The Café That Stays Open Late

Somewhere past eleven the espresso machine goes quiet and the back room turns into something else entirely. The chairs come down off two tables. A laptop becomes a speaker. Someone who closed an hour ago is still here, and now there are six of them, then nine.

Nobody calls it anything. It isn't a night. There's no cover, no list, no flyer. It's the place a handful of people end up because the lights are still on and the door isn't locked yet, and the person behind the counter doesn't seem to mind.

We stayed until the owner started stacking the last chairs, which is its own kind of signal. Everyone helped without being asked. That part, more than the music, is the thing we keep coming back to write down.