Ending It

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(align: "=><=")[[[clack clack clack->Page 3]]] (align: "===>")[I shake my can of Spiced Satin Amber, the ball bearing rattling off the sides.]

(align: "==>")[It’s important to shake the can before and intermittently while spraying. My first few aerosols were anemic, thin with pigment and fluids. I always thought the shaking was a vanity thing, a ritual, but no. I looked it up. When stirred, the metal piece inside combines the gas propellant and the paint. Properly mixed and the paint pushes out as a fine, even mist.] (align: "=><==")[[[clack clack clack->Page 4]]]

(align: "<====")[With a swift spray, I test the color on the metal column I’ve chosen for a canvas. The Spice Satin Amber lays a rich, deep mustard. It’s night. I can just barely discern the paint from the nauseating orange of the streetlamps. Come daylight and the tag will read like a beacon. ] (align: "=====><=")[[[clack clack clack->Page 5]]]

(align: "===>")[[[clack clack clack->Page 6]]] (align: "===>")[Depressing the nozzle head, I get started. First the fill. I alternate my arm from left to right in abrupt jerks.]

(align: "===>")[Graffiti is taxing. At night, alone, surreptitiously, with a 60-minute time frame. My hands take the brunt of the pain. The joints in my index finger already ache from the pressure of holding the nozzle. Distal Interphalangeal. I looked it up. Gloves protect my skin from wayward paint particulate, but the coiling ridges on the nozzle head would replace my fingerprint by night’s end. ] (align: "========><=")[[[clack clack clack->Page 7]]]

(align: "====><=")[[[clack clack clack->Page 8]]] (align: "<=")[Remember when you tried to learn the bass? And the skin on your fingertips scabbed and roughed until the tissue built into hard, little pebbles? This isn’t so permanent like that. By morning, the sore wrists and tired palms are all I’ll have to show for my effort.]

(align: "==><=")[[[clack clack clack->Page 9]]] (align: "===>")[I wasn’t so careful at first. I left the hospital, past the dark metal beams of the entrance pavilion, went directly to the hardware store on the corner. Small, the kind of place that services local construction crews, just carries lightbulbs and toilet seats. They had some paint, though it was the latex kind for apartment walls. ]

(align: "=====>")[Shades of white: Eggshell, Cream, Vanilla, Champagne. I asked for a tin of the brightest, labeled just White. The guy behind the counter suggested a nice Cloud or Baby Powder instead. A pure white would glare in the sunlight, show wear quicker. I thanked him. Bought the White.] (align: "=====><=")[[[clack clack clack->Page 10]]]

(align: "<===")[Turns out there’s a reason graffiti artists favor canned color. My tin of latex white sloshed as I jogged several blocks. Away from the hardware shop. Away from the hospital. By the time I reached Broadway I realized I didn’t buy a brush. I wasn’t strong enough or tall enough to heave the can to a hidden place, over fences and through gravel fields, up fire escapes.] [[clack clack clack->Page 11]]

(align: "=====>")[I used my hand to smear your name on a condemned warehouse. 1:38 pm on a Tuesday. White globs of paint roiled on the brick texture, melting into thick lines. Covered in the mess, I returned the way I came, panting from the thrill of it all.] (align: "<=====")[[[clack clack clack->Page 12]]]

(align: "========>")[[[clack clack clack->Page 13]]] (align: "========>")[Now, though, I’m all subterfuge. Real cloak and dagger. Dark clothes, early morning excursions. The mask, the gloves, the glasses are for anonymity but safety as well. ]

(align: "<===")[Spray paints have compounds that, best case, irritate my eyes for the night. Worst case, phthalates build up in my kidney and I spend my final years on dialysis. ] (align: "===><===")[[[clack clack clack->Page 14]]] (align: "===>")[I looked it up, worried I’d develop rapid onset mesothelioma or the like. End up in the hospital with a bunch of rubbery tubes strapped to my face too.]

[[clack clack clack->Page 15]] (align: "<===")[I arc my arm towards the sky, straining to spray at a consistent distance. The hardest part of your name is the O, smack in the middle. If I’m not steady, the paint will bleed and drip until the O becomes a Φ. Last time that happened I repainted every letter until the whole thing was Greek alphabet. ]

(align: "=========>")[[[clack clack clack->Page 16]]] (align: "===>")[You’re probably surprised by my attention to detail. Style was never my thing. You know that. I thought I could throw-up your name, a tangle of swirls and colors, in a matter of minutes and be on my way. No lettering or script or depth or composition.]

