The Felon

227 The Felon

Under cover of darkness…. After we were all tucked safely in bed…. Along comes a shadowy figure… a young man… equipped with weapons of mass destruction.

He stops… he looks carefully around… bends down, unzips his duffel bag and slips out….

… can it be?

… yes it is…

Spray paint.

Working quickly, he paints the side of a store…

But not quickly enough, for here come the cops.

One car… then another and another.

The guy makes a run for it.

But, too late.

He heads for an all night Wal-Mart and is trapped.

Once again, the Moote Pointe Police triumph over the forces of evil.

This poor schlep is 17 which means he'll be tried as an adult. The parents will come into court, weeping. They'll tell the judge he's "always been a good boy and we don't know what got into him."

The judge will slap him with a fine sufficient to undo the damage and he'll get one of those "contemplations of dismissal" which means if he keeps his paint in his bag for six months or a year and isn't caught in this hideous crime again the charge will be expunged from the record.

Except those expunges aren't always really expunged. If this felon so much as spits on the sidewalk in the next 20 years, the cops'll dig it out and use it against him.

Justice. It's a wonderful thing.

This guy should be prosecuted for bad art. His “graffitum” is worthless. Less than worthless. This guy needs a trip to New York City, where graffiti is a REAL art. Where letters and numbers and gang symbols MEAN something.

Amateur!

It’s so bad, not even the Museum of Modern Art would show it. Some initials, blue on a white wall.

Penny ante garbago!

Nothing to it.

Nothing.

This “artist” needs to go back to graffiti school. These wall decorations need to say something. Anything. This says nada.

And it speaks poorly of the art culture here at The Pointe.

Gang symbols, say the cops. Gang symbols?

Hardly.

Gang Symbols? WHAT gang? “Our” Gang of Our Gang Comedies fame?

While the cops and prosecutors are boiling, the Genovese people, the Crips and the Bloods are laughing.

This guy’s neither a gangster nor a gangsta.

He’s just a schmeckle with a spray can.

In powder blue.

A guy who doesn’t know the alphabet. A guy with a bad handwriting.

Come to think of it, fry him. He must be more dangerous than his appearance would suggest. After all, it took three – count ‘em – three prowl cars to surround and bag him.

Or maybe it was just an off night for real crime.

I'm Wes Richards, my opinions are my own, but you're welcome to them.

(c) 2007 WJR

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