Max Painting

Max is a nice guy, slowly scraping the lip of a beer bottle against the concrete wall of a building, crossing the running line of a street lamp’s shadow. Seems like Max is always checking out the crease where the wall meets the sidewalk. Maybe it’s his bum leg that makes him watch the ground as he walks. He may not move that fast, but he knows how to throw a punch.

This one time he hit a cop in Sellers Park. Max was sitting on a bench and this cop starts to cough up something nasty then hocks it on the hopscotch court. The one Max just got done stenciling the day before with these crazy dancing stick figures where the numbers should be. The cop just spits on this hopscotch court and there’s kids playing on it--cops got no respect for kids, yo. Yeah, Max’s always setting the kids up with fresh designs for the hopscotch and foursquare courts. This one was like two days old and this cop just spits on it and Max goes crazy. Walks over to the cop, doesn’t even say anything and just punches him in the gut. It was wild. The cop was all stunned and Max is growling some bullshit at him. Yeah I was playing ball and caught Max cuffed up and headed for the patrol car. Heard he got thirty days for that shit. Man you think he’s protective of his graff in the park, you should have seen what he did to this kid User who writes on the Seventh Street bridge. Remember that big throw-up, maybe about three months ago on the bridge? It was big, man. Max spent a week under the bridge with a sleeping bag working on it. You could see his cans hanging from the bridge in a shopping bag while he was up there. And that’s hardcore sleeping under the bridge, that ain’t no joke when it’s cold. I ain’t too sure of what it was saying. It was some crazy palindrome poetry or saying or something. “Être bien dans sa peau” is what it said, with like rainbow bubbles all around the edges. Max used some crazy script so that you could read it and it would say the same thing in French, Latin, and English all at the same time. Like looking at a maze. Means you’re cool with yourself or something. Yeah, I speak French. Bons bons, oui oui, and all that good stuff. Naw, just playing. I couldn’t read the thing but that’s what Max was saying when he finished it and came down to the park to tell everyone. Maybe he looked it up in the library or something. Only bum I know who lives in an Astro van and still has a library card. Naw but this kid User, like a month after Max finished the thing, went and threw up his name all over the bubbles and shit. All one-can shit with fuzzy edges and Max’s shit was crisp. Even the shadows was looking nice. Max tracks down the kid living with his sister and her kid in some apartment. Calls him out being a punk on the stoop one day and beats the shit out of him. And Max is like forty-five or something and he beat this kid down then sprayed Krylon on his face. My man had orange Krylon on his face for a week, yo.

Funny shit. Yo, let me get a light. Yeah, yeah, Max is like a graffiti artist man. Not just putting up his name on walls but all thought-out like some master plan and shit. Matter fact I heard he got put back in for stealing some ninety-nine cent cheap-ass, plastic cutting boards. Says he was making stencils out of them and going down to the mailboxes downtown. Gonna put some crazy three-color stencil design on all the mailboxes downtown. Yo, who this? Yo, put that shit out! Ohhoohoo! Max! Whachew doin’ yo? Yo Max, you not looking so good, what you sipping on?

“Beer. Wanna drink some beer?” Max stops scraping his bottle on the concrete wall and thrusts it out to offer it up.

Naw, man. I’m cool with the alcohol. Yo, Max you smelling like fumes, man. You been huffing that shit again?

“Naw. No, it’s beer. Have some beer.” Max takes a sip then puts the bottle in his hand.

Yo Max, you got a beer bottle full of paint here, man. What you doing with a bottle full of paint?

“Ahh, it’s great man. I’m doing the background of this new painting now. You fill the bottles with paint then smash them up against a wall. It makes this big splatter design. Then I’m going to outline the spatters in gray, maybe some other stuff, whatever.”

Max you got a bottle of paint you drinking. How long you been drinking paint?

“Beer, man! It’s beer! Have some beer!” Max gives a sour burp then leans against the wall.

Yo, I think he’s gonna be sick on us. Damn! Man we gonna have to take his ass to the hospital or something. Max! You going to be sick or something?

“My skin feels strange--” Max’s mouth is gaping open and a spray of violet paint comes bursting out and hits the wall he’s leaning on. Two quick breaths and again Max is spraying paint out of his mouth and nose. This time fire-engine red.

Max’s hand swipes at the wall and smears the two colors together. He spits a few gobs of canary yellow then turns back towards the wall.

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