They drive on listening to “Wish You Were Here,” eventually turning on to Lexington, taking them back toward the city from out of the farms and pastures. Both were trying to think of something interesting to talk about, but it was June, and there really was nothing to talk about in the slow hot pace of summer. They had their music, but you couldn’t do that all day or talk about it all day, regardless of your level of dedication. You had to have nap time—that period of creative rest in which cigarettes are smoked, talk is had, and the back of your mind wanders in search of overlooked anemic melodies and ditties that may someday grow up into songs. John and Travis, Nick and Ian (all of them the Fat Kid) were either battling the muses or having nap time. At least when school was in session, there were all manner of stupid, trivial political and historical things to talk and complain and bitch about. But then, when school was out, life became remarkably simpler, though perhaps less conversationally inspiring.

“What have you got scheduled for tomorrow?” John asks.

Travis thinks about it. “Let’s see… I’ll need to lie in bed for about an hour and cry because I’ll have woke up again. That’ll be at about one-thirty in the afternoon right now the way things are going—I’m behind schedule on all the putzing I was supposed to do yesterday. And then, after breakfast, I need to stare at a wall until the sun goes down maybe.”

John smiles, “I have some errands to run—money stuff. But, I figured we could get that hundred watt amp of yours fixed.”

“That’d be cool. I have been meaning to get that fixed for a while.”

“Yeah, you mentioned it the other day.”

“I did? When?”

“I believe you said, ‘John, you asshole, why won’t you help me get my amp fixed? I hate you.’ I think that’s what you said.”

Travis nods. “Now that you mention it, I seem to recall saying something like that.”

“No you don’t.”

“You’re right. I’m lying—don’t remember a damn thing.”

Suddenly, John yells in a german accent like Gestapo officer, “Vats you name!”

Travis starts quivering in his seat.

“Vats you name, damn you!”

Travis scratches at the passenger door and begins quietly whimpering.

“Vats you name!” John yells again, growing still more intense.

Breaking down, Travis covers his head and screams into his lap. “I don’t know! All right? I don’t know! Leave me alone!”

John stops the car in the middle of Broad street in the emptiness of downtown. Very calmly, he says, “Get out.” Travis hesitates for a moment. He can never be sure of the conviction John has to a joke. “Get out,” John repeats seriously, while the innocent glisten in his eyes tells Travis, Let’s play a game.

Still whimpering, and actually a little nervous, Travis miserably opens the door and slides himself out of the car. As soon as the door is shut behind him, John drives off, his rear lights glaring red in city light. Standing in the middle of the road, Travis calmly takes his cigarettes out of his pocket, lights one and watches John’s receding lights. You’re a wanted man now, Fleeting, the scratchy voice of Will Munny says to Travis. Be he replies, if I’d aimed ta’ kill a man, then I guess I woulda’, but I’m innocent. He pulls the cigarette out of his mouth with his index finger and thumb, looking as menacing as he can. Slowly, he crosses the street, watching the Thunderchicken streak down to the next intersection, execute a u-turn, and come flying back. Standing by the other side of the road now, Travis carelessly watches as the car approaches him and stops again. Leaning over John calls out the open passenger window, “Hey pal! Good ta’ see ya’! Need a ride?”

Travis looks up the empty street and back the other way complacently, and only after full consideration of the situation, he looks back to John who is smiling like a nymphomaniac with five prostitutes in his back seat. “I reckon I do,” he admits with a shrug, and gets back in the car—and almost falls back out as John stomps on the gas peddle and peels the Thunderchicken around one hundred and eighty degrees to face the direction they had been heading. Travis is laughing, “Are you fucking nuts?” The engine roars menacingly as the car charges through three yellow lights in a blast. John poignantly kisses his hand and pats the ceiling of the car as tradition demands of close calls with yellow lights. Pink Floyd tells them now that they used to shine like the sun, as they drive through the empty night.

Hunching up over the steering wheel, his cigarette sticking defiantly straight up from his bottom lip, John intones a deep and scratchy voice, “It doesn’t get any better than this.” Travis laughs, because it doesn’t. Turning left onto Lumpkin Street for a few blocks and then right again back onto Baxter, the pair begin their final stretch home. Settling back into his seat, John returns to his normal driving sensibilities, as they are told to shine on like crazy diamonds. A few blocks more and John pulls in the parking lot of their apartment complex, driving all the way down to the horseshoe corner where they lived in building D, apartment 3—though more often than not, they referred to it as living in 3D. Getting out of the car in theatrical unison, Travis and John spot Nick sitting out front of the apartment, his lean and tall form gathered in a huddle on the stoop. “I’ll be damned,” Travis said. “He did lose his key.”

Read the whole thread: Carousel Cowboy

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