this area of town, they have long since stopped. The buildings are abandoned and boarded up. They wait for the wrecking ball that the folks down at city hall have been trying to wield for over a hundred years.