Work Text:
A dash of red here, a streak of blue there. One wrong move, one too-eager flick of the wrist, and the whole thing would be ruined. But that was just part of the thrill. It was so easy to fuck up when you were working with something as imprecise as spray paint, but the result was something so vibrant it felt almost alive.
The scene he was painting was of a moonlit New York City skyline… not the most original work he’d ever done, but hey, he felt entitled to indulge himself every once in a while. He reached up to dab the too-big moon with a crumpled newspaper, careful not to brush up against the wet paint of the night sky. He got chills as he flicked white paint at the wall, getting the strange feeling that he was actually herding the stars into place. It probably came from the fact that the real stars were hanging just above him, judging his portrait of them with keen eyes. It was another feature that other brands of art just didn’t have. The elements, right there at his fingertips. Nature, breathing down his neck.
He was starting to get sentimental, a sign that he should probably finish up and get packing. Emotion was good, but in moderation. After all, he didn’t want to get too attached to this piece, as it would soon be covered up and he wouldn’t even recognize it. He stepped back, shaking a can of paint thoughtfully as his work fell under his own scrutiny. Eventually, he deemed it “good enough” and unsheathed his smallest stencil, painting it in the corner in a nondescript, dark blue. The signature proudly declared the artist to be “Kaizo.”
***
It was hot as hell. Damn Californian summers could sap a guy’s energy in no time. Just walking out of his air conditioned motel room left Dean feeling like he’d run into a brick wall of heat and humidity, but he had to leave sometime. But the pristine, brick walls of San Francisco weren’t gonna paint themselves. It was a dirty and, lately, a sweaty job, but someone had to do it.
As he perused the streets, Dean wiped the sweat off of his brow with the back of his hand and huffed in annoyance. The suckiest part was that he wasn’t even supposed to be here. Only a few days ago, he’d been doing a tour around North Dakota. Cool, temperate North Dakota with its shady trees and mild, midwestern summers. But the cops there had been on his ass, even more so than usual, so he had to skip town earlier than planned. It seemed he’d been racking up a bit of a reputation; apparently taking an extended road trip around the continental US and disfiguring every wall he could find in the process was frowned upon by the authorities. Yeah, sure, he could just stop signing his works and disappear off the radar, but if he was being honest, Dean loved the attention. It was nice, finally being known for something; an artist to some, a renegade to others. Either way, Dean would take the danger over anonymity, any day of the week.
While grumbling silently about his abrupt departure from North Dakota, Dean stumbled accross the perfect canvas. It was a brick wall, on the outskirts of some sissy art school. It’d been painted recently; a dull, slate gray that clashed with the walls around it. The area was deserted at the moment, though Dean guessed that whenever classes let out there would be a crowd of college kids coming through this area. He’d have to work fast.
With the early morning sun beating persistently at his back, Dean got to work. He hefted the backpack off of his shoulders and pulled out a grimy can smudged with an assortment of colors, wielding it more like a weapon than a can of spray paint. He worked efficiently, swapping out for different colors every now and then, each can looking more used and worn than the last. Dean didn’t care when paint covered his hands or splashed back onto his shirt, in fact, he prefered it that way. It was almost like he was a part of the painting himself, getting absorbed into it even as he created it.
By the time he was done, Dean was covered in black paint and the wall sported a new decoration. It was a car, but not just any car. A black, ‘67 Chevy Impala. It was a representation of Dean’s own car, and a painting he’d done countless times on various walls all over America. When he finished, Dean signed his pseudonym free-hand above the car. “Impala67.” It was a fitting name, but also the username and password for every site Dean had ever subscribed to. Probably not the smartest idea to plaster it over every wall he could find, but whatever. It was the only thing he could come up with at the time.
Satisfied that he had thoroughly defaced this wall, Dean packed up his paints just as a flood of pretentious art students rounded the corner.
“Time to go.” Dean muttered to himself before he took off running, disappearing from sight before anyone could see the desecration of school property.
***
“Dude, are you seeing this?!” Brady nudged Sam, standing on tip-toe to see past the crowd. “Whoever did this has got some serious balls.” Being as tall as he was, Sam didn’t have to strain to see the defaced wall. He’d been expecting the scandal, but he hadn’t been expecting to see everyone fussing over some dumb car. Where was the night scene he’d labored over all night? Gone, never to be seen by anyone. Replaced by this stupid, hasty thing.
“Whatever, man, it’s not a big deal.” Sam walked off and pulled Brady along with him. His friend stumbled, but followed after him.
