Cantillon wasn't impressed when he checked his bank balance.
Broke. Flat broke. This certainly wasn’t the plan when I boarded that Aer Lingus flight across the Atlantic ocean. I was the man who was going to find a penthouse apartment on the Mag Mile for a hundred bucks a month. I was the man who would be searching the web for Michelin starred restaurants to go to for a cheeky bite. I was the man who would have so much green in my pockets, I’d be asking them to take some back out of pure embarrassment. How wrong I was.
I’m now the man that lives on an airbed in the middle of gangland Chicago, munching on stale bread staring at my dead iPod that I haven’t been able to charge because I lost the adapter and can’t afford to replace it. Something had to change otherwise my next destination was O’Hare airport, a broken man after failing to earn a single dollar for the entirety of my J1 excursion. As the song goes, “I need a dollar, a dollar is all I need”. Well I think it goes like that, I wouldn’t know though, I haven’t had a charged iPod for 2 weeks. Things are getting desperate. Scoring someone from the Hamilton desperate.
If I was ever going to get a job, I would have to think a bit left field. We were basically in the 90th minute here on the financial front and I was at least 4 goals behind. Then like a bolt of lightening it came to me. I’d been turned down for a job as a Rickshaw driver but what about if I became a Rickshaw owner? I couldn’t be turned down for a job if I owned the bloody business! This is perfect, America, home of the entrepreneur. I would be living the American dream. Jack Cantillon, self made man. I could see it all before me. I had, like the typical gobshite, brought with me a Leprechaun hat and an Irish rugby jersey. I’d wear it all over town, maybe even get a tri-colour for the back, a man of the people, pride of Chicago, might even get a medal off the mayor or something, who knows? It would be Cantillon’s Crock of Gold Rickshaw. I would do deals with concierges, give guided tours, maybe even cycle it to the clubs and use it as a chat up line. Girls love rickshaw drivers, right? It’s right up there beside being a Premiership footballer and being in the cast of Twilight. With my noble steed below me I would be irresistible to the opposite sex. A Casanova, moonlighting as a venetian gondolier of love, ferrying you to your destination for a very affordable price. What more could you want?
I scoured the net to begin my rickshaw revolution and found a place where you could rent a rickshaw for a month. Sorted. I would be peddling my way out of this financial fiasco in no time. I’d be buying feckin’ thirty adapters, one for every day I spent cycling towards my own personal crock of gold. Capitalism on wheels. The site only stipulated two criteria: a valid driving license and to pass a knowledge test of the streets of Chicago. A few problems here. First of all, over the years I’ve worked hard to earn the title of “Worst Driver on the Planet”. I’ve been driving two and a half years and have yet to pass my test. Some personal highlights include driving the wrong way around a roundabout, knocking over a petting zoo’s worth of small animals and enduring more scratches to my car than if I took on a ravenous lion, clad in nothing more than raw meat. Essentially, driving is not my strong point. That pales in significance when it comes to my sense of direction. I’d get lost in my own room, let alone one of the biggest cities in the world. I was fecked, although I did have a few aces up my sleeve. My fake driving licence was a full one so I was sorted on that front and I’ve watched Ferris Buller’s Day Off 37 times. I mean, if that doesn’t give me a sense of direction in Chicago, I don’t know what will. Maybe I could pull this off after all?
I arrived at the rental centre (or should I say center) and handed over my fake license and with not a moment’s worry I was on to part number two. I would be out earning my millions in no time at this rate. Could I get reservation for the Trump Towers for this evening? I’m going to be rolling it in before it even reaches midday. Then I was hit with a tonne of bricks. For my Chicago geography test, I was going to be bringing the rental owner around Chicago on MY rickshaw. I thought it would be a written test.
I knew all the streets of Chicago Washington, Wasbah and Wacker like the back of my hand. Okay, they were written on the back of my hand but still. Now I had to pedal the owner of the rental store around Chicago as he watched my every move. I took a deep breath and steadied myself for our trip out to the mean streets of Chi-town. He asked to be brought to Navy Pier. Navy Pier is on the lake, easy, how could I mess this up? I started off well, even got a bit of rapport going with your man. His great grandfather was from Laois.I told him we were basically neighbours, he loved that. I then proceeded to tell him how Kildare bossed them around the park in GAA that Sunday. He didn’t seem to like that as much.
I was powering towards the lake, wind in my hair, getting a serious tan and an even better workout. I mean, if your man was sound and did my washing in the back I would be getting my full recommended daily amount of GTL in one half hour sitting. I could get used to this.
Then, well the inevitable happened. I approached the lights, signaled beautifully and zoomed up the street. The only problem? I was zooming up a one way street. I was made aware of this fact by a symphony of blaring horns and your man screaming in the back. I had to take action so I launched the rickshaw on to pavement (sorry, sidewalk), then I realised it’s illegal to cycle, let alone Rickshaw, on the sidewalk in the city of Chicago. The pedestrians went mental, but I just kept peddling. An important life lesson there, to not deal with your problems but rather continue like nothing happened. Sadly though, my tester was having none of it. He told me to stop the rickshaw immediately. He then proceeded to give me a 30 minute lecture on how I put my own, his and my friend’s lives in danger. I didn’t really get how I put my friends lives in danger, I mean they would have fallen over themselves laughing at the sight of my panic stricken, sunburnt, sweat dripping mug searching desperately for a way not to kill myself. But anyway, this wasn’t exactly the time to be picking holes in his argument. He took the rickshaw and told me to never to darker the door of Rick’s Rickshaw Rentals again. My rickshaw-ful dreams were in tatters and the only reason I would be going to Trump Tower now would be to jump off it. Once more, as any eloquent Irishman worth their salt would say, I was royally banjaxed.
