“You have to say stupid,” Dizzy said. “Remarkably stupid,” Kristin added. “Remarkably stupid?” Travis asked. “I think atrocious vomit would be more appropriate,” Nick added. “No, no,” Kristin disagreed. “Atrocious is too mean. It’s just stupid.” Dizzy agreed, “Yeah, if it was a bad evening gown, you could say atrocious. But that’s just a shirt.” Kristin, “A stupid shirt.” “Okay, okay,” Travis relented, “Remarkably stupid.” He stood up and made his way over to the table across the bar, tapped Bobby on the shoulder, and regretted it the moment that he did because when she turned around finally he could see she was adorable. He sighed, “I’m here to tell you that that’s a stupid shirt.” Bobby looked stunned for a moment and then asked above the noise, “What?” because she was really sure she’d not heard Travis correctly. “I’m sorry.” He snapped his fingers—remembering the ‘remarkably’ part again. “I mean, I’m supposed to tell you that it’s a remarkably stupid shirt.” She stared hard at him, let him sweat, calmly observing his facial expression. There was something objective about it, as though what he had said was not to be taken personally. He could just as easily have said, “You are a girl,” or “You have brown hair.” But he’d definitely said that her shirt was remarkably stupid. And she couldn’t see the point. Travis turned slowly to look over to his table for help. Nick, Daphne and Kristin were all smiles. Nick mimed a drinking motion and gives Travis a thumbs up. When he turned back, expecting a face full of her hand, he was shocked to see Bobby smiling. She shrugged, “It’s my boyfriend’s shirt.”

It was a month and a half later that Bobby leaned on the bar next to Travis and inquired with a challenge, “What’s your name?”

A picture of her gigantic boyfriend standing right behind them popped into his head. *Oh well, here we go.* “Asshole. Asshole Fleeting.” He held out his hand with a smile. “Nice to meet you, Asshole. I’m Bobby.” “Travis.” “OK.” “And I am really sorry if I embarrassed you or something. It was just a stupid dare.” “No. It’s fine. I mean, even for a dare it was kind of lame.” She lets that sink in. “But it was a stupid shirt.” Travis shrugged. “I didn’t really think so.” “Uh. That’s not exactly what you said.” “Long story.” Bobby nodded. “So I can wear it out again with approval?” “Only if you want me to tell you how stupid it is again.”

It was another two weeks before Travis saw Bobby at a party and they had a normal conversation about things other than dares and stupid clothing. And now, today, “So are you picking on the bartender or picking her up?”

“As a matter of fact…” he looks to see that the girl is out of earshot. “I’ve been regaling her with stories from my childhood.”

“I bet they’d be really scary.” Bobby says, nodding. Turning to her friends behind her she says, “Travis, this is Josh and Aaron.”

Travis shakes their hands in turn from his stool. “Hey,” he says, wondering to himself which of the two is inevitably chasing after Bobby. After she left her boyfriend with the apparently terrible fashion sense, she could always be found with a harem of guys.

“You here by yourself?” asks Bobby.

“Me and my best friend, Beer.” The bartender, who had come over to get orders from Bobby’s crew, makes a disapproving face.

“We were just gonna’ play some pool.”

“You know, that sounds good, but I was planning on catching a band at the Theater.”

“Okay, Asshole, suit yourself. But come to a party at our apartment complex Saturday.”

Josh chimes, “It’s gonna’ be huuuge, dude.”

“Seems kinda’ dead in town for a party.”

“Trust me. We got three bands and twenty kegs comin’. All night Saturday and as long as we can go on Sunday. They even got noise permits for the bands.”

“All right, then. See ya’ there.”

He laughs, but sensing wetness, looks down at his hand. He has spilled his juice. “Damn it!” he says to his hand or the glass. “Look what you went and did!” He sets a bag of pretzels beside him in the chair and sets the glass on the floor, getting up to jog lightly into the kitchen for a paper towel or two. When he pulls on the roll over the sink, it wobbles and spins and four paper towels unwrap themselves, but do not rip at the perforation. Travis looks at the roll blankly for a moment and shrugs, defeated. Turning and walking out of the kitchen, a line of paper towels unravels behind him and settles to the floor. He wipes off the glass and looks at the paper towel trail leading back into the kitchen. He can’t care if he tried. He tells himself that he will care later. This, also, seems doubtful.

