ADRIAN’S PLACE WAS down by the railroad tracks in Kitchener. It was an old textile warehouse in Midtown. A place that once made shirts, then switched to small-scale industrial work, like wood fittings. He rented it a few years back … or he was squatting in it. I never found out for sure.
The door was locked. I guess I could have picked it, but a forceful kick with heavy shoes did the job.
The air was heavy and stale despite the grand interior of the space. Cracked concrete floor, corrugated steel walls, and exposed wood supports that held up the exposed steel ceiling beams. Everything looked old, but the graffiti-laced interior walls made the place seem much more urban than one might expect from a century-old warehouse. It was the good kind of graffiti—the kind that had effort and skill, and which told a story. It was a welcoming space.
The lights were on, which was fortunate because I didn’t know where the switches were. They were old sodium lamps which hung high near the ceiling, and which bathed the place in a bright flat light.
I found his work area and immediately came upon the scent of decay. My stomach fell, and I went in search of Adrian Gomez. I vainly hoped it was some kind of dead raccoon or squirrel which found its way inside this ragged old building. But no, it was Adrian. He was next to a twenty-five food stepladder—the kind a contractor would use—made of orange fiberglass and aluminum. It looked as if he fell from the ladder while attempting to replace one of the ceiling lamps. He lay there in a pool of dried blood and fluids, next to a scattering of shattered glass. He must have died some time before the art show last week, and there was no one to look in on him.
I felt like a jerk, even though I hadn’t seen him in over a year.
I dialed Lacroix and told him about Adrian. He asked for the address, and I gave him the best directions I could. He didn’t ask me to wait, but I figured it was the least I could do for this poor friend of mine.
On the way to the front door, I caught a fast glimpse of the new projects he’d been working on, and I stopped for a closer look. His latest works were much smaller than his usual graffiti and mixed-media work. And of a remarkably different style, too. Very … Group of Seven.