Page 9 of Paint Eater
His mom snorted, leaning over and squishing his cheeks together before kissing his forehead and letting him go. “I’m not being sarcastic—I’m glad you’re having a good time with Logan. You’re a good kid.”
“You know I’m twenty now! Maybe people should stop calling me kid.”
His mom laughed as she walked away. Jay looked back at his phone, screen black and silent now.
Hewashaving fun with the project. There was nothing wrong with that.
**********
The boiling summer day was at least mitigated by the breeze coming from the Upper Bay. Still, Jay had opted to wear just a tank top and shorts. Logan, when he surfaced from Prospect Avenue Station, was wearing a T-shirt—black, like always—and loose-fitting, long shorts that exposed his legs. Was it wrong that Jay was temporarily mesmerised by his calves? If it was, Jay wasn’t sure what to do about it.
“Hey,” Jay greeted, grinning wide as he bounced slightly.
“Hey.”
“Here,” Jay said, handing him the baseball cap he had brought along, knowing somehow that Logan wouldn’t bring one. “Trust me.”
“You’renot wearing one,” Logan pointed out.
“Uh, have you seen my hair?” Jay pulled at the wild curls of his afro. “Youtry to fit a hat over this.”
Logan tsked, but he put the hat on.
“Perfect,” Jay exclaimed, and Logan rolled his eyes, looking away. Jay grinned brighter. “You ready?”
“Lead the way.”
Jay had decided to start in Brooklyn, on the R, Q, and N trains that led to Sunset Park, rumbling above ground instead of being tucked below. There was a piece high on one of the buildings that his friend JT had made, a bunch of massive lizards scuttling upwards towards a fly, one of them with its tongue outstretched, just about to catch it.
The scale itself was impressive, but it was so realistic that the first time Jay had seen it from the train, he’d thought they were some strange invasion finally coming to New York.
He let Logan take as many photographs as he wanted from up close, enjoying watching how he would lean back, or crouch, or pause for a moment, just looking at the painting, the sun bouncing off his cap to leave his face in shadow, the rest of him glowing. Jay itched to draw him, tucked inside one of his notebooks, intimate, or across the largest building in New York. When Logan nodded at Jay and lowered his camera for the last time, they got onto the train so he could take pictures from afar.
The train took them away from Sunset Park, Logan and Jay hopping onto the Q train to Atlantic, then hopping on the C line into Bed-Stuy. The sidewalk was lively with chatter, and Jay led Logan towards the music they could hear playing on a block nearby.
One of the hydrants they passed had been forced open, jetting out water onto the street, a rainbow shuddering in its path. They paused for a moment, Jay grinning wide as the wet, whooping kids collected there watched in anticipation as a car drove by, cheering and laughing when the driver didn’t close his window fast enough and got soaked.
“Motherfucker!” They heard the cursing from inside, and Jay laughed along with the kids, high-fiving one, flapping his hand at the driver as if saying, ‘Come on, lighten up.’When he turned to look, Logan was taking pictures of the children as they returned to the spraying water.
Logan and Jay moved on, Jay waving goodbye at the kids, who were already too busy pushing each other and running in front of the water to notice their departure.
The music reached its peak as they rounded the corner, a warble of, ‘One of these mornings you’re gonna rise up singing.’ The smell of barbecue thickened the summer air, lifting away from the people congregated around a church where long tables had been set, filled with food.
“Two more for the party,” a man called out, his dark face worn but his back straight, wearing pressed khakis and a collared shirt, free of sweat despite the heat.
Before Jay and Logan could think to protest, they were drawn into the crowd. “Where you from?” and “Boy, you’re skinny! Your mama don’t feed you?” and “Tattooing?” followed by an unconvinced hum.
Logan was being interrogated by another set of revellers, poking at his camera and practically doing the same at his serious expression. Jay took pity on him.
“I’m here to show him the mural,” he said, and five people immediately tried to usher them towards it, while another five insisted they eat something first.
When the battle was over, Jay and Logan were carrying a paper plate of meat and potato salad each, being led to the painting that took up one of the flat walls of the church. A few people were laughing and talking in front of it, smoking or eating or both at the same time.
The piece, the first time Jay had seen it, had wholly arrested him. He’d stood there, feeling a weight and a lightness, a piercing through. There, from those once-white walls, peered out the faces of three kids shot not too long ago in the neighbourhood. Three different occasions, by three different cops, stones that broke the surface and rippled across the community in waves that devastated. These were stories that now lived under the skin of many, lived as fear and anger and hopelessness.
The painting itself, however, was beautiful and hopeful. Surrounding each face were flowers, petals curling against their cheeks, lying on their hair, tucked and spilling from their shirts. A glow seemed to come from them, lighting up their skin in colours that mixed with dark brown, and soft brown, and lighter still.
Jay let Logan just look, subtly moving their guides away, distracting them. As Jay had once done, Logan stood there for a long time, drinking the image in, drowning in it, resurfacing.
