THE HARD SELL
1st Draft
May 2008
I meet Seb14 for the first time under a bridge about three in the morning on a Saturday. I’ve been drinking in a bar on Elisabeth St since late afternoon Friday, and it shows. Every step is an effort. Mud slips under my feet and the sour stench of mildew and algae rising off the river makes me want to puke. Every time I blink I see three footpaths whirl and become one.
Then I hear a hissing, high and incessant. Like a snake waiting to spring out and sink fangs into my ankle.
“Hey?”
The sound stops and a shadow detaches from the bluestone under the bridge. All I can make out is the shine of streetlights on dark hair. The silver slash of a zipper. The person shifts, and I see the gas mask fitted tight over their nose and mouth. Single barrelled. Reminds me of a fighter pilot.
I think I’m about to get bashed and robbed. For a second I think of running, and then remember that I’m twelve beers down and that running isn’t an option. So instead I say, “Do you hear a snake?”
The figure raises one hand, and I can make out the silhouette of a cylinder with a sharp cap. I know the shape. I used to hold one a lot when I was younger. It’s a spray can. A cheap one, not a Molotow or Montana, but good enough for the job.
Not a mugger. A tagger. That’s alright. My tongue feels heavy and wooden. “Good-o,” I say, and then all that beer decides to make itself known. I’m falling.
I wake up under the bridge, curled in upon myself, shaking with the frost of morning. My eyelids have frozen shut. I stand up very slowly. There’s a percussion orchestra playing in my head, and the kettle drum sounds with my heartbeat.
I check myself over slowly. Wallet, watch, phone, keys, all present. Did I throw up? Not this time. It’s a good start to the day. Sunlight breaks through the girders in slats. I squint, try to minimise the agony of the hangover.
And there it is. Silver letters, six foot tall, black outline. It stretches from ankle height to over my head. Seb14. It’s not bad. I’ve seen worse in my time. I’ve done worse.
I realise my hands are shaking. It’s the old itch. The need to hold a can and breathe in that tang of propellant.
I say the name three or four times, and then save it in my phone for good measure. Seb14. Then off home, to change into clothes that don’t smell like I rolled around in an ashtray. Then back to work.
* * *
The workday starts late, but that doesn’t make it slow. A taxi is waiting outside my door at eleven, the driver sounding his horn like he’s playing Reveille. I arm myself, lock the door and hop in.
“Where to?” The driver is only a kid, jacked up on cola and the prospect of a big paying job. His eyes are dinner-plates behind thick glasses. “Where you wanna go, huh?”
I check the list. It reads:
11:30 340 Lygon La Domain Restaurant.
When I tell him the time we need to be there he nods, stroking the wheel like a cat. “I can do that.” And we’re off.
I have three weapons. The list is the first. It tells me where, when and what. The second weapon is a Hasselblad 503CWD. I can augment it with lenses and filters and a hot-shoe mounted flash that could blind a man if set off close enough. The third weapon is my trigger finger. It knows when to shoot and when not to shoot, and that makes all the difference between a good photo and an incredible photo.
This is my job. I take shots for anyone that wants them. Today it’s a restaurant opening with a local council member in attendance. Tomorrow it might be photos of furniture for a sales catalogue. Once I was sent out to cover modern graffiti around town for some art magazine. I didn’t see any of my own pieces, but my friends throw-ups were still there. I recognised their lettering. It was like flipping through a highschool yearbook, and it left me feeling hollow.
Today, though, is the restaurant. We turn up on time and I point and shoot. The councillor waves, cuts a ribbon, eats some pasta. The camera whirrs. I wind the wheel and keep on clicking. Last night’s beer is still floating around in my skull. I close my eyes and press the trigger over and over and over.
Shoot finished. Back home. Tip the driver. Collapse into my ratty sofa. I’d watch TV but I don’t have one. My hangover is getting worse.
I know where I want to be, and it isn’t here.
I remember the thrill of tagging. Nights of running from police with spraycans rattling in my pockets. The feel of getting a line just right. It’s been a long time. Ten years now, maybe. But it still itches.
I check my phone. Seb14. The guy under the bridge.
It couldn’t hurt.
* * *
Google is everyone’s best friend. Seb14 has an online gallery. I leave a few comments on his best pieces. Smooth fill. I’m the guy who passed out under the bridge last night. You tag alone? Then I leave a private email address, and wait.
Two hours and a few beers later I have my reply. Thnx. U hurt? Y u want 2 no if i tag alone?
Atrocious spelling. Must be a teenager. Been out of the game a while, want to get back in. Looking for someone to watch my back.
This time the reply comes quick. What’s ur word?
