My feet stayed on cracked asphalt streets, rooted in my reality, pounding the pavement between pansy parlors. I hadn’t lost any accounts yet, but it was hard not to notice the abandoned buildings that had belonged to establishments I never held on my ledger. Though they were not top-tier like The Gallery on State, less than a year before they had been full of painted faces, sparkling spaces that glistened no more. At night, Towertown still came to life, vibrant and free, but for how much longer could the doors stay open when the country was closing in on itself, holding its knees? While I didn’t want to admit that perhaps those, like my brother, who feared a failure in America’s financial infrastructure may not have grossly overreacted, I didn’t see the level of despair they had predicted. When the baseline is sky-high like it was in the twinkling twenties, anything nearing the ground feels like rock bottom.

“It’s finally warming up,” Maks noted as we walked on Wabash Avenue toward the L. “Which is good for them,” he added, gesturing toward a bum sitting on the curb, draped in blankets. He was a corner constant, having occupied the spot since his return from the Great War.

I nodded, still able to feel the chill of the long winter in the early-April air. “Baseball soon.”

“You’re ready for more heartbreak?” my cousin asked, forcing me to remember my team’s loss in the national league championship the year prior.

“Cuyler should have another good season, and now we have Smith and Welsh from Boston, so we’ll see.”

“Your optimism regarding the Cubbies continues to astound me,” Maks grinned. “I guess we all have our bright spots, huh?”

“I guess so,” I confirmed, lighting a cigarette and flicking the burning matchstick to the sidewalk. “You’re a blabbermouth; what’s the word on Ig?”

“What do you mean?” Maks asked innocently.

Narrowing my eyes, I shot my cousin a look that ensured he knew I wasn’t interested in his bushwa.

“What do you want to know?”

“Word on the street is she’s a scag. Is that true?”

“What street did you get word from? State? Millie ain’t their type,” Maks teased. “She’s alright though, not nearly as ugly as him.”

“That’s a ringing endorsement,” I laughed. “Millie’s her name then?”

“Sure is. I don’t know why you can’t ask your brother about her if you’re curious.”

“I’m not curious,” I lied.

“You’re asking …”

“We don’t talk about broads, and I like it that way.”

“You probably like it that way because you don’t have any broads to talk about.”

“I like it that way too.” I grinned at Maks, who promptly smiled back at me, though we didn’t discuss the implication. “Are they serious about one another?”