God, I wanted a drink. In the worst way. My throat felt dry and my fingers felt tight and nervous. I had been one year on the wagon. I was scared to death of having a drink. It would start everything all over again, chasing pussy and swinging. I had ruined myself in pro football once. I mustn't do it again. But could I stand. or sit in a bar and order a Coke or Seven-Up, without giving in to the impulse to have a drink and pick up pussy? Well, maybe now was the time to find out, before I went to Brinks' office. Because if I didn't have the guts to go into a bar without getting hammered and winding up in the sack with some strange broad, I was finished here in Des Moines. And now was the time to find out. Now or never, old buddy. Either I was going to get back into pro football or I wasn't.

So I stopped and parked near the first bar I saw. It was dark and cool inside. I could hardly see the bar at first because the sun outside had been so bright. I bumped against the edge of a booth. At least it felt like a booth, and I put my hand on the back of it and sat down.

"Well, pardon me," a woman's voice said.

I couldn't see her at first. It was that dark in the room. Somewhere a jukebox played an old Harry James tune. The record people were really punching hell out of the 1930's these days.

And then I saw her. I got up to leave. She was small, with long blonde hair and big blue eyes and a smooth soft chin. She was wearing a yellow miniskirt and a bluish-colored sweater. My eyes had adjusted to the darkness, but that wasn't all they had adjusted to see clearly. The miniskirt had hiked up her thighs as high as it could go without revealing her nylon panties. I stared for a long instant at her soft creamy thighs which were crossed and I couldn't stop thinking and seeing in my mind that sweet little pussy and all that soft downy hair that was just above the edge of her skirt.