“Woah - not a big deal?! You know how anal the President is over the ‘aesthetic’ of the school, she’s gonna be royally pissed about someone graffiting the walls.” Yes, Sam knew all about the president’s obsession over the school’s cleanliness, but she was also a bitch. Admissions had turned down Sam’s friend’s application, and he suspected it was because she was openly gay. She was a much better artist than Sam… it wasn’t fair. He’d appealed to Admissions about it, and then the President, but they’d all declined to comment on the issue. It was the reason he’d taken his street art to the campus walls, instead of the back alleys he usually painted on. It was the only way he could get back at the school without getting expelled himself, and this “Impala67” guy had taken that away from him. Sam’s cheeks burned in a rare show of anger.
“Who cares? They’ll paint over it soon anyway. No big deal.” In fact, Sam had half-expected his art to have been covered up already by the time he got around to seeing it today, but to have it be painted over by some other guy? It was almost insulting.
In fact… why didn’t he beat the guy at his own game? There was nothing stopping him from painting right over that stupid car, so why not? In fact, he could do it tonight. He had an 8AM class tomorrow, but he could make it work. After all, this was a matter of pride.
***
Today was a good day. Today was the day Dean finally blew this town and headed for cooler weather. He had to admit, despite it being a sauna, Cali had been pretty good to him. All of his artistic endeavors went by without a hitch, and the girls here? Amazing. They didn’t make ‘em that way anywhere else.
Before he hit the road, though, Dean had one last item on his agenda. He’d heard that there’d been quite a fuss at that one art school… there’d even been a successful petition to keep the street art on the wall. Dean didn’t remember putting all that much care into that particular painting, so he had to go back one more time just to see how awesome of an artist he really was.
When he arrived, though, it wasn’t his trusty impala he found adorning the wall. In its place was a mural of some sort of planetary scene. It looked like two planets of equal size, one blue and one red, passing each other by as they orbited a fiery star. In some part of his mind, Dean could grudgingly admit that the painting was gorgeous… the attention to detail and subtle reflections of light surpassed Dean’s own skill. But mostly he was just disgusted that some asshole covered up his baby with this nerdy, star-trek crap.
“Isn’t it beautiful?” A girl, presumably a student, noticed him staring at the street art. “I’m so glad the school let us keep it, it really adds something to the campus, don’t you think?” When Dean didn’t answer, still fuming with indignation, the girl eventually walked away. Who the fuck did this guy think he was? The signature in the corner of the painting said “Kaizo,” whatever the hell that meant. What a stupid name.
Later that night, Dean came back to the mural. He painted a crude image of a dick, with the two planets as the balls and the sun at the tip. He even added some jizz at the end. No one could say he didn’t have an eye for detail.
***
Things had been going so well. Sam’s plan to take back his wall had gone had gone perfectly. In fact, his new painting was even better than the first (he was rather impressed with his own ability to capture the juxtaposition of the red and blue planets, but that was neither here nor there). He was touched by the petition to keep his artwork; it seemed even the students were fed up with the sterile, blank theme of the school and wanted to bring some life to the campus. Sam was even more shocked when the petition passed and his mural got to stay indefinitely. He almost wished he’d signed his real name, now.
After two weeks with no retaliation from Impala67, Sam thought he’d won for sure. But then, on his way to his first class, he saw that someone had put a tarp over his mural. Frowning, Sam approached the wall and, after looking over his shoulder to make sure no one was watching him, pulled back the corner of the tarp.
Sam gasped sharply, then let out his breath in a hiss. Someone had drawn a penis on his painting… there was no eloquent way to put it. The thing stretched obscenely over the entirely of the mural, like some sixth grade boy drawing on his teacher’s chalkboard behind her back. And, underneath it all, the perpetrator had crossed out Sam’s signature and wrote “Impala67 <3” in its place.
Sam touched the edge of the red planet morosely, lamenting the loss of what had been his best work, bar none. He’d just gotten used to the idea that his art would be on the walls of the school forever, and now there was no way anyone would want to keep it.
Sighing, Sam let the tarp fall back into place. As he walked to his class, he came up with a plan. He was going to find out who this Impala67 guy was and settle this stupid fight, once and for all.
