Three Years Prior

Flannel lined jeans, dark wash. Thin white shirt under a cable knit cardigan. A gift, from the previous holiday season. Oliver peoples glasses, thin wire frames, dull and scratched from daily use. I shut my heavy wooden door, a brilliantly restored dark stained maple. The brass door knocker wobbled and clanked. Terracotta and ceramic pots lined my steps, the plants getting progressively more wilted as I descended the stairs. A cigarette butt lay within the leaves of my snake plant, a coke can in my hydrangeas. I pulled a carton out of my shirt pocket and a lighter from my sock. A man, his face familiar, walked unsteadily down the street with a tangle of yappy dogs pulling against brightly colored leashes. A corgi separated from the herd to sniff aggressively at my desert shoes, and to lift his leg over my philodendron. He tripped as a bulldog waddled over him, and his bark fed into the cacophony of noise. The man smiled apologetically, twirling around as a Schnauzer lunged towards a passerby. The air was crisp, a thin autumn chill, the leaves just beginning to turn, the sky just starting to dull into an ever present grey. The morning light illuminated the veins of the leaves, the vines entangling drain pipes, brown stoops and windowsills. A runner jogged through the street, ponytail swaying side to side, face pink with exhaustion. An old woman across the way watered her plants, who hung limply at the sides of the pot, yellow with rot. I continued down the sidewalk, turning at the cafe with rickety metal tables sprawled across the sidewalk, elegant women with white dresses and crossed legs perched atop metallic chairs, sipping delicately at espressos in small mugs. Small dogs sniffed disdainfully at the group of men laughing loudly over eggs benedict and waffles. The street was fairly deserted at this hour, the only occupants of cafes and restaurants envied by the working man.

 A bell announced my arrival into the shop. The enticing aroma of coffee beans, sweet milk, and almond pastry greeted me. Soft worn couches, velvet booths and wicker chairs decorated the space, mismatched but endearingly so. Light fixtures of no particular style hung from the low ceiling, glaring white light bouncing off tiled walls. 

 I smiled at the barista, who set down her hand of cards, sliding them away from her opponent, daring him to cheat. 

“Oliver! The usual or are we switching things up today?” 

I smiled.

“Am I that predictable? Even my adventurous days are so prescribed.” 

She laughed and pulled a medium sized hot coffee cup from the stack and began pouring medium roast black coffee into it, and spooned two lumps of sugar into it. 

“Today seems like a routine day. Want to throw in a muffin or something?”

“I’ll throw in a nice tip for you instead.”

She grinned. 

“What is that you’re playing?” I asked, gesturing at the cards. 

“Crazy eights,” Her opponent said, settling down his cards and fixing his newsboy cap. 

“Nice hat,” I told him. I had been looking for one similar for awhile, it seemed so casually elegant. 

“Thanks, man. You know, all my style comes from these streets. I don’t get clothing catalogs anymore I just take the L to bushwick and people watch.”

“That’s where you saw the cap?”

“Oh yeah, everyones got one. You know those Z-Coil sneakers? Man, I need to get a pair of those.” 

Eliza handed me my coffee, the cap precariously placed on top, room for milk. 

“Don’t encourage him,”

I poured a helping of almond milk in, and snapped the cap on. I dug around in my wallet for a ten dollar bill. 

“Keep the change.” I told her as I tossed it onto the counter.

“You’re my favorite customer, I hope you know that.” 

I sat once more on my chesterfield sofa, brown faux leather. Smoke hung in the stagnant air, the windows shut tight keeping the silence in.  The curtains shift from a cold breeze that snakes through my living room, and I curl my toes against the persian rug on the floor. My notebook, college ruled, leather bound, lay open in front of me. I write of late afternoon coffee dates, of early morning subway rides, of passion so great my characters were consumed in it. I wrote of the desperation of lust, the familiarity of a deep love, the comfort of sadness and the uncertainty of fleeting joys. I wrote of friendship so strong, so unfamiliar to me I feared I wrote it wrong. I wrote of perfection, and through that perfection I wrote myself into a corner. 

I shut my laptop and closed my notebook. I leaned into my sofa. I had gone to a bar a while ago, lights dim and swirling, a cacophony of slurred words. I had stumbled off a barstool and fell into a sofa where I had fallen asleep. In the weak morning light I had awoken from a deep rest, the imprints of the chesterfield sofa staying on my face until an hour into my trip home. I had gone to a furniture show later that week and bought the couch most similar. A quilt lay over the arm, red, orange and green, with cows and sunflowers and skyscrapers adorning each square. It was a gift from an old friend, a parting gift. He had sewn it over the course of a month, adding new fabrics that he stumbled upon in thrift stores deep in Queens, from garage sales in Staten Island and from estate sales he drove out to visit, someplace bland off the island. It had been wrapped in rough canvas from his studio, scrap ribbon tied end to end. I had hung it on my wall, push pins stuck into mortar, until it began to sag and warp, despite his expert craftsmanship. I demoted it to a throw once the corners became seventy degree angles. My sofa faced a bookcase, a tv hung over my head. I watched the television on a stool so as to never fall asleep before a screen, to never waste my time because I was too comfortable to get up. My bookcase was my prized possession. Deep cherry wood, as tall as my ceilings and as wide as the wall it was bolted to. My books were not organized by author, by genre by title. Simply by my own feelings. I placed books I disliked but felt obligated to own on the bottom shelf, a mere two inches off the floor, frequently kicked, bumped and ignored. The books at eye-level, five foot 10 inches off the floor, were books I felt proud to have read. The titles of which I gave away when asked my favorite book, subtly pretentious. They were lies of course, I never curled up at night with a copy of House of Leaves. The books on the shelf above it, frequently passed over, were my very favorite books, books read over and over again that their spines were glued back together, their covers covered in clear tape in an attempt to make them presentable after being tossed in a bag or pocket, time and time again. Patti Smith, Murakami, Oliver Sacks. I gazed lovingly at my photographs. An enlarged portrait of a man that I had struck up a conversation with at a park, which led to hours of exchanging life stories. He too was a writer, though his stories were vastly different mine in the sense that -

A knock sounded at the door. 

I rose from my couch, sliding my ashtray under the thick leaves of my Ficus. I walked across the uneven floorboards, sliding slightly at the transition from wood to the smooth cement of my entranceway. An additional bang resounded moments before I flung the door open. A woman stood before me, a familiar but unwelcome presence. 

“May I come in?” 

She adjusted the collar of her polyester blend pantsuit, a suitable grey for a grey woman. Her demeanor meek, her hair limp, her blunt hands holding a cheap looking briefcase embellished with her initials. A.B. Amanda Brooks. I attempted a smile as I moved aside and waved her inside. 

“Would you mind taking your shoes off?” 

She frowned and looked down at her slingback heels, round toe in an unfortunate matte black. 

“Well..alright.” 

I led her to my dining room table, pulling a cushioned chair out for her. She sat delicately and placed her bag on the table. 

“Could I get you something to drink? Water? Tea? Coffee?”

“Tepid water, please.”

I placed an ornate china plate stacked with five Amaretti cookies between our cups. Hers, a short floral etched glass. Mine, a small china teacup with pink floral designs, a chip on the inutile handle. 

“I wanted to deliver this message personally, it seems more…ethical.. that way.”

“Well that’s comforting,” I told her, smiling. She did not smile back. She simply unclasped her briefcase and removed a large manuscript. It had been stapled and re-stapled, held together with binder clips, some pages seemed to be stuck together with, what was that? Scotch tape. 

