The Road to Cordoba
He had love's number

By Stuart Dybek
Sunday, February 10, 2008

While we were kissing, the thick, leather-bound Obras Completas-- opened to a black- and-white photo of Federico García Lorca in profile, a mole prominent beside a sideburn of his slicked-back hair -- slid from her lap to the jade silk couch and hit the Chinese carpet with a muffled thud.

While we were kissing, the wind known locally as the Hawk soared off Lake Michigan on vast wings of snow.

While we were kissing, verbs went uncommitted to memory. Her tongue rolled silent r's against mine, but couldn't save me from failing Spanish Lit. Yet her beloved Federico, to whom she'd introduced me on the night we'd first met, wasn't forgotten:

Aunque sepa los caminos

yo nunca llegaré a Córdoba.

Though I know the roads

I will never reach Cordoba.

While we were kissing, Verde que te quiero verde. Green I want you green. Shaking off cold, her stepfather, Ray "El Tiburon" Ramirez, came home from his late shift as manager of the Knickerbocker Hotel. He didn't disturb us other than to announce from the front hall: "Lise, tell Jack it's a blizzard out there! He better go while there's still buses!"

"It's a blizzard out there," she told me.

It was then we noticed the flowers, white roses in a green vase that her mother, who resembled Lana Turner and who didn't much like me, must have delivered while we were kissing. Lise and I looked at each other: She was still flushed, our clothes were disheveled. She shrugged and buttoned her blouse. I slipped back into my loafers.

"I better go."

"It's really snowing. God! Listen to that wind! Do you have a hat? Gloves? All you have is that jacket."

"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?

I undid the green scarf that I'd tied around my head babushka-style and edged onto a stool by the door -- as respectful a distance as possible from their disrupted conversation, but it wasn't far enough.

"Sorry, kid, private party," the bartender said.

"Any idea if the buses are running?" I asked.

"We're closed." He seemed morose. So did the Bears at the bar, who sat in silence as if what they had to say was too confidential to be uttered in the presence of a stranger. The team was having a losing season.

"Buy the kid a shot," one of the Bears said.

"Whatever you say, Jimbo," the bartender replied. He set a shot glass before me and, staring into my face rather than at the glass, filled it to the brim. Each man has his own way to show he's nobody's fool, and pouring shots was the bartender's: He knew I was underage.

"Hit me, too, Timbo," Jimbo said, and when the bartender filled his glass, Jimbo raised the teeny shot glass in my direction. "This'll warm you up. Don't say I never bought you nothing," he said, and we threw back our whiskeys.

"Much thanks," I said.

"Now get your puny ass out of here," he told me.

BACK OUTSIDE, I HOODED MY HEAD IN THE GREEN SCARF and watched a snowplow with whirling emergency lights scuff by and disappear up Broadway. Waiting would be deadly. I decided to walk to the L station on Wilson. Rather than wade the snow-drifted sidewalks, I followed the ruts the plow left in the street. I trudged head down, not bothering to check for traffic until I heard a horn behind me. Headlights burrowed through the blizzard. It looked as if the beams were shooting confetti. The car -- a Lincoln, maybe -- sported an enormous, toothy grille. Whatever its make, the style was what in my old neighborhood was called a pimpmobile. I stepped from the ruts to give it room to pass. It slowed to a stop. A steamed window slid down.

"Need a ride, man?"

I got in, my lips too frozen for more than a "thanks." The rear wheels spun. I sat shivering, afraid I'd have to leave the blast of the heater in order to push that boat out of the snow.

"You can do it, baby," the driver said, as if urging a burro. I was tempted to caution that giving it gas would only dig us in deeper but knew to keep such opinions to myself. "Come on, baby!" He ripped the floor shift into reverse, slammed it back into drive, back into reverse and into drive again. "Go, go, you got it," and, as if it was listening, the car rocked forward, grabbed and kept rolling.

"Thought for a second we were stuck," I said.

