The room is a massive jungle gym of four-by-four posts supporting a loft that, in itself is another room. The front half of the room, not covered by the loft, has three giant bay windows that look out to the pillars of the front porch and Milledge Avenue. There is a couch under the windows, and another one situated opposite of the first. From this second couch emerges a head, crowned by tattered black hair and bejeweled by two blue swollen eyes. “Ugh,” says Ian.

“Come on, Pirata!” says Travis, coming around the front of the couch. In a Mexican accent, “We are going eento town.”

“Wake up!” John chides, sitting on the couch under the windows. He pushes aside two empty whiskey bottles on the coffee table and puts his feet up.

Ian had sat up and is rubbing his eyes. He is shirtless and wearing jeans. “Man, what time is it?”

“‘Bout four,” replies Travis, sitting down next to him.

“Shit.”

“Have a good time?” asks John.

“It was nuts.”

“Where’s Bubble-boy?” asks Travis, referring to Ian’s allergic and sickly roommate.

Ian laughs at hearing the name. “We ran him off I guess. He’s staying with his girlfriend for a while and then going home for the summer.” Standing up, Ian stretches hard and orients himself toward the bathroom, looking to be a bit off-kilter still. “God, she’s revolting.” He takes two steps before stopping to think about where he is off to. Turning, he says, “Le’me get a shower and I’ll go with you.”

“Cool. We’ll stop and get you some coffee after we drop off my amp.”

Passing through the door to the bathroom, Ian shuts it after himself, and after a few minutes John and Traivs can hear the sound of running water. John had picked up a photo magazine from off the coffee table and is thumbing through it, lounging on the couch. Sitting opposite John, Travis absentmindedly picks up a half-full bottle of gin, sniffs it, smiles and cradles the bottle to his chest. Surveying the room, Travis looks at all the posters, bottles, and the occasional eight-by-tens that Ian had snapped and developed. There are two street signs and a stop sign nailed to the wall. There are clothes strewn everywhere, hanging from every imaginable precipice. Bored with the magazine, John sets it back down on the table and looks at Travis blankly, who looks blankly back, and then raises his eyebrows as if to say I don’t know.

They both look around the room for a minute more before John remarks, “I have a very small, distracting house.”

Travis nods quickly in feigned understanding.

“It’s in the middle of the street.”

Looking at John and closing one eye, Travis replies with the perverted uncle’s voice, “I got your small, distracting house right here in my pants.” Leaning back on the couch, he inserts his free hand into the waist of his jeans, letting the gin bottle hang limp from the other.

“What’d'ya think’s wrong with your amp?”

“Probably just blew a fuse or somethin’—it won’t cost too much.”

“Have you just been using your other one?”

“Actually,” Travis laughs at the thought before continuing, “I haven’t really practiced in about a week—hence my dissatisfaction with last night’s show.”

Rolling his eyes, John sympathizes. “Me neither.”

“I’ll get back on the ball once I get this amp fixed.”

John nods. “I think I’m gonna’ get a mixer.”

“You got that much cash?”

“Just a small one.”

Looking at the gin bottle, holding it loosely by the throat, Travis just says, “I got your mixer right here in my pants.”

Facing downtown, buildings that sigh by leaning on each other—you know, old age—on the right side of College Square, Blue Sky coffeehouse sits, its rustic awning leaning over the sidewalk, oxidized iron dripping when it rains. At almost all times, when Travis can’t find Ian by cell phone, it can be assumed that he is hard at work on something in the basement at Blue Sky. Travis can see in his mind’s eye, entering the shop, turning left and walking down the loud iron-rimmed stairs, turning right and leaning down on the landing to peer out at all the tables spread out across the concrete basement floor. On the left side of a fountain in the center of the room, Ian would be at “his” table (though only Travis referred to it as that) scribbling away at letters or papers, or looking at slides, or sifting through stacks of photographs.

Today, though he just steps into the main room where a large corkboard sits to the right, every inch covered in stapled announcements. It is equivalent of geographic strata—dig deep enough through the hundred tattered flyers, thumb tacks and staples and maybe you’ll unearth an R.E.M. or Widespread Panic poster—and one of the first one’s he spots is unfortunately a show he can not attend. It reads:

“See Travis drink. See Travis play. Travis likes to drink and play. Friday August 4th, The Washington Street Tavern.”

Ian and Travis had written it up and typeset it on Ian’s computer a while back, with blank space to fill in the date and place with a Sharpie, and Nick had suggested a favorite painting of his by Picasso, a guitarist. Travis smiles at the bill. The face of the guitarist is long and distorted and seems possessed by the instrument he holds upright in thin bony hands, eyes closed. Though the guitar player in the painting looks nothing like him, Travis can see he own face in cubist pieces. Looking over the other bills and posters, Travis recognizes a few—doesn’t recognize most of them. A lot of shows had already passed. But after looking over the bulletin board for several minutes, Travis can’t find anything that interests him. He hits the street.

The lightposts prove to be more helpful. More recent flyers show up there, including two more copies of Travis’s poster. One other poster stands out, and Travis decides this is the band to see. Not because of the funny name, Elf Power, but because they’re playing the Georgia Theater, an old cinema house on the corner of Clayton and Lumpkin, which meant they must be halfway decent. Their press photo is goofy, too. They’re all smiling and laughing at something off-camera. Travis much prefers it to the oh-so-typical, pensive staring in different directions to the horizon.

The show doesn’t start until ten, though, so Travis figures he has an hour or two to kill. He realizes the possibilities are horribly endless. He can get a cup of coffee and watch people. He can get a drink and watch people. Or, if he wants to, he can just sit right there on the sidewalk outside in the summer evening and watch people.

He opts to wander aimlessly while a memory of Daphne drifts into the vacancy in his mind. The two of them had sat at the table by the window of the Athen’s coffeehouse watching the world going by. It was their freshman year.

“What do you want, Travis?”

Travis was surprised by the question. In those days, Travis and Dizzy had been content with sitting in coffeehouses discussing the inane, the political, the metaphysical even, but it was never too personal, never too serious. The question was evidence of changes. The future, as distant as it still was, life beyond the boundaries of their then-new little town, was slowly coming into focus.

“What do I want?” Travis had repeated. “I want what I’ve got, really.”

Daphne disapproved, so he added a postscript, “and a motorcycle.”

