THE SOUNDTRACK OF THE EMERGENCY DEPARTMENT AT Powell Medical Center could have come right out of a Star Wars movie. Every inch of the place had something crammed into it that thought it was R2-D2 or a laser-gun-firing mechanism or the red-alert warning system on a Star Destroyer.

Every time Kevin tried to rest, one of those fuckers would sound off and jolt him back into his painful new reality.

So in a rare moment of quiet, Kevin wasn't too happy about being touched on the shoulder by a small Black woman in a nurse's uniform. “OK now,” she said in a musical Jamaican accent, “we gonna sit you up a little, sweetie.”

Kevin grumbled at her.

“Come on now, mista,” she said. “Time to get you up and give you your medication.”

“Sleep,” Kevin mumbled. “Couple more minutes.”

Then she set a tray full of pills down on his bed.

On the other hand, Kevin thought, he could always sleep later.

Kevin sat up and took the pills with water in a paper cup, and then he wiped the drool off of his swollen lower lip with his gown. “Ahh,” he said.

Then something occurred to him, and he started looking around. His head bobbed one way and another. He leaned over as he tried to see past the nurse into the hallway.

“What's the matta, dear?” she asked him, and she put her hands on her narrow hips.

Kevin could only see out of his right eye because his left was swollen shut. The good eye was darting around like a bug in a jar. “Nothing, nothing, nothing,” he told her. He was peering across the nurses' station now. “I mean, you know, I just wanted to see if the doctor's coming back, that's all. It's nothing, all good, I'm fine.”

The nurse wasn't buying any of this bullshit. She looked at him sharply and said, “Ain't nobody gonna hurt you round here, sonny.”

“Mm-hmm,” Kevin said. “Yeah I know, of course, of course.” But his head was still darting around every which way.

The nurse shook her head and patted him kindly on the shoulder. She told him she'd be close by if he needed her.

Kevin said thanks, and he tried to relax. Then R2-D2 sounded off again next to his bed. He cursed under his breath and gave the ER another look-see.

More than anything, Kevin just wanted to get out of here and get home. His safe space.

Kevin's little two-bedroom was the luckiest thing that ever happened to him. Rent-controlled apartments in New York City were like winning lottery tickets and just about as rare. Kevin was paying a fraction of what a place like that would normally go for, and the law said the landlord could only raise the rent in little increments.

But it wasn't long before his luck went back to being its old self. He'd been there less than a year when somebody slipped a flyer under his door that said a new company was buying the building. Not long after that, he started getting hints that maybe he might be happier somewhere else.

First it was the maintenance guys: “Hey, buddy. Anybody talk to you about the other buildings these guys own? I hear they're real nice.”

Then there was this real estate lady, a streaky blonde woman compensating for being over fifty by spending all kinds of money on her hair and her nails. She pounced on Kevin the minute he walked in one day and went right into her pitch: “The group has some wonderful spaces available in Midtown,” she said, and she slipped a brochure into his hand that had her business card attached to the cover.

More notes and flyers piled up under Kevin's door, and there was always somebody dropping by or hanging around the lobby, waiting for him. Had he considered the other spaces? Would he like to arrange a visit?

Make no mistake. Kevin needed that apartment. The crazy low rent was the only reason he was hanging on financially. The work had all dried up, and he was living off a disability claim that didn't have much time left on it.

Now somebody wanted him out. It seemed to Kevin like the world was trying to screw him, and no matter what he did, nothing helped. An old familiar feeling flared up inside him: anger.

He thought about all the editors and agents who'd ghosted him, the bill collectors who kept hounding him, his girlfriend who had suddenly gone dark the past couple of days, and now these freaking real estate people.

So, what does Kevin do with his righteous outrage? How does he channel it? Well, he goes and does the one thing they tell you never to do when you're upset: He sits down and writes an email.

Here's what it said:

Dear Miss Baffin,

Wait. Screw that. I'm calling you by your first name. That's what you did to me when you accosted me in my lobby. Remember? Hi, Kevin! Like we knew each other. Like we were old friends. Like maybe we were even an item way back at Hog Slop State College or whatever the hell backwater-ass so-called institution of higher learning you drank yourself through.

As if, Alice. As fucking if. I mean, please.

So, Alice, my point:

I AM NOT LEAVING MY APARTMENT. As you may recall, I already told you that. Politely and calmly several times. Because I've been working on that, Alice, working on being courteous and respectful, even when I'm fucking pissed off, and for a very good reason, I might add.

By the way, “Baffin” is an island in the Caribbean that's home to a short, fat, stupid, ugly, flightless bird. You should use it for your logo! I do illustration, designs, and cartoons. I'll send along some samples! (It would be a big upgrade from that ridiculous weathervane that's on your card currently, that's for sure.) I'll send you samples. Did I say that already?

Anyway, leave me alone. I mean it!

Kevin Loomis

P.S. I will be in touch about your new logo. I offer reasonable rates!

And that's him when he's on his meds.

By the way, all that logo and illustration crap toward the end there? That comes from Kevin's girlfriend, Judith. More on her in a minute.

Now I can't say for sure that Kevin's email triggered what happened next, but one thing came pretty much right after the other.

It all started on a Wednesday around eight p.m. Kevin was in his living room, looking out the window at the people on the street—people with family and purpose and jobs and important things to do. It made him feel like he should be going somewhere, doing something, but he had no idea where to go or what to do.

