I painted the sculptures he built from what we found. Once he nailed together hundreds of discarded thread spools to encase the face of a grandfather clock, then made it tick. Another time, he made a crowd of figures out of crooked driftwood. An audience? There was the plastic packaging melted together into a greenhouse; we used it for seedlings in the spring. The tower of urinals. He didn’t limit himself.
The dances I did with Dado those nights he chanted Blake by the Kill, drum strapped around his neck, fire from the pits flickering up his torso while his body bowed and swirled like a fish, a bird. The leaves on the trees in prism pigments I could taste as strong as nutmeg. Kean and Djefa, their sweat on me, our clothes hanging from bushes.
They were scattered all around, my life in pictures.
I thought, I don’t want to end up like him.
For Dado, it never came. Being famous—what Trey said.
I pushed aside the watercolors and went up to 621. I stood there, wishing I had the nerve to knock. I put my ear to Trey’s door. Inside, I heard the TV. I heard all the TVs on the floor, Ronald Reagan radiating into apartments with his death beams.
In spite of my fear, I reached out and found myself knocking. His mother answered, a spatula upheld, the smell of fried meat coming from behind her.
“Um, is Trey home?” I asked.
She looked into the apartment. “Trey? You home, baby?”
He came to the door. He seemed different: no hat, in a tight T-shirt and shorts. “Yo, Ror, what’s happenin’?” he said, reaching out.
I put up my hand for the slap. He gave it to me, curling his fingers around mine. He held on for one extra second, then he let go.
“I just—I came to talk to you,” I said.
“’Bout what?” He yawned and stretched out his long muscles.
“About me being in the crew. What’s the story?”
He leaned against the doorjamb and folded his arms. “What do you look like without that hat, Ror?” he said softly.
I touched my head, my neck flaming. My hair had grown a whole inch. Still, it was like a blind beautician had gotten to me. “Why?”
He shrugged. “I just wanna know what’s under there.”
“My brains,” I said.
He smiled. “Meet us at the building at midnight,” he said. I heard his little brother laugh somewhere behind him, and Reagan’s voice repeating on the nightly news: “. . . the homeless who are homeless, you might say, by choice.”
“Midnight?”
“Tonight,” he said. He stepped back from the door and closed it in my surprised face.
24
MA HAD THE SAME trouble sleeping as me. We stayed up watching TV to wonder at the latest from our senile president who reminded me more of a roach than a person. I drew, and she knitted hats to sell on the street from the contraption that she’d made from an old suitcase and some wheels. My sister snored like a dog on the bottom bunk.
Near midnight, I got up and started to head out. Ma said, “Where are you going, Ror?”
I stopped, my hand on the door. I couldn’t remember the last time she questioned me when I went wandering. I thought of telling her I was joining a graffiti crew in an abandoned building in the middle of murderous New York City, but I just said: “I have to go out.”
She paused knitting. “For?”
“I can’t sleep. I’m going for a walk.”
“Give me some direction. Which way are you headed?” she asked. Since when did she care?
“I’m just going to loop down to the river.”
She studied my face and said, “There’s one thing I have to know, Ror,” and my stomach did a double somersault.
“Yeah?”
“Marilyn said someone spray-painted a drawing like yours on the side door of the school. She thinks you did it. Did you?”
I looked over at my Sleeping Beauty sister, restraining myself from putting a pillow over her face. Who knew she had been watching me so closely? “Nope, wasn’t me,” I said simply. “Anyway, it’s gone. They painted it out.”
Ma swung back to the TV, where the talking heads bandied words:
Do ya think it’s true, Ralph, what Reagan says?
Which part is that, Phil?
What the president is trying so hard to backpedal on: “You can’t help those who will simply not be helped . . . the homeless are homeless by choice . . .” Well, are they, Ralph?
I held my breath, waiting for Ma to say more. Was I going to stand here and watch the stuffed shirts all night, or split? When she didn’t speak, I turned to go. Then she said: “Ror.”