My word? The terminology is strange. Then I remember; he means my tag, the line a graffer scrawls on every surface he can find. It used to be Domez, same as my nickname. I begin to type it, and then stop. Domez? With a Z? It all sounds very high-school.
I don’t have one. Starting totally fresh.
K. Meet at bridge at 1am. Bring cans.
And that’s that. I’m hitting the ground running. Just enough time for a nap before I hit the streets for the first time in a decade.
I think – just once – that this is a bad idea. That I’m headed back into something I quit for a reason.
The thought doesn’t last. The itch is worse than ever.
* * *
Under the bridge at a quarter to one. I’m dressed in darks, black runners, an old jumper. There’s frost on the air, and it’s almost black. The streetlights along this strip are all busted, and I can barely see five steps ahead. My bag is heavy with cheap cans. Beneath them is the Hasselblad. I don’t know why I packed it. Ask me in ten years and I still won’t be able to tell you.
A figure approaches, hunched over, hood pulled up. It stops a short way away. “Hey. Guy with no word?”
The voice is strangely high-pitched. The kid is young. “Yeah. Seb14?”
“That’s me.” The figure drops the hood, and my first thought is damn. This could be trouble.
Seb14 is a girl, and not an old one either. She might pass for eighteen in dim light, at best. She has black hair pulled back in a bun and what looks like eyeliner but could just as easily be dirt. Her lips are big and pouty. A real high-school heartbreaker.
My heart is starting to stutter and chug like a lawnmower engine. Not because I’m overwhelmed by meeting a pretty young tagger. Hell no. I’m thinking this is a paedophile sting. I’ll say the wrong word and suddenly there’ll be police coming in from every direction, choking me off with a nightstick and frisking me down for condoms. Do I have condoms? Hell, I hope not.
She cocks her head. “You got cans?”
“Cans.” Got to be careful with my words. “Yeah. Spraycans.”
“What other cans are there?” She grins. “This a mid-life crisis thing?”
“Bit early for that.”
“How old are you?”
“Thirty-two, now.”
“That’s not too bad.” She jerks a thumb back the way she came. “Let’s head out. I know a few good spots.” And then she’s off, and I’m following without knowing why. I’m not worried about a police sting any more. I’m more worried about whether she’s right. Is this some lame attempt to recapture lost youth?
What the hell, I think. It can’t hurt.
She leads me down a few streets, taking turns at what seems like random. We talk as we walk. “Why’d you look me up?”
“You didn’t rob me when I was out blind. That seemed a pretty good sign.”
“Mmm.” She considers this for a while. “You said you used to tag?”
“Used to do a lot of it, yeah.”
“Were you any good?”
“I was alright.” This is a damned lie. I was middlish at the best of times, and it’s half the reason I gave up. But it never stopped it from being fun.
“There’ll be some others with me,” she says.
“Will they mind an oldie?”
“Some are older than you.”
“That’s comforting.”
We hit up the first spot, just her and I. It’s the wall of a petrol station facing onto a main road, and cars shoot past every few minutes so we have to work fast. She’s straight into it, laying down fill while I’m still deciding whether to stick with bubble letters or embrace the new school. She smirks as she moves on to her second. “You really are toy, aren’t you?”
Toy? That stings. It’s tantamount to calling me a rookie. “It’ll come back to me,” I say, but I know it won’t. My lines are slow and shaky. I lead from the wrist, not the elbow. When I try to hit the outline it wobbles like a child’s scrawl.
She finishes her second. It’s near perfect, all the lines crisp, Seb14 standing out tall and proud. Mine is a joke.
She pulls her mask down and purses her lips. “You done?”
“Yeah.” I toss the cans into my pack. “Think I about am.”
We walk on. Every few minutes she stops to rip out a tag on a white-washed wall, or a streetsign, or the pavement. She shrugs when I ask about them. “They never last. So what?”
Then we turn a corner and I see them. Three figures standing under the shadows of storefront eaves. Three cigarette tips wobbling in the darkness like duelling swordpoints. Seb doesn’t point, doesn’t call out, just keeps her head down. “That’s them.” I stuff my wallet and phone a little deeper into my pockets. It never hurts to be careful.
They don’t speak until we’re close enough to touch. “Seb,” says the tallest. “And your plus one.”
“Yeah. He’s a bit new to this.”
That stung. “I was laying throw-ups when you were in primary school.”
“Shush,” she says, placing a finger on my lips. “I’m not talking tags.”
It’s hard to make out the others. Everything is blackness here, aside from the dance of embers. I catch the curve of a cheekbone, or the hook of a Roman nose. Three day stubble. The sneering twist of a hare-lip.
Three men. Hare-lip and Hook-nose are my age or older. The other is hard to tell. Mid twenties, maybe. I know how these introductions go. It’s all about name dropping. “Fiver,” says the hook-nose.
