“Could you pass the ketchup?” Ann said, pointing at a bottle on the table to my right. I reached over and grabbed the ketchup, taking the opportunity to smile at a police officer sitting at the booth behind us. Being flanked by cops, ironically, was exactly where we wanted to be, as we were trying not to have another run-in with Jerry, the used -car salesman who “liked to party” and whit whom we had spent the past hour doing drugs. We had run out on Jerry when he went into his bedroom to grab another bag. It was a mad dash down the Cicero streets, and we were breathless and wild eyed when we arrived at the Dodge. But we figured that if we could just sit tight for a while…we would have the gusto to make it the necessary blocks to our lost car in the sub-zero early morning.

“Do you remember the name of that street?” I questioned Ann seriously.

“God, no,” Ann said, wrapping the last bit of toast around her sausage and stuffing it into her mouth.

“No…wait, is it Chaswick? Or Cheswick or something? Some sort of Arkansas subdivision name, like Pembly Arms or something like that.”

“Stakey,” I blurted.

Desire, our waitress, shuffled over in a housecoat and placed our check under the sugar, then shuffled back out. I could hear the back door swing open and shut, and through the windows I could see her going to sleep on a cot next door.

Selection from “Girl Games” published in the anthology They’re at It Again.