(FIRST, I want to let anyone/everyone know that he is alive and just fine.)
So brother and I had been whooping it up fairly well Friday night, and by the time of the Afterparty, were quite drunken, and also I was fairly high on overload of meeting people and chatting.
My girlfriend was tired and had left early, taking the car with her to the hotel up in Niles. The idea was that brother and I would figure out a train and/or taxicab ride back to the hotel once we were ready to leave (i.e. "after the last dog dies" - if you ever had an older relative who used that expression to mean the very very tail-end of a party)
So him and I had been popping in and out of the basement on and off through the night, and weren't necessarily glued to each other's side... I might go check out a band while he smoked outside and talked to some people in the alley, or vice versa.
I didn't think much of it when I left him talking to some dudes outside while I went downstairs to check out the end of Bear Claw's set. When it was all over I could not find him. I looked outside where I had left him, I looked back inside (with the help of someone there pointing out nooks and crannies where someone might conceivably crawl into and pass out). Still no sign of him.
Now I start to freak and get worried. I spent a considerable amount of time circling around the Payless Shoes in a 2-3 block radius, half expecting to see him asleep on concrete or a lawn nearby - no such luck.
(EDIT: I also checked some within Humboldt Park, near the northeast corner - as suggested by BadComrade (see below))
I call my girlfreind to make sure he's not there at the hotel somehow - no dice.
My brother does not know his way around Chicago - I know this.
My brother does not know the address of our hotel - I know this.
My brother does not carry a goddamned cellphone - I know this.
So I am wandering around until about 4:30am, good peoples, and in the meantime decide I had better call our mother and leave her a message - because I sure as shit was not going to be the son to say on Monday or Tuesday "Oh yeah, haven't seen him since Friday night".
Next stop - calling 911 - they transfer me to 'Central Booking', like that is the common thing to do. I get a woman at 'Central Booking' on the line and she snickers and assures me that even if he had been picked up for something, they wouldn't have him in the system for at least 4 more hours, and I should call back then.
I'm freaked - at this point I can't even deal with making public transportation arrangements and I ask my girlfriend to come get me.
I think I finally laid my head to pillow in the hotel just after 5am.
About 8:30am I get a call on the cellphone:
pockets wrote:"Dude, I'm at the corner of Sheffield and Fullerton - think you can come get me?"
I'm pissed as fuck, but obviously elated that the man is alive and well. I get dressed and zip down from Niles to pick him up.
I get there and as he's approaching the car I'm deciding whether to whup his ass, or give him a big weepy hug. He says:
pockets wrote:"Well, I met a new tailor last night."
..and I look down and he has two nice little lacerations across his bluejeans, right where the front pockets would end, y'know? He turns to show me another sharp little cut on one of his back pockets.
So yeah - my brother, who does not know his way around the city one little bit, decided spontaneously to just go for a little walk
without me (and swears he still can't remember what he was thinking to do such a thing) and with "no particular place to go", he passed out cold sitting on a train platform and got 3 of his 4 jeans pockets sliced by thugs, who miraculously only made off with a few loose dollar bils and a pre-paid phone card (his ID was in the other butt pocket that all his weight was sitting on, and he had actually had the forethought to put the bulk of his cash stuffed way down in his boot)
Originally I wanted to make him wear the sliced jeans all day Saturday, as a substitute for me not beating him to a bloody pulp that morning - but I caved, as his lack of viable pockets would mean that we'd all be stuck carrying his shit. But I do reserve the right to give him a fair amount of shit for this, as he would also give me shit if I behaved similarly. Hey we're brothers - that's just how it is.
So - I've encouraged him time and time again to register for this forum, and I'm hoping that he will, now that he's met some of you. Although I doubt it would come to pass, I really would love to see him take the name "pockets". That goes back to that thread about nicknames - you can never give yourself a nickname as good as what others will stick you with.
(So - if you saw us Saturday and we looked a little 'cashed' - please consider the amount of non-sleep that we had gotten - and yet the Almighty DIDJITS still had me jumping and flailing around like a damned idiot! An energy infusion that carried me through all into the rest of the night, rocking hard to all the rest of the rocking bands and still having a few drinks with friends after Shellac's extended magnificent set!)
Saturday night we all slept the sleep of the !@#$%-ing GODS.