Read Chicago Stories: West of Western for Free Online Page A

my rebec and some scores later, but I can stay an hour or so.” He frowned at the pile of boxes and packages. “Just how much of this stuff are you intending to put up?”
    “Just the blinds,” she said, remembering that two of the video cameras were for the garage door. Best do those herself. Tony'd croak if he saw the threat painted there.
    “I guess maybe it's a bit of all right,” Tony said later, after the last blind was up and they were celebrating with beer. “Place kinda grows on you. Cool.” Chatty when they started putting up the blinds, he had grown silent toward the end. Now he followed his sister to the kitchen, collapsed to the floor, leaned against the wall and drained the bottle. “You know, I've never had a place of my own, too busy figuring out what kind of musician I am.”
    Seraphy dropped down and scooted close, using body language where words failed. Tony's head nudged her shoulder and they leaned against each other as they had since they were three and the new kids at nursery school.
    “Whatever,” she said finally, her words coming slow at first as she figured out what she wanted to say. “I'm a little surprised at all this, myself. You know, people talk about a neighborhood in terms of what sticks out, what's shocking and easy to see. But give us a chance, Tony. Maybe the violence, the gangs, are the dandelions in the lawn. Doesn't mean the grass isn't there.”
    “So you, what? Get a couple of gallons of Round-up? And an Uzi or two?” Her brother sat up and stared at her.
    “Something like that. I don't know, haven't had time to get out much yet.”
    “Right. Fee's Pest Removal.” He sighed and scooched closer.“I know you can take care of yourself. I still think it's pretty iffy out there.” She didn't answer.“Even so, I'm a little jealous. At least you've got a place. Sort of.”
    “You can always come live with me.”
    “Gee thanks.”
    “Or maybe I'll get a dog. Big dog.” She showed her teeth.
    “I'm already house-trained.”
    “Um-hum, wouldn't have to walk you, either, I guess. Of course,” she looked into his eyes and grinned, “I live in a slum.”
    “Yeah,” he peered back with the same silver blue eyes and managed a small grin of his own. “Fortress Pelligrini.”
    Neither of them spoke for a while.
    “Shit.” Tony sat up straight.“I almost forgot. Mom wants to come and see your place.”
    “Shit! I'm not ready.”
    “Nobody ever is.”
    After Tony left, she felt he'd taken the life from the loft with him. Everything was suddenly too big, too empty, too quiet. Late afternoon sun splashed golden bands across the floor, bright but without warmth. The open space, shining floor and twelve foot ceiling were the same as before, but now seemed all surface and no soul, a developer's model waiting for her to fill the emptiness, and she had no idea where or how to begin. Domesticity was a foreign country, she had no map, and neighborhoods don't come with instructions.
    Once she would have known how to do this, she thought, but that part of her had died ten years ago. When she met Joe her senior year in college, they had made so many plans, easily and instinctively: jobs, home, family. All died the night she sat on the sidewalk with Joe's head in her lap, sirens, flashing lights, urgent cop voices all around her.
    Seraphy looked at her loft. Fat lot of good all that was to her now. A new life. She rubbed absently at her arm. Why was this so fucking complicated? Her building was functional, and she knew how to make a home when she was eighteen: find a place, get furniture, move in. It worked ten years ago. So why wasn't it working now? Deliberately, she narrowed her thoughts to the space immediately around her. The bathroom needed painting. Two of the former offices still had holes and missing mortar in the walls. She couldn't order kitchen cabinets until she made a measured drawing and plans. Everywhere she looked something seemed to need work.
    “For Christ's