To Where I Am Now

The rumble out the front and the rumble out the back suggests it might be Saturday night. The music spills out from the club at the entrance of the alley behind The Archive where the weed smell drifts in through the open summer windows. At the front, a steady flow of cars, despite the hour — Saturday nights seem to do something to people’s heads — working the week, it’s like the only 8 hours of unabashed freedom from waking to sleep, uninterrupted by boundaries. It’s a mixture of relief, need and madness.

The slight chill changes the atmosphere on the street — it’s not exactly cold in the true sense, it’s ‘colder’ than it was or should I say ‘not as warm’ but it’s still summer, it’s still Portugal and that means summer is longer, certainly longer than when I lived in Stockholm. I might be wearing a T-shirt here in January, whereas in Stockholm I would be seriously layered up and trying not to slip on the ice.

Outside in the street, the two friendly Nigerian/Spanish girls, best friends, giggling in the street together, looked like they were waiting for a car, their night was over despite other girls staying, and two groups of men standing around. It closes down at the front earlier than the back, the club stays open all night and that means the alley gets the weed traffic, but you can hear the chatter from people at the beginning of the alley — they don’t need to be lurking closer to my back windows to hear them.

The deck is closed because they are on holiday at the restaurant, but there’s still chatter outside the front door. The deck is made of wood, and men just stand there and lean against it, like it’s some kind of anchor. They are not always looking for girls, they might be from the rowdy Colombian restaurant next door. The deck usually closes before ten, the pizza place at eleven, but the Colombian bar at midnight, then the street slows down. Between one and two, the girls disappear, then it’s just strays coming through from the centre of town, sometimes looking for girls when they’ve all gone home and sometimes banging on my window while I explain to them (in Spanish) that they are too late — go away.