“What do you know, Travis?”

“Not a lot.” Did he say that for the Rock Star? Would he normally say that?

“I don’t know why I bothered to ask.”

“Yee-aah.”

“Watchya’ havin’?”

Don’t look at him. Don’t look at him. “Uh, boy… I dunno.”

Then a gravelly voice without the tint of radio or tape—which is shocking to Travis—says, “Gin and tonic.”

Travis looks, and sees that the man himself is holding up his glass with a smile. He gives away his hidden joy and beams. “What the man said,” he says to Harris.

The Rock Star says, “S’okay. If Harris here, says you’re okay, then you’re okay.”

Harris, mixing the drink, shakes his head, “He’s not okay.”

“Oh,” says the Rock Star. He drags on his cigarette. “Well… you play decent.”

Travis squints one eye, “I think you might have me confused…”

“Nah. I get around. S’my town, too, you know?”

Travis can’t deny it, and Harris gives him his drink. Beyond paying for it, Travis can’t do much but sit on his tongue.

“You got an album?”

“Uh…”

“Sorry, man—not to pressure you.”

“No, it’s fine. Honestly, most of the guys I know have at least one. I don’t know.”

The Rock Star smiles and scoffs. “Yeah, I know you.”

Travis looks perplexed.

“I mean, I know the guy you are—had a friend like that. Wouldn’t go in the studio. Hated it.”

“For real?”

“Yeah.”

“Yeah, I don’t what my problem is. It’s not the place… you know… the room. It’s not a phobia or anything.”

Leaning over to look over his sunglasses, the Rock Star makes a gesture—maybe catching something in a jar. “It’s trapping the sound.”

Resigned, Travis says, “Yeah.”

“S’cool, man. Not everyone wants to be famous or whatever.”

Was that the only way to get there? Travis hasn’t made the connection before. “It’s not really that. I just… uh… I hate the sound of a recording. It’s so… stuck. You can’t mess with it. It’s permanent.” The Rock Star laughs again—at what—the naiveté? Suddenly, Travis wonders if this guy could actually be an asshole.

“I love that, man. I really do. That’s soul. You got soul.”

Travis smiles.

“Le’me ask you this—do you even wanna’ go pro?”

“I guess.”

“Yeah, well, no offense, but if your answer is ‘I guess’ then you never will. Good or bad, you gotta’ want it. And it’s okay not to want it. Your talent is not defined by your success—most definitely not. Success, man, success has a price—don’t doubt it. But success also will give you the opportunity to do more with it. It does free you up. Shit. I don’t want to sound like a prick, but you know when was the last time I thought about paying a bill?”

Travis makes a must-be-nice face.

“Yeah. That was a dick thing to say. But all I really mean is that if you work hard, not play well—that’s kinda’ optional for a lot o’ people on the airwaves these days—but if you work hard, you get to a place where you don’t have to sweat the small stuff, and that’s not bad.”

“I think you’re right. I might be a little afraid of some hard work.”

“No, no, I didn’t mean to imply that. I know your plan, man, because you love it right now. You’re gonna’ get better, a lot better, ’cause you do it with love.” The Rock Star laughs as he thinks back, “We did… we did.” He hangs out in the past a bit and then, “But you have to get better and you have to do it more, and it gets harder to love it. You might not think so, but sold out tours, city after unrecognizable city… the work isn’t playing it after a while. The work is lovin’ it. I can see anyone being a little apprehensive about that.”

“That—working to love it—is seriously frightening.”

“Yeah, but, I tell ya’—so far—it’s always come back around again—even when I thought I lost it. There’s really nothing to be afraid of.”

Those occasions when it happens are both rare and amazing. If you get most men in a room alone after managing such a feat, most would modestly tell you that they had no idea how it happened, and hence the term, “getting lucky.” Strangely enough, most young women would explain to you that it happened because they decided it would. So much for “getting lucky.”

“C’mon,” Travis argues. “It’s good for you.” To prove his point, Travis inhales a deep breath through his nostrils, filling his lungs to capacity with the warm night air.

Nick catches up to Travis and mocks him in a whinny, self-righteous tone, “It’s good for you.” He shakes his head. “It’s good for you when it’s three o’clock in the afternoon and you’re not wasted.”

“I don’t know what the hell you’re doing, then.”

Nick looks perplexed.

“I’m always wasted at three in the afternoon.” Nick laughs, and Travis looks up Milledge and thinks about the walk to Ian’s instead of their own. “We could always just crash at the Teke house and walk home in the morning.”

Nick waves Travis off. “I’ll be fine. Just let me catch my breath.”

Travis crosses the street with Nick right behind him. When they get to the other side, Nick stumbles on the curb, catching his tow. Looking back to make sure he’s okay, Travis watches with amusement as Nick dramatically transforms a mere stumble into complete collapse.

