The Sister

Chapter 8: In the News

    When I was a kid, second thoughts were things that I usually ignored, even though they would still come to haunt me. And did they… My conscious always had something to say against whatever I used to do as a kid. Well, as you would have noticed, I wasn’t the smartest or wisest kid around, so it was only natural.

     Graffiti was no exception to my woes. It seemed fun at first, but over time, it only got greasy. We were never caught. In fact, I don’t think people started noticing the mess we made until almost a year after we had done the job. I swear, some people are such idiots. Once they were found, the city was quick to blame some random group of kids at some other school. Strangely, Moe and I found it funny. Whatever those kids are going through right now, I don’t have a clue, but I’m sure they got a punishment that they certainly didn’t deserve.

     Not even Freddy cared much about what we did. He was still our other partner in crime during junior year. He got us our cigarettes and our beer. We told him how we started “decorating” some areas and he only joined in, laughing with us.

     Life was good then. It looked good, but I didn’t feel good. That was when we would go out and start tagging anything we saw. And when I say anything, I mean anything. From the walls to houses to cars to strollers to trees. Heck, we sometimes used to spray a car’s front window completely as to make it useless. But at the end of the day, I only wondered what good it did for the rest of us. But such thoughts blacked off when I realized that I was somewhat enjoying myself and that it didn’t matter how other’s felt so long as I was well out of harm’s reach.

     The worst we had ever done – the stupidest, most ridiculous, retarded thing anyone would ever want to do. We decided to tag a police car. And if you can tag a cop’s car and get away with it, heck, you’ll get away from it again and again.

     We managed to get a hold of some of that tagging stuff and coincidentally, a police car was parked by an apartment. We looked inside, and it was empty. It was all Moe’s idea. I’m not even kidding. Once a week or so, we told our parents that we were going to hang out with friends, so they weren’t expecting us back until late. So, around ten or eleven at night, he sprayed a giant, red X over the front window and started running. I followed, only to stop behind a tree a few yards away. The giggles took us over – well, it took a while for me to get it.

     I could not believe it when he went again when the coast was clear. He urged me forward. I hesitated but obeyed. This time, he made a giant plus sign over the X, covering the window even more. I remembered him stuffing the spray can into my hand – urging me to try. Once again, I hesitated. I looked around urgently, trying to figure out what I should do. But then again, I didn’t want someone to see me. But Moe did it, and traffic was whizzing by. Maybe if I could make some squiggled line over the window, that would be suffice.

     With the bottle shaking in my hand, I lifted it before myself and started spraying. At that instant, somewhere to our side, there was a yell. I dropped the can and spun in the direction that the yell came from.

     “Officer!” some woman was screaming from her balcony. “Your car is being tagged!”

     We both made a dash for it, but Moe quickly realized that our fingerprints were on the can. He forced me to go and grab it despite my screaming against it. It took a while, but when he claimed that I was the one who dropped it, I forced myself to get after it. Too bad that cop was outside by the time I grabbed it. Now, I wasn’t such a fool where I would turn my face towards him. Instead, I kept my back towards him, even as I heard him approach.

     “Oh, you are so busted, pal,” he said, in such fury that I had never heard before. I saw his shadow and I was about ready to burst out, crying. But then, I saw another shadow slam into the incoming one. Now, I couldn’t help it. I spun around and saw that Moe had put his hood up to cover his face and had apparently elbowed the cop as hard as his strength allowed him.