"No way, my friend, and, hey, you're here to push, but not to worry, there's no stopping Thomaso tonight."

I unwound the scarf from my head and massaged my frozen nose and ears.

"Yo, man, you wearing perfume?" he asked.

"It's the scarf," I said.

"You in that scarf, man! When I saw you in the street, I thought some poor broad was out alone, you know? I told myself, Thomaso, the world is full of babes tonight. So, my friend, where you headed?"

"Rogers Park," I said. "Just off Sheridan." I couldn't stop shivering.

"Man, you'd a had a tough time getting there tonight. Whole city's shut down. What you doing out so late? Getting a little, dare I ask?" He smiled conspiratorially. His upturned mustache attached to his prominent nose moved independently of his smile.

"Drinking. With the Bears," I added.

"You mean like the football Bears?"

"Yeah, Jimbo and the guys."

"Over at the Buena Chimes, man?"

"How'd you know?"

"Everybody knows they drink there. You got the shakes, man? Thomaso got the cure -- pop the glove compartment."

I pressed the button, and the glove compartment flopped open. A monogrammed silver flask rested on a ratty-looking street map. Beneath the map, I could see the waffled, gray handle of a small-caliber gun. I closed the glove compartment, and we passed the flask between us in silence.

"What are we drinking?" I asked. It had an oily licorice taste with the kick of grain alcohol.

"We're drinking to a night that's going to be a legend, my man. The kind of night that changes your life." He took a swig for emphasis, then passed the flask to me. "To our lucky night. Hey, I'm spreading the luck -- your luck 'cause I picked you up, mine 'cause I got picked up."

"Huh?" I wasn't sure I liked the sound of that, and held off on taking my swig.

"Check this out." He fished into his shirt pocket, handed me a folded scrap of paper and flicked on the overhead interior light. The paper unfolded into a lipsticked impression of a kiss, a phone number inscribed in what looked like eyebrow pencil, and the words Call me tonight. Tonight was underlined.

"You ever seen a woman so hot you didn't want to stare but couldn't take your eyes off her? I don't mean some bimbo at a single's bar. I'm in the Seasons, and I see this blonde in a tight green dress. She's drinking with this guy and don't look happy. He leans over and whispers something in her ear, and whatever he said, it's like, you know, an eye-roller. She turns away from him, and as she's rolling her eyes to no one in particular she catches me staring. She got these beautiful eyes. And I roll my eyes, too, and just for a sec she smiles, then goes back to her drink. Doesn't look at me again, but five minutes later, she gets up to go to the Ladies, and when she does I see that green dress has a plunging back. Sexiest dress I ever seen. She walks right by my table, and on her way back she drops the note."

He reached for the flask, took a hit, and flicked out the interior light. Blowing snow reflected opaque in the headlights; it was hard to see ahead. He flicked the headlights off. "Better without them," he said. "Ain't no oncoming traffic to worry about." We'd driven blocks, ignoring all the traffic signals on Broadway to keep our momentum, and hadn't seen another car. We were approaching Sheridan Road. I'd finally warmed up, though my feet were still numb. He took another swallow -- he was drinking two to my one -- and passed the flask. It was noticeably lighter.

"You believe in love at first sight, man. Romantic crap, right? That's what I always thought, but now I don't know. Or it's more like I do know. I know what's going to happen like it already happened. This snowstorm, the whole city shut down, you know, like destiny, man, destiny in a green dress."

" Verde que te quiero verde," I said.

"Say what?"

"Lines from a poem."

"My mind keeps going over how she rolled her eyes, and suddenly we're staring at each other -- and boom, across a crowded room." He rolled his bulgy brown eyes to demonstrate. "What's that old song -- my Pops used to sing it with an Italian accent: Some-a enchanted evening, you will meet a stranger . . ."

"What you going to do?" I asked.

"What am I going to do? I'm going call her! She's waiting. She wants me. It's a sin if a woman wants you and you don't go. I know we'll kiss, but not how she kisses. I know she's probably home by now waiting for the call, but I won't know till she picks up that phone what her voice sounds like. I want to hear her voice. Just one little scrap of paper, and a lifetime of questions. You can't tell anything from her handwriting. Let me see that."

