“Of course I do,” Allen said.

“Okay. It just seems like you do all the driving,” Jamie replied. She was keeping her voice down because she was at work and there was a customer looking around.

“The other day you got all pissed because I didn’t want to drive down.”

“I know.”

“Well, somebody has to drive.”

“Yeah…”

“Incidentally, you left some pictures at my place.”

“I did?”

“The roll from the botanical gardens?”

“Oh yeah! I totally forgot about those.”

Allen thinks about keeping the picture of his reverie almost afraid now that it would give the secret away if she looks too closely. “Anyway… today’s just so… I just really want to see you.”

“Yeah?”

“Wednesday night was just stupid.”

“Yeah.” They both pause for a long while. “Well, you know, you can ‘make it up’ to me.”

Allen laughs a little, the phone crackling, the signal maybe bent by electricity hanging in the atmosphere. He liked it when Jamie baited him, and he can almost hear her smile through the receiver because she knows he knows. “I love you,” he says instead of taking the bait and smiles, staring at the Styrofoam carton that his brunch had recently occupied.

“I love you too.”

The pair enjoys a pleasant, pregnant moment of silence.  
 

“Listen, I gotta’ get back to work.”

“Okay. I’ll see you around five.”

“You sure you remember where it is?”

“Yup.”

“Okay. I’ll be there.”

Allen laughs again. “K’bye.”

“Bye.”

“Is that what’s been bothering you, then?” Melissa asks.

Travis shrugs. It seems too easy. “I guess.”

She has relief in telling him this: “You’re not alone.” She wants to lean on him, but, leaning toward him, holds off.

He waits a long time to respond, sure she’s finished. “I think that a lot of things have been bothering me—a lot of them over and over again. I’m not sure I’m gonna’ put it together for a long while. But, a good start would be what happened to you when I met you at the Engine Room that night.”

“Oh that? That was nothing—my Dad and I got into a fight.”

Travis nods.

She waits a while before she says, “He’s actually still not speaking to me.” Then, she rolls her eyes.

“He’s not speaking to you?”

Melissa nods.

“Well, that’s a quick way to resolve a dispute.”

“Yeah. Tell me about it,” and it’s her turn to look a long time into the mirror.

She looks like she’s going to spill. She jostles, trying to keep her balance, keep it from all coming out. Taking a drag off her cigarette, slowly, she says, swallowing hard, getting over shame, hoping she can trust him, “I got pregnant.”

There’s another long moment between them of sipping, smoking, looking around. Travis is thankful for the bluesy jazz, even though it’s probably not helping things. She starts up again, “I had been dating this guy for a year and a half, and I got pregnant.”

The jazz plays on as Travis smokes his cigarette and scenes of Melissa and her father screaming at one another over the phone abracadabra in his head. He sees vague images of her boyfriend, frightened, scared, probably too young to take responsibility—probably too stupid. He sees Melissa in a white, dirty room in a white gown, by herself, waiting. He thinks about how there was no relationship, no support, after reality set in—and it dawns on him how she feels more alone than he can biologically understand. He listens to a muted trumpet transcribe all of this into something sensible for himself—he wishes he had some way to show her, but music solves only so much—humans do the rest. He gathers himself and takes a breath and focuses on her, her waiting porcelain face, staring at the table. Leaning in and taking her hand he says simply, “I’m sorry.”

“I just… what you said about enjoying the sadness…”

“I only meant—”

“No, no, no—that’s the thing, though—tonight. I had it for a moment—I didn’t care, Travis—listening to you. It was gone. I knew it before—before all of this—before we met. That pledge song. I knew it, Travis—” she tears up “—before everyone I loved went away—” She looks at him haplessly, “Everyone! What did I do?” She tries to hold it in, but can’t. The tears come out. She’s sniffing and taking a drink napkin off the table. The arc of her small, tight lips break and the corners collapse toward her chin as tears poor down her face. “I didn’t do anything!”

Travis holds on to her hand tightly. If he can absorb every ounce of pain, her sorrow, her shame, he will. He can’t. He holds her hand.

Melissa tries hard to straighten up for this or that, public or private, friend or stranger, but as she stoically, bravely, tries to hold back tears, she is falling apart at the seams. “I… uh…” She wipes her eyes and blinks. She’s too tired of crying to cry anymore. Months—months have gone by. She has cried and cried and cried. She wants it to end. She looks at Travis in complete indecision. She squeezes his hand until his knuckles turn white, and the corners of her mouth are forced down again. Another tide of sadness—of relief this time—comes over her. She rolls her eyes up and tears make paths down her cheeks like the last trickles on the dam of a dried up river, reflecting the candlelight on the table. “I… just…” “It’s okay.”

