Belushi leans forward, his presence suddenly electric with that familiar mix of manic intensity and cosmic clarity. “You’re all sitting here getting poetic about it,” he says, jabbing a finger at the space the Avocado Girl just vacated, “but what we need is to chase this thing down. Make it real. Make it bleed if we have to.”

He’s got that look, the one that always preceded his best work, when comedy became a crowbar to pry open reality’s ribs. “Chicago isn’t just waiting for her – it’s waiting for all of us. The infinite isn’t some abstract concept floating around in coffee steam and neon reflections. It’s right there, in the Berghoff’s basement, in the alleyways behind Second City, in the steel-grey waves crashing against the lake wall at three in the morning.”

“I’ve seen it,” he continues, his eyes burning with that dangerous light that makes everyone lean in despite themselves. “In the moments between the laughs, in the silence after the punchline lands but before the audience remembers to breathe. There are doors everywhere in that city – real doors – and they open to places that would make your theologians and philosophers wet themselves.”

Murray’s watching him now, recognition dawning. Maybe remembering those nights when comedy became something else, something older and wilder, when the laugh was just a way to break reality’s surface tension.

“So we can sit here spinning pretty words about metaphysical whatever,” Belushi stands, throwing down enough cash to cover everyone’s check, “or we can go out there and hunt down the divine like it owes us money. Because it does. It owes all of us.”

The diner suddenly feels too small to contain whatever’s building in his voice.