Billy Connolly's Route 66_ The Big Yin on the Ultimate American Road Trip - Billy Connolly [18]
That evening, I was especially glad when we finished because it was bloody freezing, so much so that I went out and bought some thermals afterwards. Something weird was happening to the weather in the Midwest of America in late April 2011. To the east, west and north of us there were typhoons, hurricanes and probably fucking tsunamis by the dozen. I had no idea what was going on, but it did occur to me that it might be the end of the world.
The next day I was back at the corner of Adams and Michigan, now dressed in my leather jacket and leather chaps, with a nice big crutch cut out of them – just what I needed to let in the freezing-cold air. I pulled on my helmet and threw a double-six to start.
Leaving early in the morning, I didn’t need to be told it was a Sunday – it’s a strange day all over the world. I’ve got a theory that if you were unconscious in a coma for twenty years and you suddenly woke up, you might not know where you were, but you would know if it was a Sunday. It’s got a particular vibe to it, just like Friday night – my personal favourite. I think that Friday night feeling comes from the days when I had my welder’s wages in my back pocket, all aftershave and shoeshine, going dancing at the end of the week at the Barrowland or the Dennistoun Palais in Palermo shoes with inch-vents on the jacket and sixteen-inch drainpipe trousers. Happy days.
Riding off on the magic trike to the sound of a busker playing a saxophone – of all things, it sounded like ‘Careless Whisper’ by George Michael – we soon left Millennium Park and the Art Institute of Chicago behind us. I’d wanted to pop into the Institute to see a specific painting, Grant Wood’s ‘American Gothic’ – the one with the guy in his overalls holding a pitchfork, standing next to his daughter. But we never made it, mainly because of all that weird weather. And it was still weird now – we were heading straight towards tornadoes. I dearly hoped we wouldn’t run into one. I’d seen a tornado once before, and it was more than enough to last me the rest of my life.
A Royal Route
I was travelling light. My golden rule for any trip is to clear out my mind before I leave home. Empty it so that it’s wide open to every experience during the journey. It’s like travelling with an empty suitcase that I can fill with things I find along the way. I don’t understand why anyone would want to gather up all the things that surround them at home – pictures and mementoes and life’s little luxuries – and take them on the road with them. The only things from home that are essential to me are my banjo and an iPod packed with banjo music that I listen to when I’m on my trike.
Riding through the centre of Chicago, almost every time I stopped someone called out to me, like the taxi driver who wanted to know what I was riding. ‘It’s a trike,’ I said. Then a young lad on a skinny bike remarked on the quietness of my engine. ‘It’s got four cylinders,’ I replied. This makes it a lot quieter than the single-and twin-cylinder Harley-Davidsons that usually cruise the streets.
A woman crossing the road yelled, ‘Hey, Billy!’ I nodded and smiled at her. ‘What are you doing here?’ she asked as she whipped out a camera and took my picture.
‘We’re making a film about Route 66. That’s why I’m in Chicago.’
It was nice to be recognised by fans and passers-by. It made me feel all famous and warm and cuddly.
At the end of the block I passed under one of the most iconic sights in Chicago – the cast-iron legs of the elevated train system. Or the ‘El’, as Chicagoans call it. Nelson Algren, the novelist who wrote The Man with the Golden Arm, called it Chicago’s rusty iron heart. It works like a subway system, transporting people far away from the traffic of cars, buses and trucks on the roads, but it’s above the ground rather than below. I think it’s absolutely beautiful. It’s like the Forth Bridge