First there was nothing but bright, painful light. The sun, which had lingered on top of the dome across the street in order to blind me, was slowly withering away. Shielding myself from it, I turned this way and that, searching for the horses. Then I shrank back in surprise. Not ten feet away, right in front of me, stood a young woman. Short black hair framed her face, which, I thought, possessed the tiniest hint of Asian descent. She was skinny, dressed in jeans, a short black cashmere jacket with big buttons, beginning of the century style, and high-heeled boots. My gaze hung dumbly over those heels.
“Were you here all this time?” I asked her.
“How long is that?” Her voice had a coarse note in it and I looked up at her face, reevaluating her age. Twenty-five, maybe older. She continued to stare at me. I could not remember the last time anyone had looked at me for that long without recognition. Either she did not watch the TV, which was a ridiculous idea, or my ski hat and beard disguised me better than I had hoped. Regardless, I knew what was going to happen next. Sitting with hands over eyes in a public place is basically asking for a 911 call. But it didn’t really matter. There was nowhere I could go, and I was tired.
“Please, go on, call the police,” I said.
“What for?”
“I’m afraid I’m a target of a nationwide manhunt in connection to draft-dodging, shooting of two marshals, and disposing of a body by way of dismembering it and depositing the chunks into an autonomic vacuum-cleaner for incineration.”
Her eyebrows rose in a way that made me think of someone faking amusement after their best friend had told an unfunny joke.
“Well, did you do any of it?” She inquired suddenly. I gaped at her. Then sighed.
“No.”
“Why do you want to be caught, then?”
“I actually was trying to dodge the draft.”
“What, you don’t want to protect your country in some desert ten thousand miles away?” She chortled, dropped on the bench beside me and pulled out a pack of “American Spirit.” I stared. One had to be truly a hardcore smoker to continue buying cigarettes. Striking a match, she sucked the flame in and blew out a billow of smoke. “Mind if I sit down?” she asked, mistaking my startled look.
“I… I don’t think you can smoke here…”
“I thought you wanted to attract attention of the police. If none show up, then you don’t have to write your confession tonight.” Smoke trailed out of her nose as she spoke. She had a cute nose, thin and tiny and sharp.
“So what are you doing here?”
“Taking a walk.”
“Alone?” She didn’t answer that, only slanted her eyes in my direction. Instead, she asked her own question.
“What’s your name?” For a brief moment I had an unsettling thought that she was an apparition.
“Am I really that unrecognizable in person?”
She turned and squinted at me.
“In person? What are you, a movie star?”
“TV, actually. Though I’ve done a movie or two…”
“Oh.” A shrug!
“Name’s Luke,” I said finally, when it was clear she was not going to expand on that “oh.”
“I’m Iris.”
I found nothing to counter that, and we spent the next few minutes in silence. She finished her cigarette and threw it at Goethe. No cops showed up. I expected her to get up and leave then, but she just sat there. Silence began to pressure me.
“Listen, Iris,” I said, making it sound like a joke. “Since you won’t call the cops, may I use your phone? I threw mine into the lake.”
“Who are you going to call?”
“I’m hoping it will come to me when I have the dial in my hand. Look, I can pay you…”
“Sorry.”
“Sorry?”
“I don’t do cell phones.”
“You don’t do cell phones? Come on. Everybody has a cell phone.”
“You don’t.”
I opened my mouth and closed it.
“I need to call somebody,” I said again, not knowing what else to say. Iris got up from the bench.
“Let’s go,” she said.
“Where?”
“I know a place where you can use the phone safely.”
I hesitated. The whole deal suddenly began to feel creepy. She must have read my mind, which made it even creepier.
“Don’t be afraid. You’re the one the cops are looking for, not me.”
“What do you mean, safely?”
“I mean it’s impossible to use public communication system without a camera staring in your face. This place is probably not the only one, but it’s the only one I know.”
“Why should I care about safety?”
“Because you don’t really want the cops to find you.”
“Is it far?”
“Thirty, forty minutes walk.”
I scoffed. “I don’t think I can stand. Much less walk that far.”
“Of course you can,” said the girl. “Try it.”
I tried. She was right. I began lumbering after her. That hoofy sound her heels produced was the only indication she possessed any mass at all.
“So, Iris,” I called, mostly to make her slow down. She did, and turned. “What else you don’t do aside from cell phones?”
A smile appeared under that cute nose. “Pills,” she said.
By the time glands in my mouth reacquired their ability to produce saliva we had dug deep into Lincoln Park. Habitually, with sun setting beyond Schaumburg, people migrated from the streets to their cars and homes. Sidewalks emptied. Then the cars, too, disappeared almost entirely.
It was common knowledge that the city was a rough place after dark, and the feeling of vague apprehension grew steadily inside me, until my glances into dark alleys and shadowy corners attracted Iris’s attention. I noticed they did, because she suddenly stared at me with big eyes, bent her legs at the knees slightly and waddled forward in that semi-crouched position, jerking her head left and right. Astonished by such an unusual display, I heard myself laughing and relaxed my limbs. It turned out it was easier to breathe that way. Soon she was laughing with me.
“Did I really look like that?” I asked her.
“No, I flattered you.”
“Aren’t you a little worried? We’re in the middle of Lincoln Park after dark, and there isn’t a soul around.”
“If there’s no one around, who are you afraid of?”
I opened my mouth to reply, then turned it into an insincere yawn. I had nothing. The girl was weird.
“Who said I was afraid? Caution and fear are two different things,” I mumbled some time later, uncertain if I wanted her to hear it. It seemed like she did, so before she had the chance to answer, I added louder, “Where are we, anyway?”
It had been a while since my last visit to the area, and I certainly had not been there on foot before. We were walking to the northwest now, but the prized uncanny sense of direction common to human males was the extent of my awareness of our present location.
“We’re almost there,” said Iris.
“Why are you so cryptic? Is this place secret or something?”
“No.” She chuckled.
“So why not simply tell me where we are? You can blindfold me afterwards, if the code demands it.”
“Don’t be silly. How can you tell a person who’s never been to a place where he is? You want to know longitude? Zip code? The street signs and building numbers are available for your viewing pleasure. I never had the need to familiarize myself with them.” I gave up, because even if I hadn’t, I wouldn’t know what to say, again. So much for being a talk show host.
Soon we emerged into a decently illuminated street. Immediately, I stared in disbelief. Across the road was the entrance to a theater complete with the retro awning, framed with flashing colorful lights and displaying this announcement in big black letters on glowing white background: