Running down the tracks in total flow, the fuzz hot on my tail. It wasn’t even that serious, who hasn’t tagged the side of a train car before. It’s almost like we live in a nation where prisons need free labor to live. That’s why this cop is chasing me. He’s going to lock me up. His dog is tracing my scent.
I look back for a moment. BOOM. My head hits a sign, I stumble and the cop catches up to me faster. How is he so fast? I get back into my flow. The only way to out maneuver him is to keep looking forward. Always forward. Never looking back. Like Orpheus and Eurydice. Ew wait that makes the cop Eurydice. This isn’t boylove, forget I said that.
I go and I go and I go, I gather my jet pack, flying high above the tracks, the trains, the signs, gathering as many coins as I can. Still, I feel the pig’s presence behind me. ACAB.
I’m locked into total flow but I slip. I didn’t see it coming, out of nowhere a sign hits me square in the forehead.
“You’re mine now..” he says with a look of horrific splendor painted over his face. It’s almost like someone tagged it there.
“But— I don’t get it! How the hell did you catch me? I’m way younger than you and I had jet packs and jump boots, I just don’t get it!” I told him, aghast.
“Heh,” the cop replied “you see kid, I used to subway surf too. In fact, I was the best of the best. That’s why the city hired me, to catch ne’er-do-wells such as yourself and try to get their lives back on track, come with me.”
I was sure in trouble now. This is the pipeline, I thought to myself. This is how I end up in prison the rest of my life, staying alive by making tattoo guns from commissary items and inking people up with my art skills.
The cop puts me in the back of his cruiser, next to his K-9, who really seemed more friendly than anything. The entire drive the mustached, sunglasses cop looked straight ahead. About 15 minutes in I noticed I wasn’t in handcuffs. My heart was racing so fast and my head hurt from the concussion I probably had that I totally forgot that this donut muncher hadn’t even booked me or read me my rights or anything. If anything, I may be able to get the charges dropped. Best case scenario I sue the city and get a pretty penny.
The car drove all through the city, past all kinds of neighborhoods. It was almost as if he was taking a scenic route. We saw delapadated brick homes falling apart by the beams, 3 story apartments, crisp clean glass buildings. The one thing that tied them all together though was tags. Some were more evident than others, the homes falling apart had tags thrown up everywhere, some looked good, most looked like practice pieces. You had to have a keen eye to notice the ones in the rich glassy neighborhoods. They were hidden in alleys and places that regular people wouldn’t look. Almost like a whisper of defiance in a cocophony of politeness. The worlds quietest middle finger, slowly seeding a rebellion against the status quo that one day might fruit. The ones on the sides of the apartments were my favorite. They looked thoughtful, intentional. I even saw a mural or two. It was like the community asked for this. Like they saw the art in tags and tagging and gave their most talented artists carte blanche to spray whatever they wanted on the side of the building. It was as if the artists responded in kind by giving back to the community a mural that was of the people, by the people, and for the people. The squad car came to a stop in front of a building.
It didn’t look like a police station, it kind of looked more like a school. “Surfertown Community Arts Center” the sign outside the squad car window read. The cop opened the door and said,
“Alright buddy, you’re with me.”
I stepped out of the cop car and the cop used his body language to push me inside this arts center or whatever.
“What… is this place?” I asked. Terrified that if I wasn’t in jail by now I was about to be in some place much worse.
“It’s a school,” the officer replied.
“Why are we at a school right now? It’s the middle of summer,” I chided.
“Because young man, you need some tutelage”
“What the hell is tutelage”
“It’s like learning.”
“I don’t need to learn anything, the school of hard knocks taught me everything I need to know”
“Listen sonny, I see your talent. You have a way of expressing your world through your tags that takes other people years, decades to master. If you apply your skills in the right way, you’ll become one of the best artists this city, maybe even the world, had ever seen”
And that’s how I became — Pablo Picasso.
Author’s Note
I literally have no idea as to what the fuck this is. I downloaded subway surfer on my phone for nostalgia and thought “woah what if the cop chasing the subway surfer… is the subway surfer but like… from the future.
Anyway, yea this doesn’t really seem like anything, should be a tumblr post if anything, but figured it was worth writing just to stretch some story telling muscles.
This shit hard fr. Gonna keep practicing though:)