She wipes her face, holds his arm a little closer, looks out to the bar, and then back to him in the mirror, pleading for him to let her out. “I just don’t want to be alone right now. I-I thought you would understand somehow.”

He leans over, pulls her in. “I do—I understand—sort of—but…” Without urgency, he pulls her black locks, her head, to his shoulder, his hand pressed against the back of her head. Pride resists, but after a moment, Travis can feel her shudders and warm saline dripping down his neck. Mostly he thinks, God damn her father, God damn her man. And then, Melissa brings her head up, almost head butting him, her tears still shimmering gems on her face. Travis wipes away a few from her magnolia colored cheeks with his thumb, and says, “Listen, we can go somewhere safe. We’ve been drinking and we shouldn’t drive, but you’ll be okay with me. I’ll get you to a bed and get you to sleep and I promise it’ll look better in the morning. You don’t have to be alone.”

A little after that, for one mile and a half, three thousand, four hundred and forty-seven hand-held steps, mostly through quiet, dark tree groves and sidewalks of the University, neither of them say a word.

“Oh!” he says, acting surprised. “This is where it gets better!”

“I’m afraid.”

“Nah.”

As they move inside, they are pleasantly surprised to find that the bar reflects their moods. Mostly green, mostly empty, and mostly jazz, though at the intersections of these sensory dimensions there is clear room for turning them all up if desired. The bar seems to be quietly nodding off to sleep; with restless talk.

Travis sets his guitar case against the bar, and gently grabbing the gin bottle from Melissa, he puts it up on the bar. “How about two Sapphire and tonics, Harris?”

Harris says, “How was the show?”

“Welllll. It was a special night,” and he winks at Melissa, who blushes.

“Excellent.”

Melissa asks, “This is when it gets better?”

“Well… it’s free.”

Melissa crushes one eye in disapproval. “Girls always drink for free.”

“Only the pretty ones.”

She slaps his shoulder.

“Well, what did you think ‘better’ meant?”

“I didn’t think it meant me carrying the bottle,” rolling eyes, crossing her arms.

“La tee da.”

With the drinks they sit down to a quiet, padded booth; a semi-circular alcove off from the bar, off from the speaker, but opposite from a large wall-length mirror, which makes for flirtatious games of glances.

“Do you live off of your shows?”

“Nope”

“So what, do you have a job or something?”

“Uh. Nope.”

“Must be nice.”

“Well, I shouldn’t say I have no job. I do stuff to get money. It’s just not exactly like work.”

“That sounds clandestine.”

Innocently, “Clandestine?”

“You ‘do stuff’? That’s not supposed to sound like you’re in the mob or something?”

Travis smiles and lights a cigarette as coyly as he can. “Can’t tell ya’.”

“Yeah, I thought so.”

“Strictly top secret.”

“So what? Am I going to get shot hanging around with you?”

“What!? No, no—nothin’ dangerous. Stupid stuff.”

“I’m safe then?” She’s actually serious.

“Seriously? I’m hardly dangerous. You’re really worried?”

Quietly, “You know, I don’t actually know who you are.”

“Look, I’m not exactly proud of it—I mean, I am really proud of it—for pulling it off…”

She waits for him to gather his words, in disbelief that there’s actually some kind of underbelly.

“I make fake IDs.”

It takes a second and then she guffaws.

“Hey, it’s… you know… kinda’ serious.”

“Oh yeah. You’re a real don.”

Melissa spins her straw in her drink for a minute, thinking about something. Travis lets her, smoking his cigarette. “It’s kind of funny,” she starts, and then pauses again, debating whether to say what she is thinking. “I’ve been going to the Engine Room a lot.”

Travis nods seriously. “That is strange.”

“No.” She pats his arm, thankful for his playfulness. But she says like he should know, “I’ve been looking for you.”

“Me?”

“Yeah?” She looks at him until he looks back and then she holds his stare for a moment.

“Oh.”

“It’s just—” she replies—another thing he should already know. “We never finished what we started.”

“Oh yeah,” Travis replies, looking out into the mirror opposite the table.

She looks at the mirror, into his reflection’s eyes, “Exactly.”

Smiling, he turns back to the real Melissa and says, “I’m not sure I’m the same person I was when you met me.” He gets quiet, “Hell, I think I knew you before I knew you.”

Leisurely, sipping from her glass, she says, “Talk.”

“I don’t know. Something’s been eating at me.”

“Did something happen to you?”

“What? Bad?”

“Yeah.”

Travis laughs. “Nothing bad ever happens to me.” But then slumps a bit. “Nothing actually bad.”

“Nothing?”

