Jaime Verdugo

I met Jaime (he is of Mexican extract, so his name is pronounced ‘Haime’ because ‘J’ is ‘H’ in Spanish) at Shakespeare and Company in 2000. He was broke with no place else to go and asked George to stay and was allowed two weeks at the bookstore. I am exceedingly happy to have met him.

Jaime has lived in big cities. New York, Mexico City, Los Angeles, detours through Paris, Amsterdam and Austin, and now Chicago. He is one of those people who definitely has a file at some government agency, either through his work with indymedia.org or just his general subversive ways. He writes too, which you can experience for yourself here.

Jaime moved to Chicago three months ago and still has nothing in his apartment. When I say nothing, I am barely exaggerating. He has a bed roll, two guitars, some books and CDs. But no furniture, no wall art, no plants, a starkly empty fridge. The lack of comforts makes everything seem a little more real. If you are poor and rootless and new to a city, why bother to pretend otherwise?