Page 4 of Paint Eater
That was an oddly depressing thought.
“Yeah. That’s him.”
His mom hummed thoughtfully, and he knew exactly what she was remembering—how upset Jay’d been the day Logan made it clear he wasn’t interested in friendship. Not that Jay had been crying or anything, but his mom could always tell, and it wasn’t like he told hereverything, but, well…he kind of did. He knew it wasn’t what people his age normally did, but his mom had never made him feel stupid, and that was something Jay wasn’t prepared to turn down. Back then, kids hadn’t liked him, and adults seemed to appreciate him even less, but his mom had always loved him, and, sometimes, it’d made all the other stuff okay.
“I’m just gonna be showing him around a few places. Graffiti and stuff. It’s not a big deal,” he told her, and it wasn’t really.
Really.
“All right,” she said, passing him and ruffling his hair. “Don’t get him into trouble.”
“Iwon’t.Jeez, Mom. I’m a respectable member of society now.”
“Mm-hm.” Jay’s mom had always known about his ‘graffiti hobby’, as Nisha had put it. He knew his mom would be furious if he was going around tagging places, and wouldn’t be happy if he got caught, but if it was actually an art piece—if he was giving something to the city, in a place that it belonged—she’d bail him out of anything.
And what trouble could Jay even get Logan into? It wasn’t like they were going to paint together, and it’d just be a few times.
There wasn’t anything to worry about.
**********
The building Jay chose was an old treasure of his—a clear sign that he was trying to impress Logan. Not that Jay needed proof of the weird crush he’d had on Logan during high school.
At this time, so early on a Sunday morning, Jay knew there was no chance of getting caught. The sky was being seeped of its dark, dark blue, the shades multiplying, the petals of it unfurling pink and yellow from the sides. It was quiet and still, just the gentle hushing from the nearby interstate filling the air.
Logan hadn’t protested the time, maybe knowing that dawn brought with it a light like no other, especially in summer when the earth was tilted so that the sun beamed right on its face. Even so early, the air was warm, although not oppressively so, placing gentle hands on Jay’s skin, just enough to have him feel it.
Jay was looking at the sky when he caught sight of someone from the corner of his eye. A shadow, first, congealing slowly, and then growing features, details, until it clearlywasLogan, and Jay stepped onto the middle of the sidewalk, waving.
“Hey,” he called, and he meant to do it loudly, but it came out sort of hushed, shy of the silence around it.
“Hey,” Logan said even more sedately as he stepped close enough to reveal his face and the camera hanging from his neck. Jay looked at it a little incredulously.
“Dude. Have you just been walking around with that around your neck…at this hour?” Jay asked, gesturing at the camera.
Logan looked down at it, shrugging, and Jay wondered what it was like to be that utterly uncaring about something that costthatmuch money and whether it’d be a curse or a blessing to be that way.
“All right.” Jay laughed. He didn’t expect much conversation to come from this experience, judging by Logan’s overall demeanour. “Let’s go.”
Logan didn’t make any ‘Is this where you’ll murder me?’ jokes, which Jay would definitely have indulged in. He could hear sirens in the distance, and some cars nearby, but otherwise it was silent. As peaceful as it seemed, Jay itched to break the calm.
“So, like, I was trying to find a place to do a mural for practice and stuff, but not in an obvious place ’cause I don’t really wanna get into trouble anymore, and the police here are like, you know, shoot first and ask questions later, and I found this building, and it wassocool. I ended up not painting in it ’cause it’s just, like…perfect the way it is? If you know what I mean? So I thought it’d be a good place to photograph without any of my graffiti and stuff getting in the way.”
Jay had been psyched when he found it in a mostly disused part of Red Hook in Brooklyn, where the old manufacturing factories used to be before being moved to places with far cheaper rent and labour. The buildings had let time seep in, rubbing away at its walls, chipping at its beams. Some, like the one that Jay was taking Logan to, had started to be demolished until even that process took too much money to complete.
Jay didn’t even have to jimmy the lock on the large iron doors covered in green paint and brown splotches where the rain and hail and sun had eaten away at them. He just pushed them open, and they let out such a stereotypical creak that he had to turn back and grin at Logan. It felt like the start of an adventure.
Inside, the darkness deepened, the ground floor ringed by only boarded-up windows. They stood in the entrance for a moment, letting their eyes adjust to how impenetrable the air inside seemed before Jay started leading Logan towards the stairs.
Jay waited for Logan to protest, to wonder, ‘Are those safe?’ but he was once again silent. The stairs, at least, were still sturdy, if half-covered with debris, which they both walked around carefully.
It was on the fourth floor that the magic happened. The darkness dissipated, dissolving into open air that was let in by the entire wall that had been knocked out. Rusted beams kept the building standing, the surfaces long having learnt how to withstand forces they’d been sheltered from when they were part of a functional whole.
Jay stopped a few steps from the top of the stairs, Logan pausing a second later. If they were in Manhattan, buildings would obstruct the view. In Brooklyn, however, low roofs stretched out as if some curious toddler had placed rows and rows of mismatched blocks until there was no more floor left. Beyond them all, the sun rose, reaching out its limbs, stretching after a night’s rest. From here, even though it was Sunday, they could see Brooklyn slowly awaken—the lights blinking from windows, the cars ambling past.
A woman crossed the street a few blocks away, walking her dog in the dawn air.
“Good?” Jay prompted, although, turning to look at Logan, he needn’t have asked.
