Wrigleyville is aptly labeled a circus, especially during night games like last month’s matchup with the Mets, when Clark Street hosted a panhandler dressed as a clown, a winged fairy selling Gatorade and Gus Cisneros encased in a hot dog suit.
“Eat me!” Cisneros shouted to a gaggle of twenty-something girls in too-tight Cubs tops. “Eat me!” he said to a Muslim cab driver idling at the curb. “Eat me!” he repeated to a young guy in a yarmulke.
Impersonating sausage is a part-time job for Cisneros. His uniform has a strip of mustard down the front. From an hour before games to an hour after, he can be found in front of The Full Shilling pub, where he shills free franks in an effort to lure patrons to buy 24-ounce cans of Pabst Blue Ribbon.
The hot dog guy poses for countless pictures with young women. He gets heckled by countless drunks. One overzealous, overserved fan put him in a wicked chokehold. The biggest threat was a middle-aged woman who beamed with self-satisfaction after zinging, “Watch your buns, guy!”
It was 90 degrees and Cubs ticketholders brushed against his frayed costume as they strode down the crowded sidewalk. Cisneros’ face, poking out of a hole at the top of the sausage, was sprinkled with sweat, but he continued to chant his “Eat me!” mantra as he rocked from foot to foot, an anthropomorphized hot dog barking outside the circus.