“What do you want?” he asked Dizzy.

She wrapped her strawberry blonde hair around her finger and gazed out the window, too. “I don’t think I know just yet.” Then she turned to him and scrunched her face, dissatisfied with her answer. Glamorously, she posed, “I wanna’ be famous.” Spreading her arms out widely, like a Scarlet, she said, “I just want them to love me.”

Back in the past, the pair had moved away from the conversation like gazelle shifting lightly away from an unseen predator, joking about it, too. A predator, Travis thinks, sipping his beer in August, 1995, that is still out there somewhere—and now he knows it’s a man in a gray suit, with obsidian eyes. He was the man who took your ticket for the ride. Somewhere amongst screaming and kicking purple, orange, and green horses there is the hint of fear that something terrible is coming for them. Maybe it has already come, arrived on the day of their birth. It is not just that they cannot move freely that terrifies them, though that much is hard to bare; it is that they cannot run away from him, and they know he’s coming for them once they’re tired and worn out. Travis knows, because he feels it too, even though he isn’t on the ride. Just then, an old lyric comes back to him— “Life’s a carousel / we’re all chained to the movement.” And it dawns on him that he’s kidding himself. He looks around, not so much at the bar, as around at the world, the people and things in it. He gets up and walks over to the window and looks out at the street. There it was, the ride. The whole thing was a ride.

He walks back to the bar where he finds Phil standing, unoccupied. Phil says, “Hurry up and order another so I can have something to do.”

“That’s all it is, isn’t it?” Travis asks, wistful. “We all just want something to do.”

“Jesus,” Phil says. “I didn’t think you’d get all deep on me.”

“Sorry.”

“Naw. I keed! I keed! I expect Travis Fleeting to be a philosophical guy.”

Travis is confused now. He knows Phil, but not outside of Mean Mike’s. “How’d you know my last name?”

“You think all I do is work here? I’ve seen you play at DT’s.”

“No shit?”

“Yeah.”

“Well, you’ll have to excuse me, man. I thought all you ever did was work here.”

Phil smiles. “How’re you doin’?”

“You wanna’ know the truth?”

“Yeah, actually. I got time.”

“I feel great. Really great.” Travis pauses. “But… I don’t know if I’m just bored, or if I should stop being bored, or… I don’t know.”

“Well, I guess you’ll have to get over that.”

“It’s just that nobody seems to want to be happy, and I guess I am, and I guess it ticks me off. It’s kind of hard to be happy when it seems like so few other people are.”

“You know what?” And Phil leans on the bar, eyeing Travis’s half-full beer, “Another beer will solve that problem.”

“Here’s to that,” Travis raises his glass and Phil toasts it with his meaty fist.

“I don’t know,” Phil sighs. “It’s cliché man, but I say don’t sweat it.”

Travis nods, but really, sweat what? Fame? Money? He had neither. The future? The music? How could he ever worry about that unless he just stopped playing? How would that ever happen? It was as unthinkable as amputating a limb. I want what I’ve got. He still doesn’t feel assured. Phil has wandered off again, so Travis goes back to the table by the window.

Something new, something new. Travis travels a loop to the very thought that had sent him out into the damp evening. He sips his beer, his Paps Blue Ribbon, then looks at it and laughs. Apparently, his curiosity only went so far. But then, beer was beer and yet there were a thousand kinds. And surely the first didn’t taste like the last. After years of playing his guitar, he’d learned to create sounds that before, he could not have even distinguished, let alone generate. This is what he wants: the comfort of finding elegance in the minutia, in the absolute infinity found between every inch, every second. Let someone else find the next big thing. He sits quietly and finishes his beer, finally free of nuisance thoughts.

And then, he orders another.

“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.”

Travis furrows his brow.

“Yeah, dude,” Ian says encouragingly. “Vaquero. You’re a cowboy.”

“No time for dames,” Nick agrees gruffly and then quickly corrects himself to Kristin and Daphne. “Except for you two luscious ladies.” Kristin and Daphne make duh faces.

Travis shakes his head. “I was at a party a couple of months ago, trying to explain to this girl that I was a misogynist—she asks me if I had to go to school for that.”

Nick looks over at Travis, “Speaking of pizza.”

“That wasn’t relevant?”

Dizzy, “Unless you were trying to say that you hate us…”

“No, sorry,” Travis agrees. “It’s the whole marriage thing got me on it—you know, just incompatibility.”

“Actually,” Nick says, “that’s like that girl at that party at Appleby Muse.” Nick elbows Ian.

“Do you remember that?”

Ian just shuts his eyes and shakes his head, somewhat shamefully. He waves the matter off with his hand as Travis laughs in remembrance.

“I mean, Ian totally lambasted this girl. She is just totally playing it up and flirting with Ian…” Nick turns to Ian for a moment, “What was it you said? I can’t even remember now.”

“He said somethin’ like ‘I know you’re just tryin’ ta’ get laid,” Travis offers.

“No. She was just fishing for compliments. I told her that if she was just looking for flattery, she should look elsewhere.”

“That’s like that girl here—Rhonda’s friend Jamie,” Travis starts. “Ian told her that he didn’t expect her to remember him after they’d already met once, but that it didn’t matter anyway because he didn’t want to inflate her already sizable ego.”

Ian laughs and hits the table. He had said that, and he could remember the expression of horror on the girl’s face.

Kristin hits him playfully, her mouth wide open in utter amazement. “You did not say that.”

“He can be a feisty little spic when he wants to be,” Travis adds.

“Eh,” Ian says. “She deserved it.”

“Oh no,” Travis agrees, “That is the beauty of it. She totally deserved it.”

“But you don’t say things like that,” Kristin argues.

“I would never be able to say something like that,” Dizzy agrees.

Ian shrugs though. “I was feelin’ surly.”

“I don’t think I’d ever have the guts,” Travis says.

“I’m gonna’ hire Ian to say somethin’ like that to Vicky.”

“Aren’t you still with her?” Kristin asks.

“No.”

“I haven’t seen her around in a while.”

“Yeah,” Nick answers. “She got an internship.” He shakes his head.

“You didn’t do anything?” Dizzy asks.

Nick shakes his head and shrugs.

In sudden epiphany, Kristin leans over across Ian and asks Nick, “What were you doing with your old girlfriend tonight?”

