Spacecraft

by Benjamin Broke

and told her someone smashed the back window and stole the car keys. It was believable ‘cause if you looked in the back window, you could see the keys hanging there on the peg. I guess they never realized the pink slip was gone too. I’m sure they didn’t fill out a police report, my uncle hates cops more than me. We should be in the clear.” He laughed. “That fool’s gonna be riding the bus a long time.”

  “You’re pure evil, man.” I said. “Robbing your family members and shit… What’s wrong with you?”

  “You don’t know the guy,” Michael said, “he deserves it.”

  “I’m just kidding, I don’t care. If I had an uncle I’d probably rob him too.”

  It was getting dark out and we were skating down Lake Avenue on our way to Jeremy’s house when Michael stopped in front of Hamilton Elementary School (the pink prison). I rolled up and stopped next to him. “What’s up?” I asked.

  “Didn’t you see that? C’mon, there’s some graffiti heads behind Hammy. Let’s go check it out.” We went up the side street to the fence behind the school and looked down onto the playground. The yard of the elementary school is sunk down about seven feet from the sidewalk and the fence went up another seven feet or so, making it a fourteen foot drop if you were brave enough to try to climb it. Over by the basketball courts there were three guys standing in front of the wall of a big building. It looked like they were taking turns with some spray paint and their skates were laying nearby. They were being very loud which was odd considering what they were up to.

  “Who is that?” I asked.

  “That’s G and Todd. I don’t know who that other guy is.”

  “That’s G? Damn, he got tall since the last time I saw him. How the fuck’d they get down there?” I asked.

  “There’s a hole in the fence on the low side over in the corner. Let’s go see what they’re writing.”

  I followed him around the corner and down a strip of cement between the fence and a row of bushes. We had to duck and push the branches back to get to the low side of the wall. At the corner, near the ground, the edge of the fence had been pulled up and out, probably with pliers. Michael ducked under and stepped down onto the court. I passed the skates through and crawled under myself. He casually jumped on his skate and glided toward the vandals. I followed.

  “Look at these stupid motherfuckers rolling up on us.” A kid in sagging jeans shorts and a Raiders hat said loudly. G stopped writing and walked over to where Todd and the other kid stood.

  Michael laughed. “Calm down.” He said as we stopped in front of them. “We just wanted to see what you were doing.”

  “Well now you’ve seen it so you can turn your asses around and get the fuck out of here.” Todd said.

  G giggled. “Hey hold up, it’s Nick,” he said, “I haven’t seen your skinny ass in a long time. Were you in jail or something?”

  “No South Pasadena.” I said. “What’s up with you?”

  “Same old shit.” He turned to Mr. Raiders hat, “cool out, this dude’s from my street. What’s going on Mikey? I never see you or Jeremy around no more.”

  “Well, your mom keeps me pretty busy so I don’t have as much free time as I used to.”

  “You’re always talking shit aren’t you?” G said.

  “So can we get in on this wall, or what? I feel like expressing myself.” Michael said.

  “Yeah, I guess.” G shrugged.

  “You can use some paint, but you gotta write over there, so no one thinks your weak-ass tags have anything to do with us.” Todd said.

  “Sounds fair.” Michael said. “First show us what you’re doing.” We walked up and saw the word ‘mayhem’ written in block letters where a security light illuminated the wall. The outline was black and they were filling it in with silver. I’d seen the same thing on other walls in the neighborhood. Underneath it was G, $$$, which I figured was Mr. Raiders hat, and Todd.

  “Why do you just write Todd?” I asked. “Don’t you know you’re supposed to come up with a cool sounding name?”

  “Shut the fuck up.” Todd said. G laughed a little.

  Michael picked up the black spray can and G went back to filling in his block letters. We moved down to a spot on the wall that was lit up by another security light. “What should I write?” Michael asked me.

  “Let’s be the Ho Chi Minh crew.” I said.

  “That sounds good…Wait a minute though, how do I spell Minh?” He asked. “There’s an H in there somewhere.”

  “I don’t know. M I H N?” I said, not sure.

  “I think the H is on the end, like M I N H.”

  “That can’t be right. Why would the H be on the end?”

  “I don’t know it’s fucking Chinese.” He said. “I’ll just write Fuck Tha Police.”

