“First, these parents wouldn’t let up about having a gluten-free classroom.” Ma teaches the kindergartners at Kingston.
“No pizza for the kiddies, then.” I shove another bite into my mouth.
“I mean, it’s their choice, that’s fine. I can keep gluten-free snacks around, but I can’t impose them on the whole class.”
“Separation of bread and state,” Mee quips.
“And then”—Ma grabs another slice—“these parents tell me I should act more ‘reasonably’ because I’ve chosen an alternative lifestyle for myself.” Ma wiggles her left ring finger, and Mee almost chokes on a piece of pineapple. (Hawaiian pizza is the king of pizzas.)
“Fuck ’em,” I say. It's my mantra.
“Language!” Ma still manages to smile.
“What’s wrong in the shop? People demanding gluten-free acupuncture?” I ask Mee.
“No, it’s all this paperwork. I’m drowning in it.”
“Paperwork for what?” Ma asks, wiping some grease from her cheek.
“Oh,…um…it’s for this thing, for the shop. Trying to…ah…do some renovations.” The pizza acts as a conversational sedative, and we all calm down between bites of ham, pineapple, and heaps of delicious gluten.
YP waits for me at my locker before class this morning. She texted last night, asking how I was doing, but I couldn’t come up with an answer. I just didn’t know.
“OKOK?” she asks, picking up on the way I sign the phrase. I waggle my head noncommittally, not really sure if I am OKOK. I wave for her to walk with me to class. I don’t actually need anything in my locker anyway.
“You think painting was really bad?” YP signs most of the words.
“You know it wasn’t bad.”
“So why you—” She looks over her shoulder and stops walking. Kyle Stokers walks by us, arm slinked around some girl, hand crammed into her butt pocket. Gross. They’re laughing. Arm Candy’s covering her mouth, so I can’t see what she’s saying. I have a feeling it’s not anything nice, judging by the look on YP’s face.
“Uch. Let’s go.” She loops her arm through mine and we start down the hall again. It’s strange. I thought the sight of KFS and Co. would bring on YP’s waterworks. But she looks pissed. And it looks good on her.
She speeds up, walking faster in order to overtake him. Once we do, she turns to me and signs while walking.
“D O U C H E B A G.”
“I couldn’t agree more!” I sign.
“How sign ‘asshole’?” she asks with a smile. I go right ahead and show her.
—
“Maybe YP can tutor you after—” Casey is droning on, as the three of us leave history class together.
“I’m not sure that’s, like, the best idea.” YP thankfully cuts her off.
“C’mon, Casey, I’m not that bad.”
“What’s going on?” Casey signs. A crowd blocks off the hall in front of the main office. YP and Casey both jump as someone slams the door to the office from the inside, keeping out the onlookers. Casey seems more curious than either of us and picks up the pace.
Shutting the door didn’t do much to stop the crowd. The office is lined with windows facing the hallway. YP and Casey try to pick up on the students’ whispers, but I’m still in the dark. Instead of looking into the office, I scan people’s faces. Lots of concerned brows, some slack-jawed staring. Everyone seems to be asking the same thing: Who?
YP is the first of us to get a glimpse inside the office and makes a quick 180 to face me.
“Go. Class. Now,” she signs, and runs off without another word. Casey and I elbow our way to the window just in time to see a fully uniformed police officer sternly shut the blinds.
Everyone in Room 105 sits quietly, waiting for Mr. Katz to show up. Casey asked, but none of the students know where he is.
“What happened? Anyone know?” She’s asking about the cop. No one’s going to talk to you, Casey. No one’s going to spill it to a teacher.
“I heard————graffiti.” Freckles proves me wrong.
“Where, here at school?” Casey asks, eyes bugging out behind her glasses.
“Nah,—-——think——kid here did it,” Black Shirt adds. He mumbles, his face is deadpan, I can’t read it. I wave to Casey and ask her to start doing her job so I don’t have to lip-read. She blushes and quickly starts interpreting for Freckles.