“Phelps,” says the next, the guy with the twisted lip.
Finally, the kid. “Voda.”
“Like Darth?”
“Like Vodafone.”
The hook-nose, Fiver, throws his cigarette to the ground and stomps it to death. “You told him what we’re doing?”
“Bits,” says Seb.
“Alright.” He bends, and for the first time I notice the duffel bags at their feet. “Let’s scoot.”
Fiver leads the way. They carry one bag apiece – I’m not trusted enough to be a packhorse yet. They know where they’re going, so I just stay mute and keep pace. Fiver leads us through back alleys, under a blue-stone arch, up a set of rattling fire-stairs. We cross a bridge, and I realise we’re on the far edge of the CBD.
We stumble down the side of a hill to the edge of a highway. It’s bright as day out here – the street is lined with lamps and there is a billboard nearby lit from underneath by kleigs with bulbs the size of my head. I can see everyone properly for the first time.
Fiver is well over forty, a roadmap of wrinkles around his eyes and forehead. He looks middle eastern, or Greek, or a blend of the two. His lids are so heavy that I can barely make out his eyes underneath; they are dark, and flit about anxiously. With his beak-nose and thin lips he could be some Mesopotamian general surveying his troops.
Phelps is younger, but not by much. Typical anglo, blue eyes, unshaven, hairline receding. I bet if he leaned over I could see my reflection in his bald spot. What I thought was a harelip now seems more like a war-wound; someone or something has slashed his upper lip in half. He catches me staring. “Got glassed,” he says.
“Ouch.”
“No shit.”
Voda is unzipping the bags. He’s got a thin layer of stubble that looks like it took him a week to cultivate. I can tell that under his shirt and jacket he’s rail-thin, all chicken arms and protruding ribs. He lifts out fat rolls of paper. Fiver opens his own bag; inside is a bucket with a lid and a wire handle. He grunts as he lifts it out. Beneath it shine aluminium poles that he clicks together one by one to form a long staff. Then, finally, he pulls a roller from a side pocket and attaches it to the end.
I know what’s happening now. It feels surreal. “We’re postering?”
Seb is sorting the rolls with Voda. “Sort of. We’re reclaiming it.”
“The billboard? For what?”
“Just look at it,” snaps Fiver, so I do. All I can see from below is the rosy pink of young flesh, curves and softness and strategic shadows that promise something illicit. I can’t make out the logo.
“Is it… for skin cream?”
Phelps snorts. “It’s an ad for an erection pill.”
“And the last thing guys need to be thinking about as they drive to work is erections.” Seb grins a cheeky grin, and I’m reminded that she can’t even be out of high-school. It’s not that she’s out tagging that disturbs me. I was out at her age, even though I wasn’t half as good. It’s that she’s hanging with these old farts. Fiver and Phelps are over twice her age.
I lift the corner of one of the paper rolls. “So you’re pasting straight over it?”
“Pretty much,” she says. “Voda put this one together. It’s pretty sweet.”
Fiver raises a finger to his lips. “We have to do it now. Fast.” He tugs up the collar of his turtle-neck to cover the lower half of his face. He points to me. “You just watch.”
They move quickly, with almost military precision. Voda and Seb scale the scaffolding like monkeys, the rolls tucked tight under their arms. Phelps and Fiver are close behind, man-handling the bucket. Then the rolls unfurl and Fiver starts laying glue. It’s wheatpaste, an old classic. Cheap, homemade, and a bitch to remove. It’ll fix their poster in place until the apocalypse.
Each strip finds its place, and the image grows.
I don’t know why I do it. Maybe it’s that instinct taking over. My trigger finger telling me now, now, now. Or maybe it’s the itch that holding a spraycan didn’t quite cure.
I open my bag and swing out the Hasselblad. Adjust the focus and exposure almost unconsciously. No need for the flash. Aim and shoot.
Phelphs hears the click of the shutter. “Hey, what the hell? No photos!”
I’ve already pressed the button again. “Stop!” he says.
“I can’t see your face, don’t worry,” I call back.
“I don’t give a shit. No photos!”
Fiver stops pasting. “Phelps. Let him.”
“Why?”
“Just let him.”
Seb and Voda are looking at Phelps, frozen, as if waiting for him to explode. He doesn’t. “Alright,” he says. “Let’s finish.”
My fingers relax, and I realise I’ve been gripping the camera so tight that I’ve left an imprint of the winder in my palm. They’ve all turned back to their work, and that’s fine by me. Click, click, click.
“Can you see our poster?” calls Fiver.
“Not from down here.” I check the photos so far. The sweep of Fiver’s glue-roller is coming out as a long arc above Seb’s head, like the aurora. I dial down the exposure.
