AFTER DARK, MY SWEET
by Jim Thompson

(First published in 1955)



after dark, my sweet

1

I rode a streetcar to the edge of the city limits, then I started to walk, swinging the old thumb whenever I saw a car coming. I was dressed pretty good--white shirt, brown slacks and sport shoes. I'd had a shower at the railroad station and a hair-trim in a barber college, so all in all I looked okay. But no one would stop for me. There'd been a lot of hitchhike robberies in that section, and people just weren't taking chances.
Around four in the afternoon, after I'd walked about ten miles, I came to this roadhouse. I went on past it a little ways, walking slower and slower, arguing with myself. I lost the argument--the part of me that was on-the-beam lost it--and I went back.
The bartender slopped a beer down in front of me. He scooped up the change I'd laid on the counter, sat down on his stool again, and picked up a newspaper. I said something about it was sure a hot day. He grunted without looking up. I said it was a nice pleasant little place he had there and that he certainly knew how to keep his beer cold. He grunted again.
I looked down at my beer, feeling the short hairs rising on the back of my neck. I guessed--I knew--that I should never have come in here. I should never go in any place where people might not be nice and polite to me. That's all they have to do, you know. Just be as nice to me as I am to them. I've been in four institutions, and my classification card always reads just about the same:
_William ("Kid") Collins_: Blond, extremely handsome; very strong, agile. Mild criminal tendencies or none, according to environmental factors. Mild multiple neuroses (environmental) Psychosis, Korsakoff (no syndrome) induced by shock; aggravated by worry. Treatment: absolute rest, quiet, wholesome food and surroundings. Collins is amiable, polite, patient, but may be very dangerous if aroused...
I finished the beer, and ordered another one. I sauntered back to the restroom and washed my face in cold water. I wondered, staring at myself in the mirror, where I'd be this time tomorrow and why I was bothering to go anywhere since every place was just like the last one. I wondered why I hadn't stayed where I was--a week ago and a thousand miles from here--and whether it wouldn't be smart to go back. Of course, they hadn't been doing me much good there. They were too overcrowded, too under-staffed, too hard up for money. But they'd been pretty nice to me, and if I hadn't gotten so damned restless, and if they hadn't made it so easy to escape... It was so easy, you know, you'd almost think they wanted you to do it.
I'd just walked off across the fields and into the forest. And when I came out to the highway on the other side, there was a guy fixing a tire on his car. He didn't see me. He never knew what hit him. I dragged him back into the trees, took the seventy bucks he was carrying and tramped on into town. I caught a fr...

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