Early Sunsets over Monroeville

I’m buying a new Slipknot shirt six days later when my phone rings. “Um hello?” I say to the blocked phone number.
“Hi Gerard. My name is Mikey Chapman, do you remember me from Frank’s?”
“Yes, hi Mikey..?”
“Um I got your number from Katelyn, I would like to talk to you about a commission? Is there somewhere like a bar or a coffee house where we could meet up?” He sounds different than I recall. Maybe it’s the phone, or maybe it’s the no alcohol in either of us…
“Yea that would be great, um where would you like to meet?” I can’t really ask him to the bar, he might take that the wrong way.
“Eh, somewhere we could both locate is probably Café le Mode, excuse the up its own ass name, it’s around the block from Frank’s.”
“Cool. When?” I start searching for money in the small ass pockets of my skinny jeans for money.
“Um are you free today?”
No not really, I have a shift at the bar “I think so. I have a shift at work but I’m sure my boss could cover me for an hour or so…” Bob is going to slay me.
“I don’t want to get you in trouble with work, man. Want to meet there at four?”
“Yea sure. See you then.”
“Bye.”
I buy the shirt and begin walking toward Frank’s. It will take me maybe forty minutes to get to Frank’s and it’s ten past three. That gives me some time to get lost and turned around.
I call Bob as I wait for the lights to let me cross the road. “Hey Bob, could you cover me fort half an hour/forty five minutes.”
“What, why?” He sounds gruff but not particularly pissed off.
“I have a meeting with a new client at four on the other side of town.”
“Another rich one?”
“Yup.”
“Okay go for it but if you’re not back by six I’m sending a hunting party after you.”
“Thanks Bob.”
“Fuck off.”
I may have earned more money from the last two pieces than I could ever like dream but I already have half of it spent on paying off loans and buying new art materials. I also started investing in driving lessons but until I get a fucking licence I have to continue to walk everywhere, still too cheap to buy taxis.
When I finally locate Café le Mode it is three minutes to four. The little café has a purple and bluer interior with gold trimming. I’m beginning to think that gold trimming means something that the poor of Jersey just aren’t told about.
I order an Americano and take a seat in the corner. Mikey isn’t here yet so I take the spare few minutes to measure up the people around me. One of them I recognise as Katelyn’s sister Liza. She sits with some young man. Liza shares Katelyn’s thin frame and sharp features. The poor sister both have a bitchy resting face, like the very structure of their features make them mean. Like their snobbery is engrained in their genetic makeup.
I don’t hate Katelyn Iero. I can’t, she got me out of serious debt and introduced me to the magic of gold trimming. And Frank, he seems so cool that I can’t hate his wife.
But that doesn’t make her any less shoved up her own ass.
Some of the other people send fleeting glances at me, wondering if I’m a wealthy man dressed like a hobo, or a hobo who found three dollars and decided to buy coffee with it.
Mikey comes in at two minutes past four. When he spots me he checks his watch. “You haven’t been waiting long, have you?”
“Um no, no,” I look down at my almost empty cup, “I just drink coffee fast.”
“Can I get you another one,” he says as opposed to asks. He orders another Americano for me and a double shot Latte for himself and then sits down opposite me.
“Okay well I was over at Frank’s again recently and yea I really fucking love your paintings and what it does to the room. It bring s colour into the otherwise cream room. And I know frank’s delighted because he hates all that cream and your big reds and indigos are fucking perfect.” He pauses then as a waiter puts our coffee on the table. We both smile up a silent thanks. “So I was wondering if I could get you to do a piece for my house. If you’re interested you can come over and see what colours you think are needed.”
“Whoa, okay yea sure! Of course I’m interested.”
“Okay so… when are you free to visit? I can pick you up because my home isn’t the easiest to find.”
“Well I can tomorrow, if you’re free?” I wonder if his house is as gold trimmed as this place, and the Iero’s.
“Yea sure! Okay where will I pick you up from?”
I then spend about eight minutes trying to explain where my flat is before giving up and saying to get me from the shopping mall a twenty minute walk away.
“Oh by the way,” Mikey says as he drinks the last of his Latte. I finished mine a while ago. “Frank tells me to apologise to you for the hostility of some of the guests and specifically Katelyn. She’s just not used to people who don’t wear designer shit.” He smiles warmly. “Anyway I’ll pick you up there then at midday?”
“Yea sure,” I reply. It’s decided, not all of the upper class are assholes.