A manuscript of mine, the most recent draft of The Resemblance covered with red marks, bleeding red ink. 

“Now, the good news is that the publishers still think you sell. Your books are intriguing, they sell well, they are well written, and you’ve gained a rather substantial following since the release of Niterie.”

Niterie was my third novel, my saving grace after my first two books were rejected. It was a love story between two regulars at a nightclub on Dykeman avenue, slowly adjusting their schedule to meet. Their love only lasted at night, in the club, and when they pushed it beyond that and took it into the daytime they found that their lifestyles were so vastly different that they couldn’t meet beyond the night. It had been a tragedy, a modern love and loss. 

“Well that’s good,”

“Sure, yes. Now in regards to your most recent draft, ah, they aren’t as, how shall I put this?”

 She laughed nervously.

“They don’t think it’s going anywhere.”

I sipped my tea, I bit into an Amaretti. Anything to keep my hands occupied. I cleared my throat.

“Okay, so what exactly does that mean?”

I tried to keep my tone even, squeezing my thumbs in my fists, digging my nails into my thighs. 

“Well it’s just that it’s not engaging. There isn’t any conflict, there isn’t anything to keep the reader hooked. Now that’s fine maybe a chapter or so in, but beyond those you need more than just flow. They don’t think it’s going to sell.”

Why was conflict so sought after? Why couldn’t my characters simply exist in peace? I knew the answer, I understood her point, but I couldn’t admit it to myself. 

“Well I’m not finished with it yet, you know, i’m still figuring out where it’s going myself. Can’t I have some more time, and give you a better version?”

Was time all I needed? Time was all I had. 

“Right, no, sure, it’s just,”

She adjusted her glasses, thick lenses stuck between thin wire frames. Her eyes looked warped and bug-like. I wondered if anyone found her beautiful. 

“Unless you pretty much rewrite, well, most of it, they think you just scrap the idea and just start all over,” 

She rushed through her sentence, waving her hands to prematurely dismiss the thought. 

“Oh,” 

I pushed my glasses farther up my nose, and they fogged every so slightly. 

“Well this was going to be my big-”

“Yeah, your big break. Your best seller.” 

Had I put so much expectation on this book? I hated that I didn’t live up to it. I hated it so much. My skin prickled and I tucked my feet under my thighs. 

“We know that much, and we have faith in your skillset as a writer, but for something you’ve been telling us will be your best seller, it’s just that we were expecting something a bit….”

“Bigger?”

“Better.” 

I blinked fast. I gnawed on my lip. I needed a cigarette. 

She reached for a cookie, and bit into it. A crumb stuck to her thin lips, veiled in an unsuitable matte lipstick, overlined. 

“These are quite good,” She said, nodding her head approvingly at the subtle almond flavor, the slight bitterness. I pushed the plate towards her.

“Have as many as you’d like,” I had lost my appetite completely. 

I sat before the large manuscript, cut with red ink. She had ever so generously left it with me. It lay on a large cinder block, beside a glass poured tall with wine. The view from my roof was obscured by the trees, their branches hiding the street. I gazed at other rooftops, those below mine. Gardens overrun beyond repair with mint. Broken patio furniture, salvaged with glue and brick to prop up wobbled tables. The sky has begun to sink, the moon a gentle, still unnoticed presence, the gradual temperature drop left me in a state of discomfort. I looked at the notebook beside me. Character descriptions, plot ideas, general notes, things I saw in my world that I just might add into theirs. Beneath it was another notebook. Orange in color, spiral bound, college-ruled. The same starter journal for every book idea I'd ever had. Unfinished stories, discarded ideas, the initial notes for a bestseller I foolishly thought would be framed and on display somewhere special by now. I had been given the dreaded rejected-manuscript-with-notes many times before, but this book was different. I had reached a point in my career where I felt like I knew what I was doing, where my characters became more and more like me, my plots more interesting, my books more appealing to me, and in turn, my audience. The point in my life where my book reading audience consisted of more than immediate family members and the odds and ends of the last event. I flipped open the manuscript, to the page I had been most proud of. I could write twenty pages a day, I wrote upwards of 10,000 words when I got into a flow state. But this page? It had taken me three days to perfect. I justified this as it had taken DaVinci over a decade to paint Mona Lisa's lips. Someone had written at the very top “Conflict??” In bold letters. That was my struggle, my inevitable downfall as an author. The lack of conflict, the loss of interest, the mundane books about nothing happening. Perhaps as I had written the characters so close to my heart, the scene so similar to mine, our lives tangential in this moment in time, it was me who must change. I threw the manuscript off the roof, papers fluttering into the alley beneath me. I heard a glass bottle shatter, a loud thump, a scattering of the wind. It was excessive, yes, Symbolic some may say. I would agree. 

I wore a loose crewneck knit sweater, stripped in muted colors. Flannel-lined jeans, and wool socks with worn loafers. My hair neatly cropped, freshly cut. I wore a leather crossbody bag with brass clasps and a soft, worn canvas interior. It contained my house keys on a carabiner clip, my wallet, a copy of Oliver Sacks’ The Man Who Mistook His Wife for a Hat, and a small notebook with only the last few pages empty. I stood at the entrance to the subway, fiddling with my bag to find my metro card. I jogged down the steps, and the interior provided a much needed relief from the wind above ground. The warmth was wet and stale, but the unpleasantness was ignored and accepted by my fellow commuters. I swiped in. How modern, how convenient, I still noticed. I looked at my choices. How freeing, with no destination in mind I could choose any train I wished to take. The hustle and bustle of people around me forced me to speed up in my decision making. A man shoved into me and I stumbled towards the staircase to the downtown ACE trains. A loud rumble sounded below me and I jogged down the steps. The C train pulled into the station and I hopped on, the doors shutting softly behind me. 

Chambers St. A woman pulled her squirmy children into the train. One flopped down heavily into a seat and the man beside him gave him a look of pure disgust. The second grabbed onto his mothers shirt and wiped his nose on her blouse. She didn’t notice, and as he pulled his face away his features reflected only pure satisfaction. He sat down on the floor and she hoisted him up effortlessly and into a chair. He burst into tears and she opened a book silently and waited for him to calm down. I admired her indifference.

Fulton St. An old man entered the train, his presence quiet and unnoticed. I admonished the passengers for not giving him a second glance. His pants were patchwork balloon-like pants, tied with a drawstring that appeared to be a beaded sort of string. His socks sported bright owls wearing various glasses, his shoes neon heels, bulky and bold. His shirt was plain, sheer white, with the neck stretched out to show the neon dyed chest hair beneath it. I wanted to take a photograph, appreciate the time he took this morning to decorate himself this way. A bang sounded at the end of the car and a disheveled woman shoved herself through the door, muttering as she dragged herself and her belongings through the car, until she got to the other end where she flopped into a vacant chair and fell asleep instantaneously. The children ogled at her,  and their mother simply turned their heads away and gave them a bright red truck each which they ran all up and down the walls and windows. 

Hoyt Shermerhorn. A group of women got on, all carrying shopping bags. Each one was polished, elegant, though in vastly different styles of clothing. One had her hair slicked back into a spiky bun, and wore black combat boots. She had a satin slip dress over a white shirt, and held an American Eagle shopping bag. One in a matching expensive looking ensemble I couldn’t quite describe. She held a very small purse, and I couldn’t imagine what could possibly fit in it. The third wore overalls, stiff and new, expertly placed rips down the legs. They sat primly in the seats, perched on the very edge, sniffing disdainfully at the people around them. They laughed over the day's events, leaning in to whisper a ‘remember when’ and dissolving into giggles before the thought was finished. We pulled into Lafayette and the girl in the dress grasped her friend's hands as they realized they had gone the wrong way. They looked around the train horrified and scurried off. 

