From 2010 to 2012, my friend Nathan, a tall, thin, quiet man with a shock of red hair, was stalked through Chicago by a man named T-Shirt.
“T-Shirt” wasn’t a nickname Nathan gave him, either. It was the name the man went by when he answered the phone during their first encounter.
“‘Yo, it’s Shirt!’” Nathan said Shirt said. “‘T-Shirt!’”
Short, thin, blond and perpetually carrying window-cleaning supplies, T-Shirt was spotted up and down Pulaski and surroundings over the next two years on a disturbingly regular frequency in disturbingly irregular clothing.
Nathan has seen T-Shirt in:
- A button-up dress shirt airbrushed with Al Pacino from “Scarface”
- A French cuff shirt complete with cuff links
- Denim, head to toe
- Red plaid shorts “like something they would wear in a ska band” and a black jacket
He has never seen T-Shirt in:
- A T-shirt
That was why it stuck in the mind so much. “T-Shirt” had no T-shirts. I wrote about it as story #38 on this then-fledgling site.
“As a name, it made no sense,” Nathan said last night.
He said that after he saw T-Shirt again.
And realized why he’s called T-Shirt.
Play to reveal the secret of T-Shirt
In a world of mystery, where old men carry crates of pigeons, “Video Fishing” parlors bear the names of Asian cities and beautiful strangers make you wonder what might have been, at least one case has been closed to satisfaction.
Thank you for that, Shirt. Thank you, T.
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