I wake up at eleven the next morning and quickly change into clothes that don’t smell bad. I drink a pot of coffee and clean up some of the papers until I find a shoe and then run out the door.
It’s April now but by the lack of green in this part of town you couldn’t tell. I cross the grey of the pavement to the black of the road to the grey again.
Mikey is in good time and pulls up in a silver three year old Mercedes. “Your car looks so out of place here,” I say as I sit in the passenger seat.
He laughs, “Yea just a bit.”
We drive north and north and then around several corners into a tree lined street. There are pink petals strewn across the road and there are expensive looking cars parked in front expensive looking garages which make me think that there must be even more expensive cars inside the expensive garages.
And the houses are huge. Like all are three or four floors and all have balconies and shit cropping out. Mikey slows and pulls in to one with large black electric gates. He presses something on his keys and they open admitting us to this fucking urban palace.
“So this is my house,” he says humbly.
“Fucking hell, how many bathrooms do you have?” I don’t know why but I felt the need to ask this.
“Six, I have no idea why, I only ever use two.”
“Do you live in your own?” I see no reason one person would need so much space.
He laughs, “Yes I do actually, it’s just me and my dogs… Come on I’ll show you where I think I need some art.”
We walk in and are immediately greeted by his flatmates, the dogs. His main hall is thankfully not cream, it’s light blue. He leads me into a living room and I immediately see where art is needed. Three walls are covered in shelves and then a flat screen TV. Between two windows sits an expansive black couch. The dogs jump up on it and stare at me as I stare at the big blank wall behind it. “There?” I say pointing at the wall.
“Yup. What do you think?” Mikey says next to me.
“Well you’re lucky that you don’t have cream walls or gold trimming on everything because it could be anything really,” I say. The walls are white and the window frames are dark brown wood. The shelving is the same colour wood and so is the floor. The room just needs colour, really.
“So what do you suggest,” he asks again.
“Well, what’s your favourite colour?”
“Um blue I guess, is that boring?”
“No, not really. What kind of blues? Like oceans? Mountains? Would you like it to be a painting of something specific like a scene or would you like it to be something weird and random or like a person.”
“I guess a scene but if you could make it weird and random?”
“Yea, I could. So what kind of scene?”
“I like what you said about maybe an ocean.”
“How about like a boat sinking into the deep or a sea monster or…”
“Could you do a boat sinking into the deep because of a storm?”
“Yes. Yes I definitely could.” After that we discuss the details of the sale. I measure the canvas and agree to Mikey paying me ten thousand dollars.
“I know it’s not as much as Katelyn paid you…” he begins.
“No don’t worry it’s still a lot. Like an awful lot. I’m poor, you see.”
“Well, okay. If you’re sure. I mean you are the artist, I just don’t really have more than that to spend on a painting…”
“Then you’re a logical person. I’ll be like between two and a half to three weeks?”
“Okay, great! Can I drop you home?”
“That would be really great, yes.”

I start work on the Captain Lost At Sea piece as quickly as possible. I like having something specific to do. Four days in I walk to a Walmart behind the mall Mikey Chapman picked me up from, with Mikey, my brother. He’s got a new girlfriend and that seems to be the main point of interest at the moment.
“She has a great music taste!” Mikey muses as we each put coffee into our trollies. “We actually made out to the Smashing Pumpkins. You know I’ve been waiting for this since middle school!”
“I know,” I smile. Dork.
“Gerard?” I turn around expecting to see someone who knew me from the bar.
“Frank?” I say in astonishment.
“Yea. Hi.”
“Hi.”
There’s a moment of awkward silence as I immediately begin to think up of reasons Frank would be in a Walmart and try match them with reasons he’s be here. “So… do you shop here often?” I say eventually. He’s carrying a basket occupied only by blue cheese and some type of fish.
“Yea, you?”
“I do. Why?”
“What?”
“I’m just wondering why you shop here. I mean it’s not particularly easy to get to from yours…”
He reddens slightly, “That’s true. But there’s a shortage of supermarkets in my area.”
“So you come to this one?” Well that’s fucking weird.
“Yea, I mean it’s cheaper than the one’s closest to me.” Mikey starts laughing next to me. I just don’t understand this at all.
“Um want to walk with us?” I smile, why am I asking this?
“Sure.” He smiles and hesitates before walking up next to me and picking up a jar of coffee that’s almost twice the price of what Mikey and I drink.
We walk around then, through each aisle picking up whatever we need. “So Mikey says you’re doing a painting for his living room?” My brother raises his eyebrows at his name.
“Oh yea, I’m going over to his tomorrow actually to try different frames with the room.”
“Really? Mikey and I are going out tomorrow so I might see you there,” he smiles warmly. This is really weird but… it doesn’t feel weird. In fact it all feels like some shitty reality TV show where I’m being set up in one aspect but everything else just feels normal. I look around for cameras.
The conversation is really normal then, just about certain food and how Frank still struggles to get served.
We say goodbye to Frank in the carpark and Mikey and I both immediately say, “Well that was fucking random.”
In the safety of his car, Mikey begins talking. “Okay if it wasn’t for the fact that he’s married to a woman and is living in a house full of crucifix’s I’d think he likes you.”
“What?” I cough out in alarm.
“Yea,” Mikey slams in the breaks as some kids run across the road in front of us.
“But… why?”
“He was looking at you like that kinda thing and he was shopping in our Walmart. Like far away from his home and surrounded by people who couldn’t afford a meter of that golden skirting boards his apartment is full of.”
I think this over for a minute before speaking. “But he’s married to a woman and just doesn’t seem to swing that way.”
“Okay, okay but don’t be surprised if he turns up in your bar.”

Notes

Yo,
This fic is going to be a lot longer than i anticipated, whoa. I had planned to be this far into the story by chapter three but whatever, sorry XD If i did it any faster i think it would have been just weird.
So yea i'll have another one up tomorrow i think, as always thank you for reading and let me know what you think ^-^