It was around Franklin Avenue that I figured I was going a bit far into Brooklyn, and that I should turn back. No stations seemed particularly attractive, not inviting for me to come out and explore the streets above them. We pulled into Nostrand Avenue station, and I readied my things (I had made myself quite comfortable in my seat, spread out and at home) when the doors opened to reveal a group of four men. Four young men, each presumably in their twenties. One rather scruffy looking one appeared to be nearing thirty. They held various instruments, two guitars, a metallic loud-sounding drum and the third held a microphone with a long cord running to a handheld speaker. I was taken with their demeanor, their confidence as they invaded the train, the smiles they exchanged amongst themselves and to the univinting audience. The wholesomeness radiating from such offputting looking people, as one hoisted an elderly person's bag over their equipment and handed it to them, sticking his hand between the closing doors. They set up at my end of the car, right by the doors. The intrigue of their presence left me torn between leaving the car and staying for their performance, but as the doors slammed shut and the train lurched off, my decision was made for me. 

“Ladies and Gentleman!” The man with the drum announced to the train, stepping forward. He played around with his drumsticks, hitting them lightly against the skin of the drum. 

“We’d love to make your commute a little more….”

Tap tap tap tap tap

“Musical! Special treat for you today, one night only, our new song for you!”

The passengers ignored him, brought their books closer to their faces, stared frustratingly out the window, pulled their hats over their ears discreetly. 

“A-ONE, TWO, THREE, FOUR!” 

He dissolved into the back of the foursome, and the man with the white guitar came forward, his fingers moving dexterously across the frets. Loud, clanging and extreme music came forth, his head bobbing wildly off-beat. He swung his guitar to the side and the man with the microphone squeezed through. 

“YEAHHH! WHENIBEOUTINTHENIGHT-” 

The rest of his words tumbled out in a slurred scream, indiscernible. He leaned back and forth with the microphone, the cord tangling around him, twisting himself into a noose as he filled the car with noise. The fourth man stood in the corner, his eyes focused on his hands as he raked his guitar pick across the four strings. I believed that it was a bass. His demeanor calm, the noise he put forth extreme, a dull musical thud feeding into the cacophony of wild notes his bandmates produced with their waving and screaming and strumming. His hair covered his face down to his eyelids, tangled and shiny with sweat. He wore a white shirt with tears up and down his skinny arms, fishnet unmistakable underneath. His jeans were large and baggy, cascading over the tops of his sneakers, hung low on his waist. Chains criss-crossed his thighs, woven through his belt loops and up to his neck. A studded belt clamped onto his hips, brought to the very tightest it would go. He kept his hand tight to the strings, and with a violent thrust against the strings the pick in his hand snapped in half and skidded against the floor, stopping at my shoe. Without missing a beat he plucked a second from his lips and brought it down to the string, continuing the song. I reached down and picked it up. It was a marble-like purple, a silver inscription on it that I couldn’t read. I held it in my hand. Passengers boarded and got off, and they played straight through the garbled 

“Next Stop, Utica Avenue.” 

“WOO THANK YOU, NEW YORK!” The guitarist yelled. 

The drummer pulled a stack of papers from his back pocket, and walked down the car handing them to unwilling hands. He shoved one into my lap, and when the station came into view he threw the rest up in the air. 

“You’ve all been a lovely audience!” He yelled back at us as they gathered all their equipment. They scurried out of the car, slamming each other with the necks of their guitars, the speaker, the cords. I watched the boy with the bass run with his bandmates, smiling and laughing, the focus leaving his eyebrows and the adrenaline loosening his knees and his shoulders. 

The array of yellow paper fluttered down, swaying back and forth in unison with the gentle rock of the train as it labored deeper into the city. It was fitting scenery, like autumn leaves. Perhaps a little disruptive, but my fellow passengers seemed unbothered, as was I. Upon careful inspection of the poster, I found an address, written in small print, blurred through copy machines and written in false neat handwriting. It was for a small venue in a rather industrial part of Brooklyn. The name was rather odd, Junkyard Bunny. 

Join us for the Second Annual Performance of Naked Insomnia! Playing on October 23, One Night Only! 9pm 

I checked my pocketbook, to find that the date was the 28th. Rather short notice, I couldn’t imagine there would be a large turnout at such a poorly advertised event. The name of their band as well, ‘Naked Insomnia’ was rather ridiculous. But I couldn’t help but feel some intrigue, thinking of the boy in chains, the marble guitar pick still warm in my hand. 

Three clothing options laid out on my bed. It would be dark, I assumed, what did it matter? But it did. Dark wash denim jeans, old and comfortable. A standard pair, nothing special about them. A safe option. Light wash shorts, skimming my knees with embroidered detail down the sides and the back. Not quite weather appropriate, but a friend of mine had told me to value a good ‘piece’ (that’s how he referred to his various clothing items, something I adopted into my own vocabulary) over something as trivial as cold weather. I decided to choose the latter option. Future me, the person I would be in the next five hours, was sure to be infuriated. I selected a simple long sleeve white from my wardrobe, so as not to overwhelm the outfit. An olive green and murky brown flannel was the finishing touch, muted, but freshly ironed so fold lines ran down the sleeves. My hair was cut short, tight at the sides with longer strands at the top that would stick straight up in the wind. There wasn’t much I could do with it, that had been the intention, but I ran waxy fingers through it in attempts for some sort of texturizing effect. 7:00 pm. I had eaten dinner, cleared the table and cleaned the kitchen. I had gone so far as to retouch the grout between the tiles. It began at 9:00, it wouldn’t take more than 45 minutes to get there, but perhaps I should leave some time in case of delay? Subways could be so unpredictable on weekends. 8:05 then, a good time to leave. I sat on my rug, facing my window. It was closed, the silence suffocating and stagnant. I moved to open the windows, to allow some noise in. Horns blared in the distance, but this neighborhood was so quiet. 

It was a warehouse, though it must have been repurposed at some point as the faded brick had been coated in graffiti, with band posters and a large neon sign sporting the name ‘Junkyard Bunny’ with the first few letters glowing faintly. Various clusters of teenages stood outside the building, huddling around a lighter or nursing a joint while gusts of wind threatened to blow it out. I approached a group of people, passing a cigarette back and forth.

“Is this the line?” I asked one of them. He wore a white polo shirt with only one button fastened, a black and red tie hung loosely around his neck.

“This is where we gather, man. No lines, we just go when it all begins, you know what I’m saying?”

He dissolved into laughter, rocking his body so violently he fell to the floor. 

“You’re so unhelpful, julie!” A girl exclaimed, jokingly kicking him with her spiky black thigh-high boots. 

“We just go in when everyone starts moving, you know?” She took a long pull from the cigarette wedged between her fingers, ash falling on her fingerless gloves. She took a good look at me and smiled slyly. Extending a hand, she said,

“I’m Bren. That Julian on the floor, and Kirk and Gem and Emme and Danny.” She gestured to each member of her party, and they, in turn, gave me nods of acknowledgment. 

“Oliver. As you can probably tell, this is my first time here. Not yours I presume?”