***
This was the dumbest plan ever. He’d been crouched behind this garbage can for two hours and Impala67 still hadn’t shown. His knees hurt, his neck was cramped, and it was too dark to see much of anything, anyway. Two hours ago, Sam had reluctantly coated both the painting of the planets and its accompanying male genitalia in a thick coat of black paint, then signed his name on the bottom. He’d stuffed the tarp in the very trashcan he hid behind, but the hardest part was just waiting for the wall-stealing asshole to show his face. Eventually though, just as he was about to call it a night and head back to his room, Sam heard footsteps coming from his left. He tensed, watching with bated breath as a man in a leather jacket strolled down the sidewalk. Thankfully, the combination of the darkness and the garbage can seemed to hide Sam from sight, since the guy passed right by him and came to stand in front of the now black wall. The stranger looked at the wall thoughtfully before snorting in disdain. Sam waited for him to set down his backpack and pull out a can of paint before emerging from his hiding place.
“Hey, jerk.” Sam was smug to see that he was bigger than the guy, not that he planned to get into a physical fight. He wasn’t sure what he planned to do, actually. He’d never fought anyone in his life; being an art student, it wasn’t like he hung out with a violent crowd. But he hadn’t planned anything past this point, either. The other guy’s shoulders tensed before he turned around, a sly grin on his face.
“What d’ya want, bitch?” Sam shoved his hands in his pockets and strode forward a few steps, trying to look more confident than he was.
“That’s my wall. Shouldn’t touch what isn’t yours.” The man looked around in mock surprise.
“Really? I don’t see your name on it.” Sam took another step forward.
“I’m Kaizo.” He nodded to his name in the corner of the black wall. The man’s gaze landed on his signature, his face carefully closed off. Despite the lack of emotion, Sam thought he looked worried.
“Uh huh. Well, if it really is you, I must say I’m not impressed with your latest work.” Sam’s eyes narrowed. So he thought he was funny, did he? He should’ve guessed that, what with the decoration he’d added on to Sam’s planet painting.
“It’s better than anything you’ve ever done.” Sam shrugged, nonchalant, like he wasn’t proud that he’d come up with such a good comeback. The other man just smirked, slowly putting his paint can back into his bag.
“Well, it’s been fun. I gotta split, though, see you around.” Momentarily stunned by the confrontation’s abrupt ending, Sam didn’t move out of the way when the other guy brushed past him. The guy hit Sam’s shoulder hard, and Sam shoved him away without thinking. The older man shoved Sam back, who's back hit the still-wet paint. Sam groaned when he felt his shirt and hair sticking disgustingly to the wall, but he had a bigger problem than stained clothes. The other guy had him against the wall, his arm pinning his shoulders. This was not what Sam had signed up for.
“Look, kid, I don’t care about your painting. Hell, I don’t even care that you painted your stupid planetarium over my car-”
“You’re the one who painted your stupid car over my skyline, so don’t give me that crap!” That seemed to give the other guy pause.
“Your what?” Sam tried to shove against the other man, but the guy was like a boulder.
“My city skyline… you painted over it in gray and then stuck your ugly-ass car on top of it.” Much to Sam’s surprise, the guy dropped his arm immediately. It took him a moment to register that his rival was laughing, actually holding his stomach as he chortled. Sam crossed his arms petulantly. “What’s so funny, wise-guy?” The man pulled it together enough to say,
“Dude, that wall was gray when I found it, I swear.” Sam furrowed his brows and tilted his head in confusion.
“What? So someone else…”
“I’m telling you, man, we’ve been punked.” No… there was no way. Coincidences like that just didn’t happen. The other guy seemed to see the hesitation on Sam’s face, because he added. “Must’ve been a cop or something… and what’d you expect? Defacing school property… I dunno man, that’s pretty illegal.” Before he could stop himself, Sam added,
“Well, you did it too.” The guy chuckled again, shaking his head.
“Yeah, well I’m me. Go back home, kid, we can forget this ever happened before you get expelled.” With that, the man walked away, careful not to brush Sam this time as he left him standing in stunned silence.
***
The next morning, Sam wasn’t sure if he’d dreamed his confrontation with Impala67 or not. He was tired, but that was a perpetual state of being for him. He walked to his morning class in a daze, his feet taking him past the now-infamous wall without thought. As he walked, Sam saw something out of his peripheral vision. He closed his eyes, sighed, and turned slowly, prepared for just about anything.
When he opened his eyes, Sam was not prepared to see an unfinished painting. It was the car from before, same make and model, but it only took up a fraction of the wall. It was more detailed, too, like the artist had put more effort into it. Other students were whispering excitedly about it; one of them pointed to a note in the corner. Sam walked closer to the wall, squinting to see what the note said.
“Now draw me a pretty background, bitch. -Impala67”
***
50 years later, the mural would still stand; a single car driving on a lonely road, with the moon and all of the galaxies looking on from above. The single piece of art on an otherwise blank canvas of a school, weathered only by time.