12/13
graffiti posse #2

[first of all]

P, talking to Jet, pointed up at a
brick ledge so high that Amos thought
he was pointing out the moon. Thirty
stories, at least, of stairway-style
scaffolding. Jet shrugged, "it's
doable," and they all began climbing
up, all except P and Jet, who stood
on the ground, darting wistful
glimpses for police. Amos climbed up,
looking slightly disgusted.

"Don't worry," P called up to
him. "Really, I dig the name."

Amos nodded, which he did a lot
around the graffiti kids, being
slightly afraid of standing out in
any way. As soon as he saw them, he
more or less decided, in his head,
that - yes - these are the people he
was looking for. "If it works for
him, then," shrugged Amos, switching
an agreeable flirty look with Zofia
right before he climbed onto the
highest pedestal. Everyone was
sitting, chilling.

"What are we doing?" he asked,
feeling ridiculously inept.

"Shit, boy. Just chill. We're
waiting," exhumed Zofia.

"And what are they doing?" said Amos,
whose eyes glittered with the city's
reflection when he looked down.

"Graffiti race," Zofia breathed.

Edwin was a boy Amos had known in
school, one way or another. He was
pretty quiet and not too smart. He
was big, big in the sense that Amos
always felt like a chihuahua next to
him. He liked drawing aliens and
goblins and animals that weren't
real, like snipes and heffalumps.

And Raphael, oh, Raphael could write.
She hardly ever talked but give her
five minutes alone with a red brick
wall and she'd come up with a
manifesto. You could walk around
town and see her purloined Washington
Post articles, radio soundbytes,
lists of Internet sites she dug,
tattooed up in black and white
alongside manifestoes of her own
composition. Raphael liked to write,
but she liked to quote other people
better. Amos once told me, and he
wasn't sure if he was serious or not
but, she used to live in New York
City and she'd listen to the David
Letterman late show writers in the
NBC lobby and she'd tag up the Top 10
list every day before the show aired.
Tagging in daylight was a much-
respected feat. Most pepole who did
it were dumb, inexperienced, or
lookin' to get picked up. Raphael,
she was just a wunderkind.

They all watched P and Jet, at the
foot of the building, like normal
people on the ground. They stood back
to back, like an old Western, cans of
paint bursting out of their pockets.
They had one hand on each.

P whispered, but as there was no
competition from the streets they
could all hear him.

"Go."

They scaled the building. Jet
climbed like a rog, knees buckling
above his head. P's needle fingers
grasped the ledges, swinging his mini-
size body over the edges and higher.

They got to the edge at nearly
the same time, P a second earlier,
although he took longer shaking up
the paint. Amos watched as everybody
watched them at work. Jet was working
on a mural, a rocket kind of airplane
with little green goblins crawling in
and out of the windows. P was doing
his Phuckchitup tag, but was putting
real energy into it - making the
letters look like clouds and
lampposts and drug dealers and stuff.
They buzzed as they worked. You could
tell they were trying not to rush,
but they still worked like a race.
When Amos looked closer, he saw that
Jet was working with both hands, a
can of paint in each. He'd use his
elbows to rub the color in when he
needed to. He had this real
shimmering depth. P was quicker, but
much more involved. Each letter of
his had about 15 or 20 different
little scenes going on inside.