Facing into the reality of not having any source of income for the entire summer, I knew had to get creative with my expenditure as well. The budgeting went as follows: if it’s not free, you can’t do it. Shit is about to get resourceful. I have nothing to do during the day so I went with Tommy, who’s working as a tennis pro, to a massive high-end skyscraper, where he was giving a lesson. This place was unbelievable. Four indoor tennis courts, a huge roof deck, a state of the art gym and even freshly squeezed orange juice waiting for you on your sun lounger when you get tired of swimming in their 25m heated indoor pool.
When we went in the door we said we were here for a lesson and we were told the tennis courts were on the fourth floor. We walked up and something slowly dawned upon us. There was no security whatsoever. The only hurdle we had to cross was a swipe card locked door which was opened so frequently that nobody even needed the card. After we left the lesson, we plotted that we would come back the next day and see if we could get back in with such ease. Without even a word to security we walked directly to the fourth floor and an unsuspecting member duly opened the door for us. This couldn’t be this easy, could it? Turns out it is. I’ve now been availing of freshly pressed orange juice for a month solid. Sometimes people walk up to us for the chats and they usually ask where in the tower we live. This has been overcome with a glance at the old Wikipedia entry for the tower. “Where we do live? Oh, We’re actually on the 43rd floor that offers panoramic views of Lake Michigan intertwined with state of art of the condominium living”. Well, not as sad as that, but you get the picture and it works every time. I may not have a cent to my name but this place makes me feel like some kind of Irish Internet genius who made it big aged 19 and decided to retire to enjoy this opulent luxury. It’s unbelievable. So where is this heavenly tower, where myself, Tommy and Rob are living it up daily? Sorry, I wouldn’t tell you for all the freshly pressed OJ in the world.
Despite having no money, no source of income and a full overdraft limit the tower has kinda convinced me I’m reading my back account in error so having bought U2 tickets before getting out here, I didn’t do the sensible thing and sell them but went to what turned out to be the best concert I’ve ever been to. The best part? Being Irish. On the way in there was a group of girls and the hottest one was the driver. We walked straight over. “I don’t know what it is but you look like a Virgo”. She was dazzled “OMG, I am a Virgo” what she doesn’t know is that it’s a world famous J1er trick. You see, American cars have the month of birth as the first number of the car reg but for some reason the American themselves don’t know this, but boy do the Irish. She thought we were the best thing since sliced bread. Now we may have told her we were Bono’s little brother’s best friends and that we were heading backstage to wish the “lads” good luck but we still departed with their numbers and with the words that “OMG, we just have to hang out after”. By the end of the night we had a phonebook worth of numbers, all because we were friends with Bono’s little bro. Bono doesn’t have a little bro by the way but please don’t go telling Chicago that. I even changed my Facebook details to read that I went to Mount Temple for a period when a blast of them added me the next morning. ” Of course, I went to the same school as Bono, I mean, to be honest, he’s always been like a big brother to me as well”. I’m a horrible human being.
We target American girls but in the last few weeks we’ve found a new pursuit: the Irish “Shift-board” girls. These girls have attained legendary status in the Windy City. The legend goes, they have a shift board which details every boy they have kissed throughout the entirety of their J1. Every lad in Chicago are trying to find them as seemingly they will shift anything with a pulse. We’ve spent many a night getting all Sherlock Holmes, looking for clues of where they might be. Discarded Four Loko cans, flashes of cameras to confirm the shift has been secured and the use of code names are all trademarks of the group. We eventually learned that some of their names such as Kezza, Kazza, Clojobs, GAA lover and Niamh (she didn’t bother with a nickname for some reason). We searched the city high and low for them but to no avail. Then when at a house party there was a group of girls in corner giggling over a notebook, drinking Four Loko like it was going out of fashion. Later, I pulled one of them aside and asked them the fateful question, “Are you the girls I think you are”. “Maybe” she replied with a wink. Put it this way, it was a fun night.
Not a getting a job was killing me though and despite all my high jinks, to be honest, my J1 dream was over. I had no money and no chance of getting anymore. I couldn’t afford to pay rent anymore, let alone pay for food. I loved Chicago and was devastated I would be going home a kind of a failure. How the hell would I explain how I didn’t even manage to earn a single cent? Then, I was on the net looking at flights to get home this weekend when my phone rang and I was greeted by a southern drawl the other end. “Jack, I think I might have something you’re interested in”. Stop the presses, this kid is back in business. I’m off to Kentucky and this J1 summer is only just beginning. “I’ve got a dollar, a dollar is what I’m getting.”