“You know, there’s bad, tragic, and then there’s just unfortunate.”

Crossing her arms, Melissa inquires, “And how do you keep bad things from happening to you, Mr. Fleeting?”

“Well, Miss…?”

“Keller.”

Travis nods. Melissa Keller. “Well, Miss Keller, when something bad happens to me, I enjoy it. Voilá.”

Melissa giggles. God, she thinks it’s stupid but she giggles. Travis is an amateur magician, declaring his vanishing trick amazing after throwing the coin under the table with a loud clank. She can’t make light of her thoughts, but she’s glad he can.

“That’s it?”

“That’s it.”

Musing, Melissa ventures another question, skeptical, “Then why such an empty song, Travis?”

He looks down at the table, then the mirror, tries to smile at her, but can’t. It’s so simple, so easy, so hard, so trivial, but all real. When he looks up, Melissa does not recognize his face. The cheeks are hollow, the jaw line slack, no smile. He looks at her with a plea in his eyes and speaks as quickly as he can, “I’m alone.”

Melissa touches his arm. Shocking him with her touch, almost from out of the mirror, proof of the moment, “Maybe more people are listening than you think.”

Travis looks at her hand on his arm. “No. It’s not who’s listening. I mean, it’s who’s listening, but… I have to love them. It needs to be my friends. I don’t want my love to become some kind of disheveled work—some kind of fame.” —the horror— “It’s not my place.” A warmth comes over him, an old anger and the warmth of defiance against the judges. His own words surprise him then, as the music so often does. “My place among the stars is reserved. I will cry for all eternity there, but not while I am still alive.”

“Look what I found.”

Sandy detaches herself from Nick and latches onto Travis, leaning herself up on the railing of the landing. Travis puts an arm around her, and then notices she is just wearing a short dress with her shoulders bare. He stands her up for a moment, takes off his leather jacket and drapes it over her shoulders. She smiles and snuggles under his arm again. Travis is unnerved by the feeling of breath on his neck. He tries harder to keep his cool, but he can’t help wanting to attack her in a fury of passion.

“Hey,” Nick says again to the crowd on the landing. “This is Erica. Erica…” Nick pauses.

“This is everybody.”

“Hey everybody,” Erica says quietly.

Eric tries to wave, but can’t quite get his head out of his hands. Kristin, Ian and Travis all nod politely, though. “How the hell’d you meet this scoundrel?” Travis asks Erica. And he really wants to know. He’d never known Nick to just pick up a stranger at a party.

“We were in Studio together Spring quarter,” Nick answers.

From the looks of cradled heads on shoulders, they would either be partaking in carnal activities or taking care of a lost soul for a night. He could never take advantage of a drunk woman—tipsy, but not drunk. As if sensing his concern, Sandy looks up for a moment into Travis’s eyes. “I broke up with Jason,” she says, sad and as if no one else is around. Ian and Nick exchange amused glances as Travis just smiles and wraps his arm tighter around her. She puts her head back down on his shoulder, obviously tired. Moonlight falls across the carousel in Travis’s mind for a moment. Kristin looks at Travis with one eyebrow raised when he looks back up, questioning his motives. With his left arm draped over Sandy, though, Travis just gestures to Eric on the stairs. “You got your own to take care of,” he answers. Eric waves with one hand, keeping his head down in the other. “I’m f-f-fine,” he mutters.

“C’mon,” Kristin urges, tugging on his arm. “If you don’t get up and move around you’re gonna’ get sick.”

Eric makes an incredible effort and stands up. His eyes widen brightly, and he starts to sit back down before Kristin grabs his arm and pulls him to her, his arm over her shoulder. He leans heavily, but seems to be a little better off for standing.

Daphne and John come gaily stomping down the stairs, laughing at some joke they were sharing. Each of them is carrying three beers apiece, bringing the music from upstairs down with them in the silent moment on the landing. “Who wants beer?” John calls jovially. Ian and Travis each take one.

Dizzy and John take up position in the circle between the now symbiotic beings of NickandErica, KristinandEric and TravisandSandy. “Doh-see-fuckin-doh!” John yells. The conversation drifts as the music waterfalls down the iron stairs, all of the sound carried out onto Milledge avenue, out into the city lights, out into a sleepy world. The laughter and jests cool the late summer evening. There beneath the katydid moon there is hesitation, knowing glances and simple talk that lingers into the early hours of the night like a lullaby. Settling on the landing, a comfort of contentment comes to rest on the iron, matches without pairs, pairs without matches. Travis smiles quietly and lets himself slip out of the conversation to feel Sandy’s breath on his neck. He is comfortable in support, feels meaningful under her weight.

“Good luck,” Travis says to Kristin.

