Stephen Conrad
Bio
I’m a traveler with no destination, a writer who writes because I have no choice. I have a talent for cynicism and nonconformity, I'm lost without them. Live life, don't just pass through. "Buy the ticket, take the ride."
Stories (7)
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Chicago Stories: James 'Jimbo' Dooley
Jim ‘Jimbo’ Dooley was honored and remembered today. He was 51 years young. So, we woke early, got dressed this sunny March Saturday morning only a few weeks before the St. Patrick’s Day holiday, the Chicago Irish holy day and made our way to St Margaret Mary on Chicago’s Northside. That is the way we learned to do it. Be present in one’s life and pay your respects when that time comes. To be part of a man’s sendoff is to know you were part of their life. No matter how big or small a part, you were part of it.
By Stephen Conrad4 years ago in Journal
Chicago Stories: Jeffrey Allen
There was a time in his life when he just a regular normal kid. Or maybe not. But he is pretty sure there was at least a short period of time that things seemed normal. He gets confused. Still, he was more normal than he is today, of this he is certain. But who and what is normal he asks? Who decides? In his experience it’s usually the ones those who claim they are so normal who are the most fucked up. He hasn’t seen it all his life but he has seen a lot, more than most anyone else could ever handle and not want to kill themselves. But the thought used to cross his mind. Not so much anymore. Jeffrey knows normal and abnormal. He doesn’t deny that he has a disease, he readily accepts it, even embraces it. He’s certain most of those he is related to were not normal, at least not the socially acceptable version of normal, a long line of mental illness.
By Stephen Conrad4 years ago in Humans
There Are No Children Here
I used to sweep the floor at night while the big black kid, Red, I think his name was, mopped up behind me. It was always chaos as all the guys banged on their cell doors in fits of rage screaming profanities at one and other for no real reason other than they could. Most times no one took it personally we were all in this together after all, for now. Someday some of us would go home, hopefully, someday.
By Stephen Conrad4 years ago in Criminal
Chicago Stories
To paraphrase one of Chicago’s great writers; Loving Chicago is like loving a woman with a broken nose, you may well find lovelier lovelies. But never a lovely so real. — Nelson Algren, Chicago: City on the Make. I mean that pretty much sums it up right?
By Stephen Conrad4 years ago in Wander
A Little Bit of Zelig
Late nights, Hollywood horror parties and porn star parties, what else can a guy ask for. It’s been, well, it’s been, it’s never been boring that’s for fuckin’ A-sure. I mean hey I might not be Johnny Wads with a pocket full of cash, but I’ve sure lived like it at times. Yep, I’ve had a bulge in my pants with forty large in my pocket. But forty stacks’ cash, cold and hard. Then, I’ve had nothing, zip, zilch, nada, living off of 50 cent Whoppers at Burger King on the Sunset strip. What was that Wimpy used to say to Popeye? “I will gladly repay you Tuesday for the price of a cheeseburger today.” Haha, yeah been there on that Hollywood Hills trip when suddenly your Armenian landlord shows his unibrow head up on your doorstep, “It’s Tuesday mother fucker bro I come for the rent”. Rent? Who’s got rent money? Been there, not fun crawling out a third story window with nothing between you and the cement sidewalk below except a window ledge covered of pigeon shit. But! I’ve also dined with mayors, mobsters, movie moguls and mad men. I’ve had Filet Mignon with Dustin Hoffman and shared an espresso with Phil Seymour Hoffman. I’ve been in front of the camera trying to make it onto the big screen and I’ve been on camera against a wall, numbers across my chest trying not to be seen. I’ve slept with absolute bat-shit crazy hot women and heart-of-gold honest hookers. I mean shit, I only bring this up to make a point that it’s been real, well, a real blast and I’m only halfway through this shit show of a life. A strange journey its been thus far.
By Stephen Conrad4 years ago in Confessions
Fuck or Fight
It just kind of sneaks up on you like a shadow on glass, there and gone, age and change that is. There really isn’t any warning. It’s just kind of happens while we’re not paying attention. We’re usually too busy doing not so important things to realize time is passing us by. I’m pretty sure that aging is the universe’s way of getting even with us for all the aggravation we’ve caused it. Change is its way of shitting on us for having shit all over it. It seems the two like to tag team us while hiding in the same dark recesses of our mind at the most inopportune time. Age and change will steal take whatever it can get, not quite like a gangbang but close enough that you feel as though you’ve been unduly violated when it’s done with you.
By Stephen Conrad4 years ago in Confessions
Once We Were Children
We come and we go and we are who we are, nothing can change this. Fate. That’s what we believed when we were kids if you could call what we were, kids. We quickly learned, there are no children here. Many of us, too many, believed there was only one path that lay in front of us. Sometimes I think none of us were ever really children, the curiosity and amazement of childhood evaded us in the absence of able-bodied parents or positive role models, the lack thereof which caused the streets to step in to raise us. We really thought we knew it all.
By Stephen Conrad5 years ago in Criminal