Lying flat on his back in the grass by the sidewalk, Nick looks at the stars for a moment before smiling when Travis looms over him with an outstretched hand.

“Get up,” Travis urges.

“No, no. You go on without me.” Nick coughs a couple of times and holds his gut like he has a bullet wound. “I’ll only slow you down.”

Travis stands up straight and tough in reply, “You’re gonna’ get up and you’re gonna’ make it home. Now that’s an order, soldier.”

Nick sits up and sighs, then stands and rejoins Travis who is already walking ahead of him.

“Hell, we’re halfway there,” Travis offers.

Nick just looks up at the sky again. The stars are impeccable, majestic even, in the haze of the light from the city; white pixel space siblings shoved to the side by a vainglorious red wash.

Joining Nick in reverie, Travis passes his eyes across the sky, focusing for a moment on a flickering satellite. He feels inclined to talk, though, not just stare. “We are very small.”

“Cheesetoast,” Nick replies.

“I’m just sayin’…”

“Being small or large isn’t gonna’ get my ass back to the house any faster.”

As they cross the relatively barren Rockspring road, Travis shakes his head, sure there is an important thought somewhere in the bewildering caverns of meaningless drivel in his head. As he takes care to step on each bar of the white crosswalk, he says, “I don’t know what the hell I’m talking about.”

“I gathered that much.”

Travis tries again, diving into the fractal of trivia from a different, new set of coordinates. “You believe in fate, right?”

“Sorta’,” Nick says as a car rushes by them going the opposite direction. It passes in the closest lane, and leaves a wave of dry summer dirt in its wake, buffeting the boys lightly as they stride.

“Do you think there’s someone in the world who’s perfect for you?”

“I don’t know. I guess—maybe. But that doesn’t mean I think I’ll ever meet her.”

“See, but I think it does.”

Nick looks surprised. The statement didn’t sound like the usually fateless, dreamer. It also isn’t something Nick is inclined to believe right off hand.

“Part of the definition of perfect revolves around time and place. There are probably a lot of women in the world who are perfect for me maybe personality-wise, but there’s only one of them that will be in the right place at the right time.”

Nick shakes his head. “I don’t think so.”

“Otherwise, they wouldn’t be perfect for me.”

“No…”

“Sure. Perfection requires the belief that what you think is perfect turns out to be perfect.”

“Wait, wait, wait. You mean to say that if you’re in a relationship, all you have to do to keep it going is say it’s perfect?”

Travis looks down at his boots as he takes steps, measuring his gait, so that he steps between two cracks and then on one, between two cracks and on one. He realizes that he hadn’t quite meant what he said.

“You thought Meryl was perfect,” Nick offers.

“No, that’s my point,” Travis says, holding up his index finger. “I failed in that. At one time I believed she was perfect and then I started listening to what everyone else was saying… including her.” They walk on a little ways, mulling over the statement, picking at it, coloring it outside the lines. Travis adds, “She didn’t believe it was perfect either.”

“Why didn’t you just both agree to go back to being perfect?”

“You can’t. Once it’s tainted, there’s no believing that it was ever perfect. The perfection vanishes—from the present and the past.”

“So love is just a delusion. If both people believe in it enough, I-E are insane, then it’s love.”

“Yeah. Love is definitely insane.”

“According to your theory.” Nick adds scientifically.

“Well,” Travis shrugs, “What’s so bad about being deluded if you never know you are?”

“Because it’s not real. It implies that love is just… persuasion.”

“But everything’s like that. People only believe Newton’s theory of gravity because we’ve been persuaded to believe it is correct.”

“No, that’s a fact,” Nick pokes the palm of his left hand with his right index finger.

“No. Gravity’s a fact. Newton’s theories about it are just descriptions—and actually, they’re wrong.”

“Wrong?” Nick asks incredulously.

“Einstein.”

“Einstein didn’t prove Newton wrong.”

“I know. Newton isn’t right to begin with.”

“No, no, no. I mean you still use Newton’s laws to predict things.”

“Yeah. Einstein just kind of says Newton needs to be expanded on a little bit. But neither of them explain what gravity is—just which direction it’s pulling.”

“No, Einstein says that gravity is space being bent.”

Travis rolls his eyes, “What the hell does that mean? The model accurately describes what happens, but it still doesn’t explain gravity. Is it a force, a particle… angels running around bending space.”

“Or monkeys.”

“Or monkeys.” Then, Travis sums up, “We’re delusional in our theories about love. Love is equal to theory times delusion squared.”

“Sounds like a song.”

Travis smiles and looks at Nick, who offers him a cigarette. Travis takes it and says, “It would make a good line all right.” They light their cigarettes before Travis continues. “You know what?”

“What?”

“That’s all that matters to me.”

“That it sounds like a song.”

“That I discovered a lyric, not a theory.”

“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.

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.”