With the glass still on the floor, Travis thrusts himself harder into the old blue armchair. It leans back, keeping its balance for just a moment, until he kicks his legs out swing-total-commit and it falls backwards to the floor. He hollers a “Woo hoo!” as it swoops back. When the chair lands with a thud, he feels the sensation in his spine and laughs. Then he shifts around and kicks like a beetle on its back. “Help me!” He sits still, his posture perfect but rolled back ninety degrees. Kicking again, he cries with futility “Somebody help me!” No one answers and disappointedly, he rolls off the chair to pick it back up.

Digging the remote out of the seat cushion, Travis sits back down, opens the pretzels and begins clicking through the television channels, announcing their content to the room as he goes. “News, soap opera, news, commercial.” He moves through the channels as quickly as he can, sounding all the while like an old elevator operator. “Game show, cooking show, music videos,” and then he stops. There is a moment of recognition in his face as he watches the image of two policemen approaching a car. From their tight, dated uniforms and the hues of the film, Travis is sure of what he is looking at. His mouth opens a little at the baked look of the highway in California and the circa 1980 vehicles that litter it. True to form, one of the officers casually removes his sunglasses. “Yes!” Travis shouts like a roulette winner. “Chips!” He sinks down into the chair lazily. As Travis takes a pretzel out of the bag, the policeman makes an oh-so-casual joke about the speed that the attractive female driver had attained. “Ahhh. Eric Estraaaaada,” Travis cooes. “You’re the maaaan.” His eyes wander back to the trail of paper towels strewn across the floor. The scene is the epitome of drudgery, and he relishes it—mind-numbing drudgery. As he looks around he spies an empty space where once one of Nick’s paintings would have stared at him in horror. “Shut up,” he says to no one and turns the television up.

Travis roams from bad sitcom to to cheesy romance movie to game show for three hours. At one point in time, all the television channels conspire to show nothing but commercials for three or four minutes, and Travis is forced to give up his undisputed throne over the empire of mindlessness. He completes the cycle of channels, from two to fifty-two, because he has to—has to be absolutely sure that there is no amount of obscure, barely entertaining material he could be missing. And then, finally, he shuts the television off.

The room has darkened, the light low in the late afternoon, the blinds closed. Travis looks around blankly, as though he had just been placed there. He sits still and listens to the quiet. The refrigerator had ceased, the air conditioners on both sides of the apartment are off. Everything is quiet. Sitting up in the chair, he crosses his legs underneath him, closes his eyes and lets the silence leak into his head, lets his thoughts evaporate into it. He waits, breathing, knowing that the moment a certain part of his brain recognizes the silence, the music will come. The silence will end abruptly, stabbed by a rhythm or a note. But it doesn’t come.

When he opens his eyes after a minute, they are focused on the top of the television set and a letter from Nick that he’d been saving to read for just such an occasion. “Letter for me! Letter for me!” Travis shouts. He stands up and lifts the envelope off the television. The address is scrawled in Nick’s familiar scratchy handwriting. There is no denying the resemblance between Nick’s handwriting and his art. Over the years, in fact, Travis had watched as Nick’s handwriting had become more and more like his art, almost as though the bent, twisted images in Nick’s head were struggling to get out in any shape or form they could. The letters in the address look like bare winter twigs laid down to resemble an alphabet. The “T” in “Mr. Travis Fleeting” could have been two straight lines, but instead there is an wintry cross of ink tributaries, bent and warped. On the back of the envelope is scribbled “You’re fat!”

Lounging on the big couch, Travis reads the letter twice. It is two and a half pages, and rather than fold it, Nick had simply crumpled the paper and jammed it into an envelope, smashing it flat with a blunt instrument, no doubt. The writing crawls across the wrinkled paper. The letter says that Nick is doing well in Pittsburgh and that Travis is fat. Nick rather liked one particular bar that he and Jim had been to several times. Travis is “stoopid”. It looks promising that Nick would get to show his work in the gallery. The curator does seem impressed. And Travis is fat. For the most part, Nick is having a good time. And for the most part, Travis is fat, stupid and lazy. The last few sentences make Travis wince and then smile:

“I saw a chick in a bar the other night that would make an excellent specimen of a girlfriend for you. She even had a lazy eye! You can’t beat that! Looking forward to getting a beer with you when I get back.”

