Chicago Speak

I moved to Chicago after law school. Three small towns in Indiana had prepared for driving on back roads and smiling at strangers, but not for living and working in downtown Chicago.

A woman I worked with was always saying things that made me feel like I was living inside a sitcom.

"Dis weekend I went to my Ma's house," she'd say.

"You call your mom Ma?"

"Yeah." Puzzled look. "So what."

"I've just never met anyone who called their mother Ma," I'd say. "What do you call your dad? Pa? Like on Little House on the Prairie?"

"No, genius. He's my Pops."

"Interesting." I'd nod. She'd shake her head and walk away. She was not impressed with me. At all.

I never did replace my TH sounds with D's, never became a person who lived in Sha-CAW-go and went to da store on dis street over dere. But I got used to hearing it. And after a while, I stopped asking follow-up questions people didn't want to answer.

My first book (the editing of which I may in fact never finish) takes our investigators to a parish in Chicago to talk to a priest about what he remembers. It was nice to be able to pull from my own experience to inform his voice. Da priest is actually very funny.