  He began spraying out the letters stopping now and then to shake up the can. When he was finished it looked very sketchy and angry. It looked good.

  “Here, let me see that.” I said, taking the can from him and giving it a couple of shakes. I made a circle with two dots in it and then a bigger circle around that. I put eyes and ears on it and had a pretty good pig face. Underneath I wrote BITCH!

  “That’s cool.” Michael said. He took the can from me and drew some thunderbolts shooting up from his writing. He underlined my ‘BITCH!’ and took a few steps back. “This is a brilliant piece of work right here. Too bad it’ll probably get painted over before all the kids can see it.”

  “Hey, gimme the can, I’m gonna write something else.” I said. He handed it to me and I shook it a couple of times. In my most even handwriting, I wrote:

  SPACE = THE PRESENT

  “What the fuck does that mean?” Michael asked.

  “Oh, it’s this theory I been working on. Basically it means that what we think of as space, you know the world around us or whatever, that it’s really the exact same thing as the present.” I said.

  “That makes absolutely no sense Nick.”

  “Yeah, it does. Think about it. Space only exists in the present, right?”

  “No, there was space yesterday too.” He said.

  “Okay, but it’s not there anymore is it? It only existed in yesterday’s present. Yesterday isn’t a place you can go.” I said, parroting Mr. Bennett.

  “That’s a pretty deep thing to be trying to put across in some graffiti.” He said. Todd and Mr. Raiders hat came over.

  “I knew you’d write some stupid shit.” Todd said. “Gimme that paint boy, you’re wasting it.” He grabbed it out of my hand.

  “I’m done anyway.” I said, pulling out a cigarette and lighting it. Todd walked up to the wall and sprayed a line through what I’d written.

  “What’d you do that for you dick?” Michael said.

  “‘Cause it’s fuckin’ lame. I don’t want to be on the same wall with that retarded geek-boy shit. Space, the final frontier.” He said. Mr. Raiders hat thought that was funny. I could see that Michael was ready to fight over it.

  “You piece of shit…” Michael said before he was interrupted by a shout from the street. There was a guy in a track-suit standing on the other side of the fence yelling. He said something about calling the cops. Michael and I had our skates right there, so we were able to get away first. Todd and Mr. Raiders hat had to run back and get theirs. G was stuffing cans into a backpack. We climbed out the hole and hit the street toward Jeremy’s house. I didn’t see which way the other three went. “I hate that fucking asshole.” Michael said over the rumble of our wheels on the concrete.

  “He’s just trying to start shit. He’s always looking for a fight.” I said.

  “A fight? That’s a joke. I could stuff his ass down his throat.”

  When we got to Jeremy’s house there was no one home but we saw light coming from under the door of the garage, so we knocked. The garage door lifted part way up and Jeremy was squatting down to look out. He gave us a loud greeting and opened the door a couple of inches higher so we could duck under. The garage conta
ined an old Chevy and many years worth of junk. There were stacks of boxes, tools, sporting equipment and toys from Jeremy’s childhood. There was a mini refrigerator, a beat up Lay-Z-Boy and a stack of cinderblocks with a television on it. The TV was playing a Laverne and Shirley rerun. Jeremy was drunk.

  “This is where you’re hanging out now?” Michael asked.

  “I’m gonna clean it up and have this piece of shit towed and move out here.” He said. “This is going to be my private little pad.”

  “That’ll be a big improvement over your current situation.” I said.

  “Yeah it will.” He took a sip of beer. “Hey, Don was looking for you.”

  “Why?”

  “He said you broke up some big party last night and ruined their gig or something. He was afraid you were still stuck in Hollywood ‘cause they left without you… You want a beer?”

  “Yeah I’ll take one. -So that’s what he said? That I ruined his gig?”

  “Something like that.” He handed me a Coors tall-boy and gave one to Michael. “You killed the guy’s dog and all hell broke lose.”

  “Yeah, that’s exactly what happened. For no reason I just killed the guy’s dog.” I said opening my can.

  “First Lilly, and now this. Man you’re fucked up. You know most serial killers start out on dogs.” He said.

  “Most homeless start out in their mom’s garage.” I answered.

  “You better watch out ‘cause a lot of people think their dogs are family you know. Like their dogs are their children. This guy might come looking for you.”

  “I’m not