It was Me, Lucas, Fin, and Tesh on another late
night run. Lucas and I had lost the others somewhere between
the high of spray paint fumes and the rush of screaming trains passing
just below us.
As we finished our pieces, two cops stepped out of
a train and onto the platform. From the sound of their radios I imagined
their faces and the smell of their breath. I heard their footsteps
wandering and searching against the concrete floor. The cold air of
winter was coming down the tracks; our summer was over.
The train
station was wedged between two buildings and the tracks cut a path
through the backyards of
I could see Lucas’s face
a few feet from mine; his easy smile defiantly denying the truth,
even as the ridges from the awning slowly dug regret into our skins. On the wall in front of us Lucas painted a giant octopus holding the
word ‘GOTCHA.’ Mine was a whale eating a shrimp on top of the word
‘YUM’. Below that I wrote ‘It’s lonely at the top’ and Lucas wrote
‘I still love daisies!’ I guess we were satirists, or at least we
had acquired a bit of fame for it in the world of graffiti.
As usual,
Lucas’s piece was cleaner and grander than mine: he had the smooth
touch with the spray cans. As for the rest of us, we settled
for the sweet smell of spray paint mixed with
In the distance another set of headlights streamed
toward us, and Lucas slowly moved his hand into the air to cover his
mouth. He had to cough.
‘Would they arrest us?’ I wondered ‘Or blacken
our faces and hands with spray paint? Would Lucas give us away with
that famous hacking cough? Would that goddamn train come quickly enough?’
His smile melted away and the terror came into his eyes as he pressed
his palm to his mouth and slowly turned his head towards me.
I shook
my head.
His cheeks blew out - the hot steam pushed through his fingers
and escaped into the air, but no sound followed.
Then the train roared
into the station.
I thought of Tesh on the platform below us only
hours earlier. With his Irish-Catholic baby face smiling in wonder:
he never thought we’d get up there. Were he and Fin still hiding,
lying on some other cold metal barely out of sight, or frozen in the
mud beyond the tracks? Fin was always so worried about getting caught.
‘Was he caught now?’ I wondered and listened for them, but I heard
nothing, no running and no chase. Were they smart enough to hop on
that train as it pulled away?
A garbage can dragged along the concrete
platform and grinded into the silence left behind by the last
train. The cops were coming up, we knew that instantly.
‘I should have
stayed in bed,’ I thought. ‘It’s
I raised my finger
and I pointed out our most obvious path of escape. The grinding stopped
and the can rattled into place below us. I could hear their breathing
and wondered if they heard mine.
“Get me up,” one of the cops said.
His voice was crisp and clear, and any doubt we had was gone. His
hand came up over the side and grabbed around for a ridge to pull
up on, but there was nothing. They had chosen the smooth side of the
awning. He pressed his fingers against the edge and jerked his
body up to the waist, but his grip weakened. The radio at his hip
caught onto the awning and popped out of his belt, tumbling along
the metal and landing against the building. He slid back down and
stood on the garbage can; it was our lucky night.
The radio crackled
on and hummed against the awning, “Man down,” the voice came in frantic
bursts. “Man down – Cop shot!”
The officer’s head came up again, above
the horizon of the awning. His eyes searched for his radio and, for
a second, they came to rest on mine. I stood up to run, but I could
see he was no longer after me. Now the terror was in his eyes and
he was the hunted; the man down could have been his brother. I quickly
signaled my head towards his radio; his eyes darted off again and
found it wedged into the corner.
Seconds after the call came, the
cops were beating their feet against the concrete platform, and a
minute later we heard their siren scream out and then fade off. Lucas
and I lay up there forever, waiting for enough silence to ease us
off the awning.
Later that night the spray cans clanked and rolled
from side to side in our backpacks as we moved down the street, smoking
cigarettes and rubbing paint stains off our fingertips.
Authors’ Bio:
