Tagged

by Diane C. Mullen

  Another smaller building off to the right. Windows all around.

  “That’s my studio.”

  “Studio?” Right. An artist.

  “Where I work on my sculptures—and my pottery.”

  “Oh.” Very cool.

  “Mostly I’m a high-school art teacher at the academy up the coast.

  Nod.

  “So, I’m starving. What about you?”

  “A little.” Could eat a whole Thanksgiving dinner.

  “Let’s go in and see what we can find. Your mom let me know what your favorite foods are, so I stocked up. You should’ve seen the woman at the co-op when I piled all the ramen on the counter.”

  “You didn’t have to get special stuff.”

  “No problem. I may even eat some of the ramen. I lived on it when I was in graduate school.”

  Grab my backpack and Crusaders duffel bag. Hear the waves from Lake Michigan as we walk toward the house.

  Definitely not in the hood anymore.

  Waiting for the sun to set

  The front porch of Kat’s house looks out onto the beach. A sandy front yard with clumps of tall grass all around. It slopes down a little hill to the beach. Lake Michigan’s straight out. A baseball field away. This is actually pretty decent.

  Screen door creaks open.

  “This is my favorite time of day.” Kat sits down. “I love watching the sun disappear into the big lake. Seeing different neighbors walk past on their way down to the beach. Everybody knows everybody. It’s nice to say hi.”

  Sunset in the projects means something completely different. Around the JFKs we already know the people who are out on the streets after dark. See them heading home when I walk Patrick, Fiona, and Declan to Most Holy Trinity each morning. Sister Therese gathers the empty bottles, needles, used condoms from the playground. Tells us, “God has given us another beautiful day.”

  Yeah, right.

  “There it goes.” Kat points at the sun.

  And then the huge ball of fire sinks into the water.

  Beginning my detention

  First full day in Lakeshore.

  Stay in bed as long as I want. No Mom telling me to get up and take the garbage down to the smelly Dumpster. That’s the second okay thing about being in Lakeshore. It’s quiet here, too. Nothing but the sound of waves.

  Stomach growls like an angry dog. Time to get up. Saint Al’s Crusaders shorts on. Down the stairs.

  Kat’s sitting at the table. Paintbrush stuck behind her ear. “Good morning, Liam.”

  “Morning.”

  She has a ceramic mug the color of Lake Michigan in her hands. Lifts it toward me. “My get-up-and-go.”

  “Oh.” I nod. Not sure what to do next.

  “Breakfast?” She’s wearing a faded Yale Fine Arts T-shirt.

  “Sure.”

  “There are bagels from the bakery and fruit from the farmers market in the kitchen.” She says. “Help yourself. Domus mea domus tu est.”

  Latin. My house is your house. Is she testing me?

  “Gratias tibi ago.” Thank you.

  She laughs. “Chalk one up for Catholic-school education.”

  Walk into the kitchen. Get a bagel. And another. Since it’s my house.

  “I’ve got to drive up to the arts academy. There’s a summer camp staff meeting.”

  “Okay.” Strawberry juice runs down my chin. Need to slow down.

  “Feel free to go down to the beach. Check out our little town if you want. Or just relax and do nothing.”

  “Cool.” Detention? Maybe freedom is more like it.

  After Kat leaves I notice a slip of paper on her fridge. It reads:

  “I am for an art that is political-erotical-mystical, that does something other than sit on its ass in a museum.” (Claes Oldenburg)

  Huh?

  Oh … I get it. Ha.

  Wait.

  What?

  Gazing at the rolling waves

  Lake Michigan is amazing. Like an ocean.

  It’s early afternoon. Have almost the whole beach to myself. Weird to be sitting here after being in Minneapolis only yesterday. Sand falls through my fingers like it would inside one of those glass things that shows the passing of time.

  Mom sending me to Lakeshore for the summer was not okay. Still.

  Water.

  Waves.

  Everything looks, sounds, feels, smells, tastes different from home. Maybe I could get used to this.

