It didn’t take long to get hooked on what the gang had to offer. The problem was, Bobby Ray didn’t like carrying what had killed his mother. Every night after he made a delivery, he’d dream about Mama in a cheap motel room. She’d be sitting on rumpled sheets, her body emaciated, her face ravaged by guilt and shame. She’d cry and hold her hands out to him. You know I love you, baby. You know I’m gonna come back. Don’t you? He’d wake up in a cold sweat, heart pounding, tears still wet on his cheeks.
The fourth time it happened, Bobby Ray raked his hands through his hair and sat on the side of the bed, fighting down nausea. If he said no now, Reaper would see it as a challenge to his authority. Reaper had earned his name by getting away with murder. Bobby Ray knew explaining his aversion would reveal his weakness, something he couldn’t do with the guys he hung out with now. He wanted their respect. But he wanted it on his own terms.
He needed to think, and he did that best when he was out wandering the streets after dark. Pushing the curtains aside, intending to climb out the window of his foster parents’ apartment, he spotted a guy dressed head to foot in black, tagging the wall across the street. Bobby Ray sneered. One letter and a number? That was the best he could do?
Bobby Ray stared at the tagger’s work, his mind flashing with ideas of what he could have done with a couple cans of spray paint.
The adrenaline rush came along with the ideas. Heart racing, he started making plans. He saw a way to stay in the gang while steering clear of the drug trafficking.
Bobby Ray hugged the wall and inched along the narrow ledge on his toes. He reached the drainpipe and climbed, hand over hand. When he could grip the edge of the roof, he pulled himself up and swung over. He got a running start and leaped the narrow alley, dropping and rolling onto the neighboring roof.
A fire escape took him down the other side. He spent the next few hours checking out graffiti. Most was messy, clearly done in haste. A few pieces impressed him, though Bobby Ray knew he could do better.
He had ideas that would blow minds, make people talk. It would have to be a high place, a risky place, a place where the piece couldn’t be easily buffed by city workers.
All Bobby Ray had to do was get his hands on a few cans of spray paint, and he could show Reaper what a real gang tagger could do. Bobby Ray’s delivery days were over. He’d be in the gang with all its assets, without taking part in the gang’s real business.
Suspended in a climbing harness, Bobby Ray hung over the side of the building. He pulled a can of red spray paint from his pack and worked fast. Lardo paced on the roof, keeping watch on the streets below. He swore. “Did you have to pick a place where anyone and his brother can see you?”
Bobby Ray laughed. He had to take risks to establish his reputation. The higher, the better. “Another two minutes.”
“Cops! Two blocks down!” Lardo hauled on the rope.
Bobby Ray gasped and swore as the harness cut into his groin. “Wait!” He swung to one side and grabbed hold of a pipe. Pressing against the brick wall, he went still. He had dressed in black for a reason. No one would see him unless they looked up. Cops usually kept their eyes at street level, not four stories. He calculated how long it would take to have Lardo get him to the roof and then to stow his gear and paint supplies in the backpack. He stayed flush with the wall and looked down without moving. The squad car slowed, shooting a beam of light against the wall.
Bobby Ray spit out a profanity. “Pull me up!” He gritted his teeth against the hard pinch of straps as Lardo yanked on the rope. A can of paint fell out of his backpack. It exploded in front of the squad car. The beam of light swung up. Turning his face away before the spotlight pinned him, he felt Lardo yank hard, and he grabbed hold of the wall and swung onto the flat roof.
Unsnapping the harness, Bobby Ray reached for his backpack. “Forget it!” Lardo groaned. “Come on!” He ran for the stairs. He stopped and looked back.
Bobby Ray told him to be cool. “They didn’t see you, bro.” He stuffed his gear into the backpack and tossed it onto the roof on the other side of the alley. He moved back far enough to get a running start and sailed across, hit hard and rolled to his feet.
Halfway down the block, he ducked down and watched two officers questioning Lardo on the street. They let him go. They hung around another minute or two, checking the alley with flashlights. When they finally returned to the squad car and left, Bobby Ray went back. He didn’t have Lardo teaming with him, so he had to tie the rope and walk down the wall. He worked for another few minutes and used the black marker he’d made from PVC pipe to write BRD.
“I knew you wouldn’t be able to leave it alone,” Lardo snarled from below.
Bobby Ray hauled himself up to the roof and stuffed the rope in his bag. The piece was big enough to draw attention, small enough to be precise, and positioned where volunteers wouldn’t be in a hurry to risk life or limb to cover it.
He spotted someone in the apartment house across the street. Was the guy reporting him or viewing the graffiti as an improvement? Bobby Ray shouldered his pack and climbed down the fire escape to meet Lardo on the street.
The whoop of a police siren made Bobby Ray’s pulse jump. Lardo took off. The size of a linebacker, he could run over anyone who got in his way. “Cut right!” Bobby Ray shouted after him. Lardo understood the message and took a left in an alley. Bobby Ray waited for the cops to spot him before leading them on a merry chase. Adrenaline surged through him, heightening his senses.
The sun was coming up when he climbed, unnoticed, through the window of his latest foster parents’ apartment.
The next morning, Lardo fell into step with Bobby Ray in the high school corridor. “Where you been all morning?”
“Sleeping in.” Chuck, his foster father, had rousted Bobby Ray at ten and told him to get to school. He didn’t want social services breathing down his neck again after last week. Chuck spent most of his time sprawled in front of the television, drinking Budweiser. He worked nights at a parking garage. Josey worked days at a grocery store. Bobby Ray could count on his fingers the number of times the three of them had been in the house together. Eight. Always on the day a social worker scheduled a look-see.
Lardo grinned. “You put that red face on the Ellis building? The one making the windows look like eyes?”
“A month ago.”
“Someone was taking pictures.”
Probably the cops who kept files on gang taggers. Each graffiti artist had his own style. Bobby Ray wanted his work recognized, but he’d have to find ways to work faster or end up in jail.
Lardo started talking about another party happening. Bobby Ray wasn’t interested. He needed to get to American history.
He shoved the door open and slid into a desk at the back. Mr. Newman was lecturing again on the Civil War, but Bobby Ray’s thoughts drifted to the Ellis Street building. He’d like to paint it end-to-end with heads, each a different color, all with dark window eyes, doors like gaping mouths screaming, laughing, baring teeth. How many cans of paint would that take? He’d need a crew working with him. He’d have to keep the design simple so others could fill in color. He’d need lookouts and time. Problem was he liked working alone, with one guy on watch.
Someone sitting near him asked a question about Civil War weaponry and brought Bobby Ray out of his dreaming. He tried to concentrate. A girl in the front row took notes. She was one of the quiet ones who kept her head down, studied hard, and dreamed of getting out of the Tenderloin. Bobby Ray opened his notebook and started sketching. He flipped another page and drew a gangsta on the marble steps of city hall, a black briefcase in his hand.
A hand planted itself in the middle of his drawing. Bobby Ray flinched. Mr. Newman turned the notebook and studied the picture. His brows flicked up over his dark-rimmed glasses. “Are you taking art?”
“No.”