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and kids (still back in Nigeria), his trips back to Nigeria every year, building up a little money, trying to save enough to get something going (back in Nigeria).
    He was like a seed that had been cast on Chicago ground by chance and just refused to send out sprouts.
    â€œWhat about Afro-Americans?” asked Buzz out of curiosity, always interested in the limits of adaptability, fences, frontiers, snobberies.
    â€œNever have anything to do with them,” the driver said snootily, adding, as if to be sure he’d made his point, “nothing, nothing at all… ”
    â€œThat’s kind of sad, though, isn’t it … ”
    â€œNot for me.”
    As they moved into downtown Buzzy starting to feel at home. He always wanted to come back to Chicago. His Capistrano was Chicago. And not the burbs but the center, old brick, old warehouses, a six, make that seven story old warehouse FOR SALE BY OWNER. The voices inside him talking: “Buy it, get out of Michigan, come down here, start The Small Press Institute, open up the Chicago Writer’s Museum, Nelson Algren, Hemingway, stick in Carl Sandburg in revenge for all the bad things he said about Chicago. Have your apartment right in the same building, go to the Film Institute at the Art Institute every night. Endless foreign films. Rev up your German and Japanese. Leap out into (inner) space again. You’re too far from the center … ”
    The years in Karachi, Caracas, Bombay, Cairo, Tunis, New York, L.A …
    Fat Franny had sent him a bio-data sheet to fill out. Questions like “What do you think your more interesting/notable achievements have been in the last 50 years?” and “Do you consider yourself a champion grandpa/grandma? Let’s have a countdown on kids and grandkids.”
    Yeah, yeah, yeah. That’s what it was all about, a breeding contest … All he’d sent in was his usual one-page bio-data sheet, a partial list of his 98 published books, partial list of the mags he’d been published in, an abbreviated list of grants, fellowships, scholarships, places he’d taught … somehow seeming pitifully anti-climactic when it came down to the bottom line:
    P RESENTLY A P ROFESSOR OF L ANGUAGE T ECHNOLOGIES AT S OUTHWEST M ICHIGAN T ECH .
    Like Napoleon on Elba, Caesar in the Bronx.
    â€œIs this OK?” asked the driver, pulling up in front of the Art Institute.
    â€œPerfect.”
    Buzz wanted to give him a good tip, in spite of his narrowness. It came to $23.50 on the meter. Twenty-five seemed good. So he handed him a twenty and a five.
    â€œThanks a lot. I’ve really enjoyed talking to you.”
    The driver seemed less than enthusiastic, and after he got out, Buzz rethought it:

    Pulled out another five and tried to run after the cab, but he was already half a block down, another fare quickly slipping into the cab … and away he’d gone …
    â€œJesus! I’m such a retard!” he said to Malinche.
    â€œWhat happened?”
    â€œI under-tipped him. Dramatically.”
    â€œForget it. What’s the difference … ”
    Starting to walk up the steps. Friday. Quarter to one. But the steps were jam-packed with crowds, this massive sense of human-cattle presence, a big sign up in front between the aging, oxidizing blue-green bronze lions:
    T HE G ARIBALDI C OLLECTION —U NITED FROM THE F OUR C ORNERS OF THE W ORLD
    â€œI thought Garibaldi was an Italian patriot!” said Buzz as they forced their way up through the crowds. “This is like Ellis Island in 1850 … ”
    Malinche shrugging her shoulders very eloquently, she was a goddamned mime when she wanted to be—I DON’T KNOW AND I DON’T WANT TO KNOW.
    A kind of middle-eastern United Arab Emirates looking guy with a bull-horn (with a green jacket on with CC Inc., C ROWD C DONTROL printed on it in big urgent red letters), very thick accent, screaming “No members’ tickets