North side on a Saturday night. Might be a three-minute walk to Evanston, but it’s officially Chicago. A forgettable bar and grill serves forgettable food to regulars and passers-through.

Sitting across from each other at a corner booth, a man and woman are scanning the craft beer menu. When they arrived, she guided him through two separate sections of this large establishment, finally insisting they sit in this remote cul-de-sac in the third section.

Her earlier liveliness, he feels, has been gradually evaporating since they got here.

“Whatever you do, don’t order the Brother Goose,” she says, looking at him over her too-large, but somehow appealing, glasses.

“Why? What’s it taste like?”

Her eyes go back to the menu. “Like driving through Gary with your mouth open.”

An audible laugh. “That’s funny.”

“It is. Unless you’re from Gary.”

The beers come. Their food is served. The waiter comes and goes. They talk, but the silences get longer. The cosmic feng shui of the evening continues to be a dying flower, its drooping face heading quickly for the ground and the grave.

“I’m sorry… Jill, I feel like—”

“My name isn’t Jill.”

“But—”

“Just a username. I don’t put my real name on dating sites.”

“Oh. I can understand that.”

“Can you?”

He fumbles for the right thing to say, finds nothing.

“This isn’t working,” she says.

He exhales hard. “No. I guess it isn’t.”

“You were funnier and smarter when we were texting,” she says.

He leans back like he’s taken a slap, closes his eyes for a few seconds, and rubs at his right temple. “I’m sorry—”

“Jesus, will you stop being sorry? It’s sickening.”

“What?” He feels the red blooming on his face.

“Like how you apologized to that asshole who bumped into you when we came in. He bumped into you. He should’ve been apologizing, not you. It’s a sorry-ass way to go through life, being sorry that you take up space.”

His hand goes to his face, fingers shielding his eyes. He’s wishing for the power to will himself out of this moment, into the emotional safety of solitude. Then he takes his hand away, slowly nodding in reluctant acceptance.

“Okay. So maybe I’m a little too… conciliatory. Maybe that’s a character flaw I should work on. I’ve noticed a few things about how you handle yourself that aren’t exactly… desirable traits.”

She takes a chug of beer, puts it back on the table with a little more force than necessary.

“Well, all right. Stand up for yourself, man. Tell me what a shit heel I am. Please. Do something to dim the shine of your halo.”

He leans forward. “I mean, what was the thing you did with our waiter? You insisted he leave that plate on the table, the plate that had three crumbs of bread and a tiny sliver of onion on it that neither of us had any intention of eating.”

She smiles, laughs. “I don’t have to justify what I want to him. I pay him to give me what I want.”

“You enjoyed it. Making him put the plate back for no reason.”

Her smile widens. “I did. Fuck him.”

“Wow.”

“That’s right. You don’t know me, mister suburban ex-husband, father of two. Let me help you. All of your niceness? Your ‘have a great day,’ and ‘thanks so much’ virgin Boy Scout demeanor? It’s repulsive. Your ex-wife probably packed your lunch for you and ironed your shirts. You probably gave her a little peck on the cheek on your way out the door and said, ‘Love you, hon.’ But that’s not who you really are. You don’t even know who that is, you’re so completely buried in the illusion you’re trying to project to the world.”

Now he’s tapping his fingertips on the table, and one knee is bouncing. “Well, you got almost all of that wrong… whatever-your-fucking-name-is.” He jams his cell phone in his pants pocket, lifts his jacket from the bench, pats at it to hear the sound of his car keys jingling, and starts hastily putting on his wool cap.

“You’re leaving?”

She seems annoyed, and this blows his mind.

“You have a better idea?”

“Yes.”

Silence. He pauses his exit, lets the coat slide back down his arm. More silence.

“What? What’s your brilliant idea for how to finish our lovely first and last date?”

“I just think we’re missing an opportunity here, Matt. If that’s your real name.”

“Yes, for Christ’s sake, it’s my real name.”

“How about, since we’re never going to see each other again…  since we don’t know each other’s last names—and you don’t even know my first—how about we play a little game where we just ask whatever the hell questions we want and tell the unvarnished truth? You know, instead of pretending to be people we aren’t. Whaddaya think about that?”

 

They’re a little drunk now. They’ve both gotten up to go to the bathroom a few times. She’s told him that her real name is Rita, but he has his doubts.

“So, all-girl porn. That’s your go-to on those lonely, horny nights, Matt?”

“Sure. I mean, why not, right?” He’s over-gesticulating, over-enunciating, without a care. He’s finding this truth game freeing. “That way I don’t have to look at some guy with a huge—”

“Is that your secret dream? A huge cock?”

Inner wheels spinning as he considers. “Of course. Or…  no. I don’t know.”

“Make up your mind, Matt. Remember, this is you telling the whole truth and nothing but the truth to a woman you’ll never see again.”

“I think I want that. My ego does, I guess. But truth is, if I did, I think my life would be a ruin. A complete—”

“Why’s that? Explain, Mister Matt.”

“I’d have three ex-wives ‘cause I cheated on them, repeatedly. I’d have no friends because I fucked all their wives while they were away on business trips. I’d want to show my spectacular penis to every reasonably attractive woman in my field of vision. There’d be endless paternity tests, lawsuits, STDs. I’d be absolutely ruled by it, even more than I am now.”

