I'm riding my bike downtown. I start over in NW, as if riding on a train, looking for this ambiguously-named plumbing store. When I get there, I realize why its name is confusing: it's got three owners, each of whose initials are used in the name, but for equity they can be put in any of three orders, so everybody gets to be first sometimes. One sign has all three names, as if to explain.

I ride over to SW, by Market Street. It's dark now, and I distinctly remember setting my headlamp to flash. But I have to get back to the other side of town, because I left something over there or something.

I take a sort of shortcut, using some stone stairs that descend down below the street level. It's very dark and overgrown there, and I come to a camper, in which people might be sleeping. I remember, I tried to take this route across town once before, and it got scary and complicated, and took longer than it should. So I take the stairs back out to the downtown street.

There I meet my dad, and point out these stairs to him. He used to live around here, does he know about them? But they don't work out. I take note, they are around 9th or 10th, and the plumbing store I have to get back to is on 26th. I'm going back on the surface streets.