Page 35 of Blue Umbrella Sky
Billy stood on unsteady newborn-colt legs and said, “Gotta take a whiz.”
“Come right back. Okay?” Joe called after him, the hope in his voice heartbreaking. Almost.
Billy did stop in the men’s room. Fortunately, it had cleared out and the bright lights revealed cigarette butts, toilet paper, a crumpled phone number, and a used condom on the concrete floor. Ah, gay love! So tender, so beautiful.
Billy pissed, proud that all his copious stream went into the urinal and not on his flip-flop-clad feet.
He staggered out into the front part of the bar. Only a handful of guys milled around, hoping, Billy guessed, that slim pickings would lead to their reward. Billy experienced a moment of pathos for these guys, so lonely, really, and hoping to quell that need for company by taking home a stranger. He figured the same scenario was being repeated right now at bars all over the city. Hell, all over the world.
How many of these one-night stands would end up as a meaningful connection? Billy shrugged. The pessimist in him thought not many, but the realist told him that odds were a few guys just might find their Prince Charming, right there in a bar stinking of sweat and beer.
He’d forgotten all about Joe as he headed out into the still-hot night. A guy on the corner, waiting, Billy guessed, for a southbound bus, smiled and gave him the eye. He was cute, couldn’t have been more than twenty-two or twenty-three, with a platinum buzz cut, blue eyes, and clad in denim cutoffs and a red tank.
Kid, you’re barkin’ up the wrong tree.
Now where did I park?
THE FATIGUEreally hit him as he drove north on Ashland Avenue. The euphoria he’d felt up and left, like an inconsiderate trick who dresses and creeps out while you’re asleep.
At this wee small hour of the morning, the thoroughfare was pretty much deserted but still blighted with stop signs at almost every fucking corner.
Suddenly the giddy high brought on by the whiskey and beer had morphed into despair and exhaustion. Billy just wanted to get home, where he could collapse into bed and sleep, perhaps forever. He could visualize the mussed-up pullout sofa bed, his Holy Grail. So what if it smelled like sweat? It was his personal heaven.
He just needed to attain heaven—and fast.
Fortunately, there was a shortcut. Since there was no one around, he didn’t really need to observe all these damn stop signs, plus the occasional roundabouts that went with them. There was nobody out on the road anyway, so what was the harm? Blow right on through ’em!
As he rolled through yet another intersection, his bleary-eyed gaze revealed another car approaching on the opposite side, headed south.Good night, brother. Make it home safely.He gave a little salute toward the headlights as they slowed and passed him.
When he looked in the rearview mirror, though, he saw the car hang a U-turn.
“Shit,” he whispered, when he realized it was one of Chicago’s finest.
The blue-and-white cop car didn’t put on its siren, only its whirling blue lights, but started after Billy. He could almost hear theJawstheme music in his head. “Fuck,” Billy whispered.I can get away. I know these streets like the back of my hand.He made a quick right and headed east for a couple of blocks, then rushed down an alley going south, ignoring potholes, then swerved left to head west on Sherwin Avenue. He did all of this at a speed topping out at close to eighty miles per hour.
He thought he’d lost the cop by the time he pulled up behind his building. There was a parking lot back there with only a few spaces, spaces that required paying rent to use them. But sometimes the renters didn’t come home and the spots were left vacant for the night. Billy saw one of those spots and accepted its emptiness as an invitation.
He allowed himself a little sigh of relief, followed by a shaky snort of nervous laughter.
As Billy pulled into the one open space, thinking he’d rouse himself early and go out and move his car before the towing service the locals referred to as the Lincoln Park Pirates spirited his Pinto away, not one cop car but three pulled in behind, blocking him in. All had their blue lights whirling, along with spotlights, blinding, trained on the Pinto.
“Well, that didn’t last long.” Billy threw the car into Park and then snatched the keys out of the steering column.
Sweat poured down from his hairline and trickled, crawly, down his spine. His heart did the Watusi. He pounded the steering wheel three times, each time saying the word “Fuck.”
He no longer felt drunk. Quite the opposite, in fact—he felt amped, clear-headed. The fight-or-flee mode engaged, despite knowing that neither was an option.
Billy sighed and got out of the car.
The headlights, all facing him, made him squint.What am I supposed to do now? Raise my hands? Get down on all fours?Billy, being mindful to walk in a very straight line, moved to the back of the Pinto. He simply stood there, squinting.
The lights were so bright, he couldn’t really see any of the cops getting out of the cars, though he could hear doors slamming. He wondered for a moment if Jon was looking down from his window at the scene. Wondered if he’d be available to bail him out one more time.
They circled him, black silhouettes against the lights. Somehow, through all his drunken days and nights and ill-advised times behind the wheel, he’d never had a DUI.
He figured his luck was up tonight.So be it. I shouldn’t have taken that first drink. Why did I throw it all away?He shook his head, wondering how the sobriety he’d been so mindful of, so careful about building, had tumbled down, fragile as a house of cards, in the space of only a few hours.How could I be so stupid?
Finally one of the police officers approached. She was close enough that he could get a glimpse of her face—a pleasant one, if not a very happy one. She had dark curly hair, and in a better light, he was pretty sure he’d see blue eyes. South Side Irish, maybe? She was a little hefty, and when she got up next to him, she didn’t wrinkle her nose or anything but raised her eyebrows in a way that reminded him of a mother used to dealing with mischievous children.