“Then move back,” he says. “This is important.”
I scuttle backwards, ducking as a car passes. The four up on the billboard are lit up from every angle, but I’m still in the shadows. I can still run if things go south. There’s no tagger code of honour in times like this.
The last of the strips are going up. I raise the camera and squint through the lens. It takes me a few seconds to see what they’ve done, and then I start to laugh.
The billboard was originally a picture of a naked girl reclining on pillows, skin smooth to the touch, her smile saying come here, you naughty, naughty man. Just the thing to get commuters blood pumping and wallets falling open for erectile pills. The poster they’ve laid over the top is almost the same. Almost.
The girl is still smiling, but now I can see the wrinkles around her eyes, cellulite already pinching at her thighs, a roll of flesh across her tummy. The space between her legs is no longer artfully hidden by shadows; it’s a thatch of curly pubic hair as big as a soccer ball. She has bags under her eyes, as if she’s had too many late nights. And her teeth have the slightest bit of nicotine staining.
Every one of these changes has been circled with a fat red line, just to make it doubly obvious. Then, above this all, the tagline in tall black letters:
GET HARD OVER SOMETHING REAL
BECAUSE PHOTOSHOP WON’T HUG YOU BACK
They’re descending now, gathering up the bags, breaking the long pole down into its component pieces. My trigger finger hasn’t stopped clicking.
Fiver jogs up, pats me on the shoulder. His breath smells of garlic. “It’s good, yeah? Let’s get moving.”
I nod. “I’ve never seen anyone do this before.”
He grins. “Now you have. Now you’ve met the four horsemen.”
We run into the night.
* * *
I wake up dehydrated and wobbly. My head feels a size too small. It’s pinching my brain. It’s the ultimate irony when your hangover is worse when you haven’t been drinking.
I have many emails. Most are spam. One is a list of assignments for the coming week; simple stuff, flower shows and some food photography. Enough to pay the bills, but only just. The last email is from Seb.
Hey. How you doing? What’d you think of the night? Fiver liked you, he wants to see the photos.
I make myself some cereal before replying. It was good. Didn’t really expect that though. Who made the poster? Is that what you always do together? PS – When did you learn to spell?
Voda made that one. He likes anything with a chick in it. We do some different stuff too, that was mid-level. All part of a battle-plan, kind of. PS – I take the time to spell for people I know. What about the photos?
What’s this four horsemen thing?
It’s what Fiver calls us. I know, it’s lame. You gonna send me the photos?
I download them and cull the worst before sending them through. The reply is fast. Fiver says kill any where you can see our faces.
And then?
Up to you.
That seems a bit strange. So I can post them up places?
If you want.
Sounds like a deal to me. I delete all the ones that could be incriminating; shots with a sliver of a face, the flash of eyes. There are some good ones left over. Not my best, but good enough.
I’m going to post them up to my portfolio, I say. No names attached.
Sound cool. Did you want to come out with us again?
Definitely. Wouldn’t mind meeting with you during daylight hours either.
The reply takes an hour, by which time I’m hungry again. I can do coffee. Meet me at the Swanston St Starbucks around three?
Done, I say, and head out with my camera bouncing around my neck.
* * *
Starbucks smells damn good. The bitter aroma of roast coffee is nice enough, but then I get hints of caramel on the air, and some woman passes me holding a fresh slice of cake and it’s all I can do not to jump up and steal it from her hands. Cinnamon and fresh berries and cream. My stomach does a little hungry backflip.
I do my best to ignore it all and order the smallest, least fancy sounding latte. Seb is hunkered down in a plush armchair. She waves me over.
“Hey.”
“Hey to you too.” She has a huge Starbucks mug, the mermaid winking at me from between her fingers. Steam rises up around her face, cupping her chin, winding through her hair. “Enjoying the weekend?”
“What little there is left.” I settle down and sip my coffee. “That was weird, last night.”
“Never done that before?”
“Well, postering, yeah. Nothing on that scale. And nothing so, uh, civic minded.”
She grins. “That’s the four horsemen for you.”
“So which one are you? Pestilence or Famine?”
“Christ, I don’t know. Ask Fiver.”
“So how’d you fall in with them?”
She sips her coffee slowly. “Friend of a friend. About a year back now. I was starting to do some stencils, some anti-G8 summit stuff. You remember the protests, yeah?” I nod. “Well, I’d been looking into it, and it was starting to really shit me. How much they’re polluting and just trashing all these little countries, and all they want to talk is tanks and guns. All bull. So I was throwing some stencils up around town, and a friend saw them and liked them, and pointed me to Fiver.”
“And you run with him now?”
