Chapter 4
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On bright and sunny days, Albert took the subway. On wet and rainy days, Albert took the bus.
On bright and sunny days, the sun shone brightly, dilating Albert’s pupils and encouraging him to squint his way along the streets. He received great thrills entering the subway. Shuffling his feet down the stairs echoes reverberated off the walls, magnifying his presence. The experience made him feel as though he were some nameless Victorian archaeologist entering a deep cave in search of great wonders. The cool dampness gave off an earthy feel despite outward signs of industry and synthetics.
On wet and rainy days, Albert found nothing more soothing than the pitter patter of rain against windows and roofs. He had a tin roof installed above his bed in order to best enjoy the acoustics provided by striking droplets of water. Should he be forced to venture out on rainy days, or should he find himself already to have ventured out before the rain began, Albert would take the bus, glassy-eyed staring out the window as wind and water sloshed and drizzled, whipped and slid about the glass and metal. A light watering provided a chilly yet refreshing sensation during the scarce few steps requisite to leave a building and enter a bus stop. The bus womb was warm and safe and few things surpassed seeing his locale damp and dampening in terms of sheer pleasantness as far as Albert was concerned.
Musicians in the subway were deemed more pleasant. Polkas from accordion laden men and women were preferred, followed in a close second by fiddlers, but Albert was in general a great fan of all who sat about on the concrete and created repositories for idle change weighing down the pockets of would be passengers waiting for their train of choice to whisk them off to their destination of choice. Even the spoken word music of street preachers on the train were a pleasantry. Albert has always found music to be a blessing and anyone breaking up the monotony of crowds had his approval.
Despite the great joy he derived from subway musicians, Albert was a bit tone deaf and musically challenged and had only vague notions of the quality of the music. Besides, there was only so much individual musicians could do in terms of sound, as they are limited by the range of timbres and sounds they can produce with their selection of instruments and their voices. For these reasons, Albert’s ultimate pleasure came from graffiti.
Albert did not enjoy graffiti for the sake of it. Unless there was an image or legible words, Albert simply passed it by, lamenting the wasted opportunity to create something wondrous. He appreciated the rebelliousness of said graffiti, but without focus and thought the graffiti was mostly just vandalism and an excuse for tax monies to be squandered and pollution incurred in the cleansing of the defiled surface. Though, certainly, Albert appreciated the post-modern irony of sorts derived from the act of arting the signature instead of signing the art or of claiming walls and medians as the work of art and garnishing them with signatures. However, this could only be justified so many times before being reduced to the status of hackneyed.
What Albert enjoyed about graffiti was the life innate in it. Graffiti was never static. At the very least, the building would decay or be replaced, leaving the graffiti in a constant state of decay (though perhaps gradual). More immediately, the graffiti would likely be cleansed or, better yet, altered. As soon as one artist marked up the wall, another could come behind and transform it. The transformation did not have to be mind boggling or dramatic; something as simple as adding genitals by the mouth of a spray paint Mona Lisa would suffice. Indeed, turning the once pristine walls into treasure troves of obscenity and vulgarity seemed to Albert a quite desirable goal. Above all, Albert appreciated artistic alterations of advertisements. Albert harbored a deep disdain for consumer culture and materialism. Useless clutter had gathered dust in his childhood home as he walked to school past legions of the downtrodden and he could not help but develop the sentiment that making a healthful sandwich and giving it to a street sleeper in exchange for life stories was a much better use of disposable income. He especially loathed posters for cosmetics. Destroying positive body images in order to cajole people into donning carcinogens in the name of profits left a bad taste in Albert’s mouth. Needless to say, arbitrary profanities splattered across such ads always put a smile on his face. Even better were the creative remixes of the original message. Albert’s personal favorite: “Maybe she’s born with it. Maybe it’s silicone.”
Albert’s love of graffiti extended beyond the subway. He frequently voiced the opinion that all surfaces should be decorated with graffiti and upon waking each morning checked the facades of his residence for graffiti, though he was always disappointed (his neighborhood being a bit nice). His only reservation, indeed, was that he feared the environmental consequences of spray paint and was rather unsure as to whether suitable alternatives existed. For this reason, Albert tended to favor graffiti etched on picnic tables and in bathrooms as it seemed lower impact. Additionally, the medium allowed for easy additions and emendations. Nearly all of the interesting ones were to be found in academic institutions, though. Standard public bathrooms were nearly uniform in their racism, homophobia, and profanities. Intellectuals make for interesting vandals. Albert’s favorite had two authors, one adding to the other:
Fight the systm!