  Nothing around me but water. And sand. And trees on the cliff. Seagulls overhead. People mind their own business. No need to hope someone’s covering my back. Peaceful.

  But it’s not home.

  Not going to buy into all of this straightaway. I’m from the hood. No one better try to take that away from me. My identity belongs to me. And no matter where I am, or where I have to be, I’m not necessarily what’s around me. May have to be a part of my surroundings, but I can be separate from them. What stays inside is everything that’s ever happened to me.

  Don’t expect me to change.

  Receiving a call

  “It’s your mom,” Kat says.

  Maybe she changed her mind. Probably wants me to come home.

  “Hello?”

  “I just got off the phone with your headmaster.” She sounds irritated.

  “Oh.” Walk out to the front porch.

  “Well, that’s quite a response. Don’t you want to know why he called me?”

  “I guess.” Not really.

  “You guess? Why don’t you take a guess, then, Liam?”

  “Ummm. I’m not sure.”

  She lets out a huge sigh. “He told me they made every effort to help you get on the right path but that you refused to meet them even partway. Mentioned something about defacing school property. He said they waited until after the end of the year in hopes that you’d turn it around.”

  “What’re you talking about?”

  “Liam, they’ve made the decision not to let you come back to Saint Al’s next year.”

  “What?” Hate Saint Al’s. But can’t believe they kicked me out.

  “They’re pulling your scholarship and giving it to another student-athlete who can more fully appreciate it.”

  “They recruited me. This isn’t fair.”

  “What’s not fair? I’m told you stopped showing up to practice. And you’ve only got yourself to blame for your behavior.”

  “My behavior?” What about the behavior of my teammates? This is because I quit baseball. Who cares? I’m glad.

  “Now you’ve gotten kicked out of a good school. Maybe someday you’ll learn that you just have to … GOD DAMMIT, Liam. You have to at least try.”

  Never hear her use the Lord’s name in vain.

  Wow.

  Thinking about Saint Al’s

  Termination.

  Irritation.

  Humiliation.

  Satisfaction?

  Miseducation.

  Incarceration.

  Disconfirmation.

  Elimination.

  Retaliation?

  Contemplation.

  Turning to a clean page

  Need to draw in my blackbook. Try to piece together what’s been happening.

  Gun rammed against my head. Sent away for the whole summer. Kicked out of Saint Al’s forever. Now where will I go to school? Nothing makes sense.

  Practice my lettering. Come up with new ideas. What do I want to say? Nothing happens around here. Lakeshore, Michigan, is probably the most boring town in America. I’d have so many ideas if I were still at home. Always something going on. Nothing you can’t do in Minneapolis.

  Think of home. Remember being stretched out on my top bunk. Feet propped up on my pile of undone homework. Blackbook open. Messing around with different designs and colors. Trying to figure out my style.

  Remembering back to the night before I left. Patrick on the bottom bunk. Schoolbooks open.

  “Hey, Liam, when you read The Giver in seventh
grade, did you have to do this future-community thing?” he asked.

  “Everyone at MHT has to.” Loved that project. “It was decent. I got to draw the design of the city for my group. Got an A.”

  “Would you draw me an idea for the layout of the city?” Patrick said.

  “Aren’t you supposed to?”

  “Help me out, Liam.”

  “I’m busy right now.” Wanted to do my own thing.

  He sighed loud to make sure I heard him.

  I hung my head over the side of my bed. “Why don’t we work on it together?”

  “Seriously?” He had a huge smile.

  Made me feel good. “Yeah.” Hoped that I’d have some more time to myself later.

  Now, sitting here at Kat’s, I’ve got all the solitude I’ve ever wanted. But I don’t like it. Don’t want time to think about all that crap.

  Close my blackbook.

  Relaxing after dinner

  Usual routine. Same thing every night since I got here a week ago. Kat and I read, play board games, shoot the breeze a little. Never too much talking.

  She’s reading the New York Times. “No! Red Sox lost to the Yankees in extra innings.”

  “You’re a Boston fan?”

