He walked another two blocks before he caught sight of his goal.
There it is. My secret stash.
The stuff that was going to make him famous. The stuff that would get him out of this shithole town. Eventually.
Q ducked around the back of the diner. An old, abandoned shed stood nearby. That was where he kept his shit. His hands were already itching in anticipation. Giddiness built at every step he took to his destination. It was going to be such a rush.
Q stepped into the shed and found the right floorboard. He laid down beside it and lifted one end with one arm. The other end was under the wall of the shed so he could not simply lift out the entire thing.
But then people would have been looking in his hidey-hole.
He carefully reached in with his other arm, almost all the way up to his shoulder. Q hated this part. The occasional spider would crawl across his hand, and one time he was sure he touched something furry that scrambled away from him even as he scrambled out of the shed. Q tried not to think of it and reached further, until his hand touched the shoebox.
Fuck, yeah.
He grabbed the box, pulled it out, and eased the floorboard back into place. Q did a quick check at the door to make sure nobody was watching before jogging away from the shed.
He jogged for half a block. An unexpected stab in his side made him stop, and he felt his stomach for a moment. The stab of pain had passed as quickly as it had appeared. He fell into a nonchalant walk since he was out of sight of the diner. He kept walking for several more blocks, the shoebox tucked into his arm like it was a football. After a few more minutes, he arrived at his goal. The first thing he did was make sure nobody was watching. The back alley was deserted, and Q started to smile.
Time to leave a mark.
He lifted the lid of the shoebox and regarded his treasure. Six cans of spray paint tightly packed side to side sat in the box. It wasn’t Kilz — widely regarded as the best graffiti spray brand out on the market — but it would do. At least until he hit the big time and could afford the good shit.
This was going to be his greatest work. Q lifted the cans of spray paint from the shoe box and placed them on the sidewalk with reverence.
Then he turned and regarded his canvas.
That’s right. The fucking back wall of the cop station. Q is badass. Everybody is about to find out.
Q returned to his cans and picked up the first one. Gloss black. He walked up to the wall and thought about his design for a minute. Then, when he was ready, he shook the can and got started.
No simple-ass, bubble-letter shit. Q is wild style.
After the black came the gloss white. A few minutes later, he moved on to the colors. He worked for nearly thirty minutes before the art started coming together.
This is going to be a nice piece, Q!
He was so involved with his work that he never noticed a figure coming up behind him. The figure reached out to grab him, but Q sensed the movement just in time and ducked under the hand. He danced away from the figure.
“You fucking little dipshit, get over here!”
Holy fuck, it’s a cop! Q saw the nametag as the cop reached for him. It read: Ruiz.
Ruiz lunged at him. Q was too quick, though, as he avoided the lunge and ran.
“Regresa aquí!” The cop called after him, followed by a litany of curses, also in Spanish.
“I don’t speak Spanish, asshole!” Q muttered under his breath as he ran.
Q ran for several minutes and soon found himself passing the last set of houses and abruptly emerging in the open countryside. It felt like a physical slap.
The smell assaulted Q next. It wasn’t an awful smell, but it was cloyingly sweet. It clung to the back of his throat, and he found himself constantly clearing it.
Fuck! My cans! Q shook his head in disgust as he thought of losing his spray cans. It had taken him several weeks’ worth of pocket money to buy his stash.
To add insult to injury, he realized that he never got to tag his work.
Q walked aimlessly for a while. He walked by fields of corn and soybean. They had one thing in common: They were dying. Most of the plants bent over deeply, as if in supplication.
Or shame... Yeah, the plants look like they are deeply ashamed.
His parents worked in fields like these, except on the other side of town. Same deal, though — the crops also had withered on the farm where they worked. Thinking of his parents made him angry. Those bent stalks — they were like his parents, too. Stooped down, toiling in a field. Making little money while some fat-ass owner got rich.
Worst of all, his parents were actually thankful for the shitty deal they got. They were always going on about how tough life was back in Nicaragua, and how this was the bomb in comparison.
His parents would tell him very little about their old country. Just that everything was better in the USA. They even refused to teach Q Spanish. He was bitter about that. All the kids from their neighborhood spoke Spanish. But no, his parents forced him to go to “white-kid” schools.
“Quentin, you were born and raised an American, and you’ll speak American!” His dad said when he challenged them about it.
Q had come to the realization recently that his parents wanted nothing to do with their
