Like Your Paint

Behind the convenience store, next to the dumpster where I’ve parked, a heavy man stands before a white plastic fence. A can of spray paint is in his right hand, others poke out of a satchel near his belly. I watch him over my dashboard, sip my hot tea. He’s painting a mural, wild, indecipherable and bright as this yellow fall day. I decide his name is Wayne because I want him to be real.


Do you know that whatever you’re painting will fade, Wayne? Or else it will be painted over by some miser; it will not last. Graffiti is youth, and time or someone or something will destroy it.

I’m being pessimistic, forgive me.

My father is sick, Wayne. I’m on the way to the hospital now and feeling heavy. Today they are going to use lasers to shoot the cancer cells in his brain. This is what my day holds.

But here you are: making art in public, risking fines or whatever penalties they have for middle-aged vandal-artists. You must be celebrating something, look at that smile on your face.

You inspire me, Wayne. You really do.

Look at you: your big belly, that lit cigarette in your mouth despite the aerosol—who cares if you explode, you’re alive right now! The wind is teasing your white hair into wild strands. You are confronting yourself and the world with that spray can, making a statement.

This morning, while you paint, I’m going to look down at the decaying face of my father and wonder whether he will gain more wisdom if he survives or if he dies. My grandmother will tell stories about when my father was a child. He was a bad kid, Wayne, in a funny way. But I can’t listen to her stories lately. I go for walks when she starts to tell them. On my walks I beat myself up for denying her privilege because of my own fears.

Maybe today will be different because of you, Wayne. Maybe I’ll follow your lead. Maybe I’ll buy a magic marker and plant myself in front of a giant hospital window, one facing the highway, and I’ll tag my heart to it. I’ll re-write my grandmother’s stories and make her little boy good and when her grief lifts his sickness will float away like your paint, like my fear, our existence.