  “Since I could talk.”

  “Just like my mom.”

  “Absolutely. She and I used to skip school sometimes and sneak into Fenway Park to catch matinee games.”

  Laugh. Can’t imagine Mom doing anything bad. “Did the Twins play yesterday?” I say.

  “Let’s see … Minnesota beat Chicago.”

  “Cool.” I hate the White Sox. “Now I think we’re only three games behind them in the standings. Just wait until Boston plays in Minneapolis.”

  “Bring it.” Kat smiles. “Red Sox Nation!”

  “Okay.” Awkward.

  Stretched out on the couch. Looking around the living room. Paintings. Photos. Couple of sculptures. Tons of books. No television. Very cool fireplace made of huge rocks. Can’t imagine hauling them in from Lake Michigan, trying to make each one fit into just the right place. Like pieces in a puzzle.

  Whole wall of books. I get up to take a closer look. They’re mostly about art—or artists. Paul Gauguin. Joan Mitchell. Frida Kahlo. Keith Haring. Cy Twombly. I’ve seen something from most of these artists at the Walker Art Center back home. I’ve seen surrealists like Salvador Dalí there, too. Kat has a book about American women sculptors. One about Jackson Pollock and another on abstract art. Very cool. Pull a book about cubism off the shelf. Maybe she has something about Picasso. Vincent van Gogh. Jean-Michel Basquiat.

  “Baskweeat?”

  “Baz-KEE-ah. One of my favorite artists,” Kat says. “You might like his work.”

  “Hmmm.” Take the Basquiat book, too. It has a painting of a black angel on the cover. Surrounded by bright reds and oranges. Black-and-white photo of Basquiat on the back. Sitting on an old-fashioned chair. Like a king’s throne. Wearing trousers with paint stains. Checkered suit coat. White shirt. Tie. Dreads pulled together like a waterfall on top of his head. Rests his chin on his left hand. Stares into the camera. Right at me. Sad look on his face. Like he’s worn out.

  Open the book. Amazing. Pages filled with bright yellows. Blues. Reds. Greens. Stick people like Declan draws. Words. Images. Things scratched out. Names. Lists. Urban scenes. Familiar scenes. Says Jean-Michel Basquiat started out as a graffiti writer.

  He was “driven by an insatiable hunger for recognition, fame and money, wavering between megalomania and an insurmountable shyness, plagued by self-doubt and self-destructive impulses.” He died “of an overdose on August 12, 1988, aged just twenty-seven.”

  Self-destructive impulses?

  His paintings are very cool. Why doesn’t he look like he knows it?

  Waking up in my summer bedroom

  Not the one I share with Patrick and Declan.

  I sleep by a window overlooking Lake Michigan. Not by the one that opens onto a parking lot.

  I’m in a room on the second floor of a house on a beach. Not in the one on the eleventh floor of a project in a big city.

  Like night and day.

  Grab my blackbook. My pencils. Hit the page. Try to capture this scene outside my window. No one would believe how phenomenal this is. Maybe I could turn this into a huge graffiti piece that would make people stop and stare. Just like my favorite phoenix piece. Maybe I can learn how to create something beautiful for everyone to enjoy in my hood.

  I use colored pencils to show the tones of the lake. Fill the page with three different shades of blue. Turquoise for the small rolling waves up by the shore. Blue-green ripples farther out. Midnight blue where the big sailboats travel.

  Copying what’s around me.

  Don’t ever want to forget this scene.

  Searching for the meaning

  Looking around the living room. Want to figure out those descriptions of Basquiat. Dreamed about him all night. Nightmares. His paintings came to life and were trying to beat the crap out of me. Chased me all around my hood. Screamed at me to stop. Basquiat just kept laughing. Then he started crying.

  “Good morning.” Kat walks down the stairs. “You’re up early.”

  “Morning. Do you have a dictionary?”

  “Over there.” Points to the other side of the room. “On the shelf behind my desk.”

  “Thanks.”

  “Did you eat yet?”