“That’s so stupid. No one here is that good. Have you seen it?” I try to take her comment as a compliment, but she’s so snotty about it, I can’t tell if she’s being sarcastic.
“Yeah,” Black Shirt answers, “that skeleton is sick!”
The skeleton! What about the rest of it?! My ears burn hot again. All of our sketchbooks are ready, but there’s nothing to draw. If the cops are here about the overpass, I doubt we’re going to continue on with the street-art unit. I can only hope. The door swings open and Mr. Katz scrambles in, his hair falling wildly across his eyes.
“So sorry, class! Let’s talk.” He pulls a stool over to his podium and takes a seat. Everyone in the class watches him expectantly. He taps his foot and opens his mouth, but says nothing. He has a few frustrated false starts before he finally begins.
“Who can…ah…tell me the difference between graffiti and vandalism?” I’m not going to be the first with my hand up.
“Is there a difference?” This question gets more responses. Everyone nodding, saying yes, there is a difference.
“So, what is it?”
“It’s when you spray-paint something that’s public property,” the toy to my left answers.
“Is that vandalism or graffiti?” Katz raises his eyebrows.
“Oh, um…” She doesn’t know.
“Graffiti elevates,” I sign. Casey interprets, and all eyes are on me. Shit.
“Meaning?” Katz asks.
“I guess I’m saying that vandalism doesn’t add anything to the world. It’s all bravado.”
“You don’t think there’s ego in street art?”
“That’s not what I mean.” I’m having a conversation. With a teacher. In a mainstream class. No one is laughing. My pits start to prickle with sweat. “Street art—graffiti—adds something to the world, something that makes you think, that makes you stop and notice something you might not have noticed before. Vandals tag for the sake of putting their name on a wall. Their intentions are crappy.” Casey even says the word crappy verbatim. I can tell by the expression on Black Shirt’s face.
“Do you think street art should be legal?” Katz breaks eye contact, directing the question at the whole class.
“Sure, if you get permission,” Freckles chimes in.
“Yeah, there should be some sort of system in place,” Black Shirt says. Funny that our token teen anarchist is calling for a system.
“Why?” I ask him. He hesitates, looking back and forth between me and Casey. He addresses her instead of me.
“The art can be in, like, specific places. Not randomly in your face or wherever.”
“But there are billboards and advertisements everywhere in my face. No one asked for my permission.” He looks confused. I press on.
“It’s corporate vandalism, if you ask me. If they get to do it, why can’t—” Shit shit shit shit shit shit. “Why can’t…um…artists do it?”
—
The blinds are still drawn when YP and I pass by the main office again. I’m starting to realize what a problem my custom-painted car might be. Walking through the parking lot, I remember painting Lee. How hot it was, Jordyn hanging out in her two-piece, winking at the guys who walked by as I worked. When I finished, I knew. I knew there was no going back. I had found my place. This was my art.
YP: Youll raise red flags if you paint over it.
JULIA: You think?
YP: People will wonder why
JULIA: True
YP gets in shotgun. Her dad baked up a new pie recipe, and I begged to be a taste tester. She wants to talk to me about my next
move, but it feels weird, talking about something that used to belong to me, and me alone.
YP: No talking plans round my dad okok?
JULIA: ofc.
She opens the front door to her house, and again the smell is heavenly. This time it’s toffee, butter, something bitter. I love my parents, I really do. But this house makes me dream of what it would be like if Ma could bake something that doesn’t come out of a tube.
“Julia!” I can feel her dad’s deep voice in the air. I wave hi.
“I——good news!” he exclaims, pulling down plates. “Diane—-—--you can do Cheer tryouts—-—-problem.” A slice of pecan pie lands heavily in front of YP.
“You did what?!” YP’s hands fly into the air. She crosses the kitchen, shouting and gesturing, facing away. I can only see the hurt look in her dad’s eyes as she stomps off to her room.
“Sorry,—-————,” he mumbles to the ground before excusing himself. I’m sure the last thing YP wants right now is pie, but I bring two slices on my search for her bedroom. I follow her upstairs.
