An Odd Kind Of Wonderful

Chapter Seven

CHAPTER SEVEN

"I don't care if it hurts / I want to have control / I want a perfect body / I want a perfect soul." (Radiohead)
   
We have to run back and grab Joel before he drives off with our only mode of transport, but after that, and a few minutes walking in absolute silence, Raisa stops in her tracks. She stands proudly, but I don't understand, because it appears she's taken us to a toilet block at the back of the park, secluded in a corner. Neither Joel nor I manage to say anything, before Raisa starts digging around in her bag. I hear the click of plastic against plastic.
   
She's got spray paints. One is blue, like, sapphire blue, one is white, and one is black. I'm too stunned to move, so Raisa deposits the blue in my hands, the white in Joel's hands, and keeps the black for herself.
 
  "This is illegal." I say. "Somebody's going to see us and we're all going to go to jail."
   
Raisa waves me off. "Hasn't anyone ever told you to live every day like it's your last?"
 
  "Yeah, actually. I knew a girl who used to tell me that," I say, a little calmer. The fact that I'm warming up to the idea of essentially being a public menace just makes me panic more.

    "Was she your girlfriend?" Joel asks.
  
"No, no, she..." Do I tell them the truth? "We worked at the same store for a while. She would say, 'live every day like it's your last'. Once I asked her if she did, and she said, 'No, of course not! I'd be dead by now'." It's a half-truth, so I figure that it's close enough, especially when Joel and Raisa laugh, loud against the night. I'm laughing, too, and I'm afraid to say I've missed this so much. I do have friends at school but they're not like me—and I hate saying that, because it makes me sound conceited and full of myself, but it's true. They listen to the radio and they whistle at girls as they walk by and they drink Red Bull religiously. I wouldn't be able to do any of this with them. I don't notice that Raisa's begun spraying the toilet block's navy wall (it's probably a pastel blue in the daylight) until I hear the shaking noise of the can.
   
I quickly realize no amount of, Raisa, that's against the law will improve the situation legally so I stand back and let the artist do her work. If I were into defacing public property, I probably wouldn't care about laws at all—I'm just protective, I guess. But over a girl I've just met? It doesn't feel like we've just met, more like I've acknowledged her as a second-circle friend for years, and I'm only just getting to know her. She's not defacing public property, anyway. She's spiraling strokes of mist over the wall, easily like it is her nature, like she has grown up doing exactly this. Her bottom lip catches between her front teeth as she concentrates.

    Joel shakes his can up, too, and walks around to the wall adjacent to Raisa. It's clear he's not a natural, but he manages. He turns to look at me, and nods to his right, where the girl with white hair is. I squint my eyes at him. Joel points to Raisa, and mimes spraying an outline of her.

   I whisper to him, "You want me to spray her?"

   Joel shakes his head violently. His short, black curly hair bounces with it. "Paint," He mouths, and acts out painting a picture.

    I nod. I study my subject for a little while longer, watching the curves of her face illuminated in the harsh spotlight of the street light. She has a small nose, sort of like a button, and ears like an elf. She reminds me of a character from a book by J.R.R Tolkien. She would probably feel right at home in there. Then, I get an idea, and chose the wall opposite Joel to start painting the white-haired girl I can't stop thinking about.
    -

    "Why did you paint a dead person?"
    Joel's voice rings out in the empty park. The three of us stand in front of Raisa's wall, marked with an R in the bottom left corner. I lean my head to the side and decipher her painting—it is the body of a person lying limp across the dead body of another. One is male and one is female, but Joel's right, they are both dead. They are painted in stunning detail for someone using spray paint. It reminds me of a charcoal sketch by Vincent Van Gogh. I take my Polaroid out of my bag and sling it around my shoulders. Maybe this will be something worth photographing.
    Raisa presses her thumb into the wall and leaves an imprint on the wet paint. "I am an artist. I'll paint flowers if I want. I'll paint dead people I want. It doesn't matter—as long as I make art, I am an artist."