Last Saturday Night

We start out late with our sights set on food. We're about to eat hours later than we usually do. At Hugo's, we score and find a parking spot right out front. We share a "two-table" as we who have waited on them call them. Blast. The college-kind are back. It must be work week for the Greek kids. No wonder this place looks so different tonight. No wonder Dickson seemed a little disjointed, a little less flow tonight.

We order and remind ourselves to be. The round table next to us, by the door, seats three younger girls. Two guys soon join them. One guy talks loudly and I subliminally try to send messages to the girls to feel the freedom to not laugh at him, because he's not funny. Get out while you can, I think to them. You're not doing him any favors by laughing at that. You're right, it's not funny.

Our fries were not like they usually are. They're all tid-bits with crunchy edges. We feel like we got what was left at the bottom of the deep fried wire basket. Everything else, though, is good.

We score again and find another parking spot on Dickson. It's time for a stroll, a lolly-gag about town starting from the top and working our way down and around. Looking for places for where they used to be becomes a theme, the theme for the night, even.

We pass one seedy bar with a bouncer wearing a t-shirt that says, "Free Sex." The front wall is raised and inside a rough-around-the-edges mid-life-ish couple make-out with her sitting in a bar stool while he stands beside her, all to the tune of Bonnie Rait, maybe. I can't remember. Passing the next bar, faces are looking out at the street, waiting to be noticed. Old TLC plays, maybe. I can't remember that either. Inside, the muscles are big in men's shirts and faces are red. Hair is done.

We round the block to check out a couple newer places we haven't been to but have heard about. One place we look at from the street and can't see much, but the inside seems spacious, dark and empty and that's all we can tell. Right next to it is a new bar with neon letters and we hear Diddy, maybe. Hard to tell, but from what we can, not our scene either. We've been walking around for a while now.

Having made a complete circle, we're back on Dickson. I find a narrow staircase between two brick buildings and sit while we talk a while. The watching is so distracting. I think things that are critical and am not understanding how people find and fit with each other. As we watch and as we talk, I ask him, "What would you do if your mother dressed that way when you were in college?"

On the first loop through, we'd passed our destination and noticed that it was fuller than it's been all summer. We're back now. Glad there's still no cover, my I.D. was checked. Yes, college kids are back. It's also a CD release party for one of the bands in the lineup. It's a squeeze in there. My arms are drawn to me as I thread through the crowd.

Some time passes and we are looking for a table or a place to rest up against until the band we'd come to see starts to set up. I'd turned my ankle in my tall shoes in the parking lot earlier. I've done this a thousand times but still, I want to rest before I stand for a while.

We found the "J" table. Seats are empty but drinks are there and seem fresh. We are asked if we have names that start with J. We don't. I ask if the empty seats are free for a while. I become Janie. He becomes Jasper. She, Jane, is not a stranger anymore and is in the stage of the night where, for her, she talks freely and touches strangers as we talk about Twilight. I don't know it and can only mostly listen. My J-name at the J-table is wearing me out.

We see our friends we'd expected to meet there. Glad for an out from the J-table, I walk over to the bar and greet my friend. He looks down at my black and white shoes with brightly-painted toe nails peeping out and thinks my shoes are kitty cats. It's a funny moment. He introduces me to one of the guys in the band we're there for. I recognize some of his band-mates from a band I'd seen play in college, Skirt.

We're migrating to find a spot toward the front now. It's hot, it's people thick and we're looking for a place with access to some air. We'll miss the J-table for that. I'm leaning up against a door frame and Chris walks up. He says, "Hi, I'm Chris," and offers his hand to shake. I shake it. There's a pause. "I'm Elizabeth," I offer with a smile. Another pause. Chris says, "So, what's your plan?" I'm not sure what he means and so I think for a second and then say, "To find a great spot for the show," while I smile and nod my head. I believe he said, "Good plan." I agree by nodding my head again and then he moves on.

The show is about to start. Bodies are packing in. Guitars are being tuned. "Check. Check." The base drum thumps, the cymbals snare.

After the music, we're on the screened back porch and I look to talk with my friend. She's in a conversation with someone so we found a corner and talk with Jeff. When I come back to tell her that we're about to head, she's talking to someone I used to know from Little Rock and it's been probably fourteen years since I'd seen him last. He was my boyfriend's best friend in those days. I know too much about him and probably vice versa.

Making our way through the people back to the front door to leave, it's late. We walk back up Dickson Street to our car. Passing the piano bar, there's a line outside to get into it. Apparently there's a dance club now in the basement. "I can't imagine wanting to do that in college," I say. Not the dance club part, the piano bar part.

Driving home, we talk and try to imagine ourselves in the different venues Dickson Street offered to us throughout the night. I guess there's something for everybody, ya know? The only thing about our place, we decide, is that we wish it had a bigger stage. That, and, they'd run out of Olde Style's.