Kate Zambreno

Code Orange

We were tense and poised for something to happen, but this is not what we expected. The story has saturated our collective consciousness by now, or at least the final horrific climax of the tragic drama that began Monday around 2am, the narrative of which is still unfolding. It's hard not to read into the hysteria that must have hit as the toxic fumes began to cloud the clubgoers' lungs at the Epitome/E2 nightclub as the ultimate lesson against all of these terrorist warnings. That's the first question that was asked and immediately shot down: "Was it terrorist related?"

The Media Circus

Hours after reports of twenty-one dead, many more wounded in a stampede at the E2 nightclub at 2347 South Michigan Avenue, reporters, policemen and fire fighters swarm the scene. The nightclub that has played host to 50 Cent and R. Kelly, as well as the local alderwoman, is encircled with yellow police tape. There's a makeshift memorial set up. Reporters with notepads and microphones crowd around when a mourner approaches with a flower, nudging each other, coming in close for the shot. It's difficult to piece together the rumors swirling around the limited known facts. Were there pregnant women? Did the DJ make a joke about spraying Mace before or after the fight? Were the other doors locked? Did the security guards lock the doors? Were the bodies found at the door? Did one of the doors have to be sledge-hammered open? Did one of the girls pull a box cutter? Was someone put in a body bag while alive? The media sideshow idles in speculation. Across the street TV reporters stand on crates and deliver somber updates from that morning's press conference. Fire engines pull up to the scene. Investigators go in and out of the club. There's talk that the doors in the back of the alley are the ones that were locked. An undercover police car surveying the area honks at those who try to snoop back there. One of the neighbors of the next-door building tells reporters that he and those in his building have written letters of complaint to the mayor and the aldermen about the noise level at the club. Two men in leather jackets clasp each other, shaking with tears. The cameras zoom in closer, closer, closer.

Press Conference

Another press conference is scheduled for 3:30pm. At the 911 Emergency Center, city officials keep the media waiting for almost an hour. The broadcasters, in pressed suits and their most dapper winter wear, practice their speeches while others seek updates from fellow reporters on cell phones. Someone brings out a modest visual aid of the diagram of the second floor of the club, showing in fact that there were three exits. Finally, they come out, eight of them, Police Commissioner Terry Hillard, Fire Commissioner James Joyce and other less prominent public figures. The mayor, mourning the loss of his mother, is not present. More facts are known, all but one victim has been identified, a criminal case is being made. Although one of the doors was possibly blocked by bags of laundry--early reports had stated that all other exits were locked--that was not the reason why people rushed towards the direction they entered. "It's a natural tendency for people to try and exit the way they came in," says Joyce. The conference is short and everyone packs up and heads back to the scene.

The Ministers Rush In

The presence of the two celebrity ministers--Jesse Jackson and Al Sharpton--seems to signify that this is indeed a tragedy on a national scale, as if God's spokesmen are here. Sharpton, the presidential candidate, leads a prayer vigil at the nightclub at 5pm. Black overcoats surround the man with the booming voice, his face looking creased and sad, hat off revealing his long braids. A prayer circle surrounds them, palms turned upward, eyes down. A row of boxy, elephantine TV trucks with their crews watch across the street. Boom microphones fit into the center, just off to the side of the now-growing memorial of roses and carnations and enough pastel teddy bears to cover a child's bed. There's talk of the African-American community, of funeral plans and how neighborhood businesses are helping their own. A woman collapses and the group catches her; the cameras move in closer. To this group of fervent mourners the club-goers that perished were still children, they were their children, all of them. There's a rising of husky, almost reluctant "Amens" and Sharpton is hurried across the street with his entourage, declining any interviews. Some of the mourners stay and reporters whip from group to group to trace the degrees of separation from the victims. "It's time to step up if the city knew about this place and they didn't do nothing," cries one stunned woman. "Maybe we need a new mayor." Who is that? "Her name is Aubrey Le Graw," says the reporter who interviewed her. "Her cousin just died." He points out her name written on a crude cardboard poster that says "To the lives lost in sudden horrific tragedy. 2/17/03 will NOT be forgotten. The truth will come out!" Her name was Atoya. A Baptist minister drops the word "murder" in an interview. He clarifies. "Certainly people being trampled upon takes you to that point."

The Media Coverage

Awaiting the press conference, a Tribune Company reporter sketches out a plan for the evening news: "Grieving family, sound bite, prayer vigil, sound bite, grieving family, sound bite, investigation continues, etc., etc., sound bite." The 10 o'clock news sticks to the script. From channel to channel one central image flickers, of people being pressed up against the glass, trapped alive, gruesome visuals. (Someone quoted in the next day's papers will compare it to the Holocaust.) On the national news, only the East Coast blizzard beat out the story. The "Nightclub disaster," as it is billed, dominates the local coverage, overshadowing the death of "Sis" Daley, the "matriarch" of Chicago mayors, and even the climax of "Joe Millionaire." Channel 2 shows a recorder playing an urgent voicemail by someone inside the club, a tactic reminiscent of the cell-phone messages from 9/11. The next voicemail all you can hear is pure pandemonium.

