Sleeping Around (12 page)

8

‘ABSOLUTELY NO REPUBLICANS!

Sorry, I am firm on this rule. I'm sure there are some good ones out there but they aren't staying here.'

Bob Fields, 31, Chicago, USA

GlobalFreeloaders.com

‘What's the name of the person who are you staying with in the US?' the surly American security officer asked me at Rio airport.

‘Bob.'

‘Bob who?'

I shrugged. ‘Err . . . I don't know.'

‘Well, where did you meet him then?'

‘Um, we've never actually met.'

‘So, how do you know him?'

‘I met him through Global Freeloaders and I'm staying on his couch.' I tried to explain the concept of couch surfing, but it was all too much for the security guy and he waved me through.

The only problem with visiting the States nowadays is, gee whiz, it's a nuisance to get into. I got asked exactly the same questions again at security check No. 2—and bewildered another security officer. At security check No. 3 they made me take off my belt and checked my Havaianas for nuclear warheads. At security check No. 5 the security officer grilled me about my iPod. ‘Where did get your iPod from?' the security goon asked me.

‘It was a Christmas present.'

‘Who from?'

‘Um . . . my wife.'

I was getting my first taste of the whole post 9/11 security blitz and I was still more than 7000 kilometres away from the land of the free and the home of the brave, but I couldn't do a Couch Surfing Tour of the Globe without the good ol' US of A on my itinerary. It is, after all, the centre of the universe—well, according to a lot of Americans, at least.

‘Are you seeking to engage in criminal or immoral activities?' Although Bob had told me we were going looting and pillaging, I didn't tick the ‘yes' box on the Security Immigration Form at Chicago airport. I can't really imagine too many criminals ticking it either, to be honest. Mind you, if people were honest, 9/11 would never have happened because the hijackers would have ticked the ‘yes' box next to ‘Are you a terrorist?'

The plan for my couch-surfing jaunt was to go to places where I hadn't been before and, although I'd been to the States a number of times, I'd only been to ten of the 50 states. Even so, I still had plenty of couches to choose from. Out of the 217 countries represented on the three websites, the USA has by far the most couches with more than 100 000 people registered. Incidentally, on CouchSurfing.com the countries with the smallest membership—with only one member each—are Antigua and Barbuda, Turkmenistan, Guinea, Palau, Burundi, Central African Republic, São Tomé and Príncipe, and Vatican City (I checked, by the way, and the couch in Vatican City didn't belong to the Pope).

So why did I choose Chicago? Simple really: Jake and Elwood. I'd seen the city in so many movies (including, off the top of my head,
The Blues Brothers
,
The Fugitive
,
Risky Business
,
High Fidelity
,
Home Alone
and
Ferris Bueller's Day Off
) that I felt like I'd been there already and wanted to finally see it in the flesh. And it's not just celluloid that makes Chicago famous. It is (or was) home to everything from Jerry Springer to Oprah,
Playboy
magazine to Pullman, McDonalds to Kraft, Frank Lloyd Wright to Hemingway, Al Capone to Walt Disney, Miles Davis to Muddy Waters, and the Cubs to the Bulls.

During my search for a couch, I soon discovered that it wasn't just the city that was intriguing. So were some of the profiles I found on GlobalFreeloaders.com. Jonathon's was rather short and blunt:

You can stay in my backyard. It's all right, not very comfortable, but whatever, you're a freeloader, what do you care?

I can't imagine what Ron had in mind for entertainment when you stayed with him:

Plenty of room for travellers. Limited tools available.

If you came from Venus or Saturn you'd be welcome to stay with James:

We'll consider hosting anyone, but please be considerate (i.e. don't bring a lot of drugs and don't come in totally plastered at 4am, puke loudly on the carpet, and then snore and sleep until afternoon). I don't have any preferences, male, female, bi, les, gay . . . as long as you're not from the planet Mars or Pluto.