“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.”

Travis sidles up to the bar in the back of the room, squeezing between two clusters of friends and holds out his five dollars. When Evan comes over to take his order, Travis asks for a Daisycutter. Evan replies, “Go to hell,” and smiles very nicely.

“Okay. How about a gin and tonic then.” Nodding, Evan moves to fetch the drink while Travis waits patiently and thinks about all the stupid drink names he’d come up with to fool old Evan. Travis isn’t a regular at the bar—he is a regular at Mean Mike’s—but Evan knows who he is because of the originality of his fake drink names: Daisycutter, Sea Urchin, Asimov cocktail, and Sapphire and Deluth, and the fact that he’s caught a show or two.

Evan comes back with a gin and tonic in a pint glass and put it in front of Travis. “Three dollars.”

Travis raises his eyebrows in surprise and looks to Evan.

“I liked that one,” Evan replies. “It was original.”

Travis smiles. “I got it from the name of a bomb they used to use in Vietnam.”

“Very appropriate.”

“Maybe I could talk you into making one, one of these days.”

Evan thinks about it. “What do you think it would be?”

“Probably a martini. I don’t really like martini’s, but that’s what it sounds like to me.”

“Yeah, a fruity one.” Evan takes Travis’s five dollars, and Travis walks away from the bar, figuring he’ll leave all the change since he is getting a heavy discount and he liked the repartee. A good repartee is worth at least two bucks. Walking back to the tables along the side of the bar, Travis spots Dizzy, Kristin and Kristin’s friend Eric seated at one of them. Seating himself, he holds up his drink with pride, “Now that’s how you get customers.”

“How’s that?” Kristin asks.

“You give them more booze for less money.”

“Well, and if you make them alcoholics, then you have them for life,” Eric adds.

Travis smiles, “I like the way you think, Eric.” He holds out his hand, and Eric shakes it. “How ya’ been?”

“Mellow.”

“Good, good,” Travis replies.

“Good?”

“Good.”

“Great!”

“Woah now. There’s no need to get carried away there, pal.” Travis leans back on his stool and holds up his hand.

“Where’s everybody else?” Dizzy asks.

“What? My company not good enough for ya’?”

“No.” And she shakes her head vehemently.

“They went to go to the ah-tee-em.”

“The what?”

“The Assistant Tank Master.”

Eric laughs, and then says, “You mean, The Autonomous Truck Motor?”

“No,” Travis says and raising his voice, “I said, an Actual Testicle Massage.”

Dizzy hits Travis, “We can’t take you anywhere nice.”

Travis looks at her innocently, then turns back to Eric, “WWW, ATM, dot-com; These acronyms are getting out of hand,” Travis adds.

“People who use big words are dumb!” Kristin protests.

“You mean like magnanimous?”

“Or how about meticulous,” Eric chimes in.

Kristin rolls her eyes and looks away from the table, disinterested. The only way to get them to quit now would be to ignore them.

“I prefer it when people use big words wrong,” Dizzy says.

“Yeah.”

Putting on her teenybopper accent, Dizzy replies, “Oh I think that dress is just parsimonious.” Eric nods his head in agreement. “It makes me abominable when people do that—just absolutely fabricated.”

Dizzy laughs gleefully, but Kristin just looks at them all with an irritated look. “Where’s Ian?” she asks Travis, pretending to still be annoyed by his company.

“Where’s Ian? Where’s Ian?” Travis teases. “Why don’t you just marry him and then you won’t have to ask me all the time.”

Kristin grins and put her hand over her mouth. “I love him.”

Travis laughs. From time to time, Kristin looked remarkably like an eight-year-old. It always warmed Travis; reminded him of the fantastic crush that he’d first had on Kristin three long years before. He preferred to remember that instead of whatever reason that they had ceased their romantic involvement. He smiles as he watches Kristin tell Eric about Ian, because he realizes he no longer remembers the reason for the break up. He could only remember the good parts. The blue bandanna she’d been wearing the first time he saw her… asking her out… their first kiss. Turning to Daphne, he watches her looking about the room, and he stares at her eyes—always adorned with mascara. Only on a few occasions had Travis seen her without, and in those moments he was always slightly shocked. Her blue eyes released from outline made her appear almost naked to him—maybe proof that he didn’t really know her. Holding his hand up to his head, Travis casually tries to hide the fact that he is staring, but Daphne glances in his direction and their eyes meet. Once she had described to him in a note an inexplicable and irresistible attraction to his cheek. Always, Travis wondered if that attraction was still there when they glanced at each other. She wondered things, too, floating in glances. So much of their relationship was in those sparsely found moments of unknown intentions.

