It Pays To Know The Right People

Inauguration of Mayor Lori Lightfoot 2019

I hopped on the number three bus at Chicago and Michigan Avenues having no clue when to pull the cord for the Wintrust Arena. It was 7:30 A.M., too early for rush hour but people dressed in their finest stepped up at every stop as we moved on down the avenue. There was no mistaking the Wintrust bus stop. The cross streets swarmed with jaywalkers, Uber poolers, truants, bus trippers, policemen, VIPs and parkers from the garages. Parades of citizens streamed toward the entrances lining up for the eight o’clock opening. Volunteers in blue “Bring In The Light” t-shirts hoisted colossal signs pointing to the ADA entrances.

“What’s going on?” asked the bus driver.

“Lori Lightfoot’s Inauguration,” I said.

“Oh! The new mayor!” he said. “Great day. End of the Machine.”

Inside the Arena, old friends who’ve fought entrenched politicians for decades worked the event. Hi, Regan! Hi! Hi! I heard victorious voices all around helping me and other revelers find our way. They directed me to two seats, eight rows from the stage. The personification of old-style politics, the Daley clan, took their seats behind me. Even they couldn’t stop the trickle of joy dripping from their upended well-oiled machine.

A Chicago policeman came running over to say hello. Matt Baio and I have known each other since we both worked for Speaker Michael Madigan in the late 1980s. Matt’s official post is guarding the inside entrance of City Hall. We’ve seen each other every time I’ve marched into that building protesting the previous mayor, or bought a dog license, or renewed my senior bus pass. I greeted him laughing, anticipating he’d be tickled about the new mayor.

“Matt, I just finished writing a book and you’re in it,” I said.

“What? No way! When’s it coming out?” 

“Early 2020. But I changed your name to protect you.”

“Is it about the time you asked me to be Bill Clinton’s driver?”

Yes, it is. And we had a riot reliving the story of what Matt, the silent navigator, overheard at the wheel in March 1992 during Illinois’ presidential primary.*

“Is it too late to use my name? It won’t hurt me. I’ve never been in a book. I’d be proud. Use Matthew Baio. I’ll buy a bunch and pass them out at City Hall. I gotta go tell my daughters. I’ll be over there by the stage if you need anything.”

My friend Peter arrived via train and bus from the far southwest side of the city. A security guard said he was ticketed for the bleachers and prevented him from joining me. As it turned out, I was also ticketed for the bleachers. I had been inadvertently led to the VIP seats. I eyeballed Officer Baio through crowd. After a brief kerfuffle including murmurs on the security guard’s walkie-talkie, Peter and I secured our prized seats. Reverend Jesse Jackson’s bodyguard sat down next to us keeping eyes on The Reverend in the row ahead.

After the elected officials paraded onto the stage and took their seats, the diminutive powerhouse, Lori Lightfoot, was sworn in and came to the microphone. The articulation of her vision for Chicago hit every issue. And right smack in the middle of her speech she highlighted a fear I’d expressed to her during a meet-and-greet in a friend’s condo at the beginning of her campaign. 

“I’m looking ahead to a city where people want to grow old and not flee. A city that is affordable for families and seniors,” she said.

Was it because we were so close that Peter and I felt as if our new mayor was talking directly to us? Would we have sighed with relief feeling she actually cared about us if we’d been in the bleachers? I don’t know. But I do know that it still pays to be friends with the right people in Chicago.

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*To find out what Matt overheard, go to City Hall and ask him. Or, even better, read my book I Want To Be In That Number, due in early 2020.