“Not all the time. Fiver’s a bit intense.” She turns away for a moment, and I could swear she was about to say something else. But she doesn’t. “I still head out to do some tags and throw-ups, every once in a while. But Fiver has the big ideas. Keeps us focused.”
“You didn’t mind having me with you?”
“Nah.” She sets the mug down and looks at me for a while. Steam twines into spirals overhead. “Why’d you come back out to tag?”
It’s a question I was hoping she wouldn’t ask. “I guess I missed it. Something about just busting shit up. But I don’t think it works that way for me any more. I can’t just go out and draw on some guys shop and feel good about it.” I sip my latte. It tastes burnt. “I don’t know. Maybe you were right. It’s an early mid-life crisis. I still want to go bust shit up, but I don’t know what.”
“Yeah. That’s the way I used to feel.”
“So how’d you get over it?”
She tilts her head. “I told you. Focus.”
“From the guys.”
“Yeah.” She narrows her eyes, like a matador staring down a bull. “Question. What do you hate?”
“Besides bad coffee?”
“Yeah.”
“Not much. I’m not an angry guy.”
“Yeah. You think that. But I bet you hate things. If you really think about it, you’ll find some. You know what I hate?” She lifts her mug and drinks it down, down, down, until the mug is empty and she has a coffee moustache. She wipes her lips on a napkin. “I hate businesses that make enough in a day to set a person up for life, but they suck the life out of everyone they touch. I hate reading about a manager laying off a hundred workers and taking a bonus. And every time I read about kids in sweatshops, or some factory dumping poison into a river, I want to puke. I really want to puke. That’s what I hate.”
I push the latte away. It’s gone cold. “Those are some big hates.”
“Yeah. And that’s what we do.”
“Focus hate?”
“Maybe. Or maybe we’re just applying it instead of sitting around and whining. Maybe we can take the big guys out. Or maybe just get people to wake up.”
“You think they don’t know?”
“I think they don’t care.” She motions around herself. “I’m sure if you told them that their clothes are made by slave labour, they’d be shocked. But they wouldn’t take them off. And if you talked to them again in a week, they’d have forgotten it already. You could shock them all over again. It doesn’t stick.”
I’ve seen her angry before, but now she looks disgusted, like she just realised her coffee was mud. “I have things to do,” she says, and walks out of the store.
I dodge customers and slip out the doors. She’s already vanishing fast down into the throng of Sunday shoppers. “Hey! Seb!”
She stops and turns. “What?”
“I want to help.”
She looks me up and down. “I’ll tell Fiver.” Then she turns and walks away.
I lift the camera and twist off the lens cap. Click. You can just make her out. That small figure in the white hoodie, hands stuffed into her pockets, head down, plunging into a wall of casual shoppers. Like a salmon diving headlong up a waterfall.
* * *
It’s Wednesday night, edging into the AM’s. I can see my breath. When I inhale I feel ice crystallise in my sinuses. The camera shakes as I bring it up to my eye.
“You should have brought gloves,” says Fiver.
“Hindsight, 20-20, I know,” I say, and take a photo.
The guys are hard at work with the rollers and poster strips. We’re inside an arcade in the CBD, outside a clothing store that’s hawking jeans with an extensive window display. Tall leggy blonds with curly perms show off their asses. The tagline under the display reads: WHICH JEANS ARE WORTH YOUR RENT MONEY?
Fiver took some special offense at this, so he had Voda craft up another scale poster to go over the top. It’s nowhere near the size of the billboard setup. This is a five minute job. They work by the light reflecting in from the streetlights outside, and by my camera flash.
It’s hard to pick an angle where everything will be in focus without catching the reflections of their faces in the window. “Voda. Pull your mask up.” He shoots me a look of how dare you, but does it anyway. Good kid. He respects authority. I snap off three quick shots, and the flash pops like a strobe. The three guys jerk about in the afterimage.
Seb isn’t here. She claimed prior commitments. The guys nodded when I told them this, as if this had happened many times before.
The last strip goes up and the image is complete. It’s the same pair of jeans, but the girl wearing them has changed. The leggy blonde is gone, replaced with a dark child cut straight from a World Vision commercial. She is topless, breastless, her ribs jutting out so far that the spaces in between are deep valleys filled with shadow. Her neck is no wider than my wrist, so thin it seems that it can’t support her head. She stares at me with haunted eyes. It would have been easy to add tears to her cheeks, but Voda showed some restraint. I doubt that girl has cried in a long time.
The jeans hang loose around her waist like clown pants. Printed below in bold letters: SKINNY LEG JEANS: $130. 3 MONTHS OF FOOD AND MEDICINE IN SUDAN: $130. THIS GIRL? ALREADY DEAD.
My hands are still shaking, but not from the cold. I take the photo.