And I'm not sure what planet Daniel is from:

I like lemurs and three-toed sloths. I like waterparks, especially the long twisty slides when they don't require you to be in a frikken innertube. I own a minivan, but don't hold it against me. It hauls a lot of gear. Blue Ice Vodka is my drink of choice. Or water, if I need to operate heavy machinery. I am addicted to shopping for office supplies and I own a parrot, so no cats allowed.

Bob's profile seemed relatively normal compared to some of the others:

We're generally fairly quiet during the week but drink and swear and talk like pirates most every weekend. We ride bicycles drunk and wear lampshades on our heads. I like sleeping in the back of trucks and peeing from high places.

Bob lived in Humboldt Park (well, not actually in the park itself), located on the northwest side of the city. The direct train I caught from the airport was the movie-star one that travels high above the street and has featured in more movies than Mel Gibson.

There was no doubt that I was in America. On the ten-minute walk to Bob's place I passed two McDonalds, a Dunkin' Donuts, a Pizza Hut, a KFC and lots of Americans with huge butts. Bob wasn't due home for another hour (he was an elementary school teacher and finished at three o'clock), so I grabbed a beer from Bob's very own ground-floor liquor store and sat on his doorstep on the street. It was hotter and more humid than it had been in Rio and I soon discarded my shoes and socks and peeled off my shirt. When people walking by kept giving me a wide berth, I suddenly realised that it wasn't just the sight of my pasty bare chest. Here I was sitting on a doorstep surrounded by plastic bags, drinking a bottle of beer from a brown paper bag and in desperate need of a wash and shave.

Twenty minutes later Greg Kinnear pulled up in front of me on a bicycle. It wasn't the Hollywood actor, though. It was my host Bob, who shared the same clean-cut, blue-eyed, American-as-apple-pie look, complete with matching dimpled smile. The GlobalFreeloaders site doesn't have profile pics, so I really had no idea what to expect. I certainly didn't expect a man who likes sleeping in the back of trucks and peeing from high places to look like a handsome Hollywood star.

Bob's second floor, three-bedroom apartment was not too shitty at all (on his profile he said that he lived in a shitty apartment). He shared it with Carl (‘he does some sort of shit with computers') and his brother Jason (‘he does some sort of shit with wood'). ‘We've got a sweet-ass deal,' Bob beamed. ‘We only pay two hundred and sixty dollars each a month rent.' The reason Bob got such a sweet-ass deal was that less than a decade ago Humboldt Park was considered a ghetto. Gang activity, crime and violence dominated the area. ‘A few years ago all the hipsters moved in and it became cool,' he said. ‘But now all the fucking
Sex and the City
wannabes are moving in.'

My couch looked very comfortable even though it was in the middle of a barren and desolate desert. The walls in the lounge room were floor-to-ceiling panoramic poster prints of the vivid red spires and stark landscape of Monument Valley. Except for one wall, which was draped with a huge American flag.

Over a couple of beers I learnt that Bob earns $45 000 a year teaching English as a second language to Puerto Ricans and Mexicans at Cicero Elementary School. I also learnt that he was counting down the days until his contract ended (he had 154 days to go), when he planned to buy a van and earn money driving backpackers around the country. Finally I learnt that his obsession with 1970s Schwinn bicycles had turned out to be rather lucrative.

‘I buy old ones from classified ads in the newspaper, then do them up and sell them,' Bob explained as we stepped into a long, drafty storeroom off the lounge room. Inside at least twenty Schwinn bikes were in various stages of deconstruction and reconstruction. ‘They don't make 'em like this anymore,' Bob said as he pointed out the solid and heavy-framed Black Phantom, Stingray and Scrambler. ‘And now they've become cool again, I can make good money,' he said. ‘The money I make will help finance my next big trip.' Bob went on to tell me about one of his early entrepreneurial schemes, which had paid for a twelve-month jaunt around the States. In his senior year at high school he made $20 000 by selling dope to his fellow students.

While we were chatting, the phone rang. It was a potential buyer. Ten minutes later a fellow turned up looking to buy a bike as a birthday present for his wife. He rode the vibrant green Scrambler across the road and back again, then said, ‘I'll take it'. Bob had bought the bike for $35 and, after ‘fixing it up a little', had resold it for $150.