I can feel the floor vibrating as I get closer to her door; she’s blasting some sort of music. Her door wrapped in that “POLICE LINE DO NOT CROSS” tape. I don’t bother knocking. Police lines never stopped me before.
WHAT I EXPECTED YP’S ROOM TO LOOK LIKE:
Pink. Pink everywhere. Posters of dazzling blond pop singers. Pom-poms hanging from the footpost of a white bed with swirling ironwork, adorned by frilly pillows and a marshmallowy down duvet. A little vanity table cluttered with makeup and earrings dangling from a stand. Topped off with a layer of stuffed animals as far as the eye can see.
WHAT YP’S ROOM LOOKS LIKE:
White. White everywhere. The walls are white, the bed is white, her curtains are white. She doesn’t have a single poster, of a pop singer or otherwise. The only picture hanging on her wall is the one I drew of her the other day. Not even a family photo sitting on her white dresser. Even the speakers she’s blasting music from are white. The only bit of color is that yellow tape on her door. And her, sitting on the edge of her bed, chewing her fingernail.
—
“What are you doing?” she asks without fingerspelling.
“Bringing you pie?”
“No, what you going do? What next?”
“What was that all—” She cuts me off, waving the situation out of the air.
“Not matters, we have work to do,” she tells me.
“We?”
“You——think I’m letting you——-next—-alone,—you?”
GRAFF OATH
FUCKING BINDING AND NON-NEGOTIABLE
I HEREBY PROMISE TO KEEP MY LIPS LOCKED. THIS MEANS:
NO TELLING KIDS AT SCHOOL
NO TWEETING
NO FB
NO INSTAGRAM
NO BRAGGING
NO PARENTS
NO COPS
IF SOMETHING GOES DOWN I WILL RUN AS FAST AS I CAN TO THE MEETUP SPOT. I WILL NOT RUN TO THE SPOT:
IF THE COPS ARE TAILING ME
IF SOMEONE IS WATCHING ME
IF THE RUNNING DOESN’T WORK AND I GET CAUGHT:
I GOT MY LIPS LOCKED UP. NO NAMES
MY MOUTH STAYS CLOSED
NO NAMES
COPS CAN’T CHARGE YOU WITH ANYTHING UNLESS THEY CATCH YOU IN THE ACT. ADMIT NOTHING.
IF I GET CAUGHT I REALIZE THAT IT’S PART OF THE GAME, AND I WILL TRY NOT TO TAKE IT OUT ON JULIA.
JULIA SWEARS TO DO EVERYTHING IN HER POWER TO MAKE SURE WE GET IN AND OUT SAFE, AND HOME IN TIME FOR PIE.
SIGNED
* * *
She signs the paper without hesitation, not a question about one single bullet point. She doesn’t make a fuss about what could happen if she gets caught. That’s how I know she’s really up for it. We burn it in her fireplace before clinking mugs of cocoa that her dad made by way of apology.
I feel better. Coming clean to YP about my whole deal means I don’t always have to have my guard up. I know I should be more careful, but right now it feels like all my bases are covered.
Making my next move seems slightly less terrifying, knowing at least I have someone to keep my 6. Someone I can actually trust. Now all I need is more paint. And, you know, a game plan.
I drive right past the big blue whale-shaped school the next morning, checking up on the underpass. I wonder if the vandal squad has painted over it yet. Heh, the vandal squad. I wonder if they even have a vandal squad in the suburbs. Hard to believe they would need one, before now.
The cops aren’t there this morning, but someone else is. I slow down a bit. Someone is taking pictures of it, with an old-school Polaroid camera, of all things. The photographer turns to leave the tunnel right as I drive past. Four big brown eyes lock onto each other for what seems like the longest second of my life. I blink and I’m under the sky again, leaving Mr. Katz, pockets full of pictures, dumbfounded in the tunnel.
Static. That’s all my brain is capable of processing right now. After seeing Katz in the wild, I let my body switch to autopilot, and here I am in history class, unable to think about anything. My brain buzzes with fuzzy, scrambled images. Every thought I have is on some sort of weird delay, like when pixels on TV can’t keep up with the video feed. Broken. My brain is broken.
