One More Time (With Feeling)

4

You're not up until almost noon the next day. The music blaring in the garage wakes you. Lola's painting again.

The house is empty when you get up. Kyle and Cricket both must work their day jobs at the diner today. You putter through your morning routine, shower, coffee, a piece of toast with strawberry jam in front of the TV as you try to find any news that might still be on. No luck. But it's probably better that way, because most news these days is pretty awful.

After you finish your meager breakfast and wash your hands, you send a text off to Chayton. Simple, straightforward, Hey, you still up for getting together sometime soon? I can do as early as today because I have no life.

He responds almost instantly. I'm stuck inside working today, but you're welcome over if you have nothing better to do.

You hike an eyebrow. He works from home, then? Maybe he's a graphic designer. You text back, Sure. Any time good for you.

Chayton texts you his address and basic directions on the buses and trains from your house. You know that area. It's not far from the lake.

You change into some more presentable clothing, with minimal paint and ink stains, grab your wallet and keys, slip a half-full sketchbook and your pencil box into your messenger bag, and make your way out. You don't bother telling Lola as you leave. She'll be too wrapped up in her work, and she knows you can take care of yourself.

You take the bus to the blue line and the blue line to the red line and take another bus north, toward the edge of Skokie. It's mostly empty, as it's the middle of the day in the middle of the week, and most people have real jobs (unlike you).

Chayton lives in a little ramshackle building tucked halfway down an alley. Both the security door and keypad to open it are broken, but at least it makes it easy to get in. You make your way up the two flights of stairs to his door, and when you knock, Chayton calls out, "It's open!"

So you go inside.

You step into a tiny hallway that leads to a kitchen on the left and into a large, single studio room ahead. There's a mattress in the corner with an open laptop playing music resting on the green sheets. Above it is a dream catcher made of rainbow striped yarn and sticks, and the walls are covered with cork boards and magnetic white boards, with hundreds of scraps of paper with scribbles and sketches and paint samples and things cut out from magazines and newspapers pinned up. In the far corner is a painted up metal box full of cans of spray paint. There are windows on almost every wall and all of them have the shades open as he crouches down in the middle of the room, surrounded by scraps of fabric and bottles of ink and other screenprinting materials.

"I like it," you say.

"Shut up," he laughs. "It's a mess."

"No, I mean it," you say. He doesn't look up. You walk around to his front and crouch down as he finishes putting down some ink over a stencil of bear, standing on its hind legs and holding a rocket launcher. "What's this?"

"I'm working on some new stencils for my silk screening business," he says. He glances up for a moment. "Just messing around with some scraps until I get it right. Don't waste shirts and bags and whatever that way."

"You have a business?"

"Yeah," he says. He pulls the silkscreen off the fabric and frowns. "Still too fuzzy around the edges," he mutters. He puts it to the side and looks back up at you. "I sell at art fairs and stuff sometimes, but mostly online. I have business cards in the paint box if you want to check it out. Laptop's open." He looks back at his work again, grabbing another slip of fabric and laying it out flat, putting the silkscreen on top. A timer rings somewhere and he pauses, going to the open closet door and pulling out shirts one by one, then taking them all into the corner to throw over an ironing board. You let him get to it and wake up his laptop, fishing out a card on the way.