“Tell Eric about the Yours Game,” Kristin requests.

Turning from Dizzy, Travis smiles, “Oh yeah. Ya’ gotta’ know how to play Yours, if you’re gonna’ hang.” Looking around the bar, Travis sees a woman at the end of the counter and tells Eric, “Okay. You see that chick at the end of the bar?”

“Yeah… the one with the tank top?”

“Yeah. She’s your girlfriend now.”

Eric looks disappointed. “Oh.” Looking back to Travis, Eric nods. “I think I get it.” Then, after a moment, “That’s not a very fun game.”

“It’s more fun when you get someone else,” Travis reassures him.

“Okay.”

“And there are a couple of other rules.”

“Yeah?”

“Yeah.” Travis lists the rules, quid pro quo, on his fingers: “No one over twenty-eight or under eighteen. No lying—you can’t say someone’s good looking when they’re not. And if you get someone three times with the same person on different occasions, then they’re yours for life. Got it?”

Eric nods solemnly. “What about you guys?” he asks Kristin and Dizzy.

“Oh yeah. We play,” Dizzy says.

“But they have to be boys,” Kristin adds. “Like that one over there by the plants by the door.” Everyone looks. “That one’s Dizzy’s.”

Scrutinizing the character a second time, Dizzy turns back to the table. “I like him. He’s cute.”

“Yeah right. Nice try,” Travis replies.

Dizzy pouts and plays with her straw. “I don’t like you, Kristin.”

“Sorry,” Kristin giggles. “I think his rat tail’s sexy.”

“Man, you guys are crass,” Eric says, shaking his head. “I like it.”

“Welcome to hell, Eric,” Travis says, patting Eric’s shoulder. He holds up his pack of cigarettes. “Cigarette?”

“Well, when in hell…”

Travis holds up his lighter and lights it for Eric as Kristin begins laughing, seeing what’s coming. “Now you’re my bitch,” Travis says politely.

Eric looks to the Kristin, perplexed.

“It’s another game,” Travis explains.

“They have lots of games,” Kristin adds with mild disapproval.

Just then, Nick, Ian, and John amble up to the table. “Hey guys,” Travis says standing up from his seat. “What the hell took so long?”

Nick nods to Ian, “He ran into a girl.”

Kristin gives Ian a nasty look, but Ian just laughs, “I hate her, dude. She wouldn’t shut up.”

“We were gonna’ leave him there,” Nick explains.

Travis makes introductions.

“Nice to meet you guys,” Eric says.

“Yeah, that’s what you think,” Nick replies.

Ian shuffles over to Kristin by the wall, giving Daphne a kiss-hello on the cheek as he goes.
Travis explains to Nick and John, “Eric’s my bitch, and that gross girl over at the end of the bar is his new girlfriend.”

Stepping past Travis, Nick examines the girl and makes a pained expression. “I see Trav has been schooling you in some of our more important traditions.”

Eric nods. “Oh yeah.”

Ian makes his way to the bar, hollering to Nick and John, “I’ll just get us a pitcher.”

“Cool,” Nick replies. Turning back to Eric he says, “It could be worse. He could’ve given you the girl on the couch by the front door…” Travis tries to stop himself at the last moment, but looks in the girl’s direction. “… but that’s his girlfriend,” Nick finishes.

Eric laughs and Travis smiles tight-lipped at Nick.

Pointing in Travis’s face, John mocks, “Your girlfriend’s a mongoloid!”

Eric almost spits up his drink.

“Thanks, John,” Travis replies calmly. John nods curtly and takes out a cigarette, to which Travis holds his lighter. “Need a light?” Travis asks.

John becomes very angry and stares at Travis’s hand.

Leaning back to Eric, Travis explains, “That’s another thing you should know: don’t ever try to play the bitch game with John.”

“I don’t play that stupid game,” John says, still angry.

