The Looking Glass Bookstore in Oak Park

I've been wanting to write up a little opinion piece on this store for the longest time and finally did so last month. Read it here.

The Curse of the Crystal Palace

(Another writing exercise)

In a crumbling section of Cicero sits the Crystal Palace Restaurant, an eatery once frequented by none other than Al Capone. When that mobster went to jail for tax evasion, legend tells of a celebration hosted by his enemy, Bugsy McGillicuty, at the Crystal Palace (which after that night was renamed, for a few months, the Palace of Broken Crystals for reasons you will learn in a moment. Capone might have been behind bars but his henchmen were not).

A grinning Bugsy had just raised his glass to his imprisoned enemy, or so the story goes, when a bullet shot the goblet out of his hand. It was embarrassing to be interrupted like that right in the middle of a gloat. Everyone dove to the floor except Bugsy, who was determined to finish the toast, despite the obvious presence of a hit man. He had been working on the speech for days, had committed it to memory, and didn’t want to see all that work go to waste, come what may. Faced with such determined courage (some might, and did, call it idiocy), the hit man stopped his work for one stunned moment. Bugsy was enormously flattered. “Here’s to that piece rancid pastrami who is now behind bars, will likely rot there, and so can’t do anything else to hurt any of u—”

His last word was cut short by the assassin’s bullet who, though a killer, was a very honest man, and couldn’t bear to hear a lie being told, especially in a public place. It would have been an extremely embarrassing moment for Bugsy, had he still been alive, to know that not one person clapped for his toast. They were all dead or fleeing into the parking lot.

From that moment on, anyone who ever raised a glass at the Crystal Palace suffered some sort of  public humiliation. There was the woman who swallowed her glass eye while toasting her doctor; the tiny elderly man who fell out of his elevator shoes when announcing his betrothal to his tall fiance; and the young girl who, while toasting herself at her 15th birthday party, suffered something akin to face rearrangement. She had spent hours applying her makeup but had unfortunately forgotten to take her antihistamine, so, during one enormous sneeze her false eyelashes fell off and landed above her lip, of all places. While she had earnestly hoped that her beautiful image would reverberate throughout the revered temple of social media, she couldn't have possibly foreseen that this would come to pass only because she appeared to be wearing a mustache.

The following year, her cousin suffered an even more cruel public humiliation. As she began to toast her beloved mother on the event of that woman's 41st birthday, she reverted to her odd second language, as she always did when she was nervous. Lifting her trembling goblet into the air, she began: “Etslay allyay aiseray ourhay lassesgay…” Crushed with the realization that she wouldn’t be able to speak anything but Pig Latin for the rest of the evening, she ran, weeping, into the bathroom and refused to come out, wishing to the dark skies above that she had believed her mother’s warnings about the curse of the Crystal Palace.

Harry Potter and the Clue of the Screeching Owl: Harry Potter characters in a Hardy Boys Setting

“Summer vacation!” Ron Weasley exclaimed. “No more saving the school until September!” He was sitting in his room with his friends Harry Potter and Hermione Granger. Harry and Hermione smiled. It was true that they had saved Hogwarts School—and the entire British wizarding world—three times in a row, always risking their lives and academic status to do so. They loved Ron but he was never much serious help during their adventures because he was a bit thick. Ron's contribution was lowbrow humor peppered with mild swearing that anyone who could understand his accent valued for its tension-breaking effect. That sort of thing came in very handy while repeatedly facing mortal danger.

“Sure, Ron, no more saving the school” said Harry, who was at that moment stunning some tiny woddle-hoppers that were trying to scurry under the rug. 

“Of course, Ron" said Hermione. "We aren’t allowed to use magic yet, outside of Hogwarts." She slapped Harry’s want out of his hand and returned to her favorite book, Hogwarts, a History. Although it was often the retention of her extensive reading that saved Ron and Harry during their repeated attempts to save the school, Hermione never let her extracurricular activities interfere with her studies and she still had dark circles under her eyes to prove it. 

“Let’s go for a ride, then” said Ron. “In Dad’s muggle car” he added in a whisper. Muggle was the perky slur used by magical people to refer to average human beings.

“Won’t your parents be ups-“ said Hermione in a nervous voice.

But Harry was already on his feet, following Ron, who was nearly flying down the stairs.

“Will you stop running down the stairs, Ronald Weasley!” his mother shouted angrily. Mrs. Weasley was supervising some spoons that were stirring three big pots on the stove. Although she used magic to do most of her chores, she was generally at loose ends, her face red and sweaty, her temper sharp.  Ron should have expected his mother’s outburst—she had mentioned the bit about running through the house once or twice—but it still took him by surprise and he tumbled down the remaining stairs. 

Harry froze. Hermione, following close behind, bumped into him and would have sent him flying if Mrs. Weasley hadn’t stepped over Ron's crumpled body, run up the stairs, and thrown her arms around Harry.

“I didn’t mean you, Harry dear”, said Mrs. Weasley in a sweet voice, patting Harry on the head and pinching his cheek. “You don’t have to look so worried. You can run through our house any time you like!”

“Um, thanks" said Harry.

“Bloody ‘hew” shouted Ron, who was still at the bottom of the stairway, curled up in the fetal position, and groaning in pain. “Mum, I think my ankle’s broken.”

“Ronald! What have I said to you about swearing in this house! Go on now, off with you three. Supper’s at six!”

Although Harry never knew what to do when Mrs. Weasley pinched or patted him, one of the things he loved best about staying at Ron's were the regular meals he enjoyed there. He usually spent the summers at the home of his inexplicably cruel muggle relatives and he had nearly been starved by them once or twice, partly because his obese cousin stole all of Harry’s food while his aunt and uncle looked on with approving smiles. Aunt Petunia and Uncle Vernon would have been more than happy to see their nephew die but only if it was completely, or nearly, accidental since their reputations mattered to them almost more than their morbidly obese son.

But here at Ron’s house, there was no threat of death by starvation. The constant kitchen-related fretting of the plump but attractive lady of the house always resulted in something delicious which she then proceeded to force upon everyone present, challenging them to eat “just one more bite.” It was a miracle that none of her children had grown as plump as she but perhaps that’s because they took after their slim but slightly less attractive father who, at six feet two, towered over his plump but attractive wife.

“Don’t worry, Mum!” cried Ron, limping out the door.

“Keep them out of trouble, Hermione!” Mrs. Weasley’s called over her shoulder. Hermione’s shoulders sagged. Just once she would like to be assumed to be the life of the party instead of the babysitter.

Part two.

Part three.

Part four.