  “No, but I’ll get something in a minute.” Open the dictionary. Search through the M section.

  Megalomania is “the enjoyment of having power over other people and the craving for more of it. A psychiatric disorder in which the patient experiences delusions of great power and importance.”

  Okay.

  Think I know the definition of the other word. Want to be sure.

  “Insurmountable: impossible to overcome or deal with successfully.”

  Basquiat loved power but didn’t know how to deal with it? Maybe I should try to find out more about this artist.

  Maybe not.

  Knocking on the door to Kat’s studio

  Dying to see inside this place. Been looking through the windows when she’s not around. Never actually asked to go in. Knock.

  “Yes?”

  “It’s me, Liam.”

  “Come on in.”

  Kat’s standing in the middle of the room. She’s staring at some sort of sculpture made of shiny metal. Lifts a pair of goggles off her eyes. “Thanks for knocking, but this studio is always open to you. Okay?”

  “Sure.” This must be what artists’ heaven looks like. Sun shining through the windows. Beams of light everywhere. Like an abstract painting. Concrete floor with big paint stains. Hunks of clay under a pottery wheel in one corner. Old stone fireplace covering one wall from the floor to the ceiling. Try not to smile. It’s like someone asked me what my dream place would look like, saw it in my mind, then made it right here.

  Sweet.

  “Does it pass the test?”

  Shrug. With flying colors. Walk over to a big wooden table. Loaded with ceramic bowls. Pick one up. “What are all these?”

  “My Lakeshore Empty Bowls Project.”

  “What?”

  “One of my very favorite art projects. I make the bowls, the residents of the assisted living home decorate them, and women from Saint Catherine’s parish use them to feed the hungry.” She smiles. “I love everything about them.”

  “Oh.” Put the bowl down. Don’t want to drop it. Walk around the studio.

  “Speaking of favorite projects, Liam, are you still working on your wonderful sketches?”

  “Yeah.”

  “Good. What kinds?”

  “Mostly graffiti.”

  “Hmmm.” She nods.

  “I want to be a graffiti writer.”

  “I love the intensity of that art form. But why exactly is the graffiti artist called a writer?”

  “Because it means someone who practices the art of graffiti. Studies. A
lways trying to get better.”

  “You’re a student, then.”

  “I’m just getting started.” Too much talking.

  “What forms?”

  Maybe she knows what I’m talking about. “Tagging mostly.”

  “A tag is the graffiti artist’s name right?”

  “Yes.”

  She nods. “When did you become really interested in tagging?”

  Probably safe to tell her. “Been bombing around my neighborhood for a couple of months.”

  “Bombing?”

  “Getting my tag up. Quick and undercover. Bombing.”

  “Sounds mysterious. Tag names are secret, right?”

  I nod.

  “I’m intrigued by graffiti. Why do you like it?”

  “Why not?”

  She nods. “Fair enough.”

  “Any around here?”

  “No.” She laughs. “Graffiti shouted from everywhere in my Brooklyn neighborhood. Tags and, um, what are the big colorful graffiti paintings called?”

  “Pieces. That’s short for masterpieces.” Glad I know my terms.

  “Thanks. Pieces were all over NYC.”

  “They’re everywhere in my hood, too.”

  “Some were quite intricate and beautiful,” she says.

  “There’s this one in an alley by our projects that’s so cool, I swear it should be on a gallery wall at the Walker.”

  “What makes it so appealing to you?”

  I think for a second. “I don’t know. It’s different from other pieces I’ve seen. More professional.”

  “Do you find the graffiti work of others inspiring?”

  I nod.

  “I suppose it’s like studying the masters in any other art form,” she says.

  “Sure.”

  Nice! Kat just called graffiti an art form.

  Noticing a swinging bottle

  A man in front of me holds it. He’s wearing shorts covered with little anchors. Walking down the cereal aisle at the grocery store. That preppy look would last about ten seconds around the JFKs.

  Kat stops in the middle of the aisle. “What kind of cereal do you like?”