“Oh my God. I’m not gonna’ make it,” Nick says, stumbling up to the intersection of Baxter and Milledge Ave. At two-thirty in the morning, the intersection is still relatively busy. Young sorority and fraternity members are shuttling each other home after the parties. The downtown crowd is going home too.

“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.”

Read the whole thread: Carousel Cowboy

Characters and Places: destiny, Love, Nick Vaughn, Travis Fleeting