Last Call

    Porter stains the counter top.  Lights flicker between the fan blades.  And the short sparks of light reflect in what's been spilled.  The jukebox is quieter now, it's become a background noise to lost conversations and last call relationships.  It's 2am and the doors get locked from one side.  "You don't have to go home but you can't stay here" gets echoed around with stocky laughs like it's the first time it's ever been said.  The staff sweeps drunks outdoor like the cooks mopping the kitchen.  The air is brisk and sharp to breathe in November.  Car doors and car engines rattle around the blocks.  Lights edge around houses and speed off to join the pin-dot lights in the hills and the roads get a little less safer.  At least it doesn't rain tonight, and the grey thoughts join the clouds overhead with the question, "How long will that last?"  Sharks wait in the shadows to change drunks' destinations from a warm wife and unsoiled sheets to a plastic bench and a new portrait.  Boots thump on the sidewalk over the roots eager for new rain.  The buses don't run this late.  Not for the crazies.  And for all the people drinking warm in their hovels, only the ones to venture outside past midnight are the crazies.  No matter.  There's couches of friends not far.  And luckily, for the times there's no response to the rough knocks and ringing phones there's still the Saints that leave their couches by the mailbox and give the weary a place to rest.  Invisible men are pissing somewhere in the shadows.  Someone's had a run-in with a dog two blocks down.  Clumps of blankets stacked against the doorways hide the tramps.  They'll be awake in a few hours with the joggers to dig their breakfast from the cans before they're on the clock and ready to work beside the exits.  And me, I'll be somewhere near home with an excuse and stumbling feet like weapons quick on the draw.