My hand gripped the doorknob. I was going, no matter what.
“Are you getting into that graffiti stuff?”
I hesitated. Then, I said, “No.”
“Stay away from Central Park. You’re not back in an hour, I’ll call Missing Persons.”
“Yeah, sure, Ma.”
“I’ll be waiting.”
I left, knowing she’d be asleep by the time I got back. I made my way to the building, and crept over the garbage, in through the basement door. Inside was dark, dead quiet; fear trickled into me. It occurred to me I could get raped or something. Trey had given me no choice but to come to this place. Did I want to spray-paint so badly that I’d go to a deserted building in the middle of the night where I might get attacked?
I took a deep breath, scaled the stairs, and pushed the door open. It was empty, orange from the streetlight. I went inside to wait. Something brushed by me—my arms fluttered up, pushing it away. Suddenly, I was surrounded by the sound of breathing, by warm flesh. I felt them but I couldn’t see their faces. I wanted to scream, but it was all stuck inside me.
I smelled coconut and leather.
“Trey? Shit, is that you, man?”
He turned on his flashlight and shined it in my face. I could hear all his buddies laughing at me.
“Psych!”
I said, with my heart still hammering, “What the hell you doing?”
“Just making sure you ain’t a perp,” Trey said, his voice hard. A what? He put the flashlight on the floor, beam up; now I could see them.
“Dang, looks like the girl nearly peed her Pampers,” Nessa said.
They all thought that was hilarious. I just wanted to go paint.
“You stole from us.” Trey.
“We don’t like that.” Kevin.
“We don’t trust people who steal from us.” Reuben.
“I didn’t know it was you!” I said, too loud.
“Step one of this test,” Reuben, with that deep voice, intoned.
“What test?” I said.
“You gotta pass our baptism by fire,” said Trey. “You gotta rack up some ebony black Krylon from Jon’s shop, or we don’t take you.”
“Rack up?”
“Steal it.”
From Jonathan? I choked on the pit in my throat. No way I could get near those cans.
“Nessa goes with you as a decoy,” Trey went on. “She’ll show you where Jon’s is.”
I looked over at Nessa, those gleaming bottle-brown eyes. I wasn’t going to put my life in her hands. “She hates me,” I said.
She snapped, “Who says I hate you?”
“You think I’m trying to take your boyfriend.”
She sucked her teeth. “Trey wouldn’t touch—”
I cut her off. “I don’t want him.”
I turned to Trey, and saw in his face that wasn’t the right thing to say. I didn’t mean it like that. Ever since the fire, I felt dead inside, too numb to open myself to boys again. I was too ugly, too screwed up.
I could still feel Trey’s hand in mine.
I heard her say, “Yeah, right.”
“Why do I have to steal it?” I asked Trey.
Reuben
said, “We gotta know you can handle perpetrators and toys.”
“Cops and loud-mouth citizens,” said Kevin.
“Other crews and lone wolfs who’ll try to tear your ass down,” Nessa added.
His brow dark, Trey took it up: “The streets is dangerous, the crew does some dangerous shit. We got classified levels, and we gotta know we can trust you with our top secret four-one-one.”
Kevin: “You steal it, we got something on you.”
And Reuben: “We know you can take on some shit.”
I thought about it. Could I be trusted? With what?
“You go tomorrow,” Kevin said. “We all cut school and you go with Nessa into Jon’s. We wait here.”
I protested: “Why do I have to go with her?”
Kevin threw down his skateboard like he was going to speed away. “Yo, I’m Audi, man. She’s questioning everything we say.” He rolled the board.
“This just ain’t gonna work out.” Nessa fisted up her fingers.
I saw my whole opportunity flushing down the toilet. I held up my hands. “Hey, wait. Hey, I’ll do it. I’ll go with her. I’ll steal the entire store with her, if you want.”