“I jus’ hadn’t seen her in a while,” Nick says, casual. Too casual.

Kristin nods her head knowingly keeping her eyes on Nick.

“No,” Nick answers. “That’s it.”

“She’s got a new boyfriend,” Travis adds, leering, and Nick takes his turn rolling his eyes in response.

Raising an eyebrow suspiciously, Kristin leans back into her seat and watches Nick.

“Yeah. He’s real interesting.”

“He’s not a bad guy,” Travis argues.

“Eh.”

“Okay,” Travis concedes, “he’s a moron.”

“Are you jealous?” Kristin asks.

Nick looks frustrated for a moment, with Kristin’s line of questioning. “Nooooo,” he says, as though you’d have to be an idiot not to know it.

Kristin raises her eyebrow in suspicion again.

“How long did you go out with Karen?” Ian asks. Nick and Karen had been dating since before Ian knew Nick.

“Two years.”

Ian nods appreciatively. “That’s a while, man.”

“I guess we were the standard bearers for a while.”

“You’re the standard bearer now,” Travis says, pointing at Ian as if to tag him and say you’re it.

Ian doesn’t seem quite comfortable with the notion, and he shifts slightly in his seat.
“Really?”

Travis nods.

“What about John and Rachel?” Ian asks in his defense.

Travis makes a cutting motion at his neck with his forefinger, and Ian, Dizzy and Kristin look surprised.

“When?” Ian asks.

“Earlier today. John left just before you got here.”

“Shit.”

“Fuck,” Nick corrects him.

Ian laughs lightly and then asks, “What happened?”

Travis shrugs. “He didn’t say much. Apparently she is not interested in a long distance relationship.”

Ian looks confused.

“The band’s moving to Atlanta.”

“You’re kidding?”

“No. Fuck,” Nick corrects Ian more emphatically.

“They decided on it this afternoon apparently.”

“When’s he leaving?”

“Sounds like the end of this month.”

Ian nods again and says, “You know, I kinda’ feel like getting out of town.” Dizzy agrees with a silent nod. “Maybe go home for a couple of weeks,” Ian finishes.

“What would you do that for?” Travis asks.

“Eh. I just don’t feel like I’m getting anything done around here. I really wouldn’t mind going home and at least making a few bucks working for my Mom. It’d be relaxing.”

Travis looks around the table. “I guess it’ll just be me then.”

“It’s only for a couple of weeks,” Ian offers. “Actually, you could come with me if you wanted. We could head up to the city for a while. Check out some clubs. You might get a gig in New York!”

“Nah,” Travis says.

“Suit yourself.”

Travis leans back in his seat. “I don’t mind. I got stuff to do do here… I guess.”

“Hey everybody,” Dizzy says, talking to the whole table, “Look who it is! It’s Travis!” She leans over and gives Travis a big, wet kiss on the cheek. It’s a mutant double-date: Travis, Ian, Kristin and Dizzy, four people that have love but can’t see one another, all sitting at a table by the front door of Mean Mike’s. Travis and Dizzy are on one side, Kristin and Ian opposite them. No more perfect pair of pairs that could never exist ever existed.

“Don’t avoid the question,” Travis says, trying to be irritated—something he can’t manage with Daphne. She looks at him and beams, and he smiles back.

“I told you we’ll get married when we’re thirty.”

“Oh c’mon,” Travis whines.

“What?”

“You’ll have found a perfect, gorgeous, rich guy by then.”

Thinking about it while sipping on a jack and coke, Daphne nods excitedly at Travis with a bright smile, and replies, “Okay!”

“Well —” Travis utters, still whining, “you’ll never marry me then.”

Daphne smiles again. “Okay.” When Travis looks forlorn, she stares Travis seriously in the eyes and then begins petting his shorn hair with a concerned look. “You can be my puppy.”

Throwing his hands up in the air, Travis gives up as Nick sets a drink in front of him and then scoots past Dizzy to take a seat. “Thanks,” Travis says as Nick sits down.

“How come you only say this stuff when you’re drunk?” Daphne asks, chuckling because she thinks Travis is cute when she frustrates him.

“The love is too painful to bare when I’m sober.”

“Well, I think you should try to say it when you’re sober.” Daphne lingers for a moment, and then raises her eyebrows.

He doesn’t want it to be a joke. “You’d never be seen with me if we were sober.”

Tapping the ashtray with her cigarette, Dizzy replies with aplomb, “That’s true.”

Then, snapping out of his anyway feigned self-pity, thanks to an errant thought, Travis offers neutrally, “I wrote a song for you.”

“Really?” Daphne asks.

“Yeah.”

“That’s so sweet. I wanna’ hear it.”

“I’ll bring my guitar next time I come over.”

“Yay!” Dizzy cries, triumphant. “Is it good?”

Travis shakes his head. “No. It sucks.”

“No!” Dizzy yells and slaps Travis on the shoulder.

Taking a drink, Travis offers, “It sucks less than my other stuff.”

Daphne looks at Travis seriously and says, “Your stuff doesn’t suck…”

“I suppose,” Travis admits.

“You have to play it for me this week. I’m leaving Saturday.”

“You are?”

Dizzy nods.

“I thought you were getting a job here.”

She shrugs.

“Well, I’ll play it for you some time this week then.”

“Just come over. I’m not doing anything but packing a few things.”

“Okay.”

“When’re you having another party?” Nick interjects.

“Not for a while. There’s nobody here right now.”

“Yeah. That’s true,” Nick agrees.

Leaning over, Travis wraps Daphne in a hug. She accepts graciously, putting her hand on his arm. “You’re my inspiration—” he blubbers with exaggeration, to lighten the undertow, “my muse.” Despite his best efforts at melodrama, he is deeply sincere.

Daphne looks at Travis sweetly before Nick says, “He said earlier that you’re a fat nag.” She hits Travis in the shoulder again and refuses to speak to him for ten minutes.

