I WENT OUT.
I drove slowly, in no particular direction at first. Then I went to a part of the near south side that I know well and I did the alleys and the one-ways till even my paranoid self was pretty sure no one was following me.
Unless they had tagged my car electronically.
But they wouldn't have electronic tags.
Would they?
I popped out onto Kentucky Avenue and went southwest till I found a shopping mall. In it was a steak house.
I could nurse a meal for a while.
I parked in a cluster of cars. But when I walked toward the restaurant I saw a public phone on the wall between a drugstore and a chiropractic clinic and I realized I wanted the telephone more than any damn food.
I fumbled for quarters and called my woman.
She was not at home. Then I remembered she wasn't going to be there but I couldn't remember why.
I went into the steak house, took a tray and ordered a coffee.
“Coffee? That's all?” a fat cracker in red and white stripes asked me.
I said, “Uh, no. Give me a baked potato and a tossed salad.”
“Hey, fella, y'know you're in the wrong place if you're a fuckin' vegetarian.”
I stood back. I looked at him as he looked at me with insouciant pleasure from having so easily identified someone “different.”
“Somethin' up your nose, fella?”
“You're right,” I said. “I think maybe I am in the wrong place.”
I left.
I followed the mall sidewalk back to the drugstore and I tracked around the aisles for a while.
When I got to the Indy 500 decorations I stopped.
Suddenly I wanted to talk to my kid.
But I knew what she would say. She would have me up to my neck in Bomber Animals and masks and funny voices and she would laugh all the way. An action-junkie, my kid. A quiet evening at home was practice for the grave as far as she was concerned.
I smiled. I laughed for a moment.
My little girl, little absent girl.
A woman nearby in a sepia satin jacket didn't know I was smiling for the kid.
She thought I was working up to making a pass. So she said, “Dream off, sucker.”
“What?”
“No way, old-timer,” she said. She picked up a 500 Party Pack and six checkered flags and walked away.
It seemed appropriate to move in the opposite direction.
I found myself channeled toward the checkout. I picked up a chocolate bar. I paid cash.
Outside I walked back to the telephone. I called the number at Cab-Co. I said, “Nature green in tooth and claw.” I hung up.
I looked around, suddenly aware that my phone conversation would sound one shrimp short of a cocktail if anyone was listening. I was afraid that sepia-satin-jacket-woman was stalking me with a white net.
But I was alone.
I stood for several seconds while my heart slowed and then I walked back to my car and got in.
Looking for my keys I found the chocolate bar. I unwrapped it without tearing the paper and then took a little bite.
I turned the radio on for company. A D.J. tried to sell me chain pizza, so I turned the sound down till I couldn't distinguish the words.
I let the chocolate dissolve.
Some music began. I turned the sound up and hummed along.
I bit again.
I had half the bar left when the cops came.
The first car squealed in. It was followed by two others as quickly as flies follow shit.
My windshield was a TV set. I watched the patrolmen congregate by the phone. One of them opened a package and took from it the tape they use to mark a restricted area.
A fourth car pulled up and didn't bother to park neatly, so I had to go the long way around to the mall exit when I decided to change channels.
The first cop had arrived four and a half minutes after I made the call.