Lit Riffs (22 page)

“Look familiar to you, huh?”

“Who you take it from, Edwin? Victor?” I said, and they both laughed. It seemed that everything I said was funny to them. I stayed quiet from then on.

“Take it?” Lucky G clutched my sweatshirt tighter, wrinkling my iron-on letters. I was sure he was about to punch me, or spit at me. Either one is humiliating enough when you know if you hit back, you’ll just get more shit kicked out of you. “We didn’t take shit. Your homo friend Indio gave it to us.” Yvette laughed and G let go of my shirt and joined her in the laughter.

“Then … then,”—Yvette was laughing so hard she was having a hard time getting the words out—“then Indio says we are … all … God! … Ha … ha … God!” All hell broke loose. It was like watching two hyenas slapping each other five after the kill. I always hated the way Yvette laughed, like a seal barking. She breathed in and out hard. If she’d clapped the back of her hands together, I bet someone would throw her a fish. Yvette got away with that laugh only because she was a good writer and she had Lucky G protecting her.

“Look, man,” Lucky G said as Yvette threw Indio’s sweatshirt at my face. I caught it in midair before it hit me. The sweatshirt was clean, as if Indio had sent it to the laundry before they took it from him. I don’t know how they got it, but it was definitely Indio’s. “Tell your homo friend we don’t need his colors. You guys are done, TSC is Memorex.” They walked away and left me there, didn’t beat me up, didn’t take my TSC sweatshirt. They just left me there holding Indio’s shirt. That’s when I knew that what I had heard had to be true. There was no glory in beating me up, no glory in beating up anyone from a dead graffiti crew whose best writer had gone soft.

But now I needed to hear it from Indio. I wanted to hear it from him. I hated going to his house because his mother was aware of what we did and didn’t approve. She knew we were always “getting up” to go “bomb” trains at crazy hours of the night. She thought graffiti would lead to more violence, and she had told on me since my mother and her were friends. They went to the same church, Our Lady of Carmel on 112th and Lex. It’s where me and Indio met as little kids, bored out of our skulls. So I didn’t understand Indio’s sudden change.

I walked toward Indio’s project, it was getting late. The orangey sky was a reddish yellow glow that bounced off the project’s walls like a tennis ball. Above the rooftops, red-tailed hawks hovered over Mount Sinai Hospital, looking to snare pigeons. The New York skyline had already lit up and there was a middle-of-September breeze. With evening on the way the streets came alive. People were returning from work, while others gathered their friends to come out and play or drink out by the benches. When I reached Indio’s project, I took the elevator up to his floor. I stood at the door and wondered if I should even waste my time knocking. But I did. His mother opened the door. She was not happy to see me. I didn’t blame her. Her son was back and she didn’t want anyone rekindling old habits. She only smiled a half smile and told me Indio was in his room and pointed.

I knocked and there he was lying on his bed reading a book. When he saw me walk in, he put the book aside and stood up.

“Hey, man, good to see you, bro,” he said warmly. Besides his room being really clean, there was nothing different. The posters of baseball players and swimsuit models were still taped to the wall, his trophies were still by the window, his comic books were neatly stacked. His Polaroid camera was on top of the desk. I didn’t see any aerosol cans, but you always kept those in a nice and dry place, like the closet.

“I got this TSC sweatshirt. Lucky G says it belongs to you. Know anything about that?” I gave it to Indio. He took his sweatshirt, neatly folded it, and didn’t say anything for a little while.

“You haven’t seen me in about a year and you want to talk about a sweatshirt? Come on, bro.” Indio smiled.

“I just saw Inelda and she said stuff about you. Then Lucky G and Yvette said you said some shit about God? Now, bro, all I’m asking is, what the fuck is wrong with you?” I closed the door behind me. “What the fuck’s going on here, Indio? What’s all this stuff I’m hearing about you going soft, no tagging, or fighting.”

“I don’t know.”

“What don’t you know?”

“Just that,” he said.

