Trev, he likes to hit the gym showers right at 3 p.m. Go too early, and there won’t be enough material. Go too late, and the janitor will already have been through. It’s a delicate balance, and these pieces of art he creates, they’re his calling. His gift. Trev, he thinks he could be the next Picasso, and these locker room showers, they’re gonna be his salvation. He likes to take the whole day just composing himself. 

There’s this cafeteria waiting area with free coffee, next to the Protein Counter, and Trev heads there, first thing, to pour himself a cup. He spreads out in his usual plastic chair and eyes a group of the basketball guys lined up at the Counter, gulping powdered smoothies and ordering hard-boiled eggs. Their booming voices echo through the stillness of the morning and bounce around the gym, waking the place up. 

Trev finishes off his coffee and gnaws on the cup, squeaky Styrofoam shrinking under his teeth. He trains his eyes on the guys at the Counter. He waits until they head downstairs, then casually stands to peer in the trash can. Today, not even one egg left behind. Trev pours himself a second cup of coffee. 

A TV screen hanging next to the stairs plays all the college adverts on loop, different clubs, meetings, exercise groups. There’s one that keeps catching Trev’s eye, something about prize money for student artists, something about needing a letter of recommendation and samples of your work.

Trev reaches for the phone clinging to the inside of his sweatpants pocket. He waits for that slide to come around again on the TV and snaps a picture. Then he notices the time. Two minutes until the swim team starts; he’d better head downstairs. 

Trev peaks through the clouded window from the hall outside the pool. The swim team is lined up by the edge of the water, huddled together for a group meeting. A weird clump of exposed arms, legs, navy swim caps, skin-tight nylon suits. Trev downs the last grainy swig of coffee and tosses the cup into the trash by the doors. The smell of chlorine mixes with the bitter dregs. He heads for the locker rooms. 

Duffle bags are open and sprawled out on all the benches. Sneakers, jeans, and towels are littered nearby on every spare surface. Trev looks around, making sure no one else is in there. He picks through one of the bags, finds a protein bar, and stuffs it into his pocket. In another bag, a banana. Still searching, Trev peels the banana and takes a bite. He stuffs a small packet of pretzels into his sweatshirt. There’s a round hairbrush lying next to one of the bags and Trev picks that up too, banana still in hand, and digs into the bristles to get at the matted hair at the bottom. He tears out the least dandruffy chunk and stuffs that into his pocket too, for later. 

Trev, he heads out to the pool, toward his usual lounge chair by the windows. He likes watching the swim team. He can zone out to the white noise of bodies plowing through water. He can doze off and know in an hour they’ll head to the showers and leave him the good stuff. 

One night before the gym was closing, Trev was showering in the locker room and his heel slipped on the butt of a soap bar suctioned to the grimy tiled floor. His leg slid out from under him and his head cracked down, hard, onto the lower faucet below. Curled like a fetus on the sudsy floor, Trev brought an arm up to hold the slippery wound on the back of his head. 

And that’s when he saw it: this beautiful harmony of lines and flowing shapes, a constellation just for him—this cluster of lost hairs (from who knows how many gym patrons) all plastered to the yellowing fiberglass walls of the shower. He could’ve cried.

Around noon, Trev likes to head back upstairs. Usually, there’s plenty of people hanging around, checking their phones, grabbing a snack, waiting. He heads over to the coffee pot and pours himself a (now cold) cup, leaning against the edge of the Counter where the two workers are making smoothies and boxing boiled eggs for people in the line. 

“Those smoothies any good?” he asks the girl behind the counter. 

“Yeah, they’re pretty good.” 

“I see people get them all the time and they just don’t look that good to me, I don’t know why.” He looks her in the eyes, trying to get her to smile. 

He doesn’t have the money for a smoothie. 

She nods, turning around to scoop sorbet into a blender. 

“Hey, I bet you couldn’t tell I’m an artist,” he says. “I make a piece almost every day, you wanna see? I could show you some of the pictures I take of ’em.” Trev pulls out his phone and scrolls up. “No one else is doing this kinda thing.”

He holds a photo up for her to see. 

“Yeah … you showed me before,” she says, barely glancing up. 

 Trev scrolls through more photos, “If you want one, just let me know. You could give me your number and I’d send one to you.” 

“Uh-huh.” 

