Outcasts

Chapter 6 - So Paint

The next morning each one took hold of a side of the thick plywood landing ramp and carried it across the roof to the fire stairs. Sykes had gone back to his hotel for the night, had picked up a couple of Egg McMuffins for their breakfast on his way back over here. They wrestled the plywood panel down the stairs to Mavro's studio, Sykes cursing when he squeezed his fingers between the panel and the iron handrail, carried it across the concrete floor, careful not to knock over any paint cans or trip over any brushes or tools that were scattered about, and propped it against the cinderblock wall.

Sykes could tell that something was bugging Mavro besides bailing out on his board yesterday, and he had a pretty good idea what it was.

"You know why I leaned on you to use this same panel?" he asked.

Mavro scowled at the plywood. "To put it in my face."

Sykes shook his head. "No, man."

"Then why?"

Sykes smiled. "To put it in everyone else's face."

The kid wasn't ready for that.

"So paint," Sykes said.

Mavro gave him a look, this guy he'd just met and didn't really know, but who had an interesting way of coming at things. He bent down and picked up a screwdriver and pried the top off a can of white paint. He stirred it with the screwdriver, wiped it off with a rag, and picked up a house painter's brush. Dipped it in the paint and went to work, brushing back and forth on the big plywood panel, had it painted solid white in what seemed like no more than two minutes.

Didn't even wait for it to dry. He opened another can of paint, and another and another, until he had six or seven different colors open.

Then he turned back to the panel. "Help me with this," he said to Sykes.

"What do you want to do?"

"I want to lay it down flat."

They each took a side and, trying not to leave finger prints on the white paint, moved the panel away from the wall and laid it on the floor. Mavro went over to his workbench and unscrewed the top from a can of turpentine, poured some into a glass that had obviously been used before. He picked up a thick brush with a pointed tip and brought it and the turpentine back to the panel. Set the turpentine down on the floor and stood over the opened cans of paint, studying the colors.

Sykes watched him dip the brush into a can of orange paint, could see it was a deep dip, a sizeable blob of paint hanging off the end of the brush. Before it could drip, Mavro held the brush over the panel and gave it a hard flick, so that when the blob hit the panel, it splattered.

He dipped the brush into the glass of turpentine and wiped it off with the rag. Then he dipped the brush into the can of yellow paint and flicked that blob at the panel, splattering it right next to the orange splotch, some of the splatters intersecting. He cleaned the brush off and did it again, this time flicking the green. Then the blue, then the red. Flicked and splattered until he had a spectrum of splotched colors side by side across the panel.

He studied it for a few moments, then put the brush down and said to Sykes, "Let's stand it up again."

Sykes gave him a questioning look.

"I want it vertical so the colors run down."

"Got it."

Again they each took a side and tilted the panel until it was straight up and down.

Mavro said, "Let's shake it a little."

He had used plenty of paint on each splotch, so that now, with the shaking, the splotches started to slowly slide down the painted panel. Each brightly colored rivulet was a different shape and length, ten, twelve, eighteen inches long.

"Okay, good, "he said. "Let's lay it back down."

They did and stood back and looked it over.

"That it?" Sykes asked.

"Hardly."

"Then what?"

"Why don't you make yourself scarce for a while and you'll see when you get back."

Sykes wanted to stay and watch the rest of the process. "I already had breakfast and it's too soon for lunch."

"So take a walk. It's nice out."

Sykes stayed put for a moment, then shook his head and reluctantly walked over to the freight elevator, went down and out onto the street, turned left and headed toward the river. Was almost to it when he remembered something, from when he'd first followed Mavro and Janna over here. He turned around and walked back a couple blocks to where Janna had nailed him with that garbage can. Looked across the street to that building that was being gutted.

Lots of remains in there to be hauled away, including, he was willing to bet, pieces that could be painted on. Kid scrounges materials from blighted neighborhood to make his art.

An hour later he was riding back up in the freight elevator that was jammed with some of those pieces, mostly wood panels of different shapes and sizes that the watchman for the building, a scruffy old Hispanic guy named Luis, who was willing to accept a gratuity, knew just where to find.

They'd piled the pieces into Luis's pickup and driven them here, Luis helping load them into the freight elevator, was riding in it now with Sykes to offload them into Mavro's loft. Sykes sensed that Luis would be handy to have on call, him and his truck. He'd have to pay him, of course, but could manage. He had what was left of his prison salary and what the warden had given him to do his portrait, plus a little cash he'd stashed back before prison. 

Mavro was putting the finishing touches on the panel painting when he heard the freight elevator clunk to a stop. He turned around and saw Sykes and this old guy pushing a hand truck piled with all kinds of wood panels from who the hell knew where.

Sykes gestured at the pile. "In case you run out."

He introduced Luis and stepped over to the plywood panel that Mavro had been working on.

Superimposed on the row of colorful splotches was a solid black figure riding a skateboard, arms flung out for balance. But instead of a human head on the shoulders, there was the head of a gargoyle. And below the figure were the roughly painted words, IN YOUR FACE.