“What’s up?” Nick asks as Kristin and Eric make their way up the stairs, leaning on each other.

Travis turns from watching the pair to Nick. “You remember Sandy Bennett?”

Nick has to think about it for a moment, and then his eyes widen in remembrance. “The one with the boots?”

“The killer boots,” letting Nick see what he is thinking.

“Oh boy! Somebody’s gettin’ boots fer Kreesmas!”

Shushing Nick and looking over his shoulder to insure that Sandy isn’t already on her way down the stairs, Travis replies, “Keep it down, dude.”

Nick is drunk and acting silly. He covers his mouth and looks up the stairs, too.

Ian, John, and Dizzy are still waiting for an explanation of all the covert motion going on between the two. “Who’s this chick?” John asks.

“Old girlfriend—sort of.”

“Dude,” Nick interjects, “You pretty much ditched her. You think she’s still got it on for you?” Shrugging, Travis replies, “Near as I can tell, from what happened up there.”

Nick performs a little jig and imitates a bad seventies porno soundtrack bass.

Dizzy hits Nick on the arm. “You’re so bad.”

“You know,” Ian says, changing the subject, “we should just go over to the house and get a bunch of beers in a cooler—drink ‘em right here.”

“They got six fuckin’ kegs up there,” Travis points out.

“Six?” Nick asks incredulously.

“That’s what Phil says.”

“Is Phil up there?” Dizzy asks lovingly. “I love Phil.”

“He is standin’ by the keg in the kitchen.”

“I’ll be back,” Dizzy says. “I’m gonna’ go say hey.”

As Dizzy makes her way up the fire escape, Nick leans over and punches Travis in the shoulder and then gyrates his hips. “Git-in-laid!”

Despite Travis’s attempt to retain a casual demeanor, Nick’s optimism is catchy. “‘Bout damn time, too.”

“What the hell’ya’ doin’ down here, man. You should be schmoozin’ it up there.”

“It’s casual.” He gives Ian a cheers with his plastic beer cup. “Gotta’ play hard to get sometimes.”

“We’ll play it cool, dude. Make you look good,” Ian says, smiling vicariously. “You know,” Ian says, laughing, “make it look like you just ducked out on her ’cause of some super-secret government mission or somethin’.”

“Hell, I liked her. I just wasn’t gonna’ be the other man. I think she knows that.” Travis looks up the stairs. “Or she’s just wasted.”

“Either way!” Nick cheers.

Ian adds, “Yeah, but dude, the other man has no obligations.”

“Da’ otha’ man gets his booty fo’ free!” Nick yells.

“You need to get laid,” Travis informs Nick.

A surprised look comes over Nick’s face—some epiphany. “You know what? You’re right.”

And he wonders off up the stairs.

“What the hell?” Travis asks to no one in particular after Nick has walked off.

“I think he’s been here a while, dude,” Ian replies.

“And he’s horny,” John adds.

“How’re you doin’?” Travis asks.

John shrugs. “I’m horny too.”

“No, no, no. How’re you doin’?” Travis asks again, holding up his beer.

John examines the glass soberly. “I’m drunk and horny.”

“No, dude. The party’s only two doors down.”

“Oh. Really?”

“Yeah. What’s-her-name at Mean Mike’s said it was next door to the radio station.” WUOG is next door to the Teke house. Travis and Ian both had occasion to yell requests out Ian’s window to the D.J. Most of the disc jockeys were cool about the noise. One had even run a mike to the window to interview Ian and Travis because he thought it was so funny.

“I got two guys here that wanna’ make a request real bad, but they’re not bright enough to use the phone,” the D.J. had said out across the airwaves. And Ian and Travis proceeded to yell something in unison—completely incomprehensible to anyone listening to the radio.

That same D.J. had found Travis playing at D.T.’s, and had asked him to do an interview on a local’s only show. Travis had agreed to do it—so long as he could do it from Ian’s window at the Teke house. The D.J. agreed, and several nights later hundreds of people tuned in to Travis yelling answers to serious questions ten yards away from the microphone, using a cardboard megaphone.

“So, tell me Travis, why did you decide to pick up the guitar?”

And then a muffled answer would be hollered out. Walking along Milledge, in front of the radio station, Travis thinks to himself that he should talk that D.J. into doing another show—this time in the same room. It would be good publicity, he thinks. But then, Travis laughs at the word ‘publicity’.

“What?” Ian asks as they stroll across the parking lots.

“It’s just funny—the idea of advertising myself. I can’t ever get over it.”

