After Michael Jackson died on June 25, 2009, his music dominated my airspace for days. It seemed like all the car owners in town had come to some formal agreement that they must all blast Jackson’s songs from their radios, or else face some sort of soul-deficit tax.
At 3:15 PM, Lazarus picks me up at the northwest corner of Ashland and Chicago with Led Zeppelin’s “Black Dog” blasting and a carful of random objects: orange flags that say “MJ,” temporary paint markers, dried apricots, bottled water. And then there’s the homemade radio station, built by a friend from a transmitter, an amplifier, and what Lazarus describes as “some kind of voltage meter.” It’s ten watts strong, enough to cover a four- or five-block radius. Lee, who’s riding shotgun, holds a megaphone. I climb in the backseat.
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At 4:45 we park at an athletic complex. Near the car, a broken toy football lies on the pavement. It seems like a metaphor for something, probably Gary.
Half an hour later the ride kicks off. We hit the road blasting “Working Day and Night,” from Off the Wall. The radio works! In the car ahead, a caravanista sticks a glitter-gloved hand out the sunroof, eliciting honks of approval from cars coming in the opposite direction. At red lights, families at rest on their front stoops get up and move toward the procession, smiling and waving.
On the sidewalk, one young guy after another busts into a dance routine. By the Salvatore Ferragamo store, a fellow in a Pirates baseball cap with a string of rosary beads around his neck runs up to my rolled-down window and performs a short Jackson-flavored show while his friend doubles over laughing.
11:30 PM: We’re at the Aldi parking lot in Bucktown, the finish line. Somebody breaks out some sparklers. At this point, I’m getting a bit tired of Michael Jackson’s music and wonder if anyone else shares the sentiment. But asking seems like it would be sacrilegious. I find Lazarus by his car, smoking a cigarette and watching the last flickers of his creation burn out. He looks tired but his eyes are twinkling. “It all worked out!” he says with relief. “I wonder what Michael Jackson would have thought about all this.”
