Not the first or sadly, probably, the last bar closing night I've been to here in my little mountain town, which is so full of small bars closing down. The brewery between my favorite hike and my town is shutting down. It was one I went to often because of the hiking proximity (plus my friend was the bar manager and let my dog stand on the tables outside without fussing at me.) We all gather. We all try to send the place off with a smashy little flair that makes it less sad and all of us feel less old about how dimly we remember way back when they opened, when my friends played the first show. 

My friends are playing the final show. The crowd is drunk; I didn't realize it until the music started and everyone started looking too long at each other. I'm wearing skinny jeans and a shirt with the mouse, Stuart Little, doing a kickflip on a skateboard with the lyrics of Johnny Cash's song Hurt: a funny shirt, so a lot of people want to talk to me. A drunk old man that is familiar to me starts bumping up against my friend and I take the stool next to her to block him out with my tall body. Thank you, she whispers at me in a loud, not very discreet voice. Next, my beautiful friend, newly engaged, starts dancing with the same old man and she is so, so beautiful dancing, and he looks so happy, he is almost in tears. I realize suddenly why he is familiar: I have been to the funeral of his son after the son's unexpected, sudden death. When the dance is done, my friend's fiancé tells the old man how he's clearly won the contest of their manliness, and the whole bar laughs, like in a sitcom. 

The music shifts, accelerates. My friend the manager lets her dog off the leash to roam through the bar because who the hell cares? The bar is shutting down, the owner has stopped paying the staff and we are just handing them all wads of cash because we know they are working just for tips, being paid actually nothing. The staff are all drinking. My friend playing the violin makes "can you get me a drink please" gesture to me across the room - I pretend to not know what he is talking about. A drink? Whaaat. Wait, you want what? A drink? One of these?? I do get him a kolsch and snuggle it up dangerously next to his speaker and important wires. The music bangs on; everyone is asking for Free Bird, for the Stairway to Heaven, for something they are going to pull up on their phone, but I like the song they are playing, the one about how "I ain't ever gonna be in your way."