"I gave it back to you," I said.

"No, man, you didn't give it back."

"Yes I did. I handed it back when you turned the overhead light out, right before you flicked the headlights out. I handed it back to you blocks ago."

"You didn't, man. You never gave it to me."

"Check your pockets."

He checked his shirt pocket and the pockets of his topcoat. "I wouldn't have put it in my topcoat, man, you still got it. Empty your jacket pockets, man."

I did as he asked. There wasn't anything but white petals from one of the roses Lise must slipped in a pocket. She did things like that.

"What you trying to pull, my friend? This is how you repay me for saving your ass from the cold? If you think that babe is going to jump on any dude who calls her up, you're crazy. You ain't ready for a woman like that."

"I didn't take it, man."

He braked hard, and the car swerved and came to a stop in the middle of the street. He flicked the overhead light on. "Get up, man, maybe you're sitting on it." I rose in my seat, and so did he. It wasn't on the seats. "Check the floor." We looked on the smeary floor mats and felt under the seats. "Check the bottom of your shoes."

"It's got to be here," I said.

"I'm going to ask you polite one more time: You going to give me that phone number?"

"I gave it to you. Why would I take it? I got my own girl. I'm wearing her scarf."

"I thought you said you were drinking with the Bears. Listen carefully, man. Last time -- a simple yes or no."

His bulgy eyes stared hard into my face. I said nothing. He unscrewed the flask and drained it. "Excuse me, man, I want to put this back." He reached past me, popped the glove compartment, and I was out of the car, running in its headlights up Sheridan, then bounding drifts, zigzagging along the sidewalk, hoping I'd be a harder target to hit. I could hear the tires whining behind me. He'd probably tried to give it gas and run me down, and now the car was stuck. I could hear it grinding from a block away and stopped momentarily to glance back. He was trying to rock it from reverse back to drive, but just digging it in deeper. Feeling light on my frozen feet, despite the drifts I jogged four more blocks up Sheridan Road, checking at each corner to make sure he wasn't following me. The snow fell more slowly and the wind had let up some, but I could barely see his headlights five blocks back when I turned onto my street.

IN MY SMALL APARTMENT, I kicked off my loafers, stripped off my frozen socks, and, not bothering to remove my jacket, sat in the dark on my one stuffed chair, watching snow gently float in the aura of the streetlight visible from my third-story window. The surge of lightness I'd felt running down Sheridan had left me shaky. Zero at the bone. Finally, I felt recovered enough to switch the lamp on and slip off my jacket. I'd promised to call Lise. She'd be asleep with the phone under the pillow beside her, so that its ring wouldn't wake anyone else. What time is it, she'd ask in a groggy voice, and I'd say almost 3, and she'd say she worried about me getting home, and I'd tell her Cordoba was easy next to tonight. I'd thank her for the loan of her scarf. I'd have frozen without it.

It wasn't until I unwound it from my neck that I noticed the scrap of paper caught in the chenille. I unfolded the note, and there was the phone number.

I sat in the stuffed chair, my feet wedged under the cushion, dialed, and when the phone began to ring, I flicked the lamp off again and watched the snow. It rang several times, which didn't surprise me; I didn't expect anyone to answer. I was about to hang up when someone lifted the receiver but said nothing, as if waiting for me to speak.

"I hope it's not too late to call," I said.

"That all depends," a woman's voice answered.

"On what?"

"On what you have in mind."

"Nothing. I'm sorry. I shouldn't have called."

"Then why did you?"

"I just wanted to hear your voice."

Stuart Dybek is a MacArthur grant recipient and distinguished writer in residence at Northwestern University whose latest book is I Sailed With Magellan. He can be reached at 20071@washpost.com, and will be fielding questions and comments about this article Monday at noon at washingtonpost.com/liveonline.