Solomon's Murals: July 2017

[Solomon's bones]

When the cops palmed his head like a basketball and eased him into the back of the squad car, he didn’t take it too hard. The problem with the handcuffs was that as soon as they were clasped, his nose started to itch something furious.

Melting into a vulture-necked sulk, as it was the only position that was comfortable when your wrists were tied together, he stared proudly out the back window at his work. His eyes stretched long and wide through the bleary beads of rain over the mammoth mural; it encompassed a sizable portion of the profile of an old textile warehouse. It was a pop-art rendition of a paletero pushing his cart, clapping at the sweat on nape of his neck.

Over the spanse of three weeks, he had slipped out like a cat into the night, slid into the front seat of his Buick, slim and anonymous He worked shortcuts through alleys, snubbing surveillance and listening to moody 2am radio. He’d wrestle the gear from his trunk – ladder, stencils, paint-sprayer, brushes. There was a scaffold a block away that was being used on a new luxury rental development during the day, but with the help of a milky-eyed, homeless man who called himself Bruce Lee, Solomon dragged it over every night (and Bruce Lee got a crinkled Hamilton.) There were limitations, of course. In order to really craft something gargantuan and destined for greatness, he'd need an army of helpers, he'd need a crane, he'd need the clarity of daylight.

He had been prolific for years on the southwest side, his work rivaling Banky’s—at least locally. His murals were painstakingly planned and meticulously executed. But what his friends didn’t know is that he felt manic inside while he worked. He spent those summer nights convinced there was a hot LED bulb burning in his lungs, that every pore was shining –Christmas lights exploding through a thimble! Every time he finished, it felt akin to waking up next to one of the only girls he loved (Sybel: long like a reed, bit down on her lips so hard when he was working on her that they often bruised.)

Getting arrested was no big deal. It was his first time, sure, but he had ran scams to bail out his friends plenty of times and imagined they would return the favor.

He only had to spend three hours in the cell. At first it felt as tense as a snake charmer’s basket missing the lid. There was a tweaker standing in the corner with his forehead against the concrete wall, mumbling government gangstalking conspiracies and about the tracking device Obama had personally lodged in his wrist. There was a young dude who sat on a bench next to Solomon, hoodie strings drawn tight over his face, scowling. But after a few minutes Solomon coaxed half truths out of him; he was arrested because he was listening to trap music on the El without headphones, no, okay, he also nabbed some yuppie lady’s iPhone, but she was waving it around like a fucking matador, and he was an opportunist, so…

Soon they were trading stories and chuckling about an owner of a local bodega who always threatened to ‘blow their butts off’ in a broken Iranian accent if they even thought about stealing anything.

“But yeah, they always let this one lady come in without any shoes, and so I figured I could too, but he said my feet were filthy. But they’re not, look,” Solomon started to peel off his sneakers, when a cop appeared and started rustling the locks.

“Stills?”

“Yeah?”

The cop didn’t say anything, he just motioned him forward with an impatient swat of his hand.

“Bye!” Solomon said cheerily as he pogoed up from his seat and excitedly tailed the officer back into the lobby.

What he was expected either Quinn, his foul-mouthed cohort with her pretty pixie-cut and pillowed red lips, or maybe Esme, who lived upstairs and frequently needed a last minute babysitter. Instead, he was surprised to see a well-dressed Asian woman in her late thirties with tidy pulled back hair, and pleased glint in her eye.

“Hi Solomon,” she extended a hand, which he took reluctantly, flinging a glance aside at the cop as though he had the answers. Instead, he walked away, shaking his head.

“Hi, thanks for this, but---”

"My name’s Agnes Kim, and it’s such a pleasure to finally meet you.”

Bereft of words, he waited another beat for her to finish her thought, and she did just that.

“While I find it admirable what you’ve been doing and I’m sure you find it quite rewarding, it’d be even more rewarding if we started making you a bit of money doing it.”