February 21, 2010, Above FX Electronics

Blair is beyond weird--more on that later.

I'm mostly recovered now from his visit, which means something, given how he arrived. There's just something about spending time in intensive study of the spiritual nature of the things around you and then have someone sneak up behind you and start looking at the rug like there's something wrong with the way you cleaned.

Naturally, I leapt out of my skin and shrieked like a teenage bimbo in a slasher flick. He didn't hear me, but that was probably only because her wasn't listening, and that was because he was marching around over there like he owned the place. In the instant before I recovered my composure enough to say loudly, and with some annoyance, "Get out of my space...freak!", I saw the wisdom of warding absolutely everything, if but it would protect me from moments such as these.

I think that he had no clue where he was until he saw me. He even looked a little bit surprised to find me standing there with my hackles up. Then he spoke, but whatever he was saying, it sounded more like that unintelligible mumble that adults talk in the Charlie Brown cartoons. I considered myself fortunate that he was over there and that I was over here, such as they were in this case. That business in Maine, when we went to get Rad, still leaves me wondering if this guy is insane and/or dangerous.

"Ig button flew." is what he said, perhaps repeating himself.

I honestly didn't know what he was on about, but got one of those sinking feelings as he started miming in that silly yellow thing he had on. He pushed at the door and then stepped back, then made a question-face, then repeated. Let's just say that he didn't study with Marcel Marseau and it showed. I raised my voice pretty loud and asked impatiently, "WHAT DO YOU WANT FROM ME?" Like yelling it would make it easier to hear me. Heh.

That's when the guy reached into his pocket and pulled something out, looked a lot like a fountain pen, and then opened it to rub the ink on his hands. It was red and I should have guessed what it was as he pushed his way into my room. The gauntlet burbled and flowed around him with the sound of tearing plastic, which, while intriguing, was disturbing in its own special way.

Blair said, after the damp thump, "Hello."

His raincoat and that silly rain hat both fell to the floor on the other side. The souvenir is still over there, a remnant of his passage that I take note of when I am looking at things around and about the room here. However, my attention in the moment was on his blood covered hands. I could just smell the stuff in the air around him and it was having the usual effect on me. I mumbled this lame "Hello." and was wondering if I could defend myself with the crochet hook on the end of the desk.

Blair fished around for something, and then stopped to turn around to look at the place where he'd come through and likely at the yellow smudge on the other side. "Ah," he saids, trying to not totally cover them in the blood on his hands. "Do you have a paper towel or something?"

My stomach is doing that little dance it does at times like these, so all I managed to say in response was, "B..by the desk."

"Thanks." He rummaged by the other end of the desk for a few moments and dug out my box of tissues in that tacky needlepoint cover that I use only because my sister said my mother made it. Sentimentality has its drawbacks, but Blair was far too busy swabbing his hands to note the tacky plastic doodads on the thing. "Sorry. I had a washcloth in my coat, but it doesn't seem to have made it through."

Of course, I was looking at his hands and then at him, really wondering if I was about to lose my dinner. It was only with luck that I retained enough of my hostess instinct to say in a polite, if sickened resolve, "This is...uh...my space..."

Blair glanced up at me and said, "Sorry, I didn't know. There wasn't any lock on the door." He'd really made a mess of those Kleenexes, wringing every bit of useful absorbent space out of the poor, defenseless thing before offering, "It's a nice place you have, though."

Now, on a normal day, I probably would have been more gracious, or perhaps more annoyed, but this wasn't one of those moments. All I managed, caught somewhere between graciousness and apologizing, "I...uh...try...can't lock it myself without help."

"Well, locks really only make people suspicious." He might not have been totally sure of it. "Though it might not be a bad idea, if you're going to make people aware that you can see them."

I was a bit lost. I mean, I've never really had a meaningful conversation with this guy and this wasn't shaping up to be one either. Looking around, I thought maybe I'd ask him to have a seat, but thought better of it with the way that he was picking under his fingernails. "Well...uh, the last time anyone dropped in, it was Sue," and I pointed up, "from up there...she landed on the rug with a 'plop'"

He crumpled the facial tissue into a ball and stuffed it all into his pants pocket. "Uh. That's not something I do. Sue has better .." he looked contemplative for a moment, "uh access than I do."

I offered, in a mumble, "I think she'd been in trouble. Didn't get much in the way of details because she was pretty messed up looking." I didn't embellish, because there really wasn't much to embellish. I sure was surprised and she seemed a little more than a little screwed up by it--and I was certain that it wasn't all from falling the 10 feet from the ceiling.

Blair said "Well." He glanced behind him, at the reflection of his coat. "I wouldn't want to get in the way of anything that could get Sue in trouble."

Amen, Brother.

Blair spent a moment in consideration and then changed the subject, "I should get going. Is it raining outside?"

"It's February."

"Huh." He sort of jerked a thumb behind him toward the world he left his coat in, "That's funny. February must be more damp in the other New Hampshire, then."

I opened my mouth to speak and nothing came out for a second. Then I managed to nod and say, "Heavy clouds, no rain."

Blair was nonplussed and glanced down at his shirt. I suppose that not having a coat when it was 20 degrees out was problematic for him. "Well, thanks for the Kleenex. I'll stop by to get my coat, uh." He eyed the smeared reflection of his coat, crumpled on the floor on the other side of the gauntlet. "Some other time."

I have no idea what that was about. None. So I put on a quaint hostess smile and tried to put the blood thing, with the Euthie thing, with the absent minded professor thing..and maybe with the crochet hook. When nothing rhymed or scanned, I offered impulsively, "Oh, too bad you can't stay for tea..." Then my eyes tracked to the coat on the other side of the barrier and I offered expansively, "I'll have Rad fish it out for you, if you like. Keep things uncluttered over there and all that." I covered my mouth just a tad and couldn't think of a blessed thing else to say.

"Thanks. My razor blades and the leftover blood are in the pockets. Unless you have a penknife ... " He looked at me and thought better of it. "No, I suppose that wouldn't be the best idea. I'll just, uh." He indicated the door, "Come back for it later, then."

I spread my hands and then sort of gestured to the door weakly, saying, "Well, I'm sure you can guess the way out, can't you?"

Blair remarked, "Thanks." Hand on the doorknob, he considered. "If, er, Rad goes to pick up my coat, tell him to watch out for the desk. It isn't where it looks like it is." That intelligence imparted, he squeezed through the doorway and disappeared into the hall.

The door closed and I stood there, almost totally dumbfounded, for the better part of 5 minutes. He'd long closed the apartment door and left into the cold outside. I wondered about that, but then I wondered about a guy who would wear a raincoat in this weather.

When my spell of contemplation passed, I immediately slipped out into the hall and locked all the locks.