We split up by the train station. Fiver and Phelps shake my hand. “Nice to have you along,” says Phelps. He grins, and the scar on his upper lip twists grotesquely. “Good work tonight.” Then they vanish through the turnstiles.
Voda looks at me. “You want a drink?”
“Yeah.” I tuck the camera away. “A drink sounds damn good.”
Voda leads the way to a back-alley bar, his duffel bag bumping against his leg. The bouncer waves us inside. “You a regular?” I ask.
“Yeah. Been coming here since I turned legal.”
I buy the beers. Voda is slouched on a ratty lounge in the corner. His hair shines under the disco lights. Slick and greasy. He takes the beer without a word.
“You been enjoying yourself?” he says.
I sip my beer. It’s warm. “Well, yeah. Otherwise I wouldn’t be coming back.”
“Well, good. Good.” He breaks out a tobacco pouch and papers. “Wouldn’t want you to be wasting your time.”
There’s something in his tone that sets me on edge. He’s whining. In the excitement of the night, I’d forgotten how young he is. Mid twenties is old for some. Not Voda. He’s still got the jitters of a teenager. “Don’t worry about me. I’m loving every minute.”
He lights his cigarette and bites down. “I don’t want you sticking my name on the photos.”
“You think I’m stupid?”
“No,” he says. “Sorry.” Smoke leaks from the side of his mouth. “Why are you doing this?”
I realise my hands and moving of their own accord, fiddling with the focus, flicking the latch on the lens cap. I force them to still. “I don’t know. Why are you?”
“Man. Are you blind?” He leans over until we’re almost knocking foreheads. “Are you really that blind?”
I say nothing. I’ve been in this situation before, and it usually finishes in fists. It’s best to stay quiet and ready to duck. But he only blinks a few times and settles back into the lounge. “This is a real war, you know. It’s been going on since the 60’s. Ever since anyone’s tried to knock someone else down. Since the Stonewall riots, for Christ’s sake, since… hippies, and BUGAUP.”
“What?”
“B-U-G-A-U-P. Bugger-up. They were Aussies. They started this billboard business in the eighties. They did what we do, but went around messing up ads for cigs and booze. They saw problems and they went and fixed them while everyone sat around on their arses. But things are getting worse now. You can’t get away from them. Trying to sell you shit that doesn’t make any sense. Making you feel crap unless you buy what they sell.”
Whatever Voda’s smoking contains more than tobacco. He coughs. “They get in your home, yeah? You know how many media messages you absorb every day? Three thousand! I read that. Three thousand things they want you to buy.”
He pauses for a moment, finding the right words. “I had this dream. I have pretty good dreams, yeah? I dream in colour. It’s a sign that your brain works harder.”
Puff puff puff. “So it was a sex dream. Me and some girl. Started off alright. I don’t remember her face. You know why? Because all I remember is that about halfway through, all these floodlights come on around us. Pop pop pop! Right in the middle of the deed. But they’re not pointed at us. They’re pointed up at some giant billboard. Some ad for Adidas. We’re fucking under a great big Adidas sign, all lit up like a cabaret. Some colossal running shoe looming over me as I get it on.”
He takes a final puff and rests the cigarette on the lip of the ashtray. “When you can’t even bone in a dream without thinking of running shoes, something is wrong. Adidas stole my wet dreams. Can you imagine that? That’s some Freud for you. Never dreamed of sleeping with my mum, but a shoe watches me while I bone.”
I think if I laugh right now he’ll crack me one around the head. So I keep my poker face. “What would you prefer?”
“Prefer? Damn, man.” He grins. “That they think of me while they bone. That some Adidas executive prick is with some grand-an-hour callgirl and he can’t get it up because he’s thinking of me. The faceless guy ruining his sales campaigns. That’ll make him deflate.”
He leans in close again. I can smell the pot like it’s infused into his skin. “Cause isn’t that what they do to us? They deflate us and then take our money in exchange for pumping us back up, and were supposed to be grateful? Just smile and pretend we aren’t gagging on their shit.”
One last drag. The cigarette burns down to a nub and he crushes it under the heel of his boot.
“I want them to think of me and go limp.”
* * *
I dump my clothes in the wash and sit naked at my computer, uploading and tagging photos. I linger on the final shot. Phelps ducking away from the photo of the emaciated African child, one arm over his face. He looks ashamed, although whether it’s the vandalism or the sight of that dead girl that’s done it, I can’t tell.
The lighting and contrast is an easy fix. It’s a good shot, with a bit of sprucing up. I save, compress, upload, and stare at the shot.
It looks false. Doctored.
Photoshop won’t hug you back. It seems a lot truer now, at four AM on Thursday morning.
I delete the shot and upload the original. I don’t know if it’s any better this way, but at least it’s honest.
