I remember feeling the same way when I was a kid growing up in Wicker Park and a fire broke out in an apartment building a couple doors from my folk’s house. My brother and I called the building “hillbilly hotel” because all of the 12 units were occupied by hillbillies. We thought they were all crazy. The women wore a lot of make up and had big hair. The men had slicked-back hair and wore tight jeans with pointed-toed boots. Their kids ran around in dirty t-shirts and torn jeans. They all talked in a loud and boisterous manner. On hot summer nights, my brother and I, from our second-story back porch, would look into the apartment of Marlene Knuckles. She always left the shades up and the windows open. We were able to watch her move through the rooms in her black bra with a cigarette dangling out of her mouth. She had long red hair and would always blow on her nails in a nervous manner as if they had just been manicured. Most of the time there was nothing to see but the blue light of the TV set filling her living room. But there was one summer night when we saw her walking around topless. In an absent manner she started to finger one of her nipples near the bedroom window. My brother and I wanted to hoot and shout that we finally caught a glimpse of a woman’s nipples. Maybe we did let out a hoot or two because Marlene stuck her head out and saw us both hanging over the railing.
“What are you little fuckers lookin’ at?” We ducked down and tried to hide behind the railing but that seemed to make her angrier. “You think you can hide from me! I’ll kick your skinny asses if I ever catch you on the street!”
We ran inside our house and talked about our impending doom because she dated Charley Dart who also lived in the building. Many people in the neighborhood feared him. He was a big muscular hillbilly who stole cars, and also sold fireworks to kids in the neighborhood. Some say he was also dealing in drugs. He sold fireworks to my brother and me, so in his honor we called him the Hillbilly King.