“Ruled by the tool. Catchy. Don’t you think—”

“By now, some woman’s boyfriend or husband would probably have murdered me, or at the least pounded the shit out of me, put me in the hospital. So, no. I’ve gotten in enough trouble with the tool I’ve got. Maybe the huge ones are best left in the porn industry. The ordinary civilian can’t handle it. It’s like a naked superpower. Bound to be a life-wrecker.”

“Never trust a man with a huge penis,” she says, as if taking notes for a class. Satisfied nod. “Good information for a single woman in the dating pool to know.” A breath. “My turn to tell some dark secrets.”

“Okay, Rita, Be my guest.”

“I did time in Cook County Jail.”

“Down there on California and 27th?”

“That’s the place. I never thought—”

“Jesus. I bet that sucked. How long?”

“Yes, it did. Six months. I verbally threatened to harm someone.”

“Shit.”

“Yeah. Confirming what you already knew about me. I’m kind of a problem child.”

She starts listing things like bullet points in a college essay. “Haven’t talked to my two adult kids in more than five years. My ex stole my dog out of my hotel room a few months ago. I’ve been homeless a few times. I’ve lived in three different public storage facilities. Got kicked out of each one when they caught me sleeping inside. I’m banned from all those places. I’ve been living in a hotel for almost a year now. I’ve just about run out of the money I saved from my last job. Can’t pay next month’s rent. Looking at being homeless again.”

He has trouble imagining all this. She’s well-dressed, clean, put-together, articulate. She’s edgy, even volatile—but homeless, he wouldn’t have guessed.

“Damn. What about your parents? They still alive? Would they take you in?”

“Burned bridges. They think I’m a bad seed, a basket case. I can’t pretend I’m sorry for the choices I’ve made, can’t beg their forgiveness, can’t sign up for rehab I don’t need. I’d rather freeze to death in the streets of Chicago than kiss their rich white asses. Can’t do it.”

Her list of crimes and misdemeanors is quite impressive. Criminal damage to property, assault, public drunkenness. Growing up in her family, she explains, involved various levels of mental cruelty, withholding of affection, oppressive religious teachings, and systematic abandonment.

 

Drinking coffee now, Matt’s drifting off into dazed contemplation. Rita’s been in the bathroom for what seems like an inordinate length of time. She got some ketchup on her jacket sleeve and left the table to wash it off.

Her cell phone, which she hasn’t activated once all night, sits face down on the table. He imagines it’s like a personal black box containing all the data that explains how her life took a nosedive into Shitville. Part of him wants to snatch it up and go through it, read her text messages and emails, see her browsing history. A couple of times he nearly reached out to get it, then stopped himself. If he did, that would be when she’d come around the corner, catch him in the act, and make a public scene. And she most definitely would do that. It would be ugly. He literally shudders at the thought. It’s almost certainly password-protected anyway.

Rita is pretty, smart, brutal, a little threatening, funny, challenging. When they’d had their discussion about sexual things, her eyes had brightened, a smile played at her lips. She seemed to be enjoying the topic, like she was having fun teasing him. In his fading beer-buzz-daydream, it’s impossible for him not to envision them going to a motel somewhere, stripping their clothes off in a frenzy, and fucking like teenagers. Then he thinks of the life she’s lived. On the streets. In jail. And the sexual fantasy dies out. Mostly.

 

Standing at the women’s washroom door, Matt asks the first woman who approaches to see if his “friend” is in there, describing her as a petite woman with big glasses, washing a coat in a sink.

The woman goes in and is opening the door again in a matter of seconds.

“Empty,” she says, then darts back in.

Matt scans the bar, moving through all three sections, but can’t spot her anywhere.

She ditched me. How ‘bout that? I guess the bill’s on me. Maybe that shouldn’t be a surprise.

Back at the table, he grabs his jacket. Something’s not right. He pats at a pocket and there’s no familiar rattle of car keys. He shakes it roughly. Nothing. Squeezes each pocket. Nothing.

“You’ve gotta be fucking kidding me,” he says out loud. The keys aren’t on the bench, or under it, or under the table. No one has turned them in at the bar or to the manager.

Panic escalates. In this moment, he’s grateful his wallet is a tiny metal thing the size of a credit card that holds only what he needs and fits in his pants pocket.

Her cell phone doesn’t light up when he tries to open the home screen. She probably pulled it out of a trash can somewhere on her way to sleep in a storage compartment.

 

Standing where his car had been parked, Matt is going over what he wants to say when he phones the Chicago police to report its theft. His face is hot, his body tense, trembling. There’s a heaviness in his gut, like he might shit a boulder if he could relax his sphincter even a little.

Lake Michigan, he knows, is only a few blocks away. It can’t be seen, but it’s there, breathing, indifferently holding life and death, bearing witness to the shining, sad carnival generated when too many people are concentrated in one area.

Matt tries to imagine what might be worse than this night.

Sleeping in a storage facility. Having parents who’ve written you off. Being homeless. Doing time in Cook County.

Then he pictures her speeding through Gary in his SUV, music cranked, her mouth open, laughing at his naivety. His brief lapse into empathy evaporates.

“I bought this crazy bitch dinner and drinks, then she stole my car,” he imagines telling Officer Grabowski at CPD. Grabowski, he further imagines, pauses and says, “Uh-huh,” barely choking back laughter, “and the name of this fine citizen?”

Matt releases a long, painful sigh.

He didn’t even know her God damn real name.

Dialing 911, his entire body on fire with thoughts of vengeance, he thinks: Virgin Boy Scout, my ass. I hope to Christ she left fingerprints on that fucking trash can cell phone.