The walk up Washington Street, to Lumpkin, and left again on to Clayton was a short three block stroll. Ian, John, Nick and Travis pair off and talk among themselves, passing and waving to acquaintances on the sidewalk, and smoking on their way to meet the girls. “I haven’t seen Daphne in a while,” Nick says as they all walk through a bank parking lot to cut over to Clayton.

“I saw her last weekend. She was out with that Vic guy,” Travis replies.

“There’s something about him I don’t like.”

“Yeah. Tell me about it.”

“What is it?” Nick asks seriously.

“I don’t know. He’s a little flashy, don’t ya’ think.”

“I guess.”

“Like, whenever Dizzy’s around, he acts real friendly. But then, a couple of weeks ago I ran into him at a barbeque a friend of mine was having, and he just blew me off. Didn’t talk to me for two minutes.” Travis takes a drag off his cigarette and thinks about it.

“You know, Daphne hasn’t been real receptive to my presence lately,” Nick says.

“Well, you guys weren’t even talkin’ there for a while,” Travis offers.

“Yeah but we worked all that out back in January.”

Coming to a short wall along the parking lot’s edge, Travis jumps up on it and starts balancing his way alongside Nick. “Maybe if you lost a little weight, she would like you.”

“Shut up, Fatty.”

“You’re so fat, you’re blood type is Ragu.”

Nick starts laughing, and Ian and John stop to turn around. “What?” asks John curiously.

“He said, ‘You’re so fat you’re blood type is Ragu’,” Nick explains.

John and Ian both laugh before moving on up the street.

“Mmm…” Nick says, pulling the corners of his lips down like an angry samurai. “Me must get money from a-tee-em. Much money for good drink.”

“Hai,” Travis replies with a bow and jumps down off the wall.

The group make their way through the crowd in front of the Georgia Theater, looking at all the people waiting on show tickets as they go. Nick leans over conspiritorially to Travis as they made their way. “Over at the ticket booth. She’s buying one.”

“What?” Travis asks and looks. There was a particularly unattractive girl at the booth window.

“Yours,” Nick said casually out of the side of his mouth.

“Sonuvabitch,” Travis curses under his breath. “I’ll get you for that.”

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