Little Red Balloons

Chapter 2

After several minutes of silent driving, the driver decided he wanted to stop wasting his gas on me, he couldn’t just drive all night. “Sir, um… where would you like me to take you? Back home possibly?”

This question finally woke me from my daze, “No, I would like to continue driving for a little while longer.” Just in that instant I looked out the window and saw her for the first time. “Driver, could you maybe take another drive around this block?” He nodded and I continued to stare out the window. There she was again, a rather short girl with a spray can bottle. She had a hood on so it covered most of her face. In one hand she had a brown paper bag, in the other she had a green spray can bottle. In that moment I felt drawn to her. “Driver stop the car.”

As I stepped out into the freezing cold night of New York City, I felt my nice leather shoes step in a puddle. Normally I would have freaked out and tried to dry them because they were expensive leather, leather gets tarnished when placed with water. Right now I just didn’t care.

“So… what’re you making here?” I asked the girl as I reached her on the sidewalk. Above us stood a tall blond girl, her blue dress almost seemed familiar to me but I didn’t know where to place her.

“It’s a little girl, can’t you tell?” She answered simply as if she was thinking about the answer for a while now, she still had not turned to face me, her hood stood in the way of her face and my line of sight. She took another gulp of from her brown paper bag, alcohol it must have been, she then extended her arm in my direction, “Want some?”

“Sure..” I grabbed the bottle and took a gulp down. It was expensive rum. I then took a full look of her. A rather torn up beige jacket hung around her shoulders, old ripped up jeans and converse completely covered her lower body. She dressed so simply, like she had no one to impress yet inside her brown bag there was a drink so expensive, only someone of high class could have bought it. Who was she? “Hey, my name is Jamie, what’s yours?”

“S.”

“That isn’t a name…” I replied arrogantly; S grabbed the bag from me as if I offended her, and she was done sharing.

“Well it is, it is my name.” She nodded up at the wall and took a big gulp of her rum. “Do you like it?”

“I do, I like the colors and the way they work together to make an image like this.” I had never taken the time to really look at a piece of graffiti, it was so detailed. The strokes were precisely made, they weren't the sloppy work that I expected. I had thought graffiti was just children’s art, that it took nothing to make but this really was art.

“Jamie…. that is an interesting name. And why the fancy suit?” For the first time she turned her head to face me, she had big brown eyes and a small mole on her upper lip. She was quite beautiful but I had Melanie, I couldn’t be thinking about this new girl.

“I was gonna ask my girlfriend to marry me tonight.” I said it so clearly, she didn’t expect something like this, she spit out the rum she had in her mouth and started to laugh.

“Marriage… Marriage! Ha! What is wrong with you Manhattan people? How old are you anyways 12?” I could feel my face starting to get red.

“Well, I am 18, I’m old enough to do what I want.” I tried to act snappy but in truth I was embarrassed, I had no real reason to be marrying Melanie and only by the judgment of a complete stranger did I notice that.  

“Twenty-one, how do you think I bought this rum?”

“How did you buy this rum? It looks expensive.”

“What the hell is that supposed to mean?! You don’t think I can afford nice alcohol?” She didn’t take judgment well, I didn’t either, we had that in common.

“No.. I didn't mean it like that.”

“Watever, well so if you asked your girlfriend to marry you what are you doing here with me?” S asked, as she stared at her piece on the wall. She moved her head to the left like an artist trying to see if they really liked the masterpiece they just created.

“She said no.”

“Oh…..” She looked over at me, worried almost and handed me the bottle again. In a flash her face brightened up like she discovered the cure to cancer or something. “I know how to make you feel better. Here grab this,” She handed me a blue spray can bottle from the floor at her feet, “do you know how to spray paint?”

I didn’t want to say no, that would be embarrassing. So I just nodded my head, and took the bottle from her hand.

“I don’t really like this piece but maybe you could help me fix it. If you splashed it with that paint here and there, maybe we could get something cool out of it.” I looked at her than back at the wall, I didn’t really want to ruin her piece, I liked it so I just took the spray can bottle and started to draw wings on the girl. I then stepped back and looked at what I had created. It was great, the wings were so bright and colorful they created the perfect contrast to the simple young girl.  I took the rum bottle from S’ hands and without making eye contact with her. I took a big gulp tilting my head back. S turned to look at me her eyes big and wide. Right then the sides of her mouth turned into a big smile. I could feel my own mouth start to simile back.