The Guy Who Painted Rent

Devin believed in staying up so long the walls began to bend. He’d paint everything leaning left, like a fisheye lens smashed against a broken compass. Chairs, hats, ceilings—all leftward. No upright objects allowed. That’s how you knew Devin had been there. Not by scent or sound. By tilt.

We met in a rehab that felt like a cult. There was no sneaking anything. No drugs. No sex. No caffeine. Not even gum. You’d get reported by someone named Sky or Birch. We were barely teens and already in hell, which we mistook for a launching pad.

Later, we landed in halfway houses. I was in one for alcoholic men, Devin was in a rooming house where the bathroom was down the hall and your only cooking option was a hot plate. He loved it. Said it gave him just enough reality to push against.

Devin didn’t believe he was an addict. Too smart, he said. Twelve steps were for the soft. He drank now and then to keep his parents off his back and hallucinated on caffeine for sport. Once, he stayed awake four nights straight and told me the painting had opened.

"I’m in it," he said.

I thought he meant metaphorically. Then we saw ourselves in the mirror of the painting. Not reflected. Present. Trapped. I was living with V and the dog then, and Devin was staying with us in Arizona. He was painting nonstop. We were afraid to say anything because, frankly, rent was due and he had to paint the mailbox and the check to make it all go through.

He starved us once. Forgot to paint food. Got distracted painting light bulbs and staircases. We forgave him because he painted extra groceries the next day.

At night, I’d hear him laughing in the other room—soft, wild laughter, like he was being tickled by ghosts. Then silence. Sometimes for hours. One time I peeked in and he was just standing there with his brush, staring at a canvas that looked blank. “It’s not ready to be seen,” he said, not turning.

He was always into being misunderstood. That was the goal. Confuse people. Make them wonder what he meant. He said being misunderstood was the highest form of attention. I wasn’t sure he was wrong.

Devin didn’t just want to paint. He wanted the rockstar version of painting. The gallery girls in scarves. The red wine in plastic cups. People asking what it meant and nodding before he answered. He’d stand there in paint-streaked pants like a man who’d been through something, even if the only thing he’d been through was himself.

He worked nights at a Chinese restaurant for a while. Said it helped him feel more Mongolian. People told him he looked the part. He ran with it. Genghis Devin, born again in a Michigan strip mall.

He told me once that he thought the earth had a leftward tilt. That all his paintings were simply honoring gravity’s real direction. The rest of us were in denial. Maybe he was right.

Devin had a bottle of cologne called Devin. His sister gave it to him. He treated it like a sacred artifact—sprayed it on instead of showering. He had a hotplate and a gym membership, but no time for hygiene between dishwashing at a Mexican place and night shifts at a Chinese kitchen. So he’d spray his name on himself. Said it saved him ten minutes.

If someone noticed, he had a go-to line: “Devin. It’s the cologne for the dude who’s gonna get to bone.” Crude and rhymed. He thought it was comedy gold. He’d say it, then laugh too long, repeat it, wear it out. If the other person didn’t laugh, he’d go shy, maybe even blush, then excuse himself—“Gotta go, supposed to help my mom.” He’d vanish like a magician’s mistake.

Then Devin said he had to go up to Lowell Observatory. Said it was the only thing that made sense. The real thing. We jogged up there shirtless in December. Desert cool, crisp sun. My old astronomy professor was there. He let us in, because Devin said he was from Michigan. So was the prof. Boom—access granted.

Devin was good. Spooky good. Found distant objects with his bare eyes before they lined up in the scope. Then he slipped through it.

No one saw it but me. And maybe the prof, who nodded like it was part of the syllabus.

Weeks passed. I got a letter. No return address. Just a drawing of me, eyes wide, face cracked like an old plate. Inside it said: "You’ve got Jack Ruby balls."

At first I thought it was a candy thing. Then remembered: Ruby shot Oswald on live TV. Gangster vibes. Devin thought I was a clean white prince, yet admired how I cut ties, left Michigan, left the Midwest, left women who drank and slept for coke money. I’d married one. I divorced her too. Devin stayed. Lived near his mom. Worked in a parking garage booth and read Henry Rollins chapbooks in the dark. Said he liked hiding. Said he liked the pause between cars.

He said the booth was his monk cell, and the waiting was meditation. When people paid, he’d look into their eyes like a priest in a confessional. Some looked away. Some confessed.

Devin wanted to be Rollins. All pain, no shirt. He collected pain like it might mature into interest. I was alt folk to Devin’s heavy metal. Devin was Genghis Khan with a paintbrush, chasing Asian ancestry through Chinese takeout jobs and Mongolian cheekbones.

He got a friend concussed once by hitting on a black belt’s girlfriend. I asked why he dragged softies like me into that world. “Someone’s gotta remember it,” he said. I still do.

Sometimes I wonder if he’s still watching from wherever he landed. A painted planet? A parking booth in the stars? Maybe he’s still laughing, gently poking fun at how straight everything looks from up there. I think he’d like that. Think he’d tilt it all left, just a little, just enough to make you feel it in your spine.

He’s out there. Painting his way across galaxies. Sending letters through rips in space. Maybe this story’s a reply.