Travis just sits for a while, kicking his feet beneath him. As Ian and Kristin talk about photography, and Nick tells Dizzy about his Pittsburgh deal, Travis lights up a cigarette.
Content to just be among his friends for a while, and not contribute, he watches people walking by the front of the bar—some peering in cautiously, some passing, some walking in. There is a loose stream of them—strangers—although in the moment, all of them lovely, all of them potential friends. There are couples and gangs, the occasional party and loners. And then, Travis is thinking about John, who has already gone home for the evening. The only question in Travis’s mind is whether John has said all he wants to. Never wanting to be a genuine irritation, Travis had let John go home without too much fuss or too many questions. Travis let his friends mean what they said, and if they said they had nothing to say, then there was nothing to be said. The best friend he could be was a present one.

Watching flocks of sidewalk revelers glide by, something unknown, something dark, eats at him and he thinks: he’s ugly / she’s not / he’s confident / she’s insecure / she’s trying too hard / he’s laughing too loud / she has no faith in anything—supposedly all seen in their eyes, but really all judgment. That’s not what eyes are for, they’re for connection. He knows that. The thoughts come from a shallow and trapped tide pool on his beach, not as deep as the ocean of his music that is a Mariana trench of love. All his thoughts are inherently wrong at just this moment to Travis, staring out the window. These thoughts irritate him, but have him in a headlock. He isn’t sure where along the way he’d started becoming a cynic. Travis thinks about his assumptions these days—what true love is. Romance, lust, and some universal sense of solidarity all blur into a deflated hope that at least one of the three could be unadulterated. He sleeps on his entrenched observations of disappointment like a pea under a stack of mattresses. He can ignore them if he tries. But that cynicism is there. He is tired, spinning his drink on the table top. It isn’t his brain or his body—it’s his soul. He is tired and doesn’t know why, watching these fellow passengers on the carousel, spinning and happy, for the moment, unsure that he wants to mount the ride.

“Hey dude,” Ian says.

“Hey,” Nick replies curtly, out of breath. He steps lightly over to the couch, sneaking on his toes, and sits down next to Ian, looking nervous still.

“What’s up?” Travis asks, smiling.

“Yeah, what the hell’s with you?” John asks.

“Nothin’.”

Ian looks over at Nick beside him and asks, “What’s in the bag?”

“Nothin’.” Nick cradles the bag closer.

Ian, Travis and John all lean their attention. “Nothin’ huh?” Ian asks.

Nick just nods, looking more nervous now that they’re all paying attention to him. He tries to whistle for a moment, and gives John a polite wave from the wrist—perfectly innocent, nothing to see here.

“Why don’cha open it up then—” Travis asks.

“If there’s nothin’ in it…” Ian finishes for him.

“Okay,” Nick replies, suddenly casual. Opening the bag, Nick sits watching it in awe. For a moment nothing happens. Nick says, “C’mere,” in a high-pitched voice, precisely the way people talk to children and small animals. Travis, Ian and John all simultaneously wonder if they are being duped, staring at Nick’s bag. But after a moment, a tiny fuzzy black head pokes out of the bag and mews.

“What the hell?” Travis asks.

Ian leans over on the couch and pets the kitten as it steps out from the confines of the bag.

“Hey there,” he says, scratching the kitten’s ears.

John looks on apprehensively as Nick picks the little kitten up and holds it out towards him.

“See?”

“Are you planning on keeping that here?” John asks.

“Well… yeah.”

“I’m allergic to cats, dumbass.”

Nick looks surprised. “Really?”

John rolls his eyes.

“Shit.” Nick looks at the kitten in his hands disappointedly. “I didn’t know that.”

“That’s all right,” John says.

“Well, how bad?” Nick asks.

“Eh. Just keep it out of my room. We’ll see.” John rolls over again to face the back of the love seat.

“Well, I could take him back—or let my parents hang on to him for little while.”

“No,” John says to the cushions. “It’s got short hair. I’ll be all right.”

“Are you sure?”

“Yeah.”

“Well, we’ll keep it out of your room and vacuum a lot.”

“Just be sure you keep the litter box clean.”

“I’ll keep it in my bathroom,” Nick offers.

Travis reaches out and grabs the animal from Nick, pulling it back to the armchair with him, and holding the kitten close to his chest. It cuddles up to him. “My kitty,” he says childishly.

“You can hold it,” Nick says, playing the father figure.

“My! Kitty!” Travis argues, sinking back further into the armchair. The kitten is now visibly disinterested in being in such close proximity, and begins to squeeze itself from out of Travis’s grasp. He lets it, and it begins exploring his lap, walking out to his cliff-sized shins to peer over the edge. All the boys are equally mesmerized by the animal, its faltering gait.

“What inspired you to go get a cat?”

Nick rubs his face. “I went over to Mark’s to borrow his pasteboard, and they had found all these kittens living behind their garage.” Nick shrugs. “He asked me if I wanted one.” After a moment, Nick leans over and picks the cat up. “Don’t hog him,” he says. “Let John have a turn,” he offers politely, shoving the kitten towards John.

“Get—” John starts angrily.

Nick pulls the cat away and smiles, happy to have something new to annoy John with. John points menacingly in reply and whispers with his eyes squinted, “Daddy giveth and Daddy taketh away.”

At this, Nick holds the kitten close to him and bolts out of the living room into his own bedroom, slamming the door loudly behind him.

Ian looks questioningly to Travis for an explanation.

Travis just shrugs. “You probably don’t want to know,” he says as the sound of things being thrown around in Nick’s room emanate into the hall. From the living room, they could hear

Nick yelling, “Ah! The voices! Make the voices stop!”

The door to Nick’s room opens, and the kitten comes running through the living room at full speed, its yellow eyes wide, its ears flattened back against its head. Running between Ian and Travis, it dashes into the kitchen. Travis laughs out loud as Nick comes back into the room, looking haggard.

“Feel better?” John asks, smiling.

Nick sits down on the couch. “Where’d he go?”

Travis and Ian simultaneously point over their shoulders toward the kitchen.

“Aw, poor guy. I didn’t mean to scare him.”

“Having a kitten here is like raising a kid in a dysfunctional family times three,” Travis offers.

“True,” Nick admits.

“Get me my bottle, bitch!” John says in his perverted uncle’s voice into the couch.

“Now, honey,” Nick says in a feminine southern accent, “I—I think you’ve had enough tonight.”

“Don’t tell me when I’ve had enough, woman!”

“Hey, Dad,” Travis adds. “Why don’t you try getting a job instead of suckin’ on a whiskey bottle?”

“You shut your mouth. If I get up off this couch—”

“What?” Travis asks. “What’re you gonna’ do, you worthless shit?”