My bed has never been softer.
* * *
The assignment is to photograph power tools for a warehouse catalogue. Drills and circular saws and nail-guns. Boys toys. It’s hard to keep awake. I keep checking my watch. Everything here smells of sawdust and metho.
I don’t feel awake until the sun tips behind the skyline and the streetlights pop on in long rows like a landing strip. Fiver is waiting by the corner of Flinders, under the clocks at the train station. He nods to me as I arrive, bald spot shining in the neons.
Fiver has a bagful of stickers slung over his shoulder. He slaps them onto the back-lit ads at tram stops, covering up the faces of celebrities hawking Rolex and Maybelline. His messages glow from within: You KNOW this is media crap. Brad Pitt stares at me, his face blown up so large that every one of his manicured chin-hairs is as wide across as my pinkie. His eyes follow me as I pass. Brad Pitt is weighing me up and judging me unworthy.
“Creepy, isn’t it.” He lays one of the stickers right over Brad’s nose. The sticker is cut in the shape of an erect phallus. The text reads It won't make you any bigger.
I help smooth out the sticker. “Shouldn’t it be all wilted?”
He stops and stares at me for a while. “Yeah. That makes sense. I’ll tell Voda.”
“He made that one?”
“Can’t you tell?” He grunts. “Kids. Always thinking with there you-knows instead of their heads. They think this can be won with macho. But they don’t use macho. They do it by thinking smart and making you think what they want. So we have to think smart as well.”
He waits for a car to pass around the corner before pulling out a large one. It’s an A4 printout of Tyler Durden, Brad Pitt’s character from Fight Club. Below him are the words You're not the car you drive. You're not the contents of your wallet. You're not your fucking khakis. We’re standing outside a Starbucks, and he pastes it up right over the smiling mermaid.
“Can’t get away from that guy,” I say.
“It is not Brad Pitt who is talking. It is Chuck Palahniuk. Brad was just the mouthpiece. Besides, it is a good movie.” He stares through the glass at the empty seats, empty tables, idling coffee machines. “Don’t you want sometimes to burn it all down?”
I think of Seb and her oversized mug, the steam rising in wreaths around her face. The way she turned to hide when I mentioned Fiver and Voda. “From time to time.”
Another sticker. This one obscures a diamond pendant. I unsling the camera. Fiver looks ghastly in the flash, like a risen corpse, pallid and sunken.
“This is good, what you are doing,” he says. “Maybe people will start to know. Then they will join us.”
I adjust the focus, grab another shot of the bag, his arm buried to the hilt, questing for the right sticker. It’ll look great with the long exposure. “But if people join you, then there would be more than the four horsemen.”
He grins, and I realise for the first time how sharp his teeth are. “Yes. Then we will have a cavalry.”
The others are waiting outside a McDonalds, hunched against the cold, the light eking out casting long shadows across the street. Seb looks pleased to see me, smiling wide. Voda less so. He has deep bags under his eyes. “Been burning the candle at both ends?” I ask.
“You could say that.” He hefts his duffel bag. “Let’s go ruin some shit.”
He leads the way to the edge of the CBD. Here there are restaurants rimmed with tall office blocks, little spots of light in the night where cubicle drones are hammering away on their keyboards. Where the streets converge and turn into highway there is a low slung building, only three stories tall, squat and knobbly like a crouching toad. There is an electronic billboard on the rooftop, much the same as a football scoreboard. It alternates between a promo for a reality TV show and Peters Icecream. It’s the last thing a traveller will see as they exit the city and accelerate towards Canberra.
“How the hell are you going to poster that?”
Fiver pats me on the shoulder. “We will not poster it. Today is a time for something more.”
They’ve obviously scoped this out in advance, because Voda vanishes around the side of the building with his duffel bag. A few seconds later comes a low whistle, and Fiver leads us around the corner. Voda is there with his bag unzipped and boltcutters in hand. A sidedoor swings open on rusted hinges. Voda picks up the bag and slips inside without saying a word.
“After you,” says Fiver. I swallow, trying to hide how my hands are shaking by gripping the camera tight. I haven’t done a breaking-and-entering since my tagging days, and that ended in disaster. I unscrew the lens cap, just to be ready, and follow Voda.
He leads the way up to the rooftop. We emerge through a doorway into the open air. The stars are invisible behind the glare of city lights. I can smell the street; the petrol haze, the rot in the storm drains. It’s somehow more obvious out here. The electronic billboard stands on the edge of the roof, black and featureless from behind apart.
Voda is pouring out the contents of his bag onto the pebbled rooftop. He picks through the mess. There are cables and plugs and things I can’t identify. He picks out the correct ones, and Phelps unzips his own backpack to lift out a laptop.
