Speakeasy

The night air is filled with a strange energy. The air is sharp and cuts your skin like a tiny razor. Winter has started and the streets are empty, or just as empty as they can get in Chicago, but it doesn't feel barren because you can hear the music coming from underfoot. 

All the houses on the street have signs that they aren't speakeasies,but drunks bang on the doors anyway. You walk out of the cold wind and  into the restaurant. The bartender insists that this is a dry bar, but you walk into the dingy back room and knock three times. A slit opens and eyes shoot out of the darkness. “Password” he says. ___  I say. The slit disappears. And suddenly opens and music and lights flood through. Men stand with loose ties and rugged clothes after their factory shifts, and women dance in skimpy dresses where you can even see their knees. Tall men in suits sit at tables brandishing brass knuckles encrusted with precious gems, to use as weapons and to show off. “Finally somewhere to get a decent drink,” I say to myself.

I sit at the nearest table, and before I can even get my second sip a woman walks over to me. She is tall with a white, almost angelic dress,Her earrings oversized and rings glimmering. The pearls on her neck are probably worth more than my ratty apartment. I know who she is. She is Cassandra O’Leary, the wife of Johnny O’Leary, the most notorious mob boss in the city. The last man who tried to talk to her left in a bucket. I look past her, around her, like she isn't there, like what you would do with a dangerous animal.

”What's a handsome young man like you doing here?” I make eye contact and look through her like I'm talking to the wall.

“What’s a woman like you doing, talking to me?“

“My husband is busy tonight taking care of some urgent business. And we were supposed to be celebrating tonight.” She noted the horror in my eyes when she said “taking care of business.” If I keep talking to this lady I will “be business.”

“Would you care for this dance?” I shake my head but then she gestures behind me. I look over my shoulder to see a man twice my size who looks like he could eat me.

”If you don't want to dance with me, I'm sure Clarence would love to.” I feel the full weight of the threat and realise the hole dug for me. I'm dead either way, so I should probably enjoy my funeral. I  take her hand and lead her to the dance floor. I see men looking at me, some confused, angry, but most with pity for what would happen to me. My heart sinks when I meet eyes with my doom standing with a bouquet and wet blood still on his shoes. 

Mr. O’Leary was short with a big fur coat and a beard and mustache that he clearly spent hours a day tending to. A third of his face was covered with an eye patch. I could see in his still working eye that the torture he wanted for me had yet to been invented and he was racing to think of it. The whole bar fell silent. No one would stand up to him. He could strangle me right here and no one would do anything. Cassandra walks to his side and wraps her delicate arms around the mane of black fur on his shoulders. 

The air is heavy and it feels hard to breathe or even stand. The tapping of his cane as he walks to me, the clock that ticks to midnight, my certain demise. I was so relieved when I heard the door behind me crack open and cops swarm. Guns fire into the air and people run in all directions. I use this opportunity to join the stampede and run from Johnny. I run through the dance floor, to the dingy bar and finally to the cold sharp air.