Eric and Angel, pt. 2

(Continued from previous post . . .)

After hustling to catch up with the two friends at the intersection, I said hi, and we exchanged the usual neighborly pleasantries. The tall man was named Eric and he had one clear, dark eye and one cloudy, white eye with bloodshot veins like red lightning cross-crossing the blue iris. The smaller man, Angel, had two eyes that looked like his friend's stormy one. They could have been about 30 like me, but lacking all the usual Wicker Park trappings -- Art+Science hairdos, skinny jeans, "vintage" tees, and too-cool-for-school expressions -- it was truly hard for me to tell.

When I remarked about what a beautiful day it was, I was half talking about the breeze and half talking about these two people, holding onto each other in such an unselfconscious, public display of friendship. As we crossed Milwaukee Avenue to the store, Eric grinned and said, with no self-pity or sadness in his voice, "If I had the fare, I'd take Angel on the bus to the beach." It was so sweet, my heart could barely take it.

I didn't need anything from the store and I didn't want to be a (bigger) weirdo, so we said our goodbyes and again I started walking away. Again I made it only half a block. Our minute just didn't feel like enough. What if I was supposed to meet Eric and Angel for a reason? I raced back across the street to the Aldi, said an awkward "hi, I'm back and I'm procrastinating on going to the gym," and offered to take over for the security guard who was going to help them shop. Of course, I'm really glad I did.

It's not like anything superspecial happened. They didn't whisper the meaning of life to me while we picked out flavors of chips (original Pringles for Eric, sour cream and onion for Angel), and I had to run and ask the security guard where the chicken legs were while the guys waited in the aisle for me, holding onto the cart as other shoppers maneuvered around them. I felt a little stupid. But still. If I had just gone to the gym, I would have always wondered about Eric and Angel.

Turns out they'd been friends a long time, since they'd met at a job that had since laid them off. Eric lives near me but he's moving to a tiny town ("only 12 blocks long!") outside Lubbock, Texas, next week. He's got family there. Angel lives in another area of Chicago and was just coming to Wicker Park for the day to visit his friend. "Maybe I'll take Angel to the park today," Eric said. Angel vowed to go to Texas to visit, too, even though I'm not sure how he'd afford it. He told me about living in Florida for two years and losing his house because of a girlfriend. "People don't help each other enough and sometimes they try to take advantage of us, even though we don't have anything." "But we get along fine," Eric added. I wanted to know about why they were blind and where they lived and all that stuff, but I knew it would be crossing the line, even for me, to ask all that.

(To be continued . . . )