“I think it’s cool, dude. I wish you’d let me do something bigger than a flyer—a big glossy, poster or t-shirt or something. Flyers are cool and all, man…”

As the two walk up to the house on the other side of the radio station, they can hear the noise of the party in a low lovely rumble that trickles down an ironwork staircase on the outside of the house. “All right,” Travis agrees. “You got it. We’ll do something cool in the fall when the crowds get a little bigger.”

“I wanna’ photograph you on Mary Jane anyway—even if it’s just for posterity.”

From the streets below them, Ian and Travis can be seen as shadowy figures lingering at the top of one of the downtown parking garages. They can see the whole stretch of College Avenue and most of Clayton Street. Standing there with Ian, Travis is fascinated with the migratory patterns of the evening’s thrill seekers. Where are they all coming from? Where are they going? Travis can see himself standing on the sidewalk with everyone, any of them, and laughing at some stupid joke. He watches as the crowds plan who will ride with whom, who knows where they are going, where they can crash afterwards.

“I need to get some pictures from up here,” Ian declares. “I think town used to seem bigger to me because it was also the first time in my life when I had to find everything for myself, you know? No parents with tour maps and binoculars.”

“Well, it’s one thing in my life I’m pretty proud of. I mean, not only do I know every joint in this town, but I know half the people that work in those places. I definitely managed to find my way around.”

“Yeah. You know a lot of people.”

Travis shrugs. “I know who a lot of people are. I don’t know them, though.”

“There’s still a lot of new stuff.”

“Oh yeah. There’s always new stuff. I love it.” Travis turns to face Ian. The top level of the deck is mostly empty, lit by the ambient light of the city. “It’s funny. You and I know that. Doesn’t seem like anybody else does.”

“What d’ya mean?”

“I don’t know. I’m just always thrilled to see shit. I love the way things look in the fall, spring, whatever. Fences, people, trees.” Travis broadly gestures to the city. “All of it.”

“No, I know, dude. Lisa’s always complaining when I stop to shoot stuff—which is funny to me, because she loves the pictures. But she doesn’t understand why I do any of it.”

“It’s life.”

“I know.” Ian watches two young girls walk five stories beneath them, giggling. He can hear the laughter rebounding up the sides of the brick and concrete buildings. “Don’t sweat it, dude. Just be glad you get to see it.”

“It’s not really fun without anybody to share it with.”

“I’d rather be Socrates dissatisfied than a fool satisfied.”

Travis turns and leans on the wall.

Reaching into his pocket, Ian takes out his cigarettes and offers one to Travis. Ian takes one for himself, lights it with a bit of flare that makes Travis chuckle. Then, Ian reaches over and lights Travis’s. “Now you’re my bitch,” he says.

“Yeah, yeah,” Travis replies nonchalantly.

“I think I’m a little tipsy.”

“Amen to that,” Travis says, taking a drag. After a moment more, he continues, “I just can’t figure one thing out.”

“What’s that?”

“If I’m so damn content with my life, then how come I’m not content?”

“You’re content. You’re just not happy.”

“See,” Travis replies, “what’s that?”

“What?”

“Sometimes I am so completely content, that I don’t care about anything.”

Ian squints and looks to the clock on the City Hall tower. They are just about even with the clock, and he thinks that the view would make an exceptional photograph—the way the tower is lit. “I can get that way too,” he agrees.

“Yeah?”

“Yeah. I just wanna’ listen to music or lie around in bed… sometimes… not do anything.” Ian shrugs while Travis leans over the wall and thinks about the fall—not seriously, just curiously. He can feel the air rushing past him. He can feel the impact on his body as it is crushed against the concrete, maybe he’d bounce. It isn’t a feeling he can imagine—his body bouncing like a rubber ball. “When I was a little kid, I used to be really afraid of death—the whole idea of it.” He smiles up at Ian who is looking at him curiously. “Really. It used to scare the shit out of me. I’d lie awake in bed, and just try to think about nothing—what being nothing would be like.”

“You thought about that when you were a kid?”

Travis shrugs and takes a drag off his cigarette, looking out over College Avenue again, the flocks of night monkeys passing by. “I think it might have had something to do with being raised Catholic. There is so much focus on death and the afterlife—like the whole of life is just one big damn fancy parade into the abyss.”

“Everybody thinks about death, dude.”

“Oh I know… I’ve just reached this point where I can see that focusing on death like I have all this time isn’t right. It’s not about death. Death is just there to define what it is to be alive. This is what matters, not what happens after your dead.”

“You know I agree with you there.”

“Death is irrelevant, right?”

“Well…”

Travis widens his eyes a little, almost hopelessly, trying to get Ian to see what he means. “So what now?”

Ian thinks on it for a few minutes, smoking his cigarette casually. “I can’t remember who said it, but somebody said once that the only thing that made being alive bearable is having each other.”