Around 2 p.m., Trev likes to head to the sauna. The small room is lined with wooden benches on every wall, a top row and a bottom one. There’s usually only a few other guys sitting in there, sweat dripping down their faces. Trev, he likes to take up the top bench on one wall and stretch all the way out. He likes to let the heat really get to him. He lays there, in his sweatpants and sweatshirt, and soaks it all up. 

“Hey, what’s y’all’s majors?” Trev rolls his head to the side to ask the two other guys. 

After a pause, one guy briefly looks up and drawls, “Business administration.” The other doesn’t respond at all, his eyes are closed and he keeps them that way. 

“Oh, that’s cool. I might try and start a business of my own sometime, like selling pictures of my art or something.”

“Art major?” The guy asks. 

“Yeah. Well … I tried going to classes but it was just dumb shit. They don’t teach you nothing.” 

The guy nods, noncommittal. He closes his eyes too. After a minute of silence, Trev turns his head back around and lays there for a long while, letting the heat hold him down. 

There’s the world inside the sauna, and there’s the world outside the sauna. The world inside is a warm embrace, an all-encompassing, old wood warmth. Every dry molecule pulls you in with open arms, sets you down slowly, asks you to stay. Stepping back into the outside world is like a slap in the face. 

Trev moves from the sauna to the locker room in a foggy daze. Sweat stains the surfaces of his baggy clothes. He’s not sure how long he was in there because his phone overheated in his pocket and it won’t let him check the time. He makes his way over to a sink and bends down to gulp from the flowing faucet. 

Trev looks up at the mirror. His eyes are buggy, his hair drips sweat onto the gray shoulders of his sweatshirt. Trev faces his reflection, but what he’s really looking at, in his mind’s eye, are the photographs he took yesterday night. 

Yesterday, when Trev showed up to the showers there wasn’t much material left. Two of the six shower stalls had some spare hairs stuck to the walls, so Trev scooped them up and brought them into his usual stall by the corner. He started the shower and let warm water beat down on him, let his thoughts float away, let his hand reach up and drag around the few dark strands he had to work with, let himself just go for it. 

When it was finished, Trev reached for his phone. He snapped a photo of the shower wall—his latest piece—the long strands all stretched out and waving at one another. Trev, he smiled at the photos on the screen; they were gonna mean something. He just knew it. 

Trev looks away from the mirror and turns the tap off. It must be close to 3 o’clock. He’d been in the sauna for a while. 

He heads over to the showers, peering in every stall, and spots a knotted clump of hair in one of the drains. His lucky day. He drags the soggy wad out of the drain and thwacks it up against the wall, starting the shower. Trev, he lets his body bend and sway to the music of falling water, eyes closed. He reaches out a loose hand and covers the clump on the wall with his palm. He’s gonna make a masterpiece. 

Working fast, with both hands, Trev begins to untangle the clump. He’s thinking about the smile he’s gonna flash at the judges when they hand him that prize money check. He pulls apart a big knot and drags the loose hairs up the wet wall with the tip of his finger. He’s thinking about the speech he’s gonna give at his first gallery show, when they ask him where it all began—I always knew I was an artist, that’s what made me different. Plenty of guys, they never make it. They never make it ’cause they don’t think of themselves right. They fall into the void, man, they don’t got nowhere to go. What got me here, I knew I was special.

Trev has the whole clump untangled now. He starts dragging the dark strands all around, making geometric forms with their outlines, logarithmic spirals, star polygons, making some split ends touch and others repel. Trev, he’s thinking about the house he’s gonna own when he’s rich, when he gets the hell outta here, when he’s got a whole factory for collecting hair just so he can use it. 

Trev steps back to admire his work, the moist wall like a maze of twisting lines, a trap he’s trying to find his way out of, grizzled and sinuous. 

It’s a new day, and after two cups of coffee, Trev is in the locker room again picking through bags. Something catches his eye. A thick sketchbook poking out of an unzipped black duffle bag, farther down the bench. He goes over to it and pulls it out. The cover has an old name-tag sticker on it, Anton Simmons written in blue ink. Trev opens the sketchbook and thumbs through it, flipping past pages of graphite figure sketches, sprawling cursive diatribes, and what seem to be outlines of some kind art history lecture. 