“So won’t you just tell me, just what the fuck you don’t know.” I knew I wasn’t making any sense either, but I had to ask him. “Tell me what you don’t know, bro.”

Indio sat on his bed. I sat on the floor across from him, leaning my back against the door. Indio was calm like he was sleeping.

“Things, bro, just things.” He stared at the wall and not at me. “When I first entered that place, you know”—Indio shrugged—“I thought, all right, I’ll just have to carve a new rep here till I get out. I’m still the baddest dog here. But then after doing dishes, a lot of dishes …” He trailed off. “You had to be there, Hector.”

“At camp?”

“No, not at juvie, at the time when it all didn’t make sense, or may be it did?”

“Yo, bro, listen,” I said, and dug into my pocket, “I have some weed. We can open the window like old times and your mom will never know.” Indio smiled, as if he had wanted a joint for the longest. He stared at the joint I began rolling. “So maybe after smoking some of this,” I said, “maybe things would make more sense, dig? I mean, if you don’t want to be with Inelda anymore, though I don’t see why because she’s fine, but, hey, that’s your thing. And if you also don’t want to be part of TSC anymore, then that’s cool. Even though you’re the best and want to quit, hey, that’s your thing. Just don’t talk stupid shit, Indio. Like some fucking crazy person.” I sneaked a look at Indio, to see his expression. To see if he minded my cursing. He was nodding his head, smiling a bit.

“Got nothing to say about that, man?”

“No, I think you’re right,” Indio said.

“So you’re retired, then?” I asked, even though I knew he had to be. If it was me in his place, as soon as I was free, I would have wasted no time in reclaiming my fame.

“Is that done?” he said, looking straight at the joint. I lit it and offered the first toke to him. He took it.

“So you don’t believe in a lot of things anymore, yet you still smoke up, huh?”

“It’s the earth man, the planet can’t harm you,” he said.

That set me off. “So, bro, are you going to tell me what happened to you or are you going to continue to talk like one of them Jesus-freak Moonies or something!” Indio looked calm, I was angry. “Cuz, bro, I got some thinking of my own to do, and I want to know if the old Indio is back or is this a Xerox. Cuz you look like my friend, you smoke like my friend, you even live where he lived, but you ain’t him!”

Indio just blew out smoke and smiled and nodded his head like he had been doing all along.

“Yeah, I guess you’re right, Hector.”

“Nigga, talk to me.”

“I don’t understand it myself. If I did, I’d tell you.”

“Well then, tell me, man, just tell me anything.”

He finally stopped nodding and his smile went away. He looked at me and wrinkled his face. There was a long silence.

“You ever wonder why some people do certain things, and then those things make you see other things?”

“Don’t know what you mean, but keep talking.”

“See, there was this old man who worked at that camp. He washed dishes with me. He was real old like you see in movies, white hair, baby teeth. He was like weightless, Hector, hollow cheeks, the skin on his arms was wasted to his bone, man. That old man, he’d never talk to nobody. All he ever do was read, read, read. At the beginning I thought he was just crazy. My job was the kitchen with three others. We were that old man’s responsibility. The guards were always around, but we were his helpers. I would try to talk to him, ask him what he was reading, but he’d never talk to me.”

“So.”

“So, one day he finally talked. He said his name was Paul and that he was madly in love and getting married.”

“Get out.” I took a toke and laughed. “That’s beautiful, bro, I bet that old man could still get it up, too.”

Indio laughed and reached for the joint.

“Yeah, I bet he could Hector, even though by looking at him you thought he was dead. Until he really died. Just like that, the old man died.”

“Well, yeah, you said he was old, right?”

“Yeah, but then I heard the guards make fun of him.”

“So what? Was he something of yours, no, right?” I reached for the joint. “So why should you care?”

“Yeah, I guess not. But see, Hector …” Indio paused, and when I passed the joint, he didn’t take it, he fixed himself in front of me as if he was going to say something that even he was embarrassed about.

