Taped to a trash can inside the Popeyes Louisiana Kitchen at the corner of Parkside and Flatbush Avenues.
Seeking young single roommate for 3BR apartment upstairs, 6th floor, $700/MO. Must be queer & trans friendly. Must not be afraid of fire or dogs. No Libras, we already have one. Call Niko.
"Can I touch you?"
That is the first thing the guy with the tattoos says when August settles onto the rubbed-off center cushion of the brown leather couch- a flaking hand-me-down number that's been a recurring character the past four and a half years of college. The type you crash on, bury under textbooks, or sit on while sipping flat Coke and speaking to no one at a party. The quintessential early twenties trash couch.
Most of the furniture is as trash as the trash couch, mismatched and thrifted and hauled in off the street. But when Tattoo Boy- Niko, the flyer said his name was Niko- sits across from her, it's in a startlingly high-end Eames chair.
The place is like that: a mix of familiar and very much not familiar. Small and cramped, offensive shades of green and yellow on the walls. Plants dangling off almost every surface, spindly arms reaching across shelves, a faint smell of soil. The windows are the same painted-shut frames of old apartments in New Orleans, but these are half-covered with pages of drawings, afternoon lights filtered through, muted and waxy.
There's a five-foot-tall sculpture of Judy Garland made from bicycle parts and marshmallow Peeps in the corner. It's not recognizable as Judy, except for the sign that says: HELLO, MY NAME IS JUDY GARLAND.
Niko looks at August, hand held out, blurry in the steam from his tea. He's got this black-on-black greaser thing going on, a dark undercut against light brown skin and a confident jaw, a single crystal dangling from one ear. Tattoos spill down both arms and lick up his throat from beneath his buttoned-up collar. His voice is a little croaky, like the back end of a cold, and he's got a toothpick in one corner of his mouth.
Okay, Danny Zuko, calm down.
"Sorry, uh." August stares, stuck on his question. "What?"
"Not in a weird way," he says. The tattoo on the back of his hand is a Ouija planchette. His knuckles say FULL MOON. Good lord. "Just want to get your vibe. Sometimes physical contact helps."
"What, are you a-?"
"A psychic, yeah," he says matter-of-factly. The toothpick rolls down the line of his teeth when he grins, wide and disarming. "Or that's one word for it. Clairvoyant, gifted, spiritist, whatever."
Jesus. Of course. There was no way a $700-a-month room in Brooklyn was going to come without a catch, and the catch is marshmallow Judy Garland and this refurbished Springsteen who's probably going to tell her she's got her aura on inside out and backward like a Dollar Tree pantyhose.
But she's got nowhere to go, and there's a Popeyes on the first floor of the building. August Landry does not trust people, but she trusts fried chicken.
She lets Niko touch her hand.
