“I don’t expect anything from you,” I said.
His eyebrows rose. “Okay.”
“If that’s what you’re thinking.”
He shook his head. A smile played on his lips. “You are one strange dude.” He stood and stretched; his hands nearly touched the ceiling where there was a water stain. It looked like a pool of dried blood. The place was a shithole.
“I’m beat,” he said. “If you’re not staying, then you’d better go so I can lock up.” He eyed me slyly. “Unless you want to watch me sleep.”
I nearly dropped the cup in my lap. I fumbled it onto the table while a thought raced through my head.I’ve watched you sleep a thousand times.But that was a lie and creepy as hell, and where did that even come from? I stood and headed for the door.
“See you around, Andre,” I managed.
“Like a donut.” He stood at the top of the stairwell as I navigated past the thugs and into my car. I started up my engine and glanced up to where he stood in his white shirt and blue jeans, hands jammed deep into his pockets, staring at me with a thoughtful expression. It seemed a great risk to leave him there, and it filled me with dread, the thought that I might never see him again.
I had a long, dark, and lonely night ahead of me.
4. Fang
THE NEXTtime I saw Andre, he was engaged in a debate with Fang about Kobe Bryant vs. LeBron James. Andre was Team LeBron.
“Kobe’s had five NBA championships and LeBron’s only had three,” Fang said.
“LeBron’s just getting warmed up,” Andre said. “He’s got another five in him at least.”
They continued arguing while I did my prep work. I grew increasingly irritated that Fang had this connection, knowing a subject Andre was passionate about more thoroughly than me. I wondered if Andre played basketball. He seemed to have the build.
“What do you think, Martin?” Andre called.
“I’m not that into sports,” I said, not wishing to engage Fang in a competition where he had a definite advantage.
“What are you into, then?” Andre asked.
“Melissa’s pants,” Fang said. I wished to skewer him with the steak knife I held in my hand, but instead I wrapped it tidily in a wine-colored cloth napkin.
“That true?” Andre asked. “The woman with the eyes?”
Melissa’s eyes were striking. It was the feature everyone noticed, which made her an excellent model. Her eyes were wizened, like they’d lived for centuries, seen and done everything. Melissa, too, was a bit of an enigma. She rarely spoke about herself, where she came from or what she’d been through. With Melissa, you were always in the present, whether it was creating art, getting smashed, dancing, working, fucking. There was no past or future with Melissa, only now.
“She your girlfriend?” Andre asked when I didn’t answer. Perhaps I imagined it, but I detected a hint of disappointment.
“She’s my manager,” I said, which was true. My art career would have been over before it had even begun if it weren’t for her.
“You make music?” Andre asked hopefully.
“No, I’m a painter.”
I scooped up the rest of the napkins and cutlery and found a booth in the back of the restaurant to finish rolling, irritated without knowing why. It wasn’t that I didn’t want Andre to know stuff about me; it’s that I wanted to control the information and the way in which he received it. I didn’t want him to think the wrong things about me. Or believe Fang’s rumors. And why, I asked myself, was that even so important to me? Why was I trying to impress him at all?
I didn’t talk to him again for the rest of the night, until closing. Melissa invited me out with her and some friends, but I declined, telling her I was up late the night before painting and I needed to catch up on my rest.
“I can’t wait to see it,” she said.Me neither, I thought.
I waited until everyone had left, then asked Andre if he wanted to go grab a beer. I knew of some bars that would serve him. He shook his head without looking up. “Can’t tonight. Got to help close.”
Fang came back into the kitchen then, his apron stained with the blood of whatever he’d most recently disemboweled.
“Some other time,” I said. I ended up driving around with the top down, cruising along the intercostal, then through the downtown, even into some of the burbs. I didn’t want to go out, and I didn’t want to go home. I wanted to be with Andre. It was a desire like no other. He triggered something inside me. I found myself winding into the bad part of town, into his neighborhood, down his street. I parked across the street from his apartment, partially hidden behind some broken fencing. Maybe I was a creep. A creepy stalker. The light was on inside, and I worked up the nerve to go knock on his door. I had my hand on my car door handle when I saw his apartment door swing open.