(align: "==================>")[Not long after that last hospital trip I wandered to another hardware store and picked up my first aerosol. Night came and, drunk on sadness, I biked east. I tagged your name in a slurry of curves all over the old shipyard. ] (align: "======><==")[[[clack clack clack->Page 17]]]

(align: "===>")[Two weeks later and “TOY” was slashed all through your names. ] (align: "======>")[[[clack clack clack->Page 18]]] (align: "<===")[Thick, black bubbles that could fill up my lungs like tar. Like losing you again.]

(align: "<==")[“TOY”. I looked it up. It’s derogatory. Meant I wasn’t skilled.] (align: "<======")[[[clack clack clack->Page 19]]]

(align: "=======>")[[[clack clack clack->Page 20]]] (align: "===>")[So I learned. Bought a sketchbook and some markers. I practiced writing your name in the thick style of the slash overs. I tried angular, overlapping letters. I tried to mimic your signature, a loopy scrawl in thin ink. I made bouncing, hollow forms of your name.]

(align: "===>")[My piece book is filled with you.] (align: "=======>")[[[clack clack clack->Page 21]]]

(align: "===>")[For a few weeks I tried stencils, to get the hang of how it should look. Kept the shape of your name consistent and legible. When I moved to free handing outlines, my wrists ached from practicing can control. I tested angles for thin lines, angles for thick lines.] (align: "=><=======")[[[clack clack clack->Page 22]]] Big fills and little paint pricks.

(align: "=><=")[[[clack clack clack->Page 23]]] (align: "<=")[I’m especially proud of my pointillist piece on the bar we used to go to. Getting tiny dots is all about timing and placement. Keep the can upside down and spray just until the mist is mostly propellent. That one cost me two hours.]

(align: "=====>")[[[clack clack clack->Page 24]]] (align: "===>")[Anything to make your name last. I researched paints and pigment and hues. Weighed the value of satin versus gloss finish. Gloss endures but takes longer to dry. There’s a line of UV resistant paint, did you know? I looked it up. I’ve started using that recently. Tags fade like old tattoos in the sun. ]

(align: "<==")[I finish the second layer of your name and sit on my ankles. Each layer must be applied patiently; one thick layer and the solvent can’t dry quick enough. Too thin and I’m here all night. Spray dries quick on metal. I should be done before sunrise. ] [[clack clack clack->Page 25]]

(align: "==>")[The Spiced Satin Amber was a good choice. On the dark, grainy metal it’ll be fiery in the sun. ] (align: "==>")[[[clack clack clack->Page 26]]]

(align: "<==")[I pat the column – more a sideways u-beam – like an old dog. Back then I would smoke half a pack here, leaning on the beam, watching people filter in and out. Patients, loved ones, nurses, doctors. It’s an awkward place to smoke. Everyone in a hospital has opinions on smoking.] (align: "==>")[[[clack clack clack->Page 27]]]

(align: "==>")[I never quit, though, not until you didn’t tell me to. I came back inside one day. They were replacing your oxygen tubes right when I stepped in. Stale tobacco must have been the first thing you smelled in a month. Your nose twitched when I sat down, your mouth twisted into a half-smile, half-frown. ](align: "==>")[[[clack clack clack->Page 28]]]

(align: "<=")[But you didn’t say anything.] [[clack clack clack->Page 29]]

(align: "===>")[I’d rather die from the paint. Smoked, blazing carbon fills you up with sticky, angry resin. Paint must sear my organs with color. Filthy flesh and tissue splattered with it. Particulate filtering through my liver in rivers of rainbows and clogging my arteries. Blood isn’t actually blue when it’s in the veins (a myth – I looked it up), but when I’m painting it’s like my blood is Pastel Yellow and Viridian and Periwinkle all at once. When the years of signing your name in aerosols choke me, the doctors will marvel at my Cobalt muscles, Violet sinew, and Coral bones.][[clack clack clack->Page 30]]

I don’t know that though. I never looked it up.

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