She giggled, and bent over to help ‘julie’ up. 

“No, we come here all the time. I just love Naked Insomniac, my brother’s in the band. He plays drums. I watched them practice in our basement for years and then they started playing around the city, you know? Now they’re booking venues and opening for bigger bands!”

“I think this show’s gonna be their big break.” A girl said, and if I recalled her name correctly, she was the one named Gem. 

“I heard there’s like, people from labels? or whatever? coming tonight. So they can get signed to someone to manage them and get them shows at big venues you know?”

The scrawny guy, Kirk, in a muscle shirt that showed off his lanky pale arms, handed me the cigarette. I waved my hand to decline. 

“You sure?” He asked, pulling his hand away.

“Yeah, I’ve got my own, thanks.”

“Yo, really? Could I actually bum one of those, we only got three between us all.”

I could tell the responsible thing to do would be to decline, they were clearly underage, stealing cigarette butts from purses and ashtrays, but remembering myself from only a few years prior, I reconsidered. 

“Yeah sure, take the pack. I’m trying to quit anyway.”

They all cheered, scrambling to grab one all to themselves. I held back the urge to reclaim a few. 

“You’re the man, Oscar! Come and chill with us inside, alright?”

I didn’t bother to correct him. I didn’t feel like Oliver tonight, the 27 year old homeowner, semi-successful author, and proud member of an adult society. I felt like Oscar, the teenage something kid standing outside a concert hall nursing a stolen cigarette. 

“For sure, yeah”

“Yo it’s moving!” Danny exclaimed, grabbing onto the two closest people next to him and bolting for the door. He dragged Emme and Kirk behind him, and they tripped over themselves to follow. Bren and Julian grabbed Gem and me and followed after them. Bren held tightly to my sleeve as she plowed through the crowd that had materialized at the door. We all stopped in front of two very buff looking men wearing black shirts with ‘SECURITY’ printed across the front and back. 

“ID’s, please.” 

Everyone dug through their pockets and purses and pulled out their ID’s. Bren handed hers to the guard. 

“Name?” He asked, raising an eyebrow. She rolled her eyes. 

“It says it right on there! Samantha Davis!” He grunted and handed it back to her. She twirled around as she went through the door, sticking out her tongue with glee. 

“Can’t believe she remembered that name,” Kirk grumbled as he handed his to the guard. 

“I just got her that yesterday.” 

We made our way through the doors, and the huddle scampered towards the front of the venue, which was quickly filling up with fans in various extravagant outfits. I was thankful I wore my shorts, as the stench of bodies began to fog the space with heat. Emme held up her hands in disgust, each sporting a black ‘X’. 

“God Kirk you’re so stupid! It says I'm still twenty.”

“Well you barely pass for 18, em. Take what you can get.”

“Relax, girl, I got you.” Danny took her hand in his and took a long lick up around her knuckles and palm. 

“Ew!!! Stop that, you're disgusting!” 

Julian laughed and slapped Danny on the back.

“They’re gross. Let me get my concealer, it’s fine.” Bren dug around her small faux leather purse, extracting a small tube of concealer and a bottle of disinfectant. 

“You better be careful, they’re probably diseased.” 

“Oh please, Bren. The real disease is you girls putting that crap all over your faces! All the chemicals and stuff seeping into your skin.”

“God! It’s literally like, cream and pigment, it's fine!”

“Bren, if you would just read one article about –” 

“What I put on my face is not even half as bad as what you SUCK into your LUNGS, Julian!”

“First of all, your lipgloss doesn’t grow out of the ground, now does it? You don’t go and water your mascara tree! It’s not natural.” 

“Guys, it’s starting!”

“Oh can it, Danny.”

Their bickering faded into the background as the lights went from dim to black, and a big strobe light above the stage beamed down an electric purple. A curtain swept aside, pulled by two men wearing all black with earpieces and wires curling down their cargo shirts. A plume of dust swirled, each particle glinting in the purple glow. He stood at the front, and smiled into the microphone. The boy in chains, now wearing a striped jumpsuit of leather and canvas woven together, heavy on his thin frame. 

“Thank you all for coming out tonight,” He started, and the crowd went wild, screaming at a stadium volume, jumping up and down on the linoleum floors. He scanned the crowd, as if he could see us, and pressed his mouth into the mic.

“We’re gonna be playing you some tunes from our new album, and some old favorites. Enjoy…” He grinned at the screams and pulled back to the side of the stage. The lead came up and grabbed the mic, counting off with aid from the drummer. Tap tap tap and they were off. His demeanor was open, unguarded, unlike in the subway. He swayed back and forth with the music, bouncing his head up and down, jumping up and down when the tune picked up, returning to a sway when the song slowed. I couldn’t see his eyes, his nose, his ears, all covered in a curtain of hair. Only his lips, softly mouthing the words, careful to keep them quiet. He had a piercing, I hadn’t noticed, on his bottom lips, one on each side. There hung a small chain from each one, dangling down to his chin like drool. 

“Aren’t they amazing?!” Gem pressed against me, shouting in my ear. 

“They are!” I yelled in her direction. She bobbed her head and shook me back and forth.

“Dance with me!” 

We embraced, jumping around in circles, shaking our heads back and forth. Her hair flew in all directions, her earrings flying into her eyes, her balance precarious in platforms. A pause between songs, filled with screams, and they switched out some gear and transitioned into their next song. 

“You know it, you love it, Mother Ghoul!” The lead yelled into the mic, and the symbols crashed. Gem leaned on me like a crutch, and looked up into my eyes. 

“I think this one’s my favorite,” She whispered, and I read her lips. I looked back towards the stage, ignoring Kirk's withering glare. The boy in chains held two guitar pics in his mouth, the tip just barely poking out. He took the one in his hand, and threw it out into the crowd. There was a mad dive towards the floor, and one distinct scream as someone found it. He pressed the one in his mouth forward with his tongue, replacing it in his hand. 

The rest of the set passed in a blur, lights changed from purple to blue to red. Gem spent the night pressed against my arm, her arms around my waist, briefly in my hair and on my neck as she swayed back and forth in front of me. Kirk had gone into the crowd and begun dancing with a girl dressed in a leather corset and argyle patterned skirt. She had been elated, but he barely paid her any mind, glancing at Gem and I as we danced, but we paid him no mind. 

“Does Kirk like you?” I whispered in her ear.

“Oh it’s nothing, don’t worry about that.”

The final outro played, long and tedious, and Gem had spun around and planted a kiss on my cheek. She paused as she pulled away, looking at me. 

“Is this okay?” She asked. I didn’t know what to say, I simply glanced away. She melted away, releasing me and turning to the stage.

“I’m sorry,” I whispered in her ear, touching her shoulder so slightly, as though she might crumble. 

“Whatever, I don’t care. It’s fine.” 

“Thank you, Brooklyn!” The lead yelled, and he was met with raucous applause. Gem grabbed Kirk by the arm, and pulled him to the door. 

“Hey–!” He exclaimed, but didn’t protest further. The crowd began to melt away, slowly oozing out of the door. The curtain was pulled closed, and the remaining stranglers lost interest. I followed the last of the crowd out the door, alone. It was midnight, later than I liked to be out. I reached in my shirt pocket, only to find it empty. God, why had I done that? 

“Hey! Oscar!” I turned to find Emme by the wall with Julian and Gem. I walked over, hesitant.

“Yeah?” I asked, pulling my flannel tighter around my body. 

“So what’s up with that? Are you gay?” She demanded. I was taken aback, I had never been asked so bluntly. 

“Uh, what? Why do you ask…?”

“We saw that, you know, with Gem? What’s wrong with her?” She crossed her arms, and her eyes nearly disappeared as she furrowed her brows. 

“Emme, come on.” Gem said, avoiding eye contact with me.

“No, no, I think we should know. Is she not good enough for you?”

“Let’s not make this a big deal, Emme. It’s an age thing.” It was a cheap excuse, plausible, but an easy out. She huffed and turned, stomping away, her outfit rattling. Gem and Julian followed suit. I hated my discomfort over something so trivial. I patted my pocket again, and went around the back of the building in search of someone. A man stood, leaning against the building, smoke blew out of his mouth, a thin shadow in his hand. I approached him, a newfound confidence in a time of desperation. 

“Can I bum one of those?” I felt stupid just saying it. He turned to me, and smiled. 

“Yeah, sure man.” He reached into his back pocket and tossed me a pack. I extracted one and tossed it back.

“Light?” 

“I got one.” I pulled it from my sock and lit up. 

“Enjoy the show?” He asked, his mouth contorted. 

“Huh?” His face seemed a bit familiar, and I couldn’t quite place it.

“I’m the drummer.” 

“Oh! Wow, yeah I did enjoy it. First time seeing you guys. Well, sort of second.”

“You catch our show in Queens?”

“No, actually, I saw you guys on the subway. Followed the poster out here, so,”

“I told you that would work.” A voice sounded behind us. I turned around, and he stood tall in the streetlamp, his hair pulled back into a bun. I recognized him immediately, the boy in chains. Now the boy in sweats, and a rather enormous hooded sweatshirt, a black duffel by his side. 

“They thought nobody would be crazy enough to come see subway performers, yet here you are,” He grinned and walked over. Extending his hand, he said, 

“I’m Willie.”

“I’m usually not the kind of person that does this kind of thing, but now I sort of have to.”

Willie looked intrigued, and leaned towards me, maybe to ask more.

“Hey, don’t we all.” The drummer said.

“I’m Neal by the way,” He dropped his cigarette butt on the ground and grinded it out with the heel of his boot. 

“I’m out. I’ll see you tomorrow, Willie?”

“Yeah, for sure.”

Neal left us, whistling as he twirled around the building.

“He’s a great guy,” Willie said, “I’ve been friends with him ages.”

“Where did you two meet?” I asked. Willie waved my question aside. 

“I have a question for you, actually.” 

“Sure,” I blew smoke into the air, and it swirled into the night. 

“You seem to have an adventurous spirit.”

“If you think that, you’ve caught me at the wrong time,” I said with a smile.

“No, no, I think that you do.” He told me. “Maybe you just don’t know it yet. And in the spirit of things, why don’t you invite me to your place for the night?” 

I was taken aback by his boldness, something I had grown unaccustomed to. Any advances like that were nearly always made by me. 

“Wow, ah, I don’t know…we’ve only just met…” 

“Isn’t it better that way?” He grinned. 

“Shouldn’t we go out first? Maybe another night. We can go for coffee or dinner and then….”

“Well, if you’re against it, I really don’t want to impose, but the thing is I need a place to crash for the night and I figured this would be best. It’s getting colder out so I think my days of crashing in the park are over.”

“What? You’d just sleep outside? Don’t you have a house?” 

“Why don’t I tell you all of that when we’re sitting on your couch with some tea?”

He started walking away, mumbling.

“Mm yeah, tea sounds nice. Darjeeling? Or is it too late for that…?”

He was crazy. I was crazy, inviting this random man into my home. Well, he had really just invited himself. I followed him, towards the street, shaking my head and clutching onto the warm embers of my cigarette. 

“Those things’ll kill you, you know.” He tossed over his shoulder. 

“A lot of things will.”

“Do you have a metro card?” He threw his bag over the bar and hopped over the turnstile. He picked it back up and stepped aside. Presumably to allow me to follow, but I swiped through. 

“I had one when I was younger. A green one, the kind school gives you. Do you know the last time I bought one?”

He followed signs for the Uptown F train. 

“When I was 19, my bandmates and I decided we would run away. I was still living with my parents, and I wanted to do something radical.”

“Where did you go?” I tucked my card into my pocket, and fell into step beside him.

“We took the PATH to New Jersey, then a bus, then another, until we ended up in Baltimore.”

“I’ve never been.” I told him.

“Oh, it’s no bucket-list city. But if you go to the water, there’s benches and you can see all the boats. Are they still boats if they’re big? What’s between a ship and a boat?”

“Well I don’t know the technical definition, but when I think of ‘ship’ I think of large container ships that are like buildings but sideways. Boats, I think of a sort of paddle boat or perhaps a yacht.”

“See?” He said, “There needs to be some sort of in-between. Like a Soat or a Bip.”

“Do you like the water?” The train pulled into the station, and we got on. 

“Well that’s a difficult question. Too open-ended.” The train was mostly empty, so we found seats next to each other.

“Why is it so difficult to answer?” I shifted in my seat to face him, and we jolted away.

“Well what exactly do I like about it? Do I like drinking it? Sure I do, I sort of have to. Do I like swimming in it? That one depends, I’m happy to get into all my preferences. Do I enjoy looking at it? Evidently so.”

I smiled. He was odd, maybe eccentric was more descriptive. Charming and juvenile, but in an intelligent way. I didn’t know how else to describe it. I thought about his question, and opened my mouth to answer but he barrelled on, following his next train of thought. 

“I prefer the subway in the morning. Very, very early in the morning that is. I’m rarely awake at that time, but sometimes after a show I only end up leaving at 4 am. So I’m on the train at around 5. It’s still dark out, and the city is truly quiet.”

We pulled into a station, and the passengers shifted in and out.

“I crashed on this guy's couch for about a month, since he was in and out all the time and we almost never saw each other. I think he forgot I was there, I'm very neat. Anyway, he lived out in Queens and after shows I’d have to take the train up from Brooklyn, into Manhattan, and then take the 7 into Queens.”

We pulled away, and the train rocked steadily as it trudged down the tracks. A couple leaned on each other for support, and a man in a hood used a pole as a headrest. 

“You can see the skyline from the 7 train, and it’s so special when it’s dark. You have all the quiet of the night but all the potential of the morning. It’s dark, but you can see the faint, faint, glimmer of the sun about to peek out from the grey.”

“That sounds like it would make a beautiful photograph.” I told him.

“Oh!” He lit up and tucked his legs under the seat. “Are you a photographer?”

“Well, I dabble.” 

“No, no. Do you own a camera? And use it more than thrice a week?”

“Well, yes.”

“Then you are a photographer.”

“Is three times a week the required amount to be able to call yourself a photographer?”

“Yes. Without a doubt.” He put his hand over mine, and looked at me, past my eyes and into something deeper.

“Would you photograph me sometime?” 

“I would love to.” I told him, in earnest. 

“Do you think I’m handsome in an artistic way?”

“I think you’re handsome in every way.”

“That’s simply not possible.”

“And why is that?” His hand over mine, his eyes, his intense stare. 

“Some people are handsome in a conventional way. Those are the people that start dating when they’re 15, marry at 26 and have a simple, suburban, ordinary life. That’s my greatest fear.” 

I laughed.

“Some people are handsome in an artistic way. They spent most of their teenage years alone, because their ears were too big or their jaws were too soft, and their personalities weren’t appreciated by people their own age. Then they grew into themselves, and became beautiful to artists who wanted to paint them or photograph them or write about them. That’s who I feel that I am.” 

“I don’t think you’re ordinary at all.” I told him. “You’re the furthest thing from it. And I would be honored to photograph you, and write about you.”

“That means so much to me. I require frequent reassurance. Are you a writer as well?”

“Yes, I am. I do it for work.”

“Do you do it for life?”

“What does that mean?”

“Do you need it to live? Do you need to write to feel that you are gaining something from your time in the world?”

“Well, yes. I guess I feel more fulfilled when I have a way to interpret what's around me.”

“Then you are truly a writer. A writer and a photographer.”

“Why do you feel the need to use labels to describe who I am?”

“Hm. That’s a good question, I can’t say that I’ve thought about it.” He tugged the hair strands in front of his face down to his chin. 

“I would say it’s my way of figuring people out. I like to feel that I've figured someone out. Like I feel that I know you better because I know you’re Oliver, writer slash photographer.” 

The train pulled into our station and I stood up. 

“Here already?” He asked, following me out the door. We walked through the station, empty save for a few people here and there. A woman in a sequined dress under a large flannel walked by, muttering to herself as she dug through her purse. The night was cold and uninviting, storefronts unlit and the silent wind of cars speeding by. 

We walked at a brisk pace, and he fell into step close to me, close enough that I could feel him, feel his air and his warmth.

“You live here?” He asked in awe, admiring the brownstones, the tree lined streets.

“Yup. I live just down here, on Morton street.” 

“Morton street. It sounds so…ominous.”

“That’s what I like about it.” I led him to my door, climbing my steps. He brushed his hand over the plants, gently. I pushed the door open and stepped inside. I slipped off my shoes and he followed suit. 

“You can just set your bag on the couch over there,” I gestured down into the living room. 

“This is a great place,” He walked over to the couch and tossed his bag on the floor. Flopping onto the couch, he tucked a throw pillow under his head. 

I went to the kitchen and fumbled around, quickly shoving the teacups and plates from before into the dishwasher. 

“Thank you, I love it.” I searched the cabinets for some tea. 

“How long have you lived here?” He stretched his legs out onto the coffee table and slouched down further. 

“About five years now.” 

“Five years? How old did you say you were?” He raised an eyebrow at me. Yanking some chamomile tea from the cupboard, I filled the kettle with water and placed it on the stove.

“I’m twenty-six. I bought this house when I was twenty-one.”

“Not only could you afford this house when you were only twenty-one, but you committed to buying a house? Wouldn’t you want to, I don’t know, rent for a while, change apartments every couple years or so? Try out different neighborhoods? I mean, what 21 year old has a mortgage?”  He stood and walked to the kitchen, eyeing the kettle, the cups, my space.

“Well, generational wealth for one thing. I came into a big inheritance when I was 19. And I guess I wanted to play it safe. I’ve always loved this neighborhood, I feel safe here, and I wanted a house that I would live in for the rest of my life.” 

“The rest of your life? My god Oliver doesn’t that bore you? Living in two houses for your whole life?”

I poured myself some tea, and poured him some as well. He pulled the cup close to him and leaned over it, letting the steam warm his face, the pink draining from his nose and his cheeks. 

“It never really occurred to me that I might be bored. Wouldn’t you want that, one place to live, without having to worry about where your next bed was?” I feared that that may offend him, and scrambled for ways to backtrack, but he shrugged.

“I don’t know, I’ve been doing this for so long it's become almost comfortable. Soon though, it would be nice to have a place. A room of my own, a kitchen that I always feel safe in.”

I didn’t know what to say. How could this boy, so young, have to live this way? 

“How old are you, William?” I asked. 

“Willie.”

“How old are you, Willie?” 

“20.”

I set down my tea. 

“Let me fix you a bed, Willie.”

We sat on the couch, a whispered silence, as he shared his life and I shared my own. Leaning back into the pillows, his bed sat unoccupied and our voices faded, falling on deaf ears. 

In the wee hours of the morning, we had crawled to the carpet, and leaned into each other, curled up like cats by the window, his sweater draped over the both of us. 

We didn’t rise until 10 in the morning. At 9:50 I rolled over, to find his mouth open and a thin drop of drool sparkling on the corner of his mouth. I laid next to him for ten minutes, unmoving. The sun through the window warmed the floor, illuminating dust in the air that speckled the living room. His hair was splayed out around him, like a halo, his neck bent at such an unnatural angle I was shocked we had both slept this way. His adams apple pronounced, I watched as it began to bob up and down and his eyes pulled themselves open.

“Hm?” He grunted, smacking his lips and rubbing his eyes as he sat up. 

“What?” He asked, confused at nothing. His eyes were slits and his hair was poking out in every direction. 

“Good morning, Willie,” I told him, sitting up. 

“Mmhm,” He responded. 

“Would you like some breakfast?” I looked over his puffed face and dark circles. “Maybe…some coffee?” 

He simply grunted louder and stood up, stumbling over to the kitchen. His plaid boxers had ridden up his thighs, and his white undershirt stuck, sealed to his skin. He took the tea, left on the counter, and gulped down both cups. Then he stuck his head into the sink and drank thirstily from the faucet, emerging with his baby hairs glued to his face. 

“Do you have a deli around here?”

“Yeah, there’s one on the corner. Why?”

“I want a sandwich.”

“I could make you one, if you’d like. There’s this great coffee shop just down the street too, they have an amazing matcha that I like to get on weekends.”

“What day is it?” 

“It’s Saturday. It’s also 10 o’clock, shouldn’t you be getting up yet?” He had laid down again, this time on the couch, with my blanket over his face.

“I can’t believe you let me get up this early. On a Saturday no less.”

“I can’t believe I slept in this late! Thank god I don’t have an office job, or you wouldn’t just gotten me fired.”

“If you had an office job, I would have just done you a favor. So, what’s a matcha?”

I sighed. His age was showing, and I didn’t know how I felt about it. 

“It’s a tea. A green tea, and in local coffee shops they make it with oat milk and simple syrup and a shot of espresso. 

“Are you upset?” He asked, sensing the shortness of my tone. 

“No, I'm sorry. I guess I'm just not used to having my morning routine disrupted. Normally, I would’ve already had my drink and my breakfast and been outside. Maybe I 

would’ve gone and sat by the water with a book, if I was feeling especially productive.”

“Thank you for recognizing that your, I don’t know, ‘upsetness’ isn’t because of me.” He threw the blanket off his head and searched the floor for his pants.

“I’d like to try a matcha, and I'd like a deli sandwich that I can trust before I risk your cooking.” 

I laughed.

 “What makes you think I can’t cook?”

“Because that would make you perfect and I’m not ready to face it if you are.” He yanked on his pants and his sweater and marched towards the door. 

“I hardly am, but thank you,” 

He didn’t respond to me. I felt that I had interrupted a natural stopping point in our discussion. A moment to simply exist in the same space as him, tying our shoes together, buttoning our coats and zipping our sweaters. He hadn’t changed out of the clothes from the night before, and neither had I. I smacked my pockets, feeling my keys, my wallet. We stepped out and the day was still. Maple, terracotta, snake plant, hydrangeas. 

“I hadn’t noticed your front yard before!” He exclaimed. “Well, just not to the extent I wanted too,”  

He sniffed the flowers, but they were wilting, and cold, dull nearly overnight. They smelled like frozen earth, and grime. 