Travis nods thoughtfully and leans back down on the wall again. “Yeah… Maybe that’s what eats at me. This little town, this little group, these parties—this can’t last forever.”

“That’d be boring.”

“I guess.”

“And you’ve got your music wherever you go, dude. Don’t forget that.” Travis shakes his head. “Music’s just opium. The only time it’s worth anything is when I’m playing for everybody else.”

“Well, you can play anywhere. You’ll have friends everywhere you go.”

Travis smiles.

Peering over the wall at a couple more passersby, Ian says, “Just spit on somebody. That’ll make you feel better.”

Travis laughs. “That wouldn’t make me feel any better. Do unto others as you would have them do unto you.”

“No, no, no. It’s: do it to others before they do it to you.”

“If it kept somebody from jumping off a ledge though, I’d let them spit on me.”

“I wouldn’t. Fuck ‘em. Let ‘em jump.”

“Damn right. Who needs ‘em.”

“I mean it, dude. If you went and killed yourself, I’d be pissed off. Don’t expect any weepy tears from me. I’d piss on your grave.” Ian couldn’t quite finish the sentence without laughing.

Looking very touched, Travis nods and replies, “I really appreciate that, man. That’s touching. But nobody asks to be here. Some of us are lucky. Some of us get the shitty end of the stick.” Travis finishes his cigarette. “You ready to go to this party?”

“Let’s do it.”

Fifty minutes later it is after noon and Travis awakens again to rude red numbers screaming that his life is drifting away before his very eyes, but maybe life is better when he is asleep—when he isn’t paying attention to his attentiveness. So long as he is carefree, so long as he can leave painted horses behind him… he sighs, long and hard into the pillow. He closes his eyes for another moment, opens them, and looks at the clock again. A minute has passed. Rolling over on his side, he sets his chin on his forearm and watches the numbers for a while. They seem to be moving along faster than normal. A minute seems to take only twenty seconds, and Travis wonders if it is him or the clock that is out of whack. What an annoying feeling it is, that time is passing—that he is actually noticing time passing. It makes him want to get out of bed and at least go somewhere where he can ignore time for a while. He shoves his damp sheets aside, irritated, and sets his feet on the floor. Squinting at the clock, he smiles at himself before he swings his left hand out in a sweeping arc, knocking the clock to the floor with a crash. * So there*. That feels better.

Putting on clean underwear, clean socks, dirty jeans and a dirty t-shirt, Travis stands in the middle of his room running his hands through the fuzz on his head. He is supposed to shave; supposed to brush his teeth and eat something; supposed shower and do laundry: supposed to have a regular job, and to pay taxes. He is supposed to have a nominal existence that fits him like a cornflower blue button-up shirt instead of his favorite gray t-shirt, and he twists and tries to set the wrinkles under his arms and around his neck. He is not supposed to be up at night attacking his electric in a purple light for drunken revelers. Looking down for a moment, he realizes he’s put the shirt on backwards. Pulling his arms in through the sleeves, he twists the shirt around in the other direction. Travis looks over to his acoustic sitting against the bed and thinks one last time about all the things he is supposed to do, before picking up the guitar and heading out the bedroom door.

As Travis passes into the living room, he spies Nick sitting on the love seat, his feet propped up on a footstool, sketching. As Travis walks by toward the front door, Nick calls out, “Good morning,” without looking up.

“Yeah?” Travis says, reaching for the door.

“Whatch’ya’ doin’?” Nick asks.

“I’m goin’ for a walk.”

“Oh don’t kid yourself,” Nick says quickly, shaking his head. He continues sketching.

Travis hesitates for a moment and then smiles and decides to take the bait, “What?”

“You’ll never lose any weight that way, fatty,” Nick offers.

“I’ll be back.”

“Whatever.”

“I love you too, man.”

“Mm-hm.”

“Just three,” Travis replies. “And honestly, I think this will be the last time… for a while anyway.”

The warmth from the grill, the sizzling of grease, and Johnny Cash singing low from the juke box, greet the boys easy, with a peppy southern waitress to boot. “Mornin’ boys!” She sets out silverware and napkins, but there’s plenty of time to take orders in a minute. Both Nick and Travis nod politely, fiddle with their silverware. The whole cherub yellow room smells like bacon.

“Why’s that?”

Travis shakes his head. “I’m gettin’ too old for this.”

Nick rolls his eyes.

“Naw, seriously. I don’t know. I guess I don’t want to push my luck. I’ve had some really fun times.”

“Everything in moderation.”

Travis makes a little bow of recognition with his hand, “Thank you Mr. Aristotle.”

“Wasn’t that Plato who first said that?”

