time.
         Now back to Isla Vista, as Jon’l pulled the blankets away from the bed, he was sure he smelled something sour again.
         “You guys don’t smell anything?”
         They both said no.
         Jon’l leaned toward the bed, thought he smelled something again, then again it was gone.
         “That’s odd.”
         He moved to the foot of the bed and brought his nose close. Nothing. He knelt and peered under the bed, both at the foot and the head. Again nothing.
         “That’s so weird. I keep getting a whiff of something really rank.”
         He was climbing into bed when he smelled it again. He stood up.
         “There it is again!”
         He brought his head to the pillow. The odor got stronger, as if it was the pillow itself. With his head nearly touching the pillow, he pulled it away to look under it. Suddenly he was eye to eye, maybe four inches from the very fish head he’d thrown at Brad that afternoon.
         He stood up straight, then was distracted by Brad’s rolling laughter.
         “Shit! You asshole!”
         Reflexively he leaped across the bed, barely missing Ann, landed clumsily on Brad, grabbed him in a head lock and ripped him out of bed. But unfortunately, rather than gain an advantage, he only pulled Brad, who outweighed him by 70 pounds, on top of him and was trapped, his breath crushed from his lungs by Brad’s throbbing laughter. Desperate for air, he finally shoved Brad off and began laughing too, their mirth so powerful that it vibrated the floorboards, the walls and the foundation and brought their many roommates to their door to see what had happened.
         Jon’l and Ann didn’t have a spare set of sheets so they removed the dirty ones and slept on the bare mattress. The next morning, Brad was particularly aware of Jon’l smelling everything. He saw him smell the cereal bowl and the box of corn flakes, then the newspaper. Brad wondered if the fish incident had spurred Jon’l’s olfactory sensitivity or merely his own awareness of it. He smiled to himself. For someone like Jon’l with a sense of smell like his, placing that fish head right in his face was perfect revenge. Perfect!

#

         Now Jon’l stepped through the sliding door onto the patio in Flagstaff and burrowed back into his spot on the wicker couch between Carl Azid and Chaz. He