Eric looks on curiously, but nods.

“Just trust me,” Travis says as John lights his own cigarette. “You don’t wanna’ go there.”

Ian comes back from the bar with a pitcher of stout, and hands Nick and John glasses. “You guys just get the next round—wherever we go.”

“Thanks,” Nick replies. Looking at Travis’s pint of gin and tonic, he remarks, “You seem to be doing okay.”

Travis smiles gleefully. “I sure am.”

Eric leans in to the table conspiratorially. “Hey, Daphne. I didn’t want to say anything, but I think that guy over there’s been checking you out—just so you know.”

Travis and Nick smile as Dizzy looks exaggeratedly in the wrong direction. “Where?” she asks loudly. “I don’t see anyone.”

“Nice try, friend,” Nick says. “You’ll have to try harder than that.”

Eric shrugs innocently. “Okay. But I think he really digs you.”

“Dizzy’s used to that,” Travis says, patting her hand. “Everybody’s always looking at her.”

“I love you,” Dizzy replies through pursed lips, and kisses Travis’s cheek with a loud smack.

“You guys missed out,” Travis says to Dizzy and Kristin.

“What?” Kristin asks.

“We were playing southern dysfunctional family earlier this afternoon.”

“Awww,” Kristin replies disappointed. When Eric looks to her for an explanation, she says, “I’m always the soft-spoken, abused housewife, and Dizzy’s my loud-mouthed gossipy friend.”

Dizzy leans in. “Did ya’ll know that the reverend’s sleepin’ with Emma Lou?”

“Nuh uh!” Kristin hollers.

Tugging his pants up around his waist, Nick says, “Now you womenfolk quit your gabbin’ and get ta’ fetchin’ us some drinks.”

“Yeah. This ain’t no time for rumor-mongerin’,” Eric adds joining in.

“Hey there, Billy,” John says to Nick. “I think that there fella’ over there is lookin’ at Kristi.”

“Wha?” Nick asks, looking around furiously. “I’ll kick his ass.”

Reaching over behind Eric, Kristin grabs hold of Nick’s shirt and pulls him over. “Now, honey, don’t be fightin’ tonight,” she pleads. “You know I love you.”

“Don’t be tellin’ me what ta’ do, woman. I’ll give you whatfer fer lettin’ some jackass check you out.”

“I didn’t mean it, honey,” Kristin pleads.

“We’ll kick his ass, Billy,” Travis says.

“I got my 12 guage in the truck,” John adds.

Eric looks to Ian, who had just been looking on. “What about you?”

Ian holds up his hands in defense. “I’m from Jersey.”

“Damn yank,” Travis says.

In a Jersey accent, Ian retorts, “Whateva. We kicked your friggin’ ass once. We can do it again.”

“That’s it,” Travis says, standing. “Them’s fightin’ words.”

Dizzy motions for Ian to come stand by her. “Ya’ll don’t be pickin’ on my Vinnie. He’s in the army. He’s gonna’ make somethin’ of hisself.”

“He’s gay,” John says.

“I’ll tell all yur wives what you been doin’,” Dizzy threatens.

John and Travis stand down a little, but Kristin looks to Nick lovingly. “You ain’t been foolin’ around on me, Lovebiscuit.”

“You know it, Sugarbutt,” Nick says confidently.

“That ain’t what Sally Sue says.”

“That bitch is a liar and a Jezebel!”

Nick breaks character, turning to Eric, “You should also know that we hate flies, the French, anything sounding French…”

“Retards,” John adds.

“No, that’s just you,” Travis corrects him.

“I don’t wanna’ have this argument again.” John shakes his head and begins to count on his fingers as he speaks slowly, “The order of evolution goes mongoloids, dolphins, people and my dick.”

Travis and Nick exchange a confused glance.

“It was brought to me by omnipotent alien beings.”

Travis and Nick nod in complete understanding.

“Can we go soon?” Kristin asks. “I wanna’ show Eric all the cool spots.”

“Listen,” Travis adds. “Phil told me the staff at Mean Mike’s is having a private party tonight after the bar closes.”

“Cool!” Ian says.

Travis holds up his glass. “Here’s to drinking all night and waking up in somebody’s bed.”

