Tiny Explosions

We spend hours throughout the week scouting. Any little clear wall or fixture is a perfect target. Dumpsters are low brow, thats weak. We are above that. Bridges are good spots, but high value real estate, you have to be emotionally ready for piece to get covered. Sometimes if you get lucky you can hit train or a semi truck but you have to find it when the driver isn't around. See walls don't have drivers, and are usually pretty open.

We had just hit a bridge last weekend. Big concrete one over some popular walking trails. We bombed it with glitter and pink, some faces and our slogans.

There were three of us. We always went by tag names, never use your real name while your painting. Mouse had a real straight line style. The “O” was square, and so were all edges. It always takes him a minute to throw anything up but once it is up, it looks great. When he had a lot of space he would do some great geometric stuff, sometimes write “Open your mind, do the math.”

Fart was new. See Fart is along the lines of everyones first name. For whatever reason you usually don't stick with your first tag. Mouse had gotten caught when he was Rat, and I just grew out of Weed and moved to my current one. Fart thought Fart was funny so he was going with it. Really it is stupid, but he will realize that as he grows as an artist. He was still learning but was able to have a pretty nice tag that was supposed to look like clouds. It kind of worked.

I was going by Buzz at the time. My M.O. was that I was willing to tag over smaller tags. I know it seems rude, but this game is competitive and fluid. To be fair I usually look for unfinished, bad, or gang tags. Stuff I don't think is good enough to have a full display. I swoop in and take what others left behind, like a buzzard, thus Buzz. My other thing was to put glitter around my bubble letter tag to make it look like an explosion. Thats why my slogan was, “Tiny Explosions”.

Mouse and I had been tagging together for months now. We had picked up Fart a few weeks ago. It was safer to tag in groups. First of all, just company is nice, but secondly you could have someone on lookout while someone else tags. Then switch. You get more place scouted before hand too.

We fancied ourselves a crew. A lot of true tagging happens from gangs, which was really what we weren’t. We considered ourselves artists, not vandals. Although the law probably didn’t argue, but part of our beliefs was disregard of authority.

This spot had been being scouted for weeks. It was a strip of abandoned buildings ready to be torn down to build condos. Some other popular crews had come through but 1) I’m the buzzard & 2) there was still a bunch of space. So we came in friday night/saturday morning at 3:00am.

I stood guard while Fart and Mouse hit it first. Fart was going to rush through his work, and Mouse was going to take way too much time. I smoked a cigarette as a kept an ear out for footsteps and an eye out for people and cars. There were none my entire time guarding. I rubbed my hands on my black and red flannel painting jacket. It was caked with nicotine and paint. It smelt awful, like evidence.

In a few minutes Fart came over. “Alright I hit it. Lets see what the Buzzard can do.” Fart was always trying to use lingo and slang but often came off awkward. I tagged out and went and found a fairly clear wall.

I slipped a paint pen out of my sleeve and did some basic Buzz tags, bubble letters with the “B” and “Z”’s in the foreground and the “U” coming out from the back. I came in with some glitter spray and gave all of them a pulse. I decided I wanted to do a “Tiny Explosions” piece so I went to go find a new wall.

There was a fairly good sized wall over by where Mouse was. I set my backpack on the ground and started looking for a good can. In the dim light of the moon I looked at the example images on the wrapper to see what color they were. I found the one that had the pink dollhouse. I smiled a sort of sad smile.

A few weeks before, for the first time in my life, I had used this very can of spray paint for the task on the wrapper. My older brother’s daughter had been into pink for a while, so for her birthday I painted her dollhouse pink. Now here I was. I dont know if it was guilt, but it felt wrong. I always justified the tagging as art, but knowing what I had bought this paint for, this felt wrong.

I heard footsteps so I quickly slid the can into the bag, zipped it, and turned to the sound. It was just Mouse coming over to see what I was doing. I had known Mouse for years, and our relationship had changed. Before we became street artist we hit every other brand of scum bag.

I remember once Mouse and I were in an alley way down town. Mouse was on the ground already when I took the same rag he had used, sprayed the rest of the can of spray paint onto it, pulled it up to my mouth, huffed hard. The familiar rush hit me hard and immediatly, and I found myself on the ground too. The high only lasted for maybe a minute, but it was amazing. This particular day though I started coughing. I coughed up blood, and lots of it. The same flannel jacket I was wearing tagging, was getting covered.

As Mouse approached me towards the end of my memory I looked down at my jacket and saw the blood stains. I looked back up at Mouse. “Why do you do street art?”

“Well.” he took a pause, “Don't we all want to leave our mark on this world?”

“But how is Buzz a mark?”

“It just is. Are you going to hit this wall?”

“Yeah.” I turned around sprayed a big pink Buzz tag, put some green pulse off it, and a huge green and pink sickly face surround by glitter with my signature speech bubble, “Tiny Explosions.” and as I finished the last “S” I tried to find the real meaning, my real mark. I came up empty. “Thats it. I’m done for the night.”

We walked back towards where Fart was. As we approached we both committed on how Fart must have wandered because he wasn’t where he was supposed to be. We walked down a bit more, but Fart was gone. We started looking frantically, and terrified. Mouse pulled out his phone and called Fart but Fart didn’t answer.

“What should we do?” Mouse asked me.

It had been almost half an hour since we had concluded Fart was gone. “Fuck it. Lets go home.”

“What about Fart?”

I shook my head, “Fuck it.” and we went home. I never talked to Fart after that night. I guess Mouse had caught up with him a few days later and found out what happened, but I didn’t really talk to Mouse either. Something in me had told me it was time to stop, so I didn’t do much tagging after that.

Yesterday I walked by those buildings, still not torn down. I saw both of the piece I did that night. They both were ninety percent covered. See Buzz would have known to go revive his piece, but it occurred to me that I am not Buzz anymore. I kept walking home.

Right now I am watching my niece put her dolls in her dollhouse, and right now I’m watching her dad play with her. It is a nice paint job. The pink is vibrant, and not at all covered.

I still think about what Mouse had said about leaving your mark on the world, but Mouse, Buzz, Fart, Rat, Weed, anyone who tags really, is doing it in probably the most short term way. The real marks are on people.