“That’s it. Liza!” John says, speaking calmly to Nick and sitting up, “get me my bat.”

“I’ll take you on, old man!” Travis says, frightened but stern.

“Boys, now,” Nick stutters, “just calm down—this ain’t Christian.”

“Shut up, bitch!”

“Don’t tell her ta’ shut up again!” Travis yells.

Ian nods. “Oh yeah. That cat’ll be fine.”

“I don’t think I’ve ever seen this place this empty,” Nick comments as the threesome stroll into the middle of the dance floor. There is an ether in the air like directions that don’t read right. A place hallowed for its entertainment and thrills should never look so dull and be so quiet.

“You guys feelin’ all right?” Ian asks.

Nick shrugs. “I think so. Do I not seem like it?”

“No, you seem fine.”

Travis interjects, “It takes twenty or thirty minutes. You’ll know.”

“I’m not gonna’ try to jump off a building or anything, am I?” Nick asks.

“It’s not acid, man. Trust me. It’s much more chill than that. You’ve done shrooms, right?”

“Yeah, once last summer.”

“It’s like shrooms except without the hallucinatory effects. It’s like you have a lot of energy and you’re positive, but there’s a physical manifestation of it—you feel a lot.” Nick just nods.

“You’ll see,” Travis repeats.

“Man,” Ian says, fiddling with his camera bag on the floor, “Some friends of mine and I did shrooms my freshman year. That was amazing.”

“Never done ‘em,” Travis says with a shrug.

“Well how do you know to compare them to this?” Nick asks incredulously.

“Just from what people have told me.”

“You would definitely dig shrooms. They’re totally positive. All I wanted to do was work on shit, and I totally had the capacity to do it. It was like being perfectly clear-headed with just one thing to focus on.”

“I just like being relaxed every now and then. E is just kind of like playing my guitar, except I don’t have to play anything—it’s a cheap way to meditate.”

“I doubt it’s like painting,” Nick offers.

“Why?”

“Well,” Nick thinks about it as the threesome head over to the bar. “I definitely lose myself in what I’m doing, but there’s a lot of energy. I wouldn’t call it relaxing.”

“It’s like the difference between playing something punk or, like, a cosmic folk song. I mean, I probably wouldn’t be too relaxed playing a cover of Layla.” Travis sits the tripod he is carrying for Ian on the bar, and they all sit down, each looking around for a bartender.

“Relaxing is not the right word. You’re just at ease.” The three sit and glance around at the empty surroundings, each remembering the pulse of the crowd they’d seen here before.

“Alcohol’s a depressant, right?”

“It always makes me feel good,” Nick replies.

“Yeah, I know. But, it’s like, pharmaceutically categorized as a depressant, right?”

“I think so,” Ian says slowly, trying to recall the information from some obscure a health class in his past.

“Dontcha’ think it’s weird that the most popular drug in the US is a depressant?”

“Stress,” Ian replies.

“What’s that?” Travis asks, not quite hearing him.

“It calms the nerves—like valium. Everyone in this country is so damn stressed.”

“No, I don’t think it has anything to do with that,” Nick adds. “I don’t think most people could tell you what alcohol does for them. It’s just that it’s the only legal drug.”

“Yeah,” Travis agrees.

“Things are really different over in Europe. A week of stress management classes doesn’t even compare to a good glass of wine,” Ian says.

“I guess I don’t understand why everyone is always so stressed. I’m not stressed.”

“You’re an idiot,” Nick says, pointing.

“Ignorance is bliss,” Travis retorts.

“No, you’re right,” Nick says thoughtfully. “Everyone should just learn to be like us.”

“Well,” Travis replies, unsure, “I wasn’t exactly recommending that.”

“I wouldn’t recommend that to anyone,” Ian says matter-of-factly.

“Actually,” Travis says, “hanging out with you guys is really pretty irritating.”

“If you weren’t so damn annoying…” Nick says, rolling his eyes.

“Is there actually a bartender in this place?” Ian asks annoyed, looking around.

“I think we can just serve ourselves,” Travis replies.

“Get outta’ the way,” Nick chuckles, starting to climb over the bar.

“I need another beer,” Ian says.

“What?” Nick asks, “the seven you had before we got here wasn’t enough?”

“Dude,” Ian says, “I drank, like, two.”

“Two packs?” Travis asks.

“Two dozen packs,” Nick agrees.

“I don’t know what you’re talkin’ about,” Ian says, frustrated. “You guys must be on drugs or somethin’.”

“Hmm…” Nick thinks. “That’s funny. Because now that you mention it…”

“This is ridiculous.” Ian gets up and walks around behind the bar. Travis and Nick exchange unsure glances before Nick says to Ian, “What are you doing?”

“We’ll pay for it when they get here.”

“Uh, I don’t think they’re open yet, man,” Travis adds.

Ian pulls three beers from out of the glass front fridge, opens two and hands them to Travis and Nick. Opening and taking a pull off his own, Ian looks at the other two from behind the bar and says, “They should lock the doors then,” with a shrug.

They sip with guilty delight.

Nick checks over his shoulder for a moment, and then, “Oh well.” Ian glances around the back of the bar and leans casually on it. “You know, I’ve always loved tending bar.”

“Is it cool back there?” Travis asks.

“Yeah.” Ian looks around again. “I gotta’ say, I always feel sorta’ powerful.”

“The almighty bartender,” Nick says.

Ian comes from around the bar and takes his seat between Nick and Travis again. The three sit drinking their beer for a moment before a figure walks out of the dark from beyond the far end of the bar. As she approaches Travis sees it is Rachel and calls out, “Hey there, dollface.”

“Where’s the bathroom?” she replies.

“Love ya’ too, babe,” Travis says making a gun with his hand.

All of the boys turn around on their stools.

“Howya’ doin’, Rachel?” Nick asks.

She sighs. “I’m fine.”

“Is everybody in the back?” Ian asks.

“No. Alex has turned up missing, and they’re calling everywhere trying to find him. He went to go get a pack of smokes and hasn’t come back.” She turns her head to the side and smiles. “How are you?” she says acting energetic. It is evident she isn’t feeling well.

“Getting drunk. You?” Ian replies.