Travis thinks about it, catching his reflection in the glass, his own face surprising him.

“Socrates,” he says nodding.

“Yeah. Socrates. That’s the dude.”

A waitress leaps to the boys’ side—a different one than the greeter—an older, matronly woman, forty or so. She cocks her hip and stands on one leg as she writes furiously on her yellow pad, talking way fast at the same time with a truck-stop southern accent. “Whatch’all boys havin’?”

“Cup o’ coffee, please,” Nick says, letting his own repressed southern accent out.

Travis notices and laughs to himself, but does the same. “Same for me.”

“Ya’ll need a minute to order?”

“Nah,” Nick replies, “I’ll have a plain waffle and a side of toast, pretty please.”

When the waitress looks to Travis he says, “Bacon, egg, and cheese sandwich—side of grits.”

“You want a fork with that?” the waitress says.

They all laugh, and Travis gives a look like she’s got to know better. “But I would like some honey, please.”

The waitress notes the honey on her pad and then finishes with, “Back in a sec’ with the coffees.”

Lighting a cigarette, Travis glances over at the breakfast counter where a short, bald man with glasses is prattling on in frustration. The waitress, the young one that had greeted Travis and Nick, is smiling and sympathizing at whatever Foghorn Leghorn—not taking a breath—was complaining about. She’s looks tired though, like she’d just come in for her shift.

“How ’bout that!?” Nick says, holding up a piece of paper he’d rediscovered in his pocket.

Travis looks at the scrap. It had a number and the name ‘Scarlet’ scrawled on it. “Yep,” he replies nonchalantly. “You done good, boy.”

“I don’t really know how I got this,” Nick says, examining the intricacies of the handwriting, holding it up in the light, always a stickler for handwriting. “I was bein’ such a freak.”

“Hey, man, she dug you—what more do you need? You were just showing off one of your more interesting sides.”

“My drugged side?”

Travis dismisses the comment. “Lesser men have not gotten numbers while drugged.”

Nick shakes his head. “She must have seen something, ’cause I wasn’t tryin’ to impress at all.”

“Yeah but that’s the thing about E—how much more you you become. Boring people become more boring. Energized people get more energy. Thoughtful people get more thoughtful.”

After a moment, he adds, “Fear of John is magnified tenfold.”

Nick huffs in agreement and then, squinting his eyes, Nick intones the voice of an ancient Chinese instructor, “You must be you, and the wind must be the wind.”

Travis plays along, looking around the room with newfound mystery. “It is all around us. Within us.”

“The rock… the tree…”

“The grill… the bacon.”

Nick laughs and nods.

“And you must always remember: the Buddha is hash browns at Waffle House.”

Nick leans into Travis and whispers, holding up his hand to his face. “I’m the Buddha.”

Surprised, Travis sits back in the booth, a look of awe coming over him. “You are the Buddha.”

Nick shushes Travis and looks around nervously.

“Wait a minute,” Travis says in sudden disbelief, “If you’re the Buddha, then tell me: is it 43 or 37?”

Nick shrugs as though the answer were obvious. “37.”

But Travis just waves him off. “You’re not the Buddha.”

“I am too the Buddha!” Nick proclaims loudly—and during the quiet bridge of the song on the juke box.

Old Foghorn Leghorn at the counter pauses his diatribe to look over at the boys’ booth with a curious expression, wondering if he’d heard what he thought he’d heard. Nick and Travis just raise their eyebrows at each other as though nothing was out of the ordinary. Travis smiles at the old man as Nick says, “Steel belted radials. Nothin’ else,” with a decisive cutting motion of the hand.

Travis nods casually. “Yeah. I could see that. Nothin’ else, really—not that time of year.” He takes a pull on his cigarette.

“Put those on, and you’ll be fine.”

“Could be the carburetor, though” Travis suggests.

Conspiratorially across the table, Nick hisses, “You’re gonna’ put him on to us, you fool!”

The old man looks back to the breakfast counter and continues his conversation with the young waitress. Travis smiles. “Good save,” out of the side of his mouth.

Nick just nods. “I don’t want anybody knowin’ who the Buddha is, except me.”

Travis opens the imaginary award show envelope that reveals the answer, “And the Buddha goes to…”

“Steel belted radials.”

“Cheesetoast!” Travis replies.

“That too,” Nick agrees. After a minute of toying with his spoon, Nick says, “It’s all about a bologna sandwich.”

“You can’t have one.”

“You never can,” Nick says seriously.

“It might be all you want—”

“But you can’t have it.” Nick waits, “This is Wafflé Mansíon!”