Buzz through history, buzz through the halls, buzz through getting changed for gym. YP must know something is up; she’s keeping her distance today. I can feel her watching me. Do I tell her? My brain won’t allow me to think about what I saw for too long, yet it seems like it’s the only thing I can think about. It makes so much sense, and no sense at all. My brain is pins and needles.
I’ve almost made it to winter break. One more day of classes until we are off for the holidays, and I’m spending it in a haze. Ms. Ricker has decided that our last gym class should be something “fun.” She hands each of us a little device from a plastic basket. It looks like a cheap digital watch.
“Everyone clip the——-——–-your———-okay?” she bellows, holding up one of the devices and clipping it to her shorts. I follow along, still on autopilot.
“We’ll have a contest!———-——-—-most steps wins! Start running ------- go!” I was too busy staring at the ceiling to notice when she announced for us to start, and YP tugs me along on her second lap of the gym.
The little display counts up by one with every step I take. I like watching how fast the numbers climb. Ten, twenty-two, thirty. I jog around the gym with everyone else, letting the static wash over my thoughts until there’s nothing but the numbers and the pounding of my heart.
YP is fast, much faster than me. I should be keeping in shape; I should be as fast as she is. How am I supposed to outrun the law at this pace? Maybe I should buy a bike. She laps me again, determined. She doesn’t look down at her screen, she only looks ahead, staring at some imaginary finish line.
Kyle Fucking Stokers runs up beside her and says something that only makes her run even harder. He stops running altogether. I pass him and smirk over my shoulder. Ha! Yeah, that’s right, leave her alone. The look he shoots back at me is almost enough to trip me and cause a six-kid pileup.
I’m excellent at reading facial expressions; they’re an important part of my language. YP only signs with her hands. She doesn’t have a grasp on her face yet. I understand her without expressions to read, but it’s like she’s speaking with an accent. It’s like watching someone dance but they don’t move their arms. Awkward.
KFS’s expression isn’t one I’ve seen before. It’s not pity, not the look you’d give to a wounded animal, a look I’m used to getting daily. It’s an odd mixture of pure hatred and hopelessness. It asks: What are you trying to do? What am I trying to do? Why is he asking me?
—
“What’s up with you today?” YP signs back in the locker room. She’s flushed after winning the mini-competition.
“I’m worried, I guess.” I pull my black sweater over my vintage, thrift-shop Keith Haring tee.
“About—” She looks over her shoulder, forgetting no one else in here can understand us. “About W A T E R T O W E R?”
“DUH,” I sign, and stick out my tongue.
“I have plan. Urban Café Sunday?”
“Not now?”
“No, no, no, I have-—-——- I need to get———-.” YP opens her prize for winning, a chocolate protein bar, with her teeth and takes an enormous bite. She smiles at me, mouth full, on her way out of the locker room.
—
Mr. Katz doesn’t show up for his class.
On my way to work, my focus sharpens. Everything that was covered in static becomes clearer the farther I drive from school. The street-art unit, the paint in the supply cabinet. He’s seen my car, he’s heard the song. He knows it’s me, and I know it’s him.
Taking Polaroids, showing up late, not showing up at all. He’s revealing his hand. And after this morning, it might as well be painted red. Maybe that’s why he didn’t come to class—he couldn’t face the fact that his rival is onto him.
Part of me wants to text YP right now, tell her what was really going on this morning. I was fine blowing up Donovan’s spot when I thought it was him. But Katz? He could get in real trouble. I guess we both could. So I’ll keep his secret as long as he keeps mine.
I want to take it as a compliment, that a teacher I look up to decided my art was worthy of the conversation, but I can’t get my gut to agree with my brain. Just because he’s a teacher doesn’t make him better, doesn’t give him the right to my art, my walls. He can’t insert himself into my conversations like that. I didn’t give him permission. Permission. Fuck. That whole street-art talk, all that crap about permission. Was he trying to absolve himself?
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