Rachel puts her hand near her bladder. “I’ve had too much already. Those boys…”

“The bathroom’s over there,” Travis offers, pointing to the other side of the room.

“I know. I was just kidding. This is my fifth trip since six.”

“We haven’t seen you in a while. You should come over,” Nick says.

“Yeah. I guess John’s been real busy with the band lately.” There was annoyance in the statement. Travis wonders to himself if that was the trouble that John and Rachel were having. “Okay,” Rachel says, putting up her hands. “I really have to go to the bathroom,” and she walks away in that direction.

The boys turn around on their stools again, where a bartender has materialized before them. She had been waiting for the last couple of minutes for their attention. Nick, not usually a jumpy person, just about falls off his stool. Travis smiles quietly to himself knowing the reason. He is also overly surprised by the bartender’s sudden appearance, but he’s used to the effect of the E.

The young woman looks from beer to beer in the boys’ hands apathetically, but noticing nonetheless.

“We brought them in with us,” Ian answers quickly.

“That’s not allowed,” the bartender replies stoically.

“We’re with the band.”

The bartender, unimpressed, looks to Nick who is still stunned, but had shoved his beer into his jacket. He looks up suddenly and says, “Uh… Jack and Coke… please.” Once the bartender steps away, Travis leans over the bar and towards Nick. “Feelin’ a little somethin’?”

“That was weird,” Nick says slowly, still looking around at the bar and his lap.

Travis smiles like a crazed Ren Hoëk. “Heh… heh… heh, heh.”

Nick shakes his head and put his hands flat on the bar. Ian looks on with intense curiosity, smiling. “What?” he asks Nick.

“I don’t know,” Nick says, shaking his head and staring at the bar. “It was like she was… more there than anything else.” He shakes his head quickly again, as though to physically shake the effects off.

Travis leans over behind Ian and taps Nick on the shoulder while he isn’t looking. Nick jumps again and stands up. “Don’t do that!”

The bartender comes back with Nick’s drink and takes the his money. Travis taps Nick on the shoulder again while the bartender is getting change. Nick jumps again and leans into the bar, whispering past Ian, “Knock it off.” The bartender gives them their change and then wanders off back to where she came from.

“Friendly girl,” Ian says sarcastically, making a discriminating frown and drinking from his beer.

Travis gets up off his stool and starts walking toward Nick, his arms outstretched as though he were going to tap Nick again. Standing up, Nick starts backing off. “Really,” he says, incapable of not smiling, while holding his hands out, “Stop it.”

Travis straightens up. “You’re no fun,” and he walks back to his stool.

“No fun?” Nick asks incredulously. “You’re freakin’ me out.”

Ian looks Nick up and down, trying to detect what’s different about his friend. “What is it, dude?”

“Every time he taps me, it’s like somebody’s throwing a baseball at me.”

“What? Does it hurt?” “No, no. It’s just big is all.” Nick seems genuinely shaken as he sits down on his stool again but he can’t stop smiling. “And sudden.” Travis is staring at some trivial something at the end of the bar, so Nick leans over past Ian and taps Travis on the shoulder. Travis falls to the floor undramatically, and Ian and Nick start laughing.

“Ha ha,” Travis says from the floor. “Real funny.” He doesn’t get up.

“Get off the floor, man,” Ian says. “Somebody’s gonna’ see you.”

“So?” Travis asks lethargically.

Ian looks back to Nick who is now staring at the beer bottles in the cooler with great intensity. He laughs to himself and looks over his shoulder to see Rachel approaching them.

“What are you doing?” she asks. Obviously she has seen some of the antics from across the room.

Ian just shrugs and stands up to go meet her. He steps over Travis who is lying contentedly on his back. “We’re just having some fun.”

Travis watches the space above him, thoroughly amused by Rachel and Ian’s heads appearing high above his own. They are looking at him and seem entirely unreal—like recordings of their former selves, a television point of view through his own eyes. The perspective is too much, and he picks himself up off the ground. As he stands up, Rachel asks him out of curiousity, “Are you feeling all right?”

Travis stands up completely and straightens himself out. He hears the honest concern for his welfare. It bothers him for a moment before he looks into her eyes with a shit-eating grin and says, “You may now call me Tecron the Wise.”

Ian just laughs and pats Travis on the shoulder, “Okay, man.”

“No. I’m just kidding,” Travis answers, knowing he was just partly being silly. “I’m cool.”

Rachel chuckles to herself and says, “Somebody wrote on the wall in the bathroom, ‘Question everything,’ and somebody wrote beneath that, ‘Why?’.” She and Ian and Travis laugh. Nick is still mesmerized by the beer bottles.

Travis reaches over and just touches him on the shoulder, so as not to shock him again. Nick turns around, his eyes wide. “Let’s go find John,” he suggests and to Nick, the name John has all the effect of the words ‘Dali Lama.’ Nick nods reverently.

“Man, this shit’s cool!” Nick replies. He is smiling wider than the Cheshire Cat. Ian pats him on the shoulder. “You sure you feel all right? You were staring over there for a minute or two.”

“Was I really? Actually? That felt like an hour.”

“Yeah?” Ian asks.

“I feel fine,” Nick reassures.

They all set off for the Green Room, drinks and equipment in hand. Nick steps up with Travis and repeats, “Man, this shit’s cool.”

“Just wait,” Travis says.

“What?” asks Nick.

“Just wait. You’ll settle into it.”

“I feel fine now though.” Nick clumsily executes a couple of martial arts moves to prove his point.

“This is just the first roll.”

“It’s like you said: zen.”

“Yeah. This isn’t quite like the last time I did it,” Travis says, trying to cite the difference, but it’s beyond him.

Nick takes in a big breath and says, “Yeah. Totally cool.” He let the air out of his lungs and laughs for no reason. His eyes open wide suddenly and he says, “Holy shit! I need a smoke!”

“Forgot that you did, didn’t you?” Travis asks knowingly.

“Yeah. I forgot I ever did.”

Travis looks at Nick and laughs, to which Nick laughs in return. Nick stands in place for a moment and then moves around like a robot, making industrial squeals and whirs out of the side of his mouth. Travis looks on, enjoying his friend’s new experience. Nick stops and looks around. They are standing inside a darkened hallway between the dance floor and backstage. It seems as though Rachel and Ian have vanished—or were never there to begin with. Putting his hand over his mouth, Nick lets out an exagerated high-pitched giggle, “Hee hee hehehehe.”