“Do you ever sit out here? To drink your morning coffee perhaps, or to read a book?” He asked. 

“Well, maybe once. A summer’s day way back when. But not often. It’s not really a front yard, in the traditional sense at least.”

“Oh, but it’s wonderful! If I lived here I would sit here every morning, and every night. I would eat dinner here when the weather was warm, and drink warm cups of whatever I wanted when it was colder,”

We made our way down the street, ambling along rather than a brisk walk that I was accustomed to. He didn’t walk through a space, as so many of us do, but rather walked in it. He smiled at juvenile stickers and drawings on drain pipes and mailboxes. He walked along the short fences around trees, careful to fall outside the bed of flowers. He followed the lines in the sidewalk, unmoving when a person walked into his way. Stubborn, and determined, in the most charming fashion. He was perhaps the most open person I had ever met. Not in the amount that he had shared with me, not in the collection of tidbits about his life and his dreams, but rather in the way he existed around me, and not for me. He didn’t reflect back a question to me, to prance around possible offense. He didn’t hand pick some appropriate topics for us to discuss, laying down lines and borders that our conversation must live between. He talked about whatever popped into his head, he asked questions without fear of sounding stupid, or uneducated. I felt like I could be anything I wanted when I was with him. I had spent hardly a day with this boy, but I couldn’t see myself without him anymore. That terrified me. 

“Where’s your mind gone?” He asked. I smiled at him, and his focus locked into my face. 

“Just thinking about you.” 

He grinned, and grabbed my hand. 

“Is that the coffee shop up there? The red awning?” 

I nodded.

“Let’s race.”

Eliza perked up when the bell rang.

“Oliver! We thought something had happened to you!”

She checked her watch, shaking her head. 

“You’re really letting go, old man. This sleep schedule won’t work until retirement.” 

“I’m very sorry, I just don’t know what’s gotten into me,” I shook my head in mock disappointment. 

Her gaze shifted, and her grin grew sly.

“I have some idea,” She extended her hand out, delicately, to Willie.

“I’m Eliza,” 

He took her hand and shook it firmly. 

“Pleasure.”

“Eliza, this is Willie. He’s, ah,” 

“Oh, no need for explanation. I’ll ask if I see him again.”

She turned and pulled two medium cups from the stack. 

“Double your usual?”

“Yes, exactly.” 

“Now let’s see… it’s a saturday morning, but the temperature has now dropped to below 45 degrees, so a hot matcha I assume?” 

Willie looked impressed.

“Yes, that’s right. An extra shot in both of them, too.” 

She shot a look at her coworker, and he stifled a laugh. 

“Mmhmmm, I see.” 

We sat on the carpet, again. Hot paper cups had scalded both our hands. He had taken small careful sips the whole way home, and now that it had cooled to a comfortable temperature, he took long gulps. 

“So,” I said, rearranging myself on the carpet. “Tell me about your band.”

“Ah, yes,” He wiped a foam mustache off his lip. “Well we started when we all graduated high school, because nobody knew what to do with their time or their life. Ben is older so he actually had an apartment by then. We moved in and started making music.” 

“Do you still live with him?” 

“Nah, not anymore. Sometimes I’ll stay over but none of us could afford to pay him rent and he couldn’t afford to have three freeloaders on his couch so he kicked us out. Now he sublets his living room to some guy.” 

“So where do you live now?” 

He shrugged.

“Around, I guess. Here and there. I stay with Davie a lot of the time, most of my stuff is at his house. But I’m saving up for my own place. I’ve got enough for a down payment and maybe the first month's rent,” 

“Jesus, Willie, why don’t you go live with your folks? Or get a steady job and stay at Ben’s again? You can’t live like this.” 

He stood up, placing his cup on the table. 

“Oh but I can,” He twirled around, throwing his head back to watch the ceiling fan spin.

“Don’t you see how amazing it is? How free I am? I can do anything I want!” 

I watched him twirl, getting so dizzy he couldn’t stand. Falling to the floor, he rolled around until his face was under mine. Messy hair, his lips were dry and cracked. 

“Oliver, I don’t know who I am. Isn’t that the entire point of my twenties? To lose myself, and search the whole world? Then when I turn 30 I’ll pretend that I know, and maybe I will, after I’ve seen everything.”

“You seem to have such a strong sense of self, Willie. Why do you need to cut all tethers with the earth, and just live in the clouds?”

He reached up and touched my face. He traced my jaw, and placed his hand in the indentation of my neck. 

“I’m scared,”

“Of what?”

“Living to survive. Living because it’s the only thing to do. Because I have to. I find comfort in knowing I can kill myself at any time.”

“What? No, don’t say that,” I clutched his hand, as if he might just choose that moment.

“No, it’s a good thing. It’s a gift. Because I know that I’m not trapped. And sometimes I think about it, when I’m sad, and I always come to the conclusion that I want to stay. It makes me appreciate everything. It’s nice to realize that you could lose everything, it makes you realize what you have.”

“I don’t know how I feel about that, Willie. Isn’t it a bad thing to think about it all the time? This is the kind of thing people get medicated for.”

“No, they just don’t get it. That’s why I don’t tell people.”

“You told me.” 

He waved my words away.

“You’re not people.”

I laughed, “What’s that supposed to mean?”

Willie sat up. 

“Tell me about being a writer.”

“What do you want to know?” I asked him.

“What are you working on right now?”

“Well, actually, nothing good. The story I thought was going to be my big seller? I was just told it was awful.”

“That’s horrible! Can I read it?”

“Well, actually, I threw the manuscript off the roof.” 

He threw his head back and laughed. 

“Perfect! Tell me about it then.”

“Well, alright.”

“It was called The Resemblance. Rather fitting, too, because I had written the characters so much like myself that they did what I do – sit around all day and lead boring lives. That doesn’t sell well, so they told me to scrap it.”

“They think it was boring?” He asked, his eyes grazing my lips.

“Yes. They said it didn’t have enough conflict. I told them I needed time, but they told me to just scrap the whole idea.”

“What was the idea?”

“It was about an artist living in New York, who was discovering, slowly, what they wanted out of life. And finding their art style and voice, reflecting on what it is they wanted to say in their art. A journey of self-discovery.”

“I would love to read a book like that. Why was it called The Resemblance?”

“Because this artist, he meets someone who challenges everything he thought he knew about himself. This person is so magnetic and so charismatic that they spend all this time together until the artist realizes they’ve become the same person. And he doesn’t know who he is anymore.”

“That sounds like a perfect conflict. And a perfect story. Why did you just give it up?”

“Well, they know the publishing world much better than I do, and they know what sells and what doesn’t. If I'm writing something that they think won’t sell, then what’s the point? I’m just wasting my time.”

“Oliver, look around you. You can afford to write a book that doesn’t sell. Isn’t that the whole reason you became a writer in the first place? Why are you becoming a slave to the market, just a zombie writing whatever the masses want? Write what you want to say. Write about this person.”

“I don’t even know how to take this, I’ve never gotten this kind of encouragement.” 

He stood up, and took my hand, pulling me to my feat. Dragging me over to the record player in the corner, he put on Chris Issak’s Heart Shaped World. He put down the needle, and spun me close to him as the first track began to play. 

“I used to listen to this album every morning before school. When I was too scared to go, and I needed to feel anchored before my anxiety spun me away.”

We held each other softly, swaying softly, dissolving into meaningless soft bouncing as the music picked up. 