“That same day, I was doing dishes—” And he paused again and looked at the wall as if he was checking if someone else was going to hear this. “I was doing dishes, all these dishes, and see, all this soap foam started building and I saw the suds, and I saw how they just went poof! But it was beautiful when you really looked at it. A rainbow was in every one of those little bubbles. Then I thought of that old man, Paul. I thought, this old geezer must have known he was going to die, but he was going to get married, what’s that about? So, Hector, man, I looked back at the foam, Hector. The suds and all those dishes that I had the power to clean, and then I picked up some suds with my hands, Hector, and placed them close to my ear. I heard them pop like Rice Krispies as if they were coming alive and dying at the same time. All those suds with rainbows in them. And I could never tag like the soap could tag a bubble. It was beautiful, Hector, the colors, Hector, the style, and something happened to me, bro, I don’t know what it was, but something did.”

I didn’t know what to say. So I reminded him of who he was.

“What are you talking about? You’re the best. No one can do pieces like you, Indio.” But I had to laugh a little. “Bubbles, you want to quit because of bubbles?”

“I knew you’d laugh, Hector. It’s all right. I laughed, too. But I saw that old man in those bubbles, Hector, I swear I did. I saw the old man worked into all those bubbles. But in each bubble, he was in a slightly altered pattern. As if someone could somehow work a piece but change a bit of it from car to car, and when the train rushes by, you could see the piece move. Like film. The bubbles were like that, Hector, like film.” I pictured it in my head. A magical train with a piece that moves. Could that be possible? Could it be done? It would take days. A throw-up on one car was risky enough; a piece meant you were somebody and took hours; but an entire train? No way, the city would clean up the train before you could get halfway.

“But that wasn’t all, Hector. Later I heard the guards say that his girlfriend was also old and that she died a couple of hours after Paul had. And the guards laughed some more. That instant I looked around at all these dishes that I had to clean, man. They were piled up in all corners of the kitchen. So many dirty dishes. And the foam was building, all that white, sparkling foam, Hector. At that minute I couldn’t write, couldn’t paint, but I could clean all those dishes. The dishes could be saved, washed you know.”

“Look, bro, I think you’re crazy, but that’s all right. You’ll be all right. Listen, just give it a few weeks, you’ll be back with us in no time. We got to get reclaim the 6 train, right? Right? The green line, that’s ours, right?”

“It’s like when you’re thirsty, you know, Hector, you don’t need the ocean, just a cup of water.”

He was on some other plane. I saw his pupils grow large even though his room had a lot of light. He looked down at the floor. “Maybe the old man just wanted to feel young for a second, you know, he didn’t need years. I think he was trying to tell me this, I don’t know. But something happened to me.” Then Indio returned from wherever it was he had been in his head. “Sorry,” he said, defeated. “Sorry, Hector.”

“Fuck that, man.” I got up from the floor. Put out the joint. “Do what you want, Indio. Always do what you want.” I was a little angry at him and just wanted to get out. Indio smiled and nodded like he had been doing all along. I left his house knowing that Indio felt embarrassed. As if he had told me something that only he thought was important.

I once heard a
santero
say, “Sometimes you play the right number and that number never comes up. Sometimes you play the wrong number and it is that number that hits.” You can’t really explain it. I think something like that is what happened to Indio.

I saw Indio after that, but he never tagged again. He took to going to Central Park and feeding squirrels and watching birds. One day I asked him why and he said, “It’s like hunting without killing anything.” Later, he got a big yellow dog, which I thought he called Sinatra, which was bad enough, but the dog’s real name was Siddhartha. I went home and looked up the name and found out it meant Buddha. I wondered why would Indio name his dog after that fat statue that everyone in Spanish Harlem rubbed its belly for good luck? I tried talking to Indio again, but he never really talked much to me anymore. He would always remain in his own little whatever. At times I spot him on some grassy field in Central Park, sitting cross-legged like the Indio that he was, never looking up when others would pass by and give him odd looks. I heard some kids egged him while he was sitting like that and that he didn’t even blink. I never believed it. Though I do know that the old Indio would have kicked those kids’ ass.