Christmas Eve Underground

Treats

“Oh, the weather outside is frightful,
But the fire is so delightful,
And since we’ve no place to go,
Let it snow, let it snow, let it snow.”
—Sammy Cahn and Jule Styne, “Let it snow! Let it snow! Let it snow!”

Theia stands behind the counter in the small store on N. Clark St. Outside, snow and a frigid cold have descended upon the city, driving Chicagoans to head for heat where they can find it. (Or perhaps contend with a layer of slush on the street.)

It’s 8:30 p.m., and Theia finds herself alone in the shop. The single room with the baby-blue walls has seen hordes of customers in the past, but at this hour, a gumball machine and stacks of free newspapers and magazines aren’t enough to draw in a single person (beyond a curious reporter).

It could be the hour. It could be that this section of Lincoln Park is residential. It could also be the product that Theia’s selling.

Ice cream.

“I’m a mother,” says Theia, who wears a brown shirt with the store’s logo, a swirl of ice cream on a wafer cone. “It’s like down time.”

Treats Frozen Desserts, a Chicago-area chain, sells only a handful of products. Its main offering is four flavors of 99% fat-free ice cream, which can be mixed with two or more of some 30-plus toppings to create what the company calls a “Mess.” Beyond this, a freezer stocks cakes, pies, and containers of pre-packaged ice cream, while a nearby refrigerator holds bottles of water.

Absent are penguins.

A 30-year-old mother of two, Theia has been working at Treats for six years. When it’s warm out, she says, the store can see three employees behind the counter at a time; in this season, there’s just one per day, from 2 to 10 p.m.

“The area’s good. It’s close to home,” says Theia, a lifelong Chicagoan who grew up around Austin Ave. and Lake St. and now lives on the Northwest Side. “In my other job, I used to have to leave my home two hours just to make it to work on time.” Now, it’s 45 minutes by public transit, less when driving.

She’s thought of moving to another city, though she’d want to stay in Illinois. Why would she leave Chicago?

“Right now, the prices. Right now, it’s just too expensive for me in Chicago. Four kids, and I’m working at an ice cream shop.”

Treats Frozen Desserts, at Clark St. and Grant Pl. in Lincoln Park. (Click on photo to enlarge.)

As for the job itself, she doesn’t complain. To the contrary. “There’s always something to do here,” she insists. “It’s never a boring day.”

Even when the temperature is near, if not in, the single digits.

A young man wearing a green Patagonia jacket and a blue sweatshirt comes in and asks for a couple of free tastes before choosing his ice cream. His says his name is Michael, and he’s a student at Columbia College.

Michael, 22 years old, offers that he shops at Trader Joe’s and just had a salad and sandwich for dinner, but that he tries to come to Treats at least once a month. In this weather, he notes, “I know there’s not going to be a line out the door especially.”

It helps that Michael lives above the store.

“Has it been busy tonight?” he asks Theia.

“I’ve had a good…” She pauses to think. “…Five customers a hour.” Of those five per hour, she remarks, “Those are, like, the faithfulest customers of Treats. They come in, rain, hail, sleet, or snow.”

“Have a nice night,” she says to Michael before he leaves.

“You, too,” he replies. “What is your name?”

“Theia.”

“Theia?”

“Theia.”

“Michael,” he says back.

“Okay,” she replies.

“So, you’re upstairs, right?” she adds.

“Yeah.”

“Soooo, you know Tom?” she asks, her voice ending playfully upward.

“Tom?”

“Tom. He works for the sushi place. He’s a deliverer.”

“Oh, okay,” he replies. “Yeah. Is he normally smoking cigarettes all the time?”

“Yup,” she giggles. “That’s Tom.”

“Thanks again,” says Michael, before walking out. “Stay warm.”



If Theia could be doing anything she wanted anywhere in the world right now, what would it be?

She thinks about it.

She’s offered some suggestions: Spending more time with her family, traveling somewhere, lying on a beach…?

Lying on a beach, she decides. “In the sun. Out of the snow.”

“But what’s crazy,” she goes on, “I may even miss the snow if I leave. I have a brother that lives in Florida, so he probably knows well. So, when he comes to Chicago, he’s like a kid in a candy store. He goes outside, no coat, no nothing. And I’m like, ‘Boyyyy!’”

Around a quarter to 9, two men walk into the store. “Hi, cousin!” Theia greets the first one.

“Wassup?” he replies.

The second of the two men is Cedric, her significant other. You might guess they’re together if you looked closely at Theia’s gold-colored hoop earrings, one of which has her name nestled inside the ring, while the other has his.

The two men have come to keep Theia company until the end of her shift.

As they chat, the sound of an electric snow blower can be heard just outside the shop. “He’s a good guy! Good guy!” says Theia. “You know I can not shovel no snow.”