For a while the boys had assumed that something was wrong with the thing. Nick took it to the veterinary school on campus a couple of times to consult the students there. He only ever received a patient reply that the cat was healthy, and was probably “just vocal.” No matter how many times he pedantically no-you-just-don’t-understand explained that “vocal” simply wasn’t the word for it, he got no sympathy. No one could believe that such a small creature could cause such a din until they were witness to it. Instead, he simply decided that the kitten represented some sort of karmic retribution for some forgotten sin he’d committed (or a remembered one for that matter), and the roommates had no other choice but to peacefully live with the clearly insane animal as best they could, hoping the epileptic throat fits were just a phase.

“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.”

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.

Finally, Travis decides he has talk to her. And of course, right when he decides this, a handsome young man walks up and greets her. At first Travis just shakes his head, unsurprised by his luck. Then, it becomes apparent that the two know each other. Travis sits back in the booth, overhearing Nick for a moment—“Absolutely nothing happened in the Baroque period,”—and watches the girl and her friend exchange pleasantries. After a moment, the young man turns and walks away down the bar past Travis to the bathroom. When Travis looks back from the bathroom to the girl, he catches her glance. There’s a moment, and then she looks back to her drink. Still, Travis caught the curiosity and decides that if the young man comes back out and doesn’t rejoin her, he will.

Looking back to the table, Travis hears Nick saying, “No, I’m sure Kandinsky was the first.”

Karen shrugs and replies, “I guess you’re right. I don’t really remember.”

Sitting next to Travis, Chris speaks up, “Out in space there, champ?”

Travis smiles sheepishly. “Nah. I’m just watchin’ that girl down there.” He points with his head, letting his eyes wander nowhere in her direction when he is speaking. She probably can’t read lips, but anybody can read eyes.

Chris turns around completely in the booth and looks over his shoulder. Luckily she isn’t looking, and Travis just puts his head in his hand. “The one in the black dress?” Chris asks, facing Travis again.

“How ’bout I just ask her to come over here so you can get a good look?”

“Huh?” Chris asks.

“Yeah. The girl in the black dress.”

“That sounds like a song,” Chris muses.

“A bad one.”

“Well, you should go talk to her,” Chris says encouragingly.

A little impatient, Travis says, “I’m workin’ on it. In a second.”

Chris looks confused. “Wha’da ya’ mean: working on it?”

“Don’t worry about it,” Travis says, not wanting to be rude, but unwilling to explain his strategy.

Chris just nods, as Travis watches the young man returning from the bathroom. He walks up to the girl and stops for a moment again. Just as Travis suspects he is out of luck, the young man walks out the front door. Travis sits up a little, pleasantly surprised. He starts to stand,

“All right, ya’ll,” he says, “I’ll be right back.”

“Go get’em tiger,” Nick says. Travis’ nerves bubble up as he makes the long walk down the bar, stomach performing heroic floor exercise gymnastics—flips, cartwheels. Something in him won’t accept that walking up to talk to an attractive girl at a bar is something he has done before. This is not just any girl. There is something about this girl. And it would not have seemed such a long distance except that she had noticed him stand, and is watching him approach, maybe curious, maybe wary.

“Hi.”

“Hi.”

“Is this seat taken?”

“No,” she replies, her tone implying that she doesn’t necessarily want it occupied. Travis does not sit at first. He figures he’s gotten this far; he can have some patience. He sets his drink on the bar. “It’s just that my friends down there are talking about art history, and I really don’t know anything about it. I’m kinda’ in the mood to talk about somethin’ though.” Travis laughs inside. It certainly is an honest approach. She smiles at him and he thinks, maybe it’s the right approach to boot.

“Well, what exactly interests you?” she asks politely. Travis already likes her—she’s coy. She’s letting him dig his own hole, giving nothing away.

He thinks about his answer. Everything is the real answer, but that’s too heavy. His mind is racing through possible topics now, but he finally admits, “It’s not so much what interests me, so much as what I can yammer on at length about.”

She raises her eyebrows. “Yammer?”

Travis isn’t sure whether she doesn’t know the word or is just being facetious. “Yeah, ya’ know—yammer. Talkin’ without getting anywhere.”

Smiling, she replies, “No, I know what you mean. I just don’t recall anyone using it besides my grandfather.”

Travis shrugs innocently. Sincerity always trumps facetiousness.

