#18: Leicester Square

Looking for parking somewhere near North Beach, we kept hitting rewind of the CD player, listening over and over to Leicester Square. It was the anthem for the night, that was sure. I don't know at this point if we were actually under the impression that Leicester Square was in San Fransisco or not, but it was the anthem, god damn it.

Rancid still swimming in our heads, we walked passed the coffee shops, stuck our heads into City Lights Books, and on down the street.

Ours would be a night of bacheloric freedom. It would be held up as a true expression of brotherhood, exhilaration, and recreational debauchery.

Later, lost in a taxi, we asked to be "just dropped off right here." We sat on a cement wall, looking at the frosty waves coming in. We had to be miles and miles away from our car, carelessly parallel parked on a hill.

He started smoking. I had a Pepsi.

A dull evening that stood out in relief among so many other dull evenings. Maybe it was because I left my jacket in the taxi. Maybe it was because the karaoke bar didn't have Leicester Square in the catalog. Maybe it was because the waves were pulling at the sand on the shore, bringing them in to the endlessness; washing up shells from another world to be cleaned, painted, and sold in a hundred different gift shops.

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