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Chicago’s Virgin Mary Image.

Dancing Under the Expressway

The apostles came up and said to the Master,” Give us more
faith” But the Master said “You don’t need more faith. There is
no ‘More” or “less” in faith. If you have a bare kernel of
faith, say the size of a poppy seed, you could say to this
sycamore tree, “Go jump in the lake” and it would do it. From
Luke 17. “The Message” translation.

It happened not far from the spot where Chicago’s Kennedy
Expressway paved over the apartment at 1523 West Wabansia
Avenue. Just a bit north of that long buried apartment where
Nelson Algren and Simone deBeauvoir would wander home late at
night from the neighborhood tap; an mage of the Virgin Mary
appeared on the concrete wall beneath where the Kennedy crosses
Fullerton Parkway

Obdulia Delgado, the first known person to see the image, was on
her way home from work at the hospital. And as she drove down
Fullerton Parkway beneath the Kennedy, traffic thundering above
on the concrete artery connecting O’Hare Airport with the towers
of downtown Chicago; she looked at the wall and immediately
pulled on over. If you put the image, drawn in salt stained
runoff from the highway above, if you put it next to an image of
the Virgin of Guadalupe you’d have a pretty close match.

Viewed through the lens of a camera the image becomes even
sharper, the lines distinct and close to clear. Obdulia Delgado
fell to her knees and began to pray.

And then—because this is Chicago, forever and always a cross
roads; while Obdulia knelt and prayed and the traffic zoomed by
and roared overhead— at a train station just a little bit
south near the loop, a tall, serene and radiant black man
carrying a battered saxophone case stepped down off the train
and through the railroad steps of smoke and time. Finally having
found that one perfect sound he had sought during all his time
on earth; John Coltrane found his way to that underpass, knelt
down next to Obdulia to lift his gleaming golden horn from its
case, stood up tall, closed his eyes and began with the two
perfect bell shaped notes of a piece he called: Dear Lord.

John Coltrane’s “Dear Lord” echoes out from that underpass,
along with the news of what Obdulia found on the wall, that
perfect sound heading off towards Division Street. Nelson Algren
hears Coltranes howl and he wanders up to Fullerton to have
himself a look.

A slight bespectacled man, a counterpoint to the massive
presence of Coltrane, Algren stands off to the side to watch the
fun begin. Knowing now that when he shows up: others will
follow; Algren listens and he watches and remembers a letter he
tossed off once to a man, a Korean War vet who wrote to ask
about what it was like to write “Man with a Golden Arm.” Algren
replied to the man:

“But there were never days when I felt I wouldn’t complete it. I
knew that, unless the army got me again or a Buick bumped me,
I’d get a story put together, because I had the parts to put
together. My self-doubts weren’t concerned with whether it would
be completed, but only whether it would say anything, and say it
well, as nobody else could ever have said it, when it was done.
All those things came true, to a limited degree, so I feel it
was a lucky book, and a lucky time now past, and I was lucky to
write it.”

Algren smiles ruefully to himself, standing underneath that
bridge—knowing now that it was not about the luck. And when
Algren chuckles, Coltrane stops for just an instant and joins in
the laugh—seeing Coltrane smile, much less laughlike some
sort of miracle or something!

In that instant of the pause and the chuckle: two new Chicago
wanderers: this time from the South Side join in underneath that
bridge. Appearing first with a scowl, till somebody from the
crowd that is beginning to build around that image of the Virgin
shouts out, “Yo Studs Lonnigan, you kissin the old dump
goodbye?”

When he hears those words, James T. Farrell breaks out in a
crooked Irish grin, and as soon as Farrell smiles a new piece of
music, dredged up as if the land itself, the dirt and the sweat
and the layers of time could come bursting through the cement in
a four bar blues, massive guitar and voice of all the
earth—McKinley Morganfield–Muddy Waters growls,

“C’mon baby don’t you want to go? C’mon baby don’t you want to
go? Back to that same old place. Sweet home Chicago

As Muddy Waters just roars, the crowd grows even bigger.

A weary wandering con man, over there in the corner by himself,
57 year old Harry stumbles in from the deserted bleachers of a
cold September Cubs game, his last name L-U-M tattooed in purple
on the back of his hand. And just as Harry looks down again at
his hand, another Chicagoan steps out of Millers Pub underneath
the El Tracks on Wabash, and joins the pack underneath the
expressway. His belly full of beer and more gut level smarts
about what mattered to people than the next six generations of
baseball executives would ever even dream of, Bill Veeck hobbled
over to join in the crowd.

