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                                                              Pal Joey Story

On April 1, 1938 publication of "How I am Now in Chi." The New Yorker. Pal Joey.

Joey is performing in a hotel in an unnamed town or city. Jean, an agressive, alcoholic socialite ("one of the 400") takes a liking to him.

"She would come there and sit and just look at me and when she would get up to dance and I would sing and she would just stand there in front of me with her escort and it became so that it was obvious and altho' I pride myself on being equal to such situations (having had the experience before) it used to disconcert me more than I can say."

"Well of course she was nineteen years old and one for the book as far as looks, figure, personality is concerned and also had plenty of scratch, being the bank presidents daughter."

They go out together several times, then one night they have a disagreement, Joey's the only one who can drive her home, he brings her home drunk, her father is waiting for her "in his dressing gown," he lowers the boom, Joey loses his singing contract, and one of the family friends appears at his hotel room and tells him he's getting on 9 o'clock for Chicago or the 8:30 for New York.

"Well, the train pulled out and that is the story of how I am now in Chi."
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There is a distant resemblance in Ten North Frederick (1955). In the early nineteen-thirties Ann Chapin takes a liking to the piano-player in one of the traveling bands to The Region, they run off and get married, and when the family finds out they force an abortion and annulment.