‘I only put the ad on Craigslist this morning,' Bob beamed.

‘What's Craigslist?' I asked.

‘I'll show you.' Bob opened up the site on his computer. Craigslist.org had links for cities all over the world and had everything from Cars for Sale to Lost and Found, Houses for Sale to Positions Vacant, and travel deals to personals, including an incredibly explicit ‘Casual Encounters' section. ‘Check this out!' Bob said with his trademark cheeky smile. He showed me the Women seeking Men section, which was more like Women Desperately Seeking Men RIGHT THIS VERY MINUTE! Many of the women who had posted requests were after an immediate response:

Petite girl wants to play
Can't host, but my boyfriend is asleep and I want to head out. He passed out drunk. I want to suck a big cock. Only reply if you are hung.

‘Let's go cruising,' Bob purred. He didn't mean for horny girls on Craigslist, though. Bob was pointing to his two most prized Schwinn bicycles. Bob snagged the very hipster-looking Schwinn Chopper (complete with gear stick) while I had the menacing-looking Black Phantom. We cruised to a Middle Eastern restaurant, where we ate falafels and talked about Americans in the Middle East. ‘The US defense policy is fucking ridiculous,' Bob bellowed through a mouthful of hummus. ‘This country could be a paradise. We could use the money those idiots spend on invading countries on social services and education.' Bob didn't like George Bush much either. ‘That fucker is responsible for everyone in the world hating Americans,' he spat.

After dinner we went on a pub crawl, or pub pedal in this case, and stopped at one of the outdoor bars on West Division Street. Although it was a Tuesday night, the place was packed. ‘Everyone is out because it's usually freezing this time of the year,' Bob said.

The next pub we stopped at was a bordello-styled pub, all dark pillars and heavy purple curtains. Just when I was telling Bob that I was getting a bit peckish, a scruffy-looking Mexican chap strolled in with a bag full of hot
tomale
. Although Bob's description of
tomale
didn't sound too appetising—corn leaves wrapped around corn mash and lard—it was pretty tasty as far as lard and mash go. We grabbed the last few before the guy sold out. ‘He's really popular,' Bob explained. ‘But not as popular as the Muffin Lady.' The Muffin Lady went from pub to pub with a basket full of delicious baked goodies. But instead of blueberry muffins, hers were Moroccan black. ‘You'd be stoned after one muffin,' Bob said. ‘She's not around anymore, though. She got busted with ten thousand dollars' worth of cannabis in the back of her car and now she's in jail.'

On the ride home Bob had another go at George Bush and the Republicans. ‘If they get in again,' Bob barked as we trundled down the street, ‘I'm going to strap a bomb on and go to the biggest church in South Dakota and blow the fuckers up, because they're the one's voting them in.'

‘Yo bro! Whassup?'

No, too ghetto.

‘Ey, 'ow ya doin'?'

No, too New York.

‘Howdy partner.'

No, too cowboy.

I had to get my American accent right because I was about to be Bob for the day. Bob had given me his teacher's photo-ID card, which granted free entry to 54 Chicago museums and galleries. Bob didn't seem to think there would be any problem with my total lack of resemblance to Greg Kinnear.

Bob lent me one of his bikes, but not one of his Schwinn classics. ‘The city is full of bike thieves,' he grunted.

‘You'll need to take a couple of these,' Bob said, opening a drawer that was filled with an array of bike locks. Bob grabbed two different locks then demonstrated how to put them on. It was all rather complicated and involved wrapping a thick steel cable around the wheels then fixing a clamp through the cable and around a bike rack. ‘Take the seat with you when you lock it up,' he said. ‘Those fuckers will steal anything.'

Bob told me that it would take 30 minutes to ride into the city. It took me ten, but I may have cheated a little. While I was having breakfast it began raining and I readily concede that I'm a lily-livered wimp when it comes to getting rained on, so I put the bike on the train.