All Trev can think is: this is it. Someone who’ll understand. Blood seems to rush towards his chest, a dull pull growing warmer at the center of him, a pounding in his ears. Trev closes his fist around the sketchbook and shakes it high in the air. He takes a deep, open-mouthed breath and lets it out. Keep it cool.  

Trev sits on a bench beside the ellipticals, a clear line of sight to the locker room doors, and fidgets with his phone. He’s itching for a third cup of coffee but doesn’t dare go upstairs. He’s not leaving this spot until he sees Anton Simmons walk out of those doors with that black duffle bag hanging over his shoulder. 

Trev sits there for an hour, his legs bouncing up and down nervously, as he scans each person who comes in and out of the locker room, looking for that black bag. After an hour and a half, Trev’s so wired he can’t take it anymore. He stands up and heads for the locker room. 

Trev goes to one of the sinks and leans down to splash water on his face. In the mirror, he sees someone behind him pulling on clothes, getting dressed next to the black bag. Trev spins around to look at the guy: thin, shoulder-length gray hair pulled back in a ponytail; sharp features; dark jeans; and a sweater.    

Trev, he shifts his weight back and forth from one leg to the other, unsure how to approach. Anton zips up his bag and leans down to tie his leather shoes. Trev slowly moves closer. Anton stands up again, straightens the collar of his sweater, and heads for the exit. Trev leans in front of him. 

“Hey,” Trev says, holding his hand up in greeting. Anton nods an unconscious hello and brushes past him, heading out the doors. Trev turns around and calls after him. 

“Hey, how’re you doing?” He catches up to Anton. “I’m Trev.” 

“Uhm good. Thanks.” Anton briefly glances over at Trev. He keeps walking. “You?” 

“Oh, I’m doing good. Doing good.” Trev speeds up to stay beside him. “Hey, man … you’re an artist, right?” 

Anton pauses. “Uhm … yes?” He turns around, eyebrows ruffled in confusion, and faces Trev in the hallway. “Why do you ask?” 

“I’m an artist too,” Trev says, motioning excitedly to himself. “Man, I’ve got a bunch of questions to ask you. Like, what was that moment like when you knew, you know? Was it like something happened and then—boom—you just knew what you were supposed to do?” 

“I’m not sure I understand…”  

“’Cause I had a moment like that. And I get this pull to just make stuff. Like I can’t stop until I’m done. I make a piece about every day and take pictures, they’re in my phone, I can show them to you. Can I show them to you?” Trev scrambles to pull the phone out of his pants pocket. Anton just stands there. Trev pulls up the photo of yesterday’s grizzled maze and holds it up next to Anton’s face. 

Anton looks down at the screen, at the photo of matted hair, a coarse spiral, knotted and stretched across the wall of a shower. He looks up in disgust.

“Uhm nice.” Anton points towards the stairs. “I’m in a rush …” He turns his back to Trev and starts walking towards the stairs.

“Wait.” Trev steps after him. He pushes ahead and cuts Anton off. 

“Can you help me with something? With a letter of recommendation? I can send you more pictures, and you could write something for me?” 

There’s a pause, and Anton says, “I don’t think so, sorry.” He starts walking past Trev. 

“If you just give me your number I could send you more, and you’ll see how my stuff says something. All I need is your number, man.” 

Anton stops, takes a quick breath, and composes himself.

“I will give you my email address, not my number, and you may email me one time to send me your pictures.” 

“Thank you, man, thank you, okay.” 

Anton gives Trev the address and walks off. 

Trev, he leans against the wall next to the stairs, bending over and breathing heavy, his body prickling with a sick excitement. He did it, he’s on his way, he’s gonna be out there in the world with the rest of them.  

Early February turns to late March, and Trev still hasn’t seen Anton again. Every day, Trev sits upstairs by the Counter and watches people come in and out. He asks if any of them know Anton Simmons. None of them ever do. He asks if anyone wants to see his art. No one ever does.

People start to give him a wide berth, they pretend not to hear his barking questions, they put earbuds in and shake their heads to music, cheerful melodies that seem to drown everything out. Trev, he sits there all day, drinking cold coffee. In his hands, the Styrofoam cup is always beaten and bruised. 

One night, after most people have left the gym and it’s almost closing time and Trev has sat there all day watching people come and go, this sour feeling rising like bile in his gut, something just snaps.

