The First Run

It was a shade before four in the morning, still dark and as I walked down the street I saw a crowd along Morato blocking traffic. Underage girls were pouring out of a club, their dresses glimmer and glitz and their faces smeared with lipstick and drunkenness, and on their arms their boys, drunk too and unsteady flagging cabs. The crowd collapsed into itself as a scuffle began and I made me way further down the street to the meeting spot. It was not too long ago that I might have been stumbli...