“Hello!” I yelled. The door to my apartment was open when Richard, the old elevator man, let me out in my hallway. He slammed the elevator door shut behind me.
All the furniture in my apartment had been moved to some undisclosed location, so now the home I grew up in was nearly empty. In the middle of the dining room was what looked like a great jumble of the stuff of ours that was too small to bother moving, all hidden under a big white sheet.
I sighed and went down the hall toward my room. To my left, in the living room, there was a tent. A green tent.
“Hello!”
“Yeaagh!” I kind of jumped against the wall. Behind me, there was a tall, thin guy with shaggy brown hair. He was wearing painter’s overalls and no shirt or shoes. He held a pair of my mother’s chandelier earrings.
“Found these in an egg cup in the fridge. Seems to me all has not been at ease here.”
“Huh?”
“I’m Billy Shanlon. We met when you were into sculpting shoes out of sand, just a few years ago. I assume you’re Jonathan. That right?”
“That’s right.”
“Well, I’m your painter.”
We stood there. His face was contorted in a jack-o’-lantern grin and his hair hung around his head like tufts of brown cotton. He was at least half a foot taller than me, and I’m not short.
Around us the floors were covered in swirls of white canvas and old sheets, so what was once my wonderfully familiar apartment had become pretty much unrecognizable. The smell of paint was everywhere, too, but it didn’t look as if Billy Shanlon had begun to apply any of it to the walls.
“Did you touch my clothes?” I asked.
“Burned ‘em.”
“Ha.” I immediately turned and ran down the hall toward my room. He was right behind me, and I could feel him laughing.
“So you’re a fancy boy?”
“The hell I am. Where are you from, anyway, Ireland?”
“Long Island, actually. Riverhead.”
This was a place I knew only from seeing road signs when I rode the Jitney to the Hamptons to visit my friends. I got into my room and, sadly enough, everything that hadn’t been dragged out and stuffed on a truck somewhere was in a great heap with a sheet over it.
“Feels unsettling, doesn’t it?” Billy Shanlon nodded to himself and scratched his stubbly chin.
I opened my closet. Empty. Shit.
“I need a sweater,” I said.
He rummaged around for a moment underneath the sheet and came up with a stack of sweaters, mostly dark blue or black cashmere.
“Here.” He handed me my sweaters and I stood there, holding them.
Billy leaned against my window, which was open. Cold air blew in, but he seemed totally unconcerned. He pulled out an American Spirit and lit it. He smoked and smiled at me in this weird, lazy way.
“Don’t you think you should get started?” I asked. “I thought you were here to paint the apartment.”
“I am. But I’m waiting for inspiration. In the meantime, if you want to just come by and hang out and talk, that’s cool.”
“I’ll stop by when I need a shirt,” I said.