Ian bursts out of the bathroom, his small frame wrapped with a towel, his face completely transformed. His hair is straight, more vividly black, and hung comfortablyhis blue eyes lit up like dayglo denim. He looks more like his normal energetic selfthough energetic wasn’t quite the word for it. Maybe atomic. The average person thought he was on speed if they didn’t know him better. And the strange thing was that most people universally agreed that Ian’s demeanor could permeate you like radiation. The moment he walks into a room, the party has arrived. Nick often referred to the effect as his “daily dose of Ian.” Searching the room through piles of clothes, Ian looks for something tolerably dirty (or tolerably clean, depending on how you look at). “I made about twenty sales last night,” he announces to Travis.

“Really?” Travis seems genuinely surprisedthe summer was always slow.

“Yep.” He speaks in his mile-a-minute style. “We had a bunch of people over here last night. I told a couple people that I could hook ’em up, and before I knew it I was talking to a whole crowd.”

“Word spreads.”

“Yep.”

“You didn’t tell ’em it was you, right?” Travis asks, a little wary.

“No! Of course not, dude. I’m in the know. I know a guy. That’s all, Vaquero.” Ian takes his clothes into the bathroom.

“Cool. Hey! You mind if I get a beer?” Travis calls into the bathroom.

“They’re in the fridgehelp yourselves,” Ian calls back.

“Fakes?” John asks.

“Huh?” asks Travis moving over to the mini refrigerator by the couch.

“Is that what he was selling?”

Setting the empty gin bottle on the top of the refrigerator, Travis just nods to John and peers inside. Sure enough, it is packed full of silver cans. Travis pulls out a beer and offers it to John who waves it off. Shutting the door he opens his can, doing some math in his head. Twenty times approximately fifty divided in two. “Twenty should set me straight for the month, dude!” he hollers at the bathroom door.

Coming back into the room in a red, blue and yellow Spanish soccer jersey and a pair of meticulously unkempt jeans, Ian remarks, “Yeah, and I could use it.”

John didn’t need a fake drivers licensehe was older than Ian and Travis by about two years, but says, “I might have some people who’d buy off you.”

“Cool,” says Ian.

“Can I get a cut?”

“Of course, dude. Totally.”

“Don’t tell ’em who we are,” adds Travis.

John just makes a duh face.

“I just wanna’ be sure,” Travis says, sipping from his beer. “I got a right to be paranoid.”

“Say, does Rachel still have hers?” Ian asks.

“Yep. She uses it everywhere.”

;It’s everywhere you wanna’ be,” Travis adds with a big thumb’s up to Ian.

“We ready to go?” Ian asks.

“Nah. Le’me finish this,” Travis replies, sipping from his beer.

Ian nods and regards the refrigerator. “Four thirty? That’s late enough to start,” reaching for the door and pulling out two beers. Sitting down next to John, Ian hands him one. John regards it for a second, questioning whether he wants it, and then opens it. In unison, all three pull out cigarettes and pass John’s silver zippo around. “Did you see Rachel last night?” Ian asks.

John just rolls his eyes and takes a swig of his beer.

“He’s pissed off,” Travis offers.

Ian smiles and looks at John, “Is she cheating on you or anything?”

“No,” John answers, annoyed.

Read the whole thread: Carousel Cowboy

Characters and Places: Athens, Ian Fleming, John Riffing, TKE House, Travis Fleeting