The narrator describes an acquaintance he knows by the name of Jack Hotel, who is on trial for armed robbery. The narrator encounters him at a bar called The Vine, where Jack Hotel had gone to drink during the court recess. The narrator dislikes Jack Hotel because he once stole $100 from him.

The narrator goes on to describe his history with The Vine, saying that “[s]ome of the most terrible things that had happened to me in my life had happened in here” (30). Another acquaintance he sees at the bar is a former boxer named Kid Williams. Williams came to the bar straight from detox, still wearing the hospital bracelet on his wrist.

The narrator suddenly remembers that he isn’t at the bar celebrating Hotel’s farewell party, but rather his welcome home, as he’d been acquitted by his lawyer. In the Vine, “there were many moments… like that one… [b]ecause we all believed we were tragic, and we drank” (32). Following the party, Hotel is run out of town by the cops but comes back within a year, after The Vine has been torn down.

One night, following a fight with his girlfriend, the narrator enters a random bar and encounters Jack Hotel there.