Trey said, “Just chill, Nessa. She’ll do it, Kev. Give her a chance.” He looked at me. “Right?”
They waited for me to answer. I tried to find my cool as I looked around. “Right,” I agreed.
25
IT WASN’T THE PIGS freaked me out, it was Nessa. I didn’t trust her. In the morning, I decided I wouldn’t shoplift with that girl, the hell with it. I’d just tell them forget it. Just do my own thing. I could figure it out somehow.
I put my schoolbooks and my drawing pads in my backpack. When I came downstairs, Nessa was standing outside, bobbing her head to some music. I thought of Trey; he’d know if I bagged out. She was moving to the disco or whatever, and when she saw me, we started walking. I kept waiting for the right moment to tell her that I wasn’t going to do it. I could hear the music leaking out of her headphones, surprised by the electric guitar.
I tapped her and pointed to my ears.
She reached in her bag and came out with a cassette case. A mix tape—she’d drawn the cover in a swirly hand. The last song was “I Wanna Be Sedated.”
“The Ramones?”
She nodded.
“Man, I’d kill to hear the Ramones.” I listened to WPLJ, the home of rock ’n’ roll, on the cheap radio Ma got me. I was starved for all the good music I could get.
Nessa took off the headphones and handed them over. As I put them on, I caught a whiff of her bubble-gum perfume. Joey Ramone’s voice injected pure energy into me and kept my steps going down the street. Before I knew it, we were half a block from Jonathan’s.
Nessa clicked off the music and took the Walkman back. She said, “He’s out—his daughter works on Tuesdays. I’ll go in first, talk her over to the window. You come in, take the can, split. I’ll meet you back here.” She looked at me, hard. “Don’t screw it up.”
I nodded, my belly squeezed tight like a blown-up bag. Too late to say no. As I trailed in after her, I felt super hyper aware of every single detail: the woody gust of pencils and lumber, the murmurs of men by the back, oil tubes in careful cases along the inner wall.
I walked the aisles, listening to Nessa talking, trying to see over the shelves what Jonathan’s daughter looked like. Long black hair, a black skirt, fishnets and boots. What if he wasn’t really out, what if he suddenly appeared from the studio where he made his frames? Two suits stood by the counter, talking over some foam core, not moving away. I couldn’t possibly do it with them there. I could do illegal things, but not with an audience. I preferred gleaning what no one wanted, secret subversions, off-the-grid operations.
Then I thought of Trey. Pretending I was him, I walked over to the counter, went behind it as if I belonged there, and took the can. I smiled at the suits and walked down an aisle and stuck the can in my jacket. I nodded to Nessa and left.
I ran down the block and waited. The cold metal ate straight into my ribs like a disease. Cool as a lily pad, Nessa strolled toward me. When she reached me, she lifted her hand. I slapped her five. I held my breath so I wouldn’t puke.
“Wasn’t so fucking hard, was it?” she said.
It was. It really was. “Nah,” I said.
“It gets easier, sister.”
I met her eyes for the first time. Some storms brewing in there. This was one sister who had it in for me.
26
PUNK MUSIC SCREECHED from a huge silver boom box covered with black-inked graf and stickers of bands and foreign flags. Kevin did squats, drop-kick moves with Reuben like a Russian dance, crunching over broken glass. Trey stood by the window in a top hat, blowing out smoke rings and drawing with his fat red Uni in his black book. When he saw me and Nessa watching from the doorway, he walked over. The boys kept dancing.
“You made it,” Trey said to us, like he thought we might not.
I took out the can and showed him.
“How was she?” he asked Nessa. She gave him a look like Why are you asking about her?
“It was easy,” I said.
“Give it up.” Trey held out his hand. I gave him the can. He took it and zipped it into his duffel. When he saw my look, he said, “We do it this way ’cause we have to, ain’t no other way.”
“Yeah, I get it,” I assured him. “So? I passed the test? I’m in?”
