Deep Shit
Early summer 1985 (approximate)
Lakeview, Chicago, Illinois
I was 12 years old living in the Lakeview neighborhood of Chicago with my grandma on Wellington Street. My best friend at the time was a kid named Danny. We both entertained ideas of being adventurers in our lives and came up with crazy plans on a regular basis, like sneaking out of our houses in the middle of the night dressed in ninja outfits, then creeping around together, hopping fences while looking out for dogs, or stealthily following people traveling through our neighborhood late at night.
One day, I came up with the notion of adventuring down into the sewer system with Danny. There was a pretty big one out in front of my house that led down to the river (we imagined). I talked him into the idea, which was relatively easy. I just had to assure him we’d be safe from the toxic sewage by wrapping our legs up with shopping bags. Luckily, I thought to bring an old detached broom handle as a walking pole as well.
We decided first to follow the sewer caps just to make sure the system continued as we thought, west towards the river. We confirmed it went further than we were willing to walk and headed back east past my house to find a good entry point along Wellington Street.
About three blocks east of my house was a good place, right in front of what used to be a factory, just after the viaducts and before the supermarket. We could see the cars coming, which gave us enough time to open the sewer cap, climb in and close it behind us.
After we rubber-banded a bunch of shopping bags to our legs we headed toward the sewer cap that would be the beginning of our adventure. I imagined myself a hippie urban version of Huckleberry Finn. I had to go first; it was my idea after all. It took all of my strength to remove the cap and I had to run off the street once it was opened to avoid detection by cars coming down the one-way street.
After climbing down the surprisingly strong metal ladder and sliding the sewer cap, which was heavier than we anticipated, over our heads, sealing our fate, we saw that the sewer tunnel was as wide as the street above, plenty of room for us to walk through side by side.
The water level was down around our ankles, which was easy to walk through. Danny was a little freaked out by the idea that we were surrounded by shit. I don’t know why it didn’t bother me, but it didn’t. The smell was artificial, like the blue toilet fresheners in every middle-class home at the time, which is probably exactly where it came from.
We had marked the sewer cap in front of my house with a red ribbon, so we’d know when we reached home. It was several caps from where we entered. Outside of the occasional spike of adrenaline from a floaty we noticed along the way, the intensity of our initial descent was wearing off. Our eyes had adjusted to the light coming down through the caps overhead, and by the time we made it to below where my house was, we felt like old hats at this adventure.
A few more blocks along and things got interesting. We started to walk with me in front and Danny behind, thankfully. I was feeling along the “floor” with the broom handle I brought and we were making good progress, when all of a sudden I no longer felt ground in front and to the right of where I was walking.
I put my arm out and stopped Danny from going forward just in time. I began to probe more with my pole. He asked me what was going on and I explained that the floor seemed to drop away to the right. In the dim light we could barely make out a depression in the water, where it seemed to be flowing down and out. It was hard to see, there was water all around it, and the ground picked up again a step beyond. I reached down into the emptiness with my pole as far as I could underwater and still couldn’t find a bottom.
We decided to double back and mark the sewer cap before the depression, then carefully made our way around the drop-off and marked the sewer cap after it as well so we could come back later, from up above, and see what it was. In the spirit of adventure we decided to continue on and see where the tunnel led us.
After what seemed like forever we came to a large opening. There was a vertical shaft ahead of us where four tunnels all came together and poured into it. The water was strong and abundant, creating waterfalls where each met the shaft. There was also a ledge that connected each of the branches along the edge of the shaft. We went to the left side to inspect the ledge and found a makeshift camp.
Someone had set up a grill and used the ledge as a place to spend time. It looked abandoned, but used more than once, so we couldn’t be sure. Then suddenly, rather than rats and turds being our biggest issues, we started to think about what it would mean if whoever it was came back. The kind of place 1985 Chicago was, we didn’t want to meet him down there lest we end up being floaties ourselves.
Along a far wall there was tagging, a few unknown people letting us know they had been there too. We looked to see if there was any way up, but couldn’t find one. Each tunnel leading away looked just like the one we'd come from. It would have been easy to get lost in there.
The conjunction of the tunnels seemed like a good place for us to call it a day and head back. Unfortunately, we hadn’t seen a sewer cap for a while so had no way to mark where we were in the line. Was the river right past where we stopped? Who knew, but we sure did wonder.
As we were heading back the water level started to rise. It hadn’t rained. I figured maybe people were getting home from work and showering or something. Ultimately, I never figured out where it all came from. Since we had marked the sewer caps on each side of the drop-off, we knew it was coming up when we got closer to it. The level rose quicker than we anticipated, and the shopping bags on our legs began to fill. Rather than protecting us from the muck, we found ourselves carrying it around with us in flimsy plastic bags, rubber-banded up like weights attached to our legs.
By the time we got around the drop-off, the water was moving faster and was up to our waists. Danny started getting scared about getting stuck down there and, to be honest, so was I. He was talking about going up at the next sewer cap, but I talked him into going back to where we came down. I was still afraid of coming up in the wrong place just a little more than drowning.
By the time we got back to the place where we entered the sewer we were exhausted from fighting the flow of the water. He volunteered me to go first, which I did. We both climbed up the ladder to get out of the water.
As I got to the top, I pushed the sewer cap to the side just as a car went right overhead scaring the crap out of me (not literally). Eventually I braved a peek up and nearly got my head knocked off by another car going by. I peeked again and the coast was clear. Danny and I scrambled up as quick as the sewage-bloated shopping bags would allow our legs to carry us.
Once out of the sewer I saw that the last car that almost took my head off had pulled over to the side of the street. The man who was driving it stared daggers at me out his window and said, “Son, there are two kinds of assholes in this world, ones that can’t help it, and stupid asses. Which do you think you are?”
I responded questioningly, “Stupid ass?”
He said, “Right you are, don’t do that shit again,” and pulled away with his wheels screeching as he took off.
After we pulled the sewage-lined shopping bags off our legs, Danny and I went our separate ways, hoping to wash the crap off ourselves and shake off the tremors that had grabbed both of us on our ascent.
We never did find the chamber of waterfalls. We did look. Down by the river there was a place covered over in cement, but with no markers we could only guess that it might be it.
It was a week before we decided to find where the drop-off had been. When we found it, we were doubly grateful for the pole I had brought along. There was a steel grate as wide as a city street laid across a silo of cement. Water shot in from our sewer on one side, smashed against the far wall, then plunged a hundred feet or more into unseen depths.
If we had fallen through that hole, we would have been sucked through god knows how much water, slammed into a concrete wall, and then dropped a hundred feet or more into who knows what.
We talked about it for a while after but never had the desire to go back down there, especially when there were plenty of other adventures to have. We are lucky to be alive. I wish I could say that is when I stopped being a stupid ass, but it would be years later before that happened.