"Stacy"

I met this man once. 

His name was Matthew. His name was Stacy. He was an artist from California, real abstract guy, odd even. Stacy’s hair was greyed pepper and stuck out in a frizzy ponytail. He wore thick rimmed glasses that magnified both eyes. Arleen, his wife of a short time prior, was by his side. She was calm and relaxed; out of place, lost in space. They were smoking by the pond. The geese and one swan were there too. I asked Arleen for a cigarette.

They told me there story. Stacy and his wife Arleen came to Fort Mill, South Carolina in the winter. They had been living in a man’s van in the church parking lot where we were. The man with the van had picked them up in Charlotte, North Carolina as hitchhikers and kindly gave them a place to wait out the winter in his van. So kind. 

Stacy was an artist and Arleen was his girlfriend of some odd years. They had met when he was living as a woman. He said he’d done everything but have the surgery. He took hormone pills, wore makeup, dressed in dresses and high heels. Arleen was attracted to women with penises I assumed. I liked Arleen. She was kind and gave me cigarettes. Stacy was kind too but neurotic.

They had come to South Carolina when Stacy became a christian. He told me that he no longer identified himself as a woman and recanted it as a sin. I don’t know what it was. It was interesting. I had never met one of these people before and I can’t remember, for the life of me, Stacy’s conversion experience.

The church we were at was the same one I had went to seminary two years prior. I had came back to apologize to some people. I told Stacy and Arleen that and they thought it was cool. Then Stacy told me about his artwork. He said he worked in abstract but God had told him not to paint until God told him he could paint again. Stacy said his artwork would often produce demonic figures. I thought that was interesting. I told them I was thankful for the cigarette and hid inside the church that night to sleep.

When I woke up I went back to the edge of the pond hoping Stacy and Arleen would be there. I wanted to bum a smoke. They were there. I was thankful and thanked God. Another conversation broke out.

Stacy enlightened me to more of their story. When they had been found out by the church’s security for sleeping in the van they were ordered to leave the premises or rent a room in the church’s hotel. They didn’t have any money. They were homeless. They could only work for room. In order to this they told they would have to meet with the head of security Doug. 

I knew Doug from when I had went to school. A good man, an ex-sniper on a swat team in Indiana. He had taught me how to run with proper form back when I exercised with him my first year. The last time I had seen him I had been caught drinking in the parking lot. 

Doug allowed them to stay in the hotel under the condition they worked for their room by doing housekeeping forty hours a week. They fed themselves by going to a food bank once every two weeks. Stacy told me it had been discovered that he and Arleen were not married. When it was discovered they were told they had to be married in order to continue staying in the church. 

Now that I think of it I don’t think they had been dating prior to their arrival. I think they had only been friends. Anyway they got married and someone provided them rings and blessed their marriage. They carried on the same way with each other the same they had before. I don’t think there were any relations had. 

A month or so went by. I had started living at an old friend’s house for free under the pretense that I was looking for a job. I would walk over to the church everyday to bum cigarettes. You would have been surprised by how many of the people, staff included, smoke there. I, however, was no longer surprised. I had started smoking three years before my return in that same spot beside the pond. 

Stacy often asked me if I did any kind of artwork. I told him I played a little guitar and in high school I drew cartoons. He asked me if I still did and I told him I hadn’t in a long time. I decided to draw him a sample of what I would do. I drew him a hippie man and a anthropomorphic stork. He liked them and his appreciation awoke the gift in me again. It was refreshing. 

I began to walk to the pond everyday that month to draw and listen to my new favorite band Led Zeppelin. I drew what was considered by most people to be psychedelic art. I’ve never done psychedelics. That’s just the way my brain works. I don’t need drugs to think obscurely. 

When I drew a picture of a stairway to heaven inspired by the song Stacy told me I should be careful. He told me that Led Zeppelin had been inspired by the occult. I thought ‘who gives a fuck what they were inspired by. They made some killer tunes.” Who was Stacy anyway to tell me what I should or should not be listening to? I knew more about the christian experience than he did. I experienced more. It was only pride.

I eventually found a job. I moved into a shed that was far from walking distance from the church. I had made the mistake of giving Stacy  my number. He called me everyday wanting to know if I wanted to hangout. I never answered. He didn’t creep me out or anything. He just got on my nerves over time like most people do. 

I saw them occasionally and asked Arleen for cigarettes. Stacy said he’d been delivered by God from his addiction to cigarettes. Also God told him that he could do artwork again but not with paint. He could only use oil pastels. 

Stacy showed me some of the work he’d been doing. It was nothing but shades upon shades of spontaneous colors, mostly blues and greens. He called it prophetic artwork inspired by God and that angels were inside each piece. I never saw angels. I didn’t see pictures. I saw colors. 

When the church began to ask him and Arleen if they were looking for jobs they told the church they were not and that God was going to provide for them. The church told Stacy that maybe he should try selling some of his artwork. Stacy told them God told him not to. Stacy gave away each piece of work to whomever God had told him to give it to. 

Around that time Stacy was beginning to grow suspicious that the church was trying to kick him and Arleen out, that the church was kicking out children of God. I agreed inaudibly with Stacy. I also agreed inaudibly that Stacy should try to make a living without living by faith, but who was I to say what was from God or what was not from God? I kept bumming smokes.

Finally Stacy and Arleen were asked to leave the church. They were homeless again and didn’t know where to go. The man who had let them live in his van told them about this property in the North Carolina mountains where God did miracles. I had been there a couple times. It was a beautiful place but I never spent enough time up there to see God do anything. Or maybe I had and nothing happened. 

Stacy heard from God that he should go by his given, male name Matthew. I was to call him Matthew from then on. I have met these kind of people before, people who change their names by the command of God. I always forget to call them by their new names. I think its stupid, but who am I to tell someone what they do or don’t hear from God?

Stacy and Arleen decided to hitchhike up there. Last I heard from them in a text they were doing well up there and Stacy was still doing his prophetic art. I have since deleted their number in my phone and they finally quit calling me. I hope they’re doing well. 

KJ out.