He blew smoke, measuring my worth with his eyes. He turned away and watched the boys dance, keeping together like they were practicing for something. They were like that Baryshnikov guy with those high side kicks.
“You gotta decide on a tag, sister,” Nessa said. She used sister like a bludgeon. She pulled a cigarette from the pack in Trey’s jacket pocket; he let her. “You gotta decide how you want people to see you.”
“What’s that mean?”
“It’s different for girls, being a graf writer,” she said. “It’s either—‘I’m a girl and I’m a writer,’ or ‘I’m a writer even though I’m a girl.’ Think about that when you pick your tag.”
A writer? I never thought of it that way. “What’s yours?”
“You seen me on the street,” she said, her eyes extra big with attitude. “I’m just sayin’—if you tag some bullshit, that’s all you’ll be. Not a writer, just a toy who everyone thinks got help from the boys in her crew. Even if she was in a crew before this fucking crew even started.” She directed her words at Trey, the bitterness like lemon juice puckering her mouth.
Trey blew smoke hard and stalked away. He turned off the music. The boys stopped dancing. Trey smashed out his cigarette. “Aight, bros. Let’s take Ror over to Riverside.”
From the way he changed the subject, I saw he didn’t know what to do with Nessa’s beef, that they’d argued it before, and it had come to nothing.
“Can she climb a fifteen-foot chain-link fence?” Kevin asked, breathing heavy.
“Can she run faster than a dog or a cop?” Reuben pulled his shirt up over his face to wipe off the sweat.
Able to leap tall buildings in a single bound.
Trey looked at me.
“I can do anything you can do,” I said to them.
“We’ll see,” Nessa said.
27
IT WAS TURNING out to be one of those days in late May when all the gnats go for your eyes, a day you don’t want to be in school anyway. It was a day you’d rather spend with people who make it seem like flesh is porous and they could be you and you could be them, walking up Amsterdam Avenue past mango-smelling bodegas in the heat rays of the sunshine.
Tags I’d missed came jumping out at me from lampposts, garbage cans, diamond-metal basement covers—like by sudden magic, I could see an X-ray of the world, and these tags were the bones. NOISE INK in block letters, in bubbles, in stars, in sharp a
ngles. Written in a doorway, on the side of a bus shelter, on the mailbox. Up there, where a low roof met a high, I saw in letters big as the Hollywood sign: ROI 85.
Wild excitement volcanoed in me—I knew these guys!—I was walking down the street with them, I was going to be in a crew with them, we would go out together and write our names, and everybody would know who we were. On the street, people were shopping, or keys out, going into their apartments, or walking fast to get somewhere, and I wanted to tell them: Lift your heads up and look around. Look at us.
Reuben smacked green-alien stickers onto all the STOP signs. I asked him for one and saw he had drawn the alien right on those peel-off post office labels you got when you sent out a package. I met his eyes and smiled. He nodded, a grin playing on his face. It was like finding my tribe, being with them.
“Aight, Ror, check it out.” Kevin braked his skateboard in front of a boarded-up storefront. Sprayed out in sharp, clean white fades with red and gold and green flourishes, it said this:
“What’s NIL?”
“That’s me, man!”
“Oh! What’s it mean—‘there’s no meaning’?” I said. “How can I not look if I’m already looking?”
He threw his arm out. “She’s questionin’ me again!”
“Kevin’s a nihilist,” Reuben explained. “An existential nihilist. Doesn’t think this life has any value. Like we’re just dust in the universe, man.”
“Means he’s eaten too many magic fuckin’ mushrooms,” Trey said.
“That’s not it!” Kevin pushed at the air like he was wiping us away. “I just don’t think we make any difference.”
“We who?” I asked.
“There’s all this hype that humans are the superior species and nothing else matters. Especially Americans, like their shit don’t stink, like it’s all right to fuck up this planet with our nuclear bombs. I think that’s bullshit—we’re nil, we’re nothing compared to what’s out there.” Kevin pointed up at the sky.
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