With Veeck now present and accounted for, it was most certainly
a party. And because in Chicago the music can be endless along
with being timeless—Muddy Waters yielded the stage in this
street shrine to an elf of a man who reached just about as high
as John Coltrane’s waist. Steve Goodman walks up to Coltrane,
grins and says, “Hey, how’s the weather up there.?” And once
again a miracle. Coltrane laughs! Then Goodman strums:

“The streetlights are on in Chicago tonight And lovers are gazin
at stars The stores are all closing and Daley is dozing And the
fat man is counting his cars!”

And when the crowd gets to the chorus of “Lincoln Park Pirates”
Hey, hey blow um away! The Lincoln Park Pirates are we! A new
line forms underneath that bridge with the Virgin on the wall:
and a parade begins to form!

Deep beneath the Kennedy Expressway above: every single St
Patrick’s Day Parade—all the politicians, all the floats. All
the marching bands. It’s a parade!

And on the reviewing standthere he stands—The Mayor. Richard
J Daley! Look him straight in the eye and all the political
power is no where to be found. Look him straight in the eye and
what do you see? You see a kid. A great big kid who gets to
watch a parade!

Now the place is overflowing.

The parade marches thru then back then around every square inch
of that underpass with the Virgin on the wall. A slight pause to
catch a breath and then just when you think it is about to wind
down—still another voice. This one lifts up the corn fields of
Iowa, the woods of Wisconsin, the rich farmland of southern
Illinois, the pure crystal tones and unlimited range of Bonnie
Koloc joining those who come before with those here now. She
sings

“I’ve got to believe In all my love songs”

And as that voice soars up and out encompassing everything and
everyone who even thought about what was going on underneath the
expressway next to the image of the Virgin Mary—Bonnie Koloc
gives way to a voice whose origin is now off with Coltrane. From
the very deepest part of the faith, from the very kernel of the
faith, a gospel sound of Mahalia Jackson:

“We are travelin in the footsteps Of those who come before And
we’ll all be re-united.”

Then Mahalia is surrounded by Pops Staples, Mavis Staples and
her sisters all there too

Oh when the saints Go marchin in Oh when the saints go marchin
in!

And as they all parade together, swirling in and around the
expressway underpass, dancing Chicago spirits all, it is the
same song, the same “When the Saints Go Marchin In” segued over
to the Weavers, a crazy haired Woody Guthrie marching along
right next to Pete Seeger, Fred Hellerman, Lee Hays, and Ronnie
Gilbert and look, there’s Win Strache up there, his deep full
tones leading everyone who ever even thought about picking up a
guitar at the Old Town School of Folk Music. . . .

Some say this world of trouble Is the only world we’ll know. .
But we’ll all be re-united. .

All hands clapping now the music and the words just resounding!
That white haired crazy man in the fedora—Saul Bellow right in
the middle of it all still writing, drawing out some grand idea
he’d scribble down later at his desk in Hyde Park later while
the flocks of blindingly yellow canaries blanketed the trees
outside his window. And over there. There’s Royko holding a
softball, pushing out the door of the Billy Goat on to the
darkness of lower Wacker that melts into this same darkness
underneath the bridge with the Virgin on the wall. Royko
delivering the words every single day for years and years, he
stands now with the others holding a tossing a softball up and
down and looking for a game. The music comes up again and—

Pete Seeger leads the crowd!

Oh when the saints! Go marchin in!

Pete and Woody having slept the previous night on kitchen floor
of the grey haired, stooped over man in the red checkered shirt
and of course his lovely wife Ida, the one man who comes along
at the end of this parade. . .the last man in the line. . .

Studs Terkel walks over to where Obdulia is praying, cocks his
head and smiles, then he shuffles to the east, a strange, old
man shuffle that is somehow, someway strangely young and
sprightly at the very same time. Studs moves out from underneath
where the Kennedy Expressway crosses over Fullerton Parkway,
Studs Terkel walks into the light of the sun coming up over the
lake to the east—waves his arm motioning us all inside
underneath that bridge and in that grizzled old voice of time
and what’s best about Chicago, Studs Terkel, says:

Come inside! All of you. Listen to this music. There is a God
still speaking here. Come inside and join us!