“Hee hee hehehehe,” Travis imitates.

Taking two steps back into the shadows of the hallway, Nick says in a goofy, Swedish accent,

“I yam hiding from yoo.”

Travis takes three large, pronounced steps around in a circle while declaring, “I yam zeeking yoo.” Travis reaches into his coat and produces a pack of cigarettes. “Here you go.”

Nick smiles and laughs. “Man, you’re the best.”

“Hey,” Travis says slowly, “We’re like that.”

Nick laughs, takes a cigarette and puts his arm around Travis. “We’ve been friends for a long time, man.”

“We have,” Travis says, lighting Nick’s cigarette.

Nick stands next to Travis, his arm around his friend’s shoulder and pulls off his cigarette.

“Boy, that’s nice.”

“It’s dry. Very tasty.”

Nick begins to contemplate his cigarette heavily before Travis interjects, “Hey!” He turns slowly and brings Nick around to face an exit sign at the end of the hallway. “Look at the sign,” he says mystically.

“It’s the exit,” Nick says reverently. Nick stares intensely for a moment and then relaxes.

“Wow.” Looking down at his hands, Nick examines them in the faint but monotone red light.

“Wow.”

“Just remember three things,” Travis says. “No one can understand what you’re saying, couches do not talk, and light is just light—you can’t eat it.”

“You’re just fuckin’ with me.”

“No wait.” Travis thinks a moment. “Light can’t understand what you’re saying, you can’t understand anyone, and couches aren’t edible.”

“Quit it.”

“I know,” Travis replies. “I’m just kidding—not about the couch thing. It’s not that bad, right? The first time I did it, I was totally coherent. It just takes you a little off your center, you know?”

Turning, they both walk into the Green Room, a small room at the back of the club, behind the stage. Into it are packed four couches, a coffee table and twelve bodies: The four guys from Homespun Noose, five of the members of The Water Department, the lead singer Eric’s girlfriend Lauren, Rachel and Ian. Stumbling through the door, Nick and Travis make their way back to the hall to the stagedoor, where John, dressed in a full three-piece suit, is currently leaning against a wall with a pint of Cuervo in his hand. Everyone in the room regards Travis and Nick peculiarly as the two make their way to the back of the room without a word or looking at anyone. Ian just makes the universal sign for drugged up, popping pretend pills in his mouth, as Nick and Travis pass, and everyone in the room relaxes again. Half of them are only paranoid because they’re stoned anyway. Now they’re giggling to one another secretly.

Travis walks up to John, presents himself in military fashion and announces, “Hello, Admiral.”

Looking at Travis suspiciously, and at Nick, who is normally several inches taller than Travis, but is at this moment crouched down and hovering right behind Travis, hiding. John replies, slowly, “Hello there.” He knows when they’re up to something.

“We have come to bestow good luck upon you,” Travis says.

“Thank you,” John says simply, still watchful.

Letting the ‘L’ roll off his tongue slowly, Nick peeks up from behind Travis and half-repeats the sentiment, “Lllluck.” He hides behind Travis again.

“Yes,” John says, mildly amused with the pair.

“Are you ready?” Travis asks, trying to regain some element of normalcy—an element he is not entirely sure he has lost in the first place. He still sounds like he is talking about a space flight the way he asks the question.

“Ah,” John says, relaxing, shrugging, “Ready as I’m gonna’ be.”

“And you’re always gonna’ be,” Nick said, peering up from behind Travis and nodding.

John laughs. “Is that right?”

“Nick here is the cap’n,” Travis says, throwing his thumb over his shoulder.

Nick peers up again like a periscope and looks surprised to hear this—that or surprised to see Travis’s thumb. John can’t tell which. Leaning in, John just says mysteriously, “Are you the sultan, Trav?”

Travis thinks about this for a moment and then merrily agrees.

“I have bad news for ya’, Trav,” John says, shaking his head. “Bad news.”

“Oh no,” Travis says, “You can’t do that to me. I’m the sultan.”

“Oh yes I can, Trav,” John says with an evil grin.

Nick, in the meantime, is pushing past both John and Travis to get to the stage door.

“No, John. See, when I’m on Mount Olympus—see—then you can sell me out. But I’m in Elysian Fields right now—so you can’t.”

John thinks about this seriously for a moment. “E?”

Travis gives him the old thumb’s up.

“What the hell’s he talkin’ about?” Nick hollers from down the hall.

Travis looks past John to where Nick is. He has seated himself on the floor in the corner of the hall by the door. Slowly, Travis makes his way over to where Nick is. “Okay,” he says, taking a big exasperated breath. “There are people everywhere, right?”

“Right,” Nick agrees. Then, he double-checks the fact in his head. “Okay.”

“And everybody has a negative person—like matter and antimatter. There are anti-people.”

“Sure,” Nick says slowly.

“And see,” Travis continues, “John sold me out to the negative people once, when we were stoned. They can come and get me now.”

“You’re nuts,” Nick responds from the floor, his arms wrapped around his knees.

“Yeah, yeah,” Travis says, irritated. “I know that. But it’s hardly the point.”

“No, I think that’s the point,” Nick argues.

“The point is, that when we’re stoned, John tries to make me paranoid—which is a very easy thing to do. But I’m not stoned right now.”

“What the hell does that have to do with Mount Olympus and Elysian Fields?”

“Code words,” says John from behind Travis.

Travis jumps a little at hearing the voice so suddenly from behind him, and gives John an irritated look for sneaking up on him. John just beams back stupidly. Nick looks to John and then back to Travis. “Code words for what?”

“States of mind,” Travis answers secretively.

“I don’t get it.”

“Think about it for a second.”

“Shut up and tell me. I don’ wanna’ think about it.”

“You want me to shut up?—or tell you?”

“Speak!”

“States of mind,” Travis repeats, “like, M in Mount Olympus for Marijuana?”

“Oh. I get it,” Nick agrees. “Elysian Fields: Ecstasy.”

“Yeah. And they’re all mystical places,” Travis says.

“He got so paranoid about the whole deal, he wouldn’t talk about anything until we had code words for it all,” John says.

“Did you come up with one for all of them?” Nick asks.

“I think so,” Travis answers and looks to John for a prompt.