Early reports of 1500 people packed into an upstairs club like sardines have been reduced to 500 people, but this revision is neither explained nor put into perspective. It's not that unusual for 500 people--or more--to frequent a nightclub in the city. ("Overcapacity has always been a problem," crowd-safety expert Paul Wertheimer tells Newcity. "People know it, club owners know it, everyone knows it. The city is not paying attention. It was not as if they were not aware of these problems. It's a game of Russian roulette. Something will happen.")

Early the next day, Jesse Jackson and more survivors make the rounds on early-morning news programs. The Reverend is also interviewed later on a call-in program on WGCI. "I think the club will be stigmatized and closed. It's kind of like a haunted house now," he says. Headlines from the day's newspapers underscore who's being targeted in this blame game. "DEATH CLUB WAS ILLEGAL" screams the Sun-Times. The club owners are instantly demonized, although no one answers the question why the city didn't simply shut down the doors of E2 if they knew it posed such an immediate threat. Nor does anyone answer how the city could not have known that this club featured many popular dance nights that were hosted by radio stations on the upstairs floor.

By now, the arc of the story--from the city, from the media--is clear. This is no freakish accident, no confluence of unfortunate bad decisions. The club is at fault. Comparisons point to the 1903 Iroquois Theater disaster, where a death trap was caused when doors were locked, and the 1990 Happyland inferno at a Latin club in Brooklyn that killed 87. The number of outstanding building-code violations is systematically reported, without any explanation as to what those violations are, or if they even relate to the nature of the tragedy. "I think if it was a non-black-owned business the rush to judgment and the criminal proceedings would not have moved so quickly," says Najee Ali, director of the Chicago chapter of Project Islamic Hope. From the media's perspective, this obviously could not have happened on, say, Rush Street. A reporter for Channel 2 interviews the owner of Jilly's Retro Bistro about the security precautions the swanky venue routinely takes, as a law abiding predominantly white North Side counter to its "ghetto" twin on the South Side. Never mind that in reality, the Epitome restaurant below the club was fairly swanky itself, serving up steak and seafood.

Not Black and White

The racial subtext is hard to ignore throughout the day. "It's gang night," a photographer who lives next door to the club in the rapidly gentrifying area says of the Sunday night events. This harsh picture jars with the obituaries of the victims in the next day's papers, portrayed as middle-class young people in college or with jobs and children. Later at the press conference a network cameraman refers to E2 as "thugged out." "It's all those hip-hop clubs, buying Dom Perignon with drug money," he says, chewing the fat with his buddies. None of them have actually been to this club. It's a perverse version of the "slutty clothes incite rape" argument. Much is made in the media of the Mike Tyson factor, namely that it was at one of the many permutations of the controversial club (back when it was Clique) that the thuggish boxer assaulted a young woman. Never mind that the celebrated Tyson would have been welcomed into any nightclub in Chicago in those days; his image now serves the media as an effective shorthand for the stereotype of the savage black man, a modern-day "Birth of a Nation" caricature.

A bouncer at a downtown nightclub says that one of the reasons for his club's stringent dress code is to dissuade the kind of "ghetto" crowd that stereotypically spells trouble. No men in large groups, no Starter jackets, no Timberlands. On a Chicago nightlife message board, many chalk up the whole disaster to the fact that it was a "black" club. "Have you ever noticed that this stuff always seems to take place at the places that draw in the `ghetto crowd'," writes one, then references an alleged brawl during the Busta Rhymes show at Chromium last week. "I don't think you would ever see this happen at a lounge such as Moda, or Narcisse, or Domaine. Know why??? Because people are civilized and educated there."

Sidney Ishay, a manager and promoter at Chromium, finds this characterization as dangerous as it is unfair. "This is the mentality that I hate," he says. "We're a Latin club. We've always been a Latin club. You have a fight and all of a sudden it's a ghetto club. You go to White Star, and if there is a fight, it's not labeled as gang warfare or a thug crowd, because it's suburban kids down there. Now because this club's on the South Side, you're going to label it a thug crowd?"

Code Red

Lawsuits have been filed. Criminal charges have been pressed. Funerals are being held. Meanwhile, city nightclubs are bracing for an onslaught of new scrutiny from city inspectors, and fear a new wave of regulations. Iraq and terrorism are reclaiming the airwaves. And no once can escape the culture of fear.

(2003-02-19)

Also by Kate Zambreno

The wait is over
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He's going to get his picture taken at a virtual casting call held simultaneously in seven other U.S. cities for a chance for him and his family to leave all this behind and star in a Hollywood film.
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To own the only Chicago restaurant given a nod by Esquire as one of the twenty best new restaurants in the nation--not to mention its selection by Newcity as Chicago's best new restaurant last year--is more than just beginner's luck.
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Everything 101
I decided to spend a day behind-the-scenes at "Odyssey," in order to soak up some of the studied seriousness, immerse myself in a day spa of theory, maybe leave the experience a little more highbrow in the process.
(2003-01-22)

Doggie smile
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Afterlife, unlisted
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Red Hot
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Bubblicious
(2002-12-26)

The War on Nightlife
(2002-12-12)

Caught on tape
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Being Ira Glass
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Bull masters
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