Theia has been working since she was 17 years old, and it’s always been in food service. In this job, she particularly enjoys interacting with the local high school students who come in (the Francis W. Parker School is just across the street, while Lincoln Park High School isn’t far away). “We play the dare game,” she explains. “Like, make crazy Messes, like Nerds, cotton candy, and gummy bears.” She takes on a mocking voice: “‘I bet you five dollars you will not eat this.’”

The weather outside is frightful, but the frozen pies are still for sale. (Click on photo to enlarge.)

Theia calls food service “her life.” “I like the different people. To me, different people. There’s never a dull moment in food service.

“I just like to move around,” she continues. “My days go by much faster.”

Shortly after 9, a young woman comes in and orders a cone of cookie dough ice cream. Not long after that, Theia is cleaning the counter and mopping the floor. She’s decided to call it a night early, something she does maybe once a month.

She won’t get paid for the time she’s not here— but there aren’t exactly many customers paying now. Not with the mercury hovering around ten degrees Fahrenheit outside.

“I tell you,” says Theia, with her cousin and her significant other waiting for her to leave the ice cream behind, to head off to warmth somewhere else. “There’s never a dull moment.”

And when she says it, you believe her.

It just goes to show: Contentment, like warmth, is where you find it— even among the cold.

Mumbai on Devon Avenue

“It’s finished,” says Kanu.

He’s standing behind the counter in Al-Mansoor Video, on Devon Ave. at Rockwell St. A TV suspended from the ceiling plays news from an Indian network, received here by satellite.

“Now that it’s over,” he adds, “now we are relaxed.”

It’s about 9:15 p.m. Kanu, who has closely-cropped hair above a round face, stands with a friend by the counter, surrounded by Indian DVD’s of fanciful Bollywood productions and other segments of escapism. The brightly lit store, which has mostly DVD’s and CD’s and tapes, along with phone cards in the back, has no other customers, leaving Kanu and his friend with their eyes looking upward.

Another man walks into the store, and then a man and a woman. They all have dark skin.

“How’s your family?” the woman asks Kanu. “Everyone’s okay on your side?”

He replies in an Indian language.

Everyone stares at the TV.

The broadcast, an Indian version of a CNN or Fox News, has a shot of the Taj Mahal Hotel in Mumbai. Suddenly, the camera shows a man tumbling out of a ground floor window, as if he had been shot out.

Then, the Director General of India’s National Security Guard gives a new conference in Hindi.

“So, how many people were in there?” asks one of the men.

“I think 20,” replies Kanu.

It’s now 9:26 p.m. on November 28. The screen reads 8:56 a.m., 29 Nov 08.

The woman, like the man who accompanies her, has an Indian skin tone but speaks English with a good American accent. Her dark hair is long, and she wears a nose stud to one side.

She says she grew up in America but— and she insists on being paraphrased here, not quoted— India is still her country, wherever she goes. She adds that she just hopes everyone is safe. (Everyone, presumably, means the people that those around her know.)

The screen shows the tag line “Taj Reclaimed.” The words “India’s 9/11” flash intermittently among segments.

The couple joins Kanu in the back of the store, by the phone cards. When they all return to the front, the couple is smiling and laughing. They’re still smiling when they head for the door and say good night.


“T
his is more than 103 years old building,” says Kanu, pictures of the Taj Mahal Hotel flashing on the screen. “It is ancient building.”

Kanu grew up in the city of Ahmedabad, some 300 miles from Mumbai. In Ahmedabad, he worked in a small barbershop. He says he visited Mumbai’s Colaba neighborhood, in which the hotel is located, just once.

He came to Chicago as opposed to another American city, because, like so many immigrants, he had family here. He got a job at the video store, because he knew the man who runs the place from when they lived near each other in India.

We’re also, ahh, seeing images— if you could replay that, as well— of saluting our martyrs. The ATS chief, Hemant Karkare—

Kanu shakes his head slightly.

—was one of them, ahh, who’s been killed. Two hundred and fifteen policemen, we know, have been killed, ahh, in this battle against the terrorists.

“They killed chief of the anti-terrorism squad,” he explains to a visitor as the TV announcer goes on.

And that’s the funeral—

“Hmmm,” he exhales, shaking his head.

—of, ahh, Hemant Karkare, a very sincere, straightforward, no-nonsense officer…

How do Kanu’s friends feel about what’s been happening?

“Oh, my God. I mean, already it’s really hard to live in India. Even where I live, it’s all same thing like this. I mean, just I told you, like, uhh, a few months ago that there was, like, uhh, 20 or 30 people in a blast over there. A lot of people were killed.”

“What they are doing,” he adds, “also, we don’t understand.”

A phone in the store rings, and Kanu answers it.

“Well, now it’s time to go,” he says after hanging up.

It’s now almost 10 o’clock, closing time for the store. Kanu turns off the TV, puts the remote control down on the counter, and walks to the back of the store to prepare to get on with his evening.