Stories 3 and 4 Summary

"Out on Bail"

This story begins with the narrator's description of his encounter (at a bar called The Vine) with a young man named Jack Hotel, whom he believes to be about be convicted of armed robbery. After describing his feelings about the safety and familiarity of The Vine (see "Quotes," p. 32), he recounts his realization that night that Hotel was actually celebrating being acquitted, describes how the police told Hotel to leave town, and reveals that a couple of years later Hotel came back, unable to stay away from his girlfriend.

That night, the narrator says, he and Hotel found each other in another bar. The Vine, he writes, had been torn down. He (the narrator) describes how both men had just been thrown out by their girlfriends, how he (the narrator) and Hotel stole and cashed the social security...