“Well, by all means,” she says, “yammer away.” She turns her hand out and offers the barstool with a wave. Travis relaxes a little and sits down.

He holds out his hand. “My name’s Travis.”

Shaking his hand, she replies, “Melissa.”

“I haven’t met too many Melissas.”

“That’s all right, I’ve never met a Travis.”

“Well, you don’t have to meet any more then,” Travis says, “we’re all exactly the same.”

“So, after you and I have talked, I won’t need to speak to any other Travis’s to know anything about them?”

“Travisi,” Travis corrects.

“Is that right?”

“Yeah, like octopus/octopi.”

She chuckles, she takes a sip of her drink to let Travis lead. It strikes him as funny, that he feels like leading. He is feeling suddenly punchy, a bit funny. “What’re you sippin’ on there?” he asks.

“Gin and tonic.”

“He hold up his own glass. “Here’s to good taste.”

“You too?”

“Oh yeah.”

They clink their glasses and take drinks. She searches his eyes. “Do you know how gin got its name?” he asks, attempting to distract her.

“No. Do tell.”

But he just feigns surprise instead of answering the question and then says, “No, I don’t know—I thought maybe you did.”

Laughing lightly, Melissa says, “And here I thought we were going to talk about something interesting.”

Travis looks around to see if she is mistaking him for someone else. “I’m sorry,” he says sincerely, “did I say interesting? I meant I just liked to talk.” He shakes his head and looks at the bar sheepishly.

She laughs again and it seems apparent that she is coming out of a funk of some kind. Travis hopes he is partly responsible for that.

“Actually, I have to admit,” Melissa says into the straw she’s twirling in her drink. “You never actually said you were interesting. I guess I just deduced that.” Now it’s Travis’s turn to be caught off guard by the subtle compliment. Melissa looks sly—she too could be disarming.

“Still though,” she continues, “as cliché as it sounds, you do look familiar to me.”

“Really? I can’t believe you said that. You were lookin’ familiar to me, too. But… I’m really sure I wouldn’t forget your face if I knew who you were. Where do you hang out at usually?” Melissa thinks about it, “Here sometimes—not often—the Manhattan Club, City Bar, DT’s.”

Travis decides to give a possibility a whirl: “I’ve played DT’s a few times.”

She looks down at the bar trying to recall and then realizes, looking up at Travis and scrutinizing his face. “I can not believe I didn’t recognize you.”

“Really?”

“Yeah! I know who you are. You used to have longer hair though, right?”

Travis rubs his peach fuzz and agrees, “‘Bout six months ago.”

“Oh, that’s so funny.”

“Is that why you were looking at me?”

“Well, uh… no.” She hadn’t realized she’d been caught and seems embarrassed.

Travis just smiles in reply though—nothing to be embarrassed about.

“You used to play a song about… an… oath or something.”

“Pledge?”

“Yes. Pledge. That’s it. I don’t really remember it, but I remember thinking it was really beautiful. And it kind of… means… something to me right now.” She lets her eyes light up with the feeling and Travis notices for the first time how steely they are.

“That’s nice. Thanks.”

“When are you playing next? I just have to hear it again.”

Travis is taken aback by her enthusiasm. “Next weekend actually—not this coming one, but the next.”

“Oh,” she looks disappointed. “I won’t be here.”

Travis shrugs. “Honestly, I think the owner’s are pretty satisfied with me. They’ll probably be retaining me for a while.”

“Well, I’ll have to see you play again. Especially now,” she says. “Do you have an album out or anything?”

“No,” Travis says simply. He thinks about it for a moment. He should have made an album at this point, and he really doesn’t have an excuse for not just going into a studio and doing it. Everyone in John’s band had offered to back him for such a venture. “I, uh… I haven’t really—” he always feels stupid explaining why he doesn’t have an album. Everyone had albums in Athens. It makes him feel small. “No,” he says finally.

Melissa nods, not sure why Travis is so unclear on the matter. “I guess Athens must be nice that way. You can make enough money just playing around here.”

“If you know people,” Travis agrees. “I guess I’d like to get out and play some other towns…

I’d probably really need a band to back me up.”

Frowning slightly, Melissa offers, “I thought you were good. It’s nice just hearing someone play guitar—someone good.”

“Thanks. I think so too,” Travis agrees.