downtown.

I'm lugging incredibly heavy equipment, one of the less glamorous aspects of dating a musician. It's about a block of walking between the club and my car, back and forth, navigating between pedestrians of varying levels of intoxication. People pass by in groups, looking happy at the best and a bit tired at the worst. A hot dog vendor with a mullet and white handlebar moustache sets up on the sidewalk, sensing opportunity. I walk past a doorway with a disheveled girl standing inside. She's struggling with her shoe, a shiny silver stiletto. Her belt, though purely ornamental, is hanging half off and her hair looks like she slept on it. She looks up as I pass, as if looking for a friend she lost that might help her with her dire shoe situation.

The buildings in downtown Greensboro are familiar, though I've never seen them before. They're old, half abandoned with junk piled inside behind dusty windows with "For Lease" signs. Old barber shops and five and dimes, they stand like old men on a porch complaining about kids on their lawns. A couple of them have been converted into clubs or posh restaurants in an attempt at downtown revitalization. The town planners see this as a great shining hope.

We pass through another group of people, a bunch of college kids heading home to sleep it off. They're not that drunk, and whichever one of them is the designated driver might even be able to pass a breathalyzer. The guys don't look that different from how they probably appeared hours earlier, maybe a few extra wrinkles in their polos. The girls, however, have obviously been undergoing a gradual deterioration. They're carrying their uncomfortable shoes, and they've pulled their hair back into messy ponytails. Jewelry has been stashed in a purse somewhere, makeup is smudged. Hours spent getting ready for a night of drinking, only to have alcohol make you realize how uncomfortable it all is. Still, they've not had enough to take them across the line from youthful and pretty into haggard.

Finally, we reach the car, and go about the process of piecing together the equipment so it all will fit into a sedan. A girl passes by, alone. Hair stuffed up into a rubber band, no shoes to be seen. Her balance is not what it should be. Her sequined halter top bunches around her stomach and over her miniskirt as she slouches down the sidewalk. She meets a group of six black guys on the sidewalk, who start talking to her. They're probably a bit tipsy, but she's wasted, and I can hear every word she says from twenty feet away. She was in the club (she doesn't remember which one), took some ecstacy, left because it was too hot, then lost her friends, and now she doesn't know where her ID is. The guys talk to her, one at a time, then two at a time, rotating themselves out, laughing out loud as she says something about how trashed she is. From an unseen nearby street, sirens sound, and she screams, "The police are coming! It's the cops!"

Finally, we're loaded up and we can leave Greensboro behind. It's almost last call, and this is not where I want to be. The girl with the silver shoe is walking unsteadily next to a muscled member of club security. The group of college-age kids have been replaced with a different version of themselves, five minutes later. The girl in the sequined halter top is leaned against a lamppost, one of the guys talking to her intimately. I start the car.

"I hope she gets home okay," I say to Josh.

"She will. She's probably got people looking for her."

"I don't think those guys are going to do her any favors."

"Yeah, you may be right. It's too bad. She was pretty."

I hadn't noticed.