Then came the knock.

Kevin's heart nearly leapt out of his mouth. It was the girlfriend, Judith. Had to be! Who else would show up at eight at night, right?

Now, if Kevin had a brain in his head (he did not), he would've realized two things: girlfriend Judith had a key so she wouldn't have knocked.

Even if she forgot said key, the knock would have been a lot more dainty and delicate than what he was hearing right now: *thump thump-thump thump.*

But instead of thinking it through, it's this mad dash to the door and Kevin's all smiles and breathless and excited, undoing the deadbolt and so forth. And then he opens the door.

Standing there was this handyman type: pockmarked face, watery bloodshot eyes with a crease in between. He had a nose like a garlic knot. A faded Jets hoodie hung off his shoulders and stretched out over his big, round belly.

“How's it going?” the guy said. “I'm Angel Opido. I'm with the building.”

Kevin shook the man's chunky sandpaper hand. “Hi,” he said, and a couple of beats went by. Was he supposed to invite him in?

Opido continued, “Yeah, so the powers that be asked me to come by and introduce myself and just make sure everything was alright and all that.”

“Mm-hmm yeah, OK, sure, super, yeah, fine,” Kevin said.

“Good,” the guy said, staring at the floor. “Good, I'm glad to hear it.”

There was this awkward silence, the two of them standing there like it's their first date or something. Finally, Opido creased his brow and said, “So, yeah, it's a funny thing. I don't know if you heard.”

“What?” Kevin said.

“You know, about the building.”

And just then, Kevin's phone went off, back in the apartment. It was Judith’s ring—a Dua Lipa song. “Yeah, yeah, yeah, the new owner, um, hey, listen, I gotta go, I...” Kevin said.

Opido didn't move an inch. “These things take time, you know? The transactions and the legal and all that.”

Kevin looked back and gestured behind him with his thumb.

“Uh-huh, yup, right, right, right,” Kevin said, “but hey, look, listen, I gotta take this, it's important—”

“This'll only take a minute.”

Here's another thing about Kevin: Foul-mouthed and angry as he could be, he's a pussy. Sure, he'd run his mouth all up and down and make a big scene and so forth, but standing there toe-to-toe with a guy like Angel Opido? Forget it.

So there he was, listening to Opido go on while the woman he's involved with and afraid of losing is finally getting back to him with, for all the hell he knows, an apology or good news or another chance or something.

The phone kept ringing behind them, and Opido kept going. “Nothing's official yet. I mean, the paperwork is still going through, but the company, they want to hit the ground running, and so they asked me to stop by and, you know, get a temperature.”

Kevin opened his mouth but didn't say anything.

“'Cause the company, they got lots of buildings all over town. If you're ever, you know, interested in trading up, we could get you a sweet deal. We do it all the time.”

“Yeah, I know, they already told me that so I'll just, uh, I'll keep it in mind, OK? I'll think about it, but right now I—”

“You need to do more than think about it.”

“Huh?” Kevin said.

Opido stepped in real close to him now, right in his face. Kevin smelled hamburgers and machine oil. “You're hearing me, right? Your ears work?”

“Sure, right, fine, but I—”

“Start making plans,” Opido said, and he poked Kevin in the chest with a big, meaty finger.

“But I—”

The phone stopped ringing.

“No buts. These are good deals they're offering you. Take one. Get it?”

Kevin didn't know what to say, so the two of them just stood there again.

“I think I made my point,” Opido said after a minute. “I'll let you get back. You have a nice evening, OK?”

Kevin went to close the door, and Opido looked at him, deadly serious, and said, “See you round the building.”

Kevin closed the door, locked it, and walked over to his phone. He had a voicemail, but he didn't want to play it. He frowned and sniffled a little, and then he finally tapped the icon.

“Kevin, where are you?” the voicemail said. “I wanted to say this in person but whatever. Look, Kevin, I really like you and all but—”

Understand: When Kevin was on his game, he was a sight to behold. He was funny and charismatic and brilliant. The art dripped off him, and people would lap it up. They couldn't get enough. They'd line up just to be around him, as if some of his magic might rub off on them. The weirdness and the aggression and the quirks and the offensive behavior were far away during these times. Maybe they'd poke their heads in every once in a while, but Kevin just made them part of the show.

These peak times could last for months, or they might last only a couple of days. Then they'd disappear like an old TV set that just had the power cord ripped out.

That's where Kevin was on that Wednesday night: medicated and relatively stable but down and out and alone and being pushed out of his home to God knows where. It was more than he could cope with.

Kevin had always figured the landlord could sell his place for a couple million bucks, but he never thought they'd take things this far. Like so many other times in his life, his instincts were way off.

Note to Kevin: People will do all kinds of things for a couple million bucks.

So he fell back on the only skill he had ever learned besides drawing: denial. He spent maybe a week sleeping late, scrolling on his phone, walking the streets, and eventually wandering into the Lemon-Lime Lounge and getting ridrinkulously shit-faced beyond any recognition of God, country, airplanes, women's nylon stockings, and all the little fishes in the deep blue sea.

Then he stopped taking his meds.

Then Roberta La Vista walked up to him and put him in a car with a couple of goons.

And now here he was, busted up in a city ER, looking frantically all over the place like an escaped lunatic.

And then he stopped.

A man was standing there, right across the hall, and he was staring right back.