“Actually,” Travis says thoughtfully, “I think Kant put it best when he said: ‘it is the universal bologna sandwich that is truth. Particulate, individual bologna sandwiches are all boring.’ It’s The Bologna Sandwich that you can’t have.”

Nick looks annoyed. “I don’t buy that transcendental crap. It’s either a bologna sandwich or it’s not.”

Travis glances out the window to where the sky is growing steadily more blue. Some small clouds have taken pink fringes. They look like loaves of bread baking in the sky—he laughs—with the bologna hanging over the edges. He speaks to the window in a melancholy tone, “I am a transparent bologna sandwich left upon the infinite shores of wisdom; the tide slowly ebbing away my bread.”

Nick smiles genuinely and sits up as the waitress comes over to the table and sets their coffee down. She’d gotten busy. A crowd had begun to gather. “That’s beautiful,” Nick says as she sets his coffee down in front of him. “Did you think of that just now?” Turning to the waitress he says, “Thank you.”

“Thanks,” Travis says as he receives his cup, and then, to Nick, “Naw. I stole it—sort of.”

“From where?”

“Emerson? No idea, really.”

Nick looks up, trying to recall the phrase in its entirety. “I am a bologna sandwich—”

“Transparent—” Travis adds.

“Yeah. —transparent bologna sandwich left upon the shores of wisdom—”

“—infinite—”

“Right—infinite shores of wisdom; the tide slowly ebbing away my bread.”

Travis nods, putting cream and sugar in his coffee—a lot of both. “Something like that.” Nick chuckles and sips his coffee, the early morning light illuminating their table when he looks down. “I tried to explain the bologna sandwich thing to Vicky the other day.

“Did she get it?”

Nick rolls his eyes.

“Stupid question,” Travis replies.

“She kept rambling on about peanut butter and honey.”

“Philistine!”

“I think her whole idea of art is that if it’s not perfectly evident, then it’s stupid.”

“Stoopid.” Travis agrees.

Nick shakes his head.

“I don’t know. She means well,” Travis argues.

“No,” Nick says, “I really believe she doesn’t want to have to think about it.”

“Well,” Travis starts. He stops. “Well,” he says, clasping and unclasping his hands. Nick waits and Travis gives up thinking. “There ya’ go.”

“I like what Kandinsky said when someone asked him to explain one of his paintings: ‘You ask me to explain in five minutes what took me twenty years to understand.’”

Travis nods thoughtfully. “Very well put.”

“People ask you what your songs mean,” Nick offers.

“That they do.”

“What do you say?”

Travis just smiles for a few seconds, giving Nick a head start, “They’re all about wanting —”

“A bologna sandwich,” the pair finishes in unison.

“Oh yeah.” Nick sips his coffee and looks around, his brow furrowed in an attempt to remember. “How’d we ever get on that?”

“It’s from that old Buddhist story. The student asks the teacher what the Buddha is and the teacher answers that the Buddha’s three pounds of flan.”

“‘Cause the question’s absurd.”

“Yeah. Any answer would be ridiculous.”

As the rubber of Travis and Nick’s boots come down to meet the sidewalk, they are just cradled by a thin padding of welcome. Their gait is long and synchronous as they slide along the world, four lanes and a median of asphalt to their left. Travis and Nick feel as though gravity is less a force and more an attraction; when they are paying attention to being on the ground at all. For the most part they are just smiling at everything and enjoying the general feeling of solace in the cool morning. In the background of their brains there is a mattress, unevenly laid, cushioning every heavy thought with creaky springs.

Nick looks up out of his own reverie to see what Travis has laughed about. He looks up the road and sees that truck-stop glee appear before him in all-black capital letters: Waffle House. “Food,” he says, mesmerized by the radiation.

“Wow,” Travis agrees.

“Are you comin’ down yet?” Nick asks. He had his gas station attendant’s jacket zipped all the way up, the collar turned up, too. A light wind tosses his thick brown hair.

The whole scene makes Travis feel like he is near the sea; the light, the air, the breeze, just the sense of the proximity of water. He wonders for a moment what that feeling is—the salt in the air or did the tides affect the weather by the shore? There wasn’t a body of water beyond the Broad River several miles away. But a big body of water was in the air. “Yeah,”

Travis replies thoughtfully. “For about the last hour really.”

Nick takes a deep breath, letting it out through his nose. “Meeee toooooo.”

“I don’t mind.” He waits a while, “You know? I usually feel really relaxed for a couple of days afterward.”

“Stupid?” Nick asks.

“No. Pretty clear-headed really. Post-zen.”

They get to the front of the Waffle House and Nick opens the door for Travis. “That was a night.”

Travis steps into the weather foyer of the restaurant and opens the inner door for Nick. “Good times.”