“Atlantis… Elysian Fields… Mount Olympus… Hades—” John starts.

“No, no!” Travis interrupts frantically. “You’re giving the code away.”

John looks at him funny and Nick says, “I can know the code.”

“How do we know he’s not one of them?” Travis asks so Nick can hear him.

Nick flutters air through his lips like a horse. “I’m not a negative person.”

“I guess Nick is a positive being,” Travis said thoughtfully.

Nick laughs and tries to stand up. He fails, and then says from the ground, “That’s so cheesy.
I’m a positive person.” He thinks about that for a second and then relaxes again. “Yeah, man, I am a positive person.”

“You rock, dude,” Travis agrees.

“Dude, you’re awesome, too.”

“You see,” Travis says, as though he’d somehow proven a point, “on Mount Olympus you can detect equal levels of people and anti-people, but in Elysian Fields, you can’t detect the negative people at all, but you can feel your positivity in opposition to their presence.”

Nick and John think about this (John just pretending, Nick actually doing it).

“What about Atlantis?” Nick asks. “What about that?”

“The negative people rape you there,” John says.

They all laugh as Ian approaches the group. He makes his way down the hall in an investigative manner, past John and Travis, and approaches Nick. “You all right there, buddy?” he asks, bending over slightly putting his hands on his knees.

“Never better,” Nick replies from the floor, putting his thumb up.

Ian stands up and points Nick out to John and Travis who just look on bemusedly. “C’mon,” Ian said, lightly kicking Nick, “Let’s go out on the dance floor. I wanta’ take some pictures.”

“No, no,” says Nick waving, Ian off, “I’m feeling undefined.”

“Are you all right?”

“Cripes,” Travis says, throwing up his arms, “why don’t ya’ nanny the guy.”

“Hey man,” Ian says, standing up straight and meandering down to where Travis is, “I’m jus’ checkin’ it out—just checkin’ on things, Vaquero.”

Travis puts on his “angry” face and stares at Ian. He can smell the ganja now. “Well, why don’t you wonder somewhere else ya’ God damned wop.”

Ian responds by putting his “angry” face on and leans in. “Don’t tell me what ta’ do ya’ fuckin’ mick.”

Neither of them can hold the pose and they start laughing. Ian puts his arm around Travis’s shoulder and says, “Vaquero!”

“Pirata!” Travis says and pats Ian on the back.

Travis and Ian laugh for a minute before John looks them both up and down and says (like a nine-year-old who can’t get his friends in on a dare), “You guys are gay.”

Nick laughs hard from the floor at the end of the hall.

“Shut up,” Travis says, “you’re just jealous that you can’t show your feminine side.”

John tugs his pants up around his waist and replies in a redneck accent, “C’mere. I’ll show ya’ how ta’ hug a man.”

“No way,” Travis says, frightened. He starts backing down the hall to where Nick is still lying on the floor.

John smiles evilly and chants, “Daddy giveth and daddy taketh away.”

Travis and Nick cower at the end of the hall, while Ian just looks on dumbfounded—another apartment joke, apparently. John turns suddenly to Ian and said, “C’mon, let’s go take those pictures.” Ian and John walk off leaving Travis and Nick in the hall.

“I hate it when he does that,” Nick says.

“Hey!” Travis hollers and hits Nick on the shoulder.

“Ow! What?”

“Let’s go sit in a couple of those big ol’ lounge chairs out off the dance floor—just sit for a while.”

“That sounds good,” Nick agrees dreamily.

The pair make their way out of the green room, past a couple of laughing members of Homespun Noose and Eric and Lauren discussing something serious. The rest of the band is out in the hall waiting on Eric, and the front man, Lee is closest to the door when Nick and Travis come out. Lee turns to greet Travis, “Travis, right?”

“Yeah. Hey, Lee, how’re you?”

“Pretty good, man, pretty good. You?”

“I’m just fine. You know Nick?”

“Yeah, yeah,” says Lee, reaching out and shaking Nick’s hand. “I think we talked for a second after our second or third show.”

“Yeah, I remember,” Nick agreed.

“Oh, and John says you have some paintings I need to see.”

“Yeah… well…” says Nick modestly.

“He seems to really like your work,” Lee adds. They all walk out onto the dance floor. There are fifteen or so people milling about now. “Actually,” Lee continues. “We’re gonna’ be hitting the studios in a few months. I guess we might need some artwork for an album. John seems to think you’re the man.”

“That would be cool.” Nick turns around suddenly, looks around behind him for a few moments and then looks back as though nothing had happened. “Yeah,” he says again, and then checks over his shoulder one more time. Travis laughs.

“You all right there?” Lee asks, trying to look behind Nick.

“Oh yeah,” Nick answers vehemently.

“We’re rollin’,” Travis says, and Nick hits him in the shoulder. “What?” he asks Nick.

“No,” Lee says to Nick, “don’t worry, dude. I’m cool with that. You guys are gonna’ enjoy the show.”

Nick and Travis nod, Travis with a wink.

“All right,” Lee says, “if you guys’ll excuse me—I think we’re doin’ a foe-toe-shoot here.” Lee makes a face to show he doesn’t want them to think he’s being pretentious. Everyone kidded about being famous. They didn’t want it, but in a way they did—or knew it to be a consequence of what they really wanted, vindication that they weren’t slackers, but artists. Making their way over to a couple of comfortable armchairs, Nick and Travis seat themselves. Nick reaches out for one of the arms before actually sitting down and stops in his tracks, some sort of revelation holding him in place. He starts rubbing the arm of the chair briskly.

“Feel this,” he says to Travis.

Already seated, Travis leans over and feels the arm of the chair. “Oh yeah,” he agrees. Kneeling down on one knee, Nick begins running his hand up and down on the armchair. “Oh my God,” he says, rubbing more vigorously. “This is amazing.”

“Yep,” Travis agrees.

Nick starts to lean down like he’s going to bite it.

“Okay, but I told you about that. Sit in it, dude.”

Nick pulls himself up into the chair and sinks back, completely relaxed. He sits still for a few moments, looking around at nothing in particular. “I am not moving from this chair,” he declares.

“It’s great, isn’t it?”

“I like this way too much.” Looking uncomfortable for a moment, he feels around inside his jacket and pulls out a beer. “Oh yeeeeeah.”