“The tarmac pavement rolled on under my feet, occasionally patched a different shade of cornered grey or spotted ugly with pale, rounded gum. I didn't want to be out and tried to resent it, wondered if there had been any way I could have said no on the phone. In my guts I knew there hadn't been but now I was out here I realised I had no clue how I was going to keep the promise I had made.

Recoiling from the thought, I turned to the lad instead. I'd known him for a while now and he was sound enough, dependable and earnest with it, bit of a dreamer really. In a way it was refreshing, seeing that kind of hope and vigour in a scene as grim as this, but ultimately he was too soft for it and he'd already paid for it, heavy.

I had to give it to the him though, he'd never once bitched about what had happened and he hadn't let it change him. Despite what it had cost him, he'd just kept on keeping on, just as he was, a good lad. Not exactly honest, but as straight as bent gets. Of course none of that mattered really and it certainly wasn't why I'd agreed to help him.

I was nowhere nearer a plan but was closing on the corner, lost in thought and taking distracted drags on the joint. I'd just bested the hill and turned left into thin strings of people alongside the main road that circled the park when a great screeching suddenly tore through the night. I jumped violently, wide eyed panicked, before quickly composing myself and wondering if anyone among the already gathering crowd had noticed.

A catastrophically drunk young lass had stumbled out into the road just as a large, family car was sweeping majestically by. Somehow the guy had managed to stop what looked like an inch from disaster but her response had been to pound on his bonnet and hurl insults at his windscreen. In seconds the driver was out on the road, albeit still behind his car door, attempting to respond with a verbal assault of his own.

"You jump in front of my car.." he roared but was quickly drowned out by the screeching, deathwish drunk. I relaxed again and paused, smoking slow and enjoying the show.

The guy was clearly used to being in charge. At home, at work, he was obviously a boss, a big man, king of his own particular hill. It clearly hadn't occurred to him though, when jumping out of his ride full of self righteous outrage, that he wasn't on his hill anymore. Out here with the rest of us, out of his bubble, that car, that job, that pay packet, all of that stuff he stood on to feel taller, it didn't count for shit down here.

Realising he was out of his depth the driver fell back, trying to take the path of sense and reason to higher ground, getting all paternal with the lass though she was having none of it. As she slurred through an increasingly hilarious tirade of abuse, smirks and chuckles among the audience grew to open laughter, whistles and calls of encouragement.

The driver gave up trying to respond and just grew redder and redder as he squirmed instead. His pride had pushed him out of the car and into this scene, in front of his wife and his kids and a slowly growing number of strangers and until he swallowed it he was stuck there.

I moved past them with a smile and continued along the pavement as the lass's voice sank beneath the crowd's chatter before fading altogether. The last time I looked over my shoulder I saw that the driver was back in his car but that the drunk was now refusing to move out of the way. The traffic behind was backed up and honking in a bizarre Tienanmen parody, tottering high heels of drunken rebellion before the might of the establishment's family saloon.”

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