Stp th vwls!
During his 19th year of life graffiti changed Albert. Having completed his high school education, he grew weary of structured intellectualism and began charting his own course of learning while supporting himself through the noble profession of plumbing. His first intended learning outcome was to decipher the nature of the graffiti artist.
The problem was simple. The problem was straightforward. The problem was in no way difficult to understand: Albert did not know any graffiti artists. The difficulty in comprehension came from Albert’s inability to figure out how he had managed to live so sheltered a life as to never befriend a member of the artistic movement he so cherished. Albert straightaway vowed to spend all of his waking hours attempting contact with his apparently elusive idols.
Albert’s original plan was to simply wait in a bathroom stall until he heard the etchings of graffiti being made. However, he soon realized that this was not only unlikely to produce any results (graffiti artists preferring to do their work in solitude in order to avoid retribution), but additionally ran him the risk of garnering a sex crime for his resume. Riding the subway all day proved equally fruitless.
Plan B: enter the subway after the last run has been completed and sit in a corner, waiting for the sound of spray paint.
Albert rearranged his weekend sleeping hours to better suit his scheme. Unfortunately, several weeks passed with naught to show for it. Still, Albert prevailed.
One night, on the border of sleep with his knees hugged to his chest, Albert was stirred to alertness by the his of pressurized paint. Glancing quickly around, he spotted the artist in progress a scant ten meters from his position. Quickly and quietly, perhaps a bit too quietly, Albert approached the artist.
“Excuse me my good Sir–”
Albert was cut short as the hooded artist swung around, sprayed his eyes with the paint, gave him a quick kick in the groin, and darted off down the subway tunnel. Albert collapsed on the ground screaming and moaning and desperately trying to stop the burning sensation in his eyes.
He would probably have remained there indefinitely, pathetically squealing and squawking and thrashing about, had the artist not taken pity on him.
“Stand up,” she said.
“Please, please don’t hurt me anymore,” he groveled.
“Stand up,” she repeated.
Winded and crying, he obeyed. She dragged him by the arm to a nearby water fountain and helped him flush out the paint. Fortunately, not too much had gotten in and by the next morning he would be better.
“Thank you for helping me,” he panted.
“You shouldn’t be sneaking up on people, especially in a subway after dark. You’re lucky I don’t carry a knife or you’d have a handful of stomach right now,” she growled.
“I… I didn’t mean nothing by it. I have… a love for graffiti and was seeking to meet an artist. I didn’t mean… to startle you,” he stammered.
“Ha! An ‘artist,’” she mocked condescendingly, “what a load of crap. What is this, some kind of suburbanite joke? Did your friends dare you to spend a night in a haunted house as well?”
“No, I’m sincere. I’ve always greatly enjoyed graffiti and felt it would be nice to meet a graffiti artist,” he replied.
Albert went on to explain how he lived around the corner and had been spending nights here in hopes of meeting an artist, how he’d been unsuccessful until now, how he had plenty of questions concerning the craft. She remained suspicious and skeptical, but gradually was swayed to the notion of returning to his house for a few pints and a bit of chatter.
Gradually she warmed up to him and they spent the rest of the early morning discussing the intricacies of graffiti, her personal agenda, and their lives in general. Should you like to know the particulars, I recommend you follow your own Plan B, though learn the lesson of this story and make a bit more noise.
Having talked with her well into daylight, Albert felt a bit of a connection with the strapping young graffiti artist. After she took her leave, Albert decided to continue his regimen of haunting the underground on weekend evenings. At first he continued to encounter her only intermittently, but soon she was frequenting the subway as often as he was. Indeed, they had to make arrangements to visit other sections of the subway as the spray painting became so prolific and omnipresent that it caused a minor scandaled and caught the attention of the local newspaper.
Though she was a few years his elder, they found much in common and eventually began meeting during the day over tea. Then in the evenings over a nice dinner. Then for movies and popcorn. Then for a glass of wine in the evenings. Then, as lovers.
A jovial and good natured man already, Albert became walking bliss. His friends and family noticed, even his clients made note of his increased geniality. The sun never shone so bright, unclogging toilets never satisfied so. Albert slept soundly each night while dreaming of endless niceties. He lived in an opiate haze without needles or any of the other bothers. Albert was, deeply, profoundly, inextricably, happy.
It would not last.
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