Maria and José were cold, confused and exhausted when they got off the bus.
It was a mild December night for Chicago but still quite a bit cooler than their small town In Venezuela.
On the ride, the body heat from the scores of other migrants jammed on the bus helped keep them warm — certainly warmer than the treatment they’d experienced in Texas.
They were also frightened.
Maria was pregnant. And José was still trying to make sense of it all. The forced bus trip to Chicago was just the latest of their surprises.
In Chicago, they wound up settling in on the floor of a police station. José asked some of the officers if there was room at any of the nearby inns. All he got were polite smiles, a few chuckles and harried shrugs.
Volunteers soon arrived, doing their best to shepherd the flock of new arrivals.
José and Maria asked a couple of them where they would wind up, but, like the police officers, no one could give any answers.
A few days later, some reporters and photographers visited. Maria’s condition caught their eye. But once she told them about the origin of her pregnancy, most smiled compassionately and quickly walked away.
The mayor strode in next. José asked him where they were headed, and the mayor spoke enthusiastically of a tent city that he was building a few miles away. To José, it sounded better suited to Caracas than Chicago, but it would probably still be a step up from the cold floor of the police station.
A few days later, Maria and José found themselves in a shelter on Halsted Street in Pilsen. It was more comfortable than the police station but still no place for a family. Maria asked about prenatal care, and she was told some basic health care would be available later in the week, but only for a few hours, so there was no guarantee that Maria would get seen.
It turned out Maria couldn’t wait. She went into labor the next day. The people running the shelter were able to get her to Cook County Hospital, where she soon gave birth to a boy.
Maria told them she was naming him Jesus. A clerk wrote it “Hey-Zeus” on the card on the crib in the room where they sent the babies.
For a brief spell, Maria and José suddenly became very popular. The mayor, governor and Cook County Board president all wisely came to visit, bearing practical gifts: blankets, baby bottles and a gift card for Target.
But none of them could offer any solid details on where the family would live. José asked about that tent city, but the mayor only shot a glare at the governor and said nothing.
The reporters also showed up at the hospital, including one Maria remembered from the police station. He didn’t ask any questions this time, just standing by quietly while a photographer took photos of the new migrant family.
I’d like to say the photos ran on the front page of the Chicago Sun-Times, and donations, supplies and help flooded in for the three of them.
But, of course, this is a fable, fiction. This version is anyway, not the underlying 2,000-year-old story. You can make up your own minds on that one.
I offer my apologies to Mike Royko, the legendary Chicago Daily News and Sun-Times columnist whose original 1966 update on Mary and Joe obviously inspired my own ham-handed attempt to pull the story into our times.
Of course, somebody also owes an apology to Maria and José and everyone else stuffed onto those buses in Texas.
And apologies should also probably go to all the long-suffering Chicagoans who are being forced to handle problems caused by the inaction, stunts, gamesmanship and other assorted failures of politicians at all levels of government.
As for that little son of Maria and José, probably no need to apologize to him.
Sadly, he will likely need to get used to what he has to say being ignored, misinterpreted or lied about.
But maybe not.
Luckily, we still have time. A new year lies ahead. It’s a long shot, but maybe everyone can put aside their differences and figure out a better way.
After all, you never know who might be on those buses.
Scott Fornek is a former Sun-Times political editor and is now an assistant news editor at the newspaper.
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