“Hey, Fat Kid!” Travis calls. “You in here?”

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.”

Read the whole thread: Carousel Cowboy

Characters and Places: Ian Fleming, Jon Riffing, practicing, small distracting house, Travis Fleeting, waking late