Trev stands up and his torpor fades, leaving only room for an anxious, wrenching need to do something. He doesn’t know what. A powerful pull, dragging him downstairs to the empty locker rooms, to the empty showers. 

Trev, he stands under the fluorescent lights of the shower room ceiling, his arms at his sides, and closes his eyes.

He peels off his clothes, chucking sweatshirt, shirt, shoes, and socks behind him in the direction of the lockers. He barely registers the crack of shattered glass as he throws his sweatpants down, the phone still in his pocket.  

Trev, he lumbers toward the shower stalls. He turns on every faucet, letting warm water flow fast, letting steam fill the air. He goes to the drains, fishing for hair and collecting it in his hands. He pulls a strand out and leaves his first mark on one of the walls: the curve of a face, in dark brown. Trev pulls another hair out, and another, sliding them next to the first. He doesn’t stop to think, he doesn’t stop to look, he moves from one wall to the next, covering their surfaces in abstract lines, in curves and necks and eyes and noses and mouths, a hundred fluid faces, dripping. 

Trev slowly steps backwards, all the way back, pressing his naked body against the far wall of the shower room, taking in his work—these faces—they’re his and they’re beautiful. 

The locker room doors click open. Trev freezes where he stands, clunky footsteps moving toward him, deadened by thin carpet, and the muffled vibrations of something heavy pushing closer. Trev, he stays pressed against the wall, like if he doesn’t move, whoever comes in won’t see him. 

A cart piled with trash bags, spray bottles, bleach, paper towels, brooms, mops, and squeegees rolls into view; and pushing it, the janitor. He sees Trev and jumps, giving a yelp. 

“Jesus Christ, you scared the shit out of me,” the janitor says. Trev unsticks himself from the wall. He rushes over to his pants and pulls the cracked phone out of the pocket. The screen is black and won’t turn on. 

Trev presses the home button over and over. A shard of glass slices his thumb.  

“… You alright?”

Trev looks up at the janitor slowly. “You’ve gotta help me, man. Please, you’ve gotta help me take a picture.” Trev looks toward the faces. The janitor turns his head to follow, noticing them for the first time. 

“What the hell …” 

“You can take a picture for me, right? My phone’s fucked up.”

The janitor stays still, looking at the faces, his own face frozen in disturbed awe.

“I just need one picture. You can do that, right?”  

“No. I can’t. Sorry.” 

“What about your phone?”

“It’s not with me—”

“You could go get it.”

The janitor tears his eyes away from the faces.

“Look, sir, the gym is closing and you need to leave the building.”

“No. I can’t go.”

“You need to get dressed and leave.”

“No.” Trev shakes his head. “I can’t.”

The janitor plucks the walkie talkie off of his belt and speaks into it, staring right at Trev. “Amy? Can I get some guys down to the men’s locker room?” 

The janitor pushes his cart farther into the shower room. 

“NO. Please, don’t do it. Don’t clean them, man. These are mine. This is my art.” 

The janitor rolls further in. Trev shoves himself between the cart and the rest of the shower room, holding his arms out to block the way. 

“I’M AN ARTIST, MAN. THIS IS GONNA MEAN SOMETHING. YOU GOTTA RESPECT ME.” Trev pushes the cart away, knocking the janitor backwards with it. “YOU GOTTA RESPECT ME.” 

The janitor stumbles, slipping on the wet floor, and smacks down hard on his tailbone. Trev pushes the cart away and it crashes into the lockers, bottles and brushes dropping onto the floor. Trev grabs a mop and runs towards the locker room doors. Through the small window, he sees two big guys rounding the corner outside the doors. Trev shoves the stem of the mop between the door handles and dashes back into the shower room, every faucet still flowing, the steam rising up and filling the room. The janitor scoots himself backwards on the floor, into a corner, and props himself up in pain. 

Trev, he stands there in the middle of the room, between all the stalls, and breathes heavily. A black fervor rips through him. He crouches down into himself, squeezing his eyes shut, holding his knees in his arms, curling tight. 

He listens to the rushing water, to each faucet, to the streams splashing on title, to the locker room doors cracking open, to the footsteps running toward him, to the shouts of a loud voice, “He’s over there!,” to the smack of hard boots on wet floor, to the glug of black water swirling down, down, down an endless drain.