The Road to Cordoba

(Mark Peterson - Redux - )

"I'll be fine."

"Please, at least, take this scarf. For me. So I won't worry."

"It smells like you."

"It smells like Anais Anais."

We kissed at the door.

She followed me into the hallway. We stopped on each stair down to the second floor landing to kiss. She snuggled into my leather jacket. The light on the landing was out.

"Good luck on your Spanish test," she said. "Phone me, so I know you got home safe. I'll be awake thinking of you."

"Although I know the road, I will never reach Cordoba."

"Just so you reach Rogers Park."

I STEPPED FROM HER DOORWAY ONTO BUENA. The Hawk raked my face, and the frosted trees quavered. I raised the collar of my jacket and wrapped her green chenille scarf around my throat. Even in the numbing wind I could smell perfume.

By the time I slogged the four blocks to Broadway, it wasn't Lorca, but a line by Emily Dickinson that expressed the night: Zero at the bone. No matter which direction I turned, the swirling wind was in my face. My loafers felt packed with snow. Broadway was deserted. I cowered in the dark doorway of a dry cleaners, peeking out now and again and stamping my feet. The snow-plastered bus stop sign hummed in the gusts, but there wasn't a bus visible in either direction. To warm up, I crossed the street to a corner bar called the Buena Chimes. Its blue neon sign was so faint, I doubted the place was open. If it was, I expected it to be empty, which I hoped would allow the bartender to take pity on me. I was 20, a year shy of legal drinking age.

The cramped, low-lit space was packed, or so it first appeared. Though only three men sat at the bar, they were so massive they seemed to fill the room. Their conversation stopped when I came in. I'd heard the rumor that players for the Chicago Bears sometimes drank there, but hadn't believed it, probably because I'd heard it from Lise's stepfather, Ray, who'd also told me that as a cliff-diver in Acapulco he'd once landed on a tiger shark with an impact that killed the shark. With all of Rush Street waiting to toast them, why would Bears drink at a dump like the Buena Chimes?