Mary Susan Littlepage

If you want to extend your middle finger at someone, The Alley, just turning thirty, stays stocked with helpful items. You can dress for hostile success in a leather belt buckle that reads "Bad Motherfucker" and a button-up shirt with a patch that states: "I really don't give a shit." "We try to carry the shit that you can't buy at the mall," sums up Alley owner Mark Thomas.

Top-selling items at The Alley include black leather motorcycle coats, biker wallets and chunky boots. "We are the biggest badasses in the country," Thomas says, noting that the store is a tourist destination that attracts folks from all over the Midwest.

Thomas, a Gary, Indiana native, took over The Alley when the business had been open for a mere six months: The first owner owed him some money, so Thomas traded the debt for the company. So, what was Thomas doing before he ran The Alley? "Making bongs," he says matter-of-factly.

These days, Thomas travels about 100,000 miles around the world every year, scouring Thailand, Indonesia and Europe for quirky items to add to his shop. During our interview he takes a telephone call from someone requesting his presence at a trade show in Hong Kong next July. Thomas isn't going, though. As the boss at The Alley, Thomas likes that he never has to wear a suit and that nobody tells him what to do.

This "my way" rule extends to, well, the highway: Although Thomas drives a pickup truck, over the years he's been known to take the wheel of a few vintage hearses. At first he

got a hearse simply because he needed some wheels, and there isn't much of a resale market for hearses. Plus, Thomas says, "It had a lot of shock value."

Then he spruced up a hearse by painting it with red-orange-yellow flames and The Alley's logo, and when he parked the pimped-out vehicle by The Alley, shock value turned into great advertising.

Like the tricked-out hearse outside, signs inside The Alley aren't typical: One reads, "Holy crap is this stuff cheap" to alert customers to discounted merchandise.

What can we expect from The Alley in the coming years? Thomas says, "It's important to make sure that we exist for the next generation. There needs to be an anti-Christ to Wal-Mart."

The Alley, 3222 North Clark, (773)404-8000.

(2006-06-30)

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