“Willie, I feel like I'm out of ideas,” I threw my head back and told the ceiling. 

“I’ve been writing this story for so long, and I don’t know what I want them to do. The characters are stuck in a rut,” The next track began to play, and it was unfittingly upbeat. “And so am I.”

I collapsed into his arms, his strong arms, and died at the tips of his fingers. 

“I don’t know what to do anymore,” 

He propped me up against his chest, and I let my legs let go. 

“Oh, Oliver!” He swayed back and forth, leaning back, yelling my name the way I liked.

“Don’t die in despair! You’ve built yourself a beautiful nest here, a place for you to return to each night and hide, but you cannot stay here all the time.”

“Why not?” I groaned into his body, my voice muffled. 

“Because a writer cannot write if he has nothing to write about. As vast as your imagination may be, it is like anything else in the world. It must be fed.”

He guided me to the floor, laying me on my carpet, my beautiful carpet, that we had laid upon the whole night. He switched out the records, putting on an old favorite of mine. 

“Listen to that, would you?” He lifted his hands in the air and spun. 

“Oh, Oliver! There is so much we can do! So much we can see!” He stepped over me with one leg, straddling me. Leaning in close, his hair falling down and his face smushed. 

“Won’t you go explore with me? See the world with me?”

I pulled him in close, holding him tight. 

“I’m looking at my world right now,” and he stopped resisting the quiet and the stagnation of the early afternoon, letting me wallow in my superficial misery. 

I spent the majority of the day on the couch, rotating between that and the kitchen island where I sat in silence, pushing my food around my fancy china plate. I was determined to use my nice dishes without the presence of company. Willie had given up on comforting me, saying he would give me the day and after that we were going to do something about my predicament. He had changed into a pair of dark wash jeans with embroidered patches on both knees, his thighs and the back pockets. His shirt was thin and white, with the collar stretch out and the fit loose, even more so on his thin frame. I had insisted he borrow a jacket of mine, as the temperature had dropped and his wardrobe was not suited for anything below 40 degrees. He had left me on the couch, my quilt thrown affectionately over my legs. 

I hung my head over a bowl of creamy tomato gnocchi with burrata and fresh basil. Everyone craves a home cooked meal when they’re upset or feel disconnected, but as the cook of the family, I grew to crave my own. It was 4:00 pm now, the day felt short and wasted. I ate my food delicately, mouth wet with the anticipation of tears. I looked into the living room, the impression of someone else evident in the folded carpet corner, the water ring on my precious table, the scattered foreign items. He had put his duffle bag by the couch, wide open and contents spilling out onto the floor. My perfect room, my perfect home, each item placed meticulously, from the coffee table exactly two feet from the couch for ample leg room and arms length to reach for a cup of tea to the hang of the vines from the bookcase. He had touched it all, moved it, tainted it. Sharing my space with him was intense, he had such a way of imprinting on a place. He wasn’t shy to announce his presence, he didn’t tiptoe around an unfamiliar space, didn’t apologize for being someplace. He wasn’t cautious, not quite reckless but something else. I couldn’t place it. I placed my plate in the sink and ran water over it to loosen the smudges. I wiped down my coffee table and placed his cup in the sink. I adjusted my curtains and covered the windows. The windows had been opened a crack and the temperature had dropped rapidly. I placed an arrangement of logs into the fireplace and placed dry leaves under them. I lit a match and waited for the logs to catch before the leaves burned out. I sat in front of the fire, warming my body and my soul, praying I would be able to let this boy in, not push him away as I always did. He walked through the door at this moment, brushing the sprinkle of raindrops off my coat. 

“How are you feeling?” He asked, untying his shoes and tucking them under the mudroom bench. I shrugged and looked away, blinking rapidly. He had caught me at a vulnerable moment, I couldn’t let him see me right now. I had met him only yesterday. He hung the coat over a kitchen chair and walked over to me, embracing me in his arms. 

“I’m sorry, I don’t know what’s wrong with me,” My voice was muffled against his shoulder, breaking as I dragged the words out. 

“You don’t have to know anything right now, just sit with me.” 

“Willie, I feel like a failure. I’ve become such a nothing person that nobody wants to read what I write. That’s my worst fear as a writer, that I don’t have anything left to say.” 

He pressed my head into his shoulder, and spoke with his chin resting on my head.

“Oliver, I’ve known you for a day and I feel as though I already know who you are. Do you? You present such a strong sense of self. You write so beautifully, you have created such a wonderful home, so full of life and so deeply etched with you.” 

I sobbed at the loving words he was saying, the comforts I had been craving for my whole life, the ones I had never gotten before.

“The solution is quite simple, really. If you’re ready to hear it.” 

“What is it?” 

“We go out and give you something to write about.”

“I like that,” I told him, “You know I was thinking of writing a chapter in The Resemblance about your concert. Getting the poster in the subway, the people I met there, all that. I have my notes on it, I wrote them down earlier today.” 

“Perfect. Are you going to continue writing The Resemblance or restart?” 

“I’m not quite ready to give it up. I, ah, threw away the notes my publisher gave me, but I have the “untainted” copy in my laptop.” 

“What’s your connection to this story? You said you didn’t have too much of a problem getting rid of the other stories that got rejected.” 

“My earlier works were written for an audience, just a smorgasbord of the techniques and plot twists I learned in college. It wasn’t close to my heart the way this one is.” 

Willie stood and reached into his pocket.

“I got a nosebleed around Charles Street so I stopped in Julius', you know the bar on West 10th?”

I nodded.

“Well as I was groping around for a napkin this guy came up to me. He handed me a stack and we got to talking. He said he thought I was a pretty interesting guy, and he loved that I was in a band and my lifestyle and yadda yadda. So, he invited me to this insane halloween party. It comes with an invitation and everything. It’s printed on this thick white cardstock.”

He handed the envelope to me, already torn open. The address was printed below a handwritten “Willie Plus One”. 

“Apparently he’s friends with this guy who’s friends with this other guy that throws insane ragers in these warehouses that he buys from this other guy that works in the government. When there’s some crime and they seize the warehouse or loft or whatever, they do their investigation and then sell it for pretty cheap because most people don’t want a place where someone was killed or had a meth lab setup or whatever. So before he starts renovations to flip them and sell them he throws parties in them. The reason why they’re so successful is because he has his friends hand pick people to bring to them. It’s a six month ordeal so we’re hearing about this super last minute.” 

He sounded like an excited kid, all the eloquence of his speech gone. 

“He said he wanted to go with me but I told him I’m kind of involved with someone, so he said he’d make an exception and trust me to bring someone interesting so of course I’m going to bring you.” 

Involved with someone? Was it too soon? I had to admit, him saying that soothed the twinge of jealousy I felt when he was telling me about this guy. 

“Are we sure we can trust this guy? I mean he was drinking at a bar at, what, 4:00 pm?”

“He said he’s doing a slow transition into daylight savings. So for him, it’s technically 5:00. And he was only having a beer. He doesn’t drink cocktails until at least 8:00pm.”

“What a character,”

“Oliver, this is the perfect chance. This doesn’t happen every day, we have to jump at this opportunity.” 

“Alright. Let’s do it.” 

He grinned. 

“What details did he give you?”

“It’s in Bushwick on Cooper Street. Costumes are mandatory, or they’ll turn you away at the door. No phones, no cameras.”

“This sounds a little sketchy,” I told him. 

“I know, it’s perfect.”