Nemesis

He turned his collar up and walked down the street. A gusty fall wind was stirring the leaves and making a harsh whisper through the dead limbs of the trees. It was almost dark.

They lived on Chicago’s North Side in a neighborhood that had once been very good, but it had slipped down in the Thirties and now it was about half-and-half. Cafes, apartment houses, great, sleepy mansions and the red neon signs of cheap bars winking everywhere.

He headed for one of these bars, but at the first intersection a cruising cab driver saw him and stopped. The cabby opened the back door and stuck his head out.

“Cab?”

“No, I’m just—,” he stopped. The door was open and he changed his mind. “Yes,” he said, and stepped in, slamming the door shut behind him.

The driver put the cab in gear and then looked around.

“Where to?” He was a cynical looking young man, with sharp, hard features and a cigarette hanging loosely from his mouth.

Larry didn’t want the cab in the first place and he didn’t have any idea of where he wanted to go. He would have liked to climb out again, but he didn’t want to look foolish.

“I don’t know,” he said, and then irritated by the driver’s expression, he said, “make it the Loop.”

“Anywhere in particular?”

“No just drop me down town.”

Most of the traffic at this hour was headed the other direction. The Outer Drive was closed during the rush hour so the cabby used Clark street.

Larry lit another cigarette and wondered why he had decided to go down to the Loop. No reason at all. He spent five days a week there and that was plenty.

He was worrying about Fran now. He wondered if she had discovered he had gone and what she was thinking about. Probably she’d run into his arms when he came back, and that would be the time for him to say all the right things. He wasn’t feeling so masterful now. He was feeling a little like a heel. He had wanted to teach her a lesson, but now that seemed pretty small.

Any guy could worry his wife by barging out of the house without any explanation. A woman couldn’t do that herself, and she couldn’t follow him. All she could do was sit there and stew. Probably torture herself imagining that he’d been hit by a truck or something.

The cab stopped at Madison and Clark and the meter registered fifty cents.

The driver said, “This all right?”

“Fine,” Larry said.

If the driver hadn’t been such a wise looking guy Larry would have told him to take him back home, but he didn’t want to act like a fool.

“This is okay,” he said coolly.

He paid the fare and got out. The lights were on in the Loop and there was loud blaring music coming from loudspeakers in front of the bars and cafes. Although it was a little past the rush hour, and not quite the time for the evening jam the streets were crowded.

Larry walked West on Madison street, with no particular destination in mind. He was ready to go home, but he was not feeling the same remorse he had in the cab. The crowds and the music cheered him up a little, and he decided to have at least one drink.

He turned into a bar and ordered a straight bourbon. He found a foot of space between two sailors and a tired looking old man and lit a cigarette. He drank the drink and listened to the noise coming from a three-piece orchestra. The sailors were talking about a girl they had met that afternoon, and the old man just stared at himself in the mirror above the bar.

He stayed long enough to learn that the sailors thought the girl was a two-timing wench and then he picked up his change and left.

Outside again in the crowd he walked West. The drink settled comfortably on the dinner that had started all the trouble and he felt fairly complacent. One more drink, maybe two, and he’d look for a cab.

He crossed the bridge and continued past the gloomy bulk of Northwestern station. The opposite side of Canal street was honkey-tonk neighborhood. There were garishly lighted dance halls, burlesque shows and the men were too-well dressed and the women wore too much make-up.

He passed a bar called the Pink Giraffe and then his eye was caught by a blinking neon sign which simulated the antics of a balking donkey. Underneath was a bright, foot-high string of letters that spelled out the words, The Kicking Horse.

There was music coming from inside. It was loud blatant music, but Larry went in anyway. The door opened on a narrow, carpeted corridor. There were restrooms on one side, a hat-check booth on the other. The hat-check girl was a redhead and the mascara made her eyes look purple. She was wearing a jockey’s cap, a white silk blouse that was two sizes too small, and red silk shorts.

She took Larry’s hat and topcoat and gave him back a brass check and a bright, mechanical smile.

He followed the corridor to double glass doors, pushed them open and walked into the main room of the Kicking Horse.