Fiver watches on with arms crossed. “We figured out how these work long ago. Very simple. Animations are a simple program fed in from USB. There are locks and passwords. Both are easy.”
Seb has already pried open a panel on the back of the billboard with a screwdriver. Phelps has his laptop up and running, and Voda has the right cables. They are a well-oiled machine. Phelps plugs in and they’re good to go. I take a photo every time they turn their heads. The flash picks them out in silhouette.
Phelps flicks through windows with practiced precision. Everyone is silent as he fiddles and tunes. He is humming the Eighteen-Twelve Overture. Then he nods and clicks the laptop shut. “Done.” It took less than half a minute.
We pack up and head back down. Phelps is still humming. “What did you change it to?” I ask, but nobody answers, all smug and self-satisfied. Bastards, every one. The door is in sight and I’m beginning to relax. This time, things have worked out.
We file out onto the street. I cup the camera, check traffic, and jog to the far side of the road. The billboard is incredibly bright, brighter than any of the streetlights. It flashes its message into the night. WHEN WAS THE LAST TIME YOU SAW THE STARS?
I don’t quite know what they’re trying to say, but I like it. Camera up, finger on the trigger, click.
Then, in the corner of the viewfinder, there is a tickle of red and blue. Strobes, growing stronger. Then the siren begins, a wobbling tone that conjures up images of bombers and ack-ack guns, and my guts fall through the floor.
“Cops!” I shout, and run back across the street. “Goddamn cops!” They’re one step ahead, pulling their bag-straps tight and hoods up. Seb looks panicked for the first time since we met, and Phelps’s eyes are huge white saucers.
“Run,” says Fiver, and they don’t need to be told twice.
We sprint together down the back streets while the sirens rise and fall. Our sneakers slap the concrete. Phelps makes strained whistling noises as he runs, like a steam train puffing up a mountain. “Christ,” he says, over and over. “Christ. Christ.”
We turn a corner. The sirens are beginning to fade. Phelps and Fiver are red in the face, heaving for breath, but there is relief there as well. Voda and Seb are fairly bouncing. “Shit, that was close!” says Voda. “That was awesome! Fuck the pigs!”
I want to slap him right then. Fuck the pigs? It’s like watching some US teen soap. But for the moment I’m just glad to not be wearing cuffs. “Yeah,” I say. “That was pretty close.” My fingers flutter against the lens. I can feel my heartbeat like a metronome. “Goddamn. Let’s not do that again.”
Fiver stares at me for a while. Then he grins, and slaps me on the shoulder. “It was good, that you ran with us. Many would not. Maybe we need five horsemen, eh?”
“Maybe,” I say, and start to smile as well.
Back at home I download, cull the crap, touch up the best. There are only five or six shots from the night worth keeping. I share them with the masses. One button upload. When it’s this easy, you have to wonder why everyone isn’t doing it.
There are comments in my inbox. They can wait.
I sleep.
* * *
Morning hits me hard. The late nights are catching up. My hand shakes as I pour milk into my cereal. It tastes like cardboard. I open my laptop as I chew.
First, emails. Nothing too fantastic. No new jobs this week. That means I’m back to my noodle diet. More people want me to enlarge my various bits and pieces for no money down. I delete the crap, rinse, repeat.
Now, the gallery. People have been leaving comments on the shots, and they’re stacking up. I run through them one by one. Some people are laying down praise. A few are angry. This is mindless vandalism you should be arrested disgusting. The cursor hovers over the DELETE box.
No. That would be the easy way out. You take the good with the bad.
Then, towards the end of the list, a comment on one of the shots from the very first night. The Four Horsemen running from the billboard, Voda leading the charge, head down and hidden by shadow. Behind him, the kliegs spray over the board, making the woman’s cellulite glow from within.
The comment reads: This portfolio is fantastic. A real insight into the activities of Melbourne’s counter-corporate activists. Have you considered exhibiting? I run the Tumnus gallery on Gertrude St…
I freeze. The words blur. All I can see is exhibiting. I read it over and over. This is the thing that all contract photographers dream of, in their unguarded moments.
I want to reply, say yes, yes a hundred times. But I can’t. I have to play this carefully.
I call Seb.
* * *
We all meet in a coffee bar on Collins St. It’s a high-class establishment. People speak quietly here. The air is full of whispers, like the rustling of corn-stalks. I can smell lavender and thyme, and our coffee arrives in tiny cups with handles too small to fit my finger through.
Phelps is the first to speak. “I don’t think it’s a good idea.”
Then Seb, black hair falling over one eye like some mopey pop-star. “I think it’s a damn good idea.”
“They could find us.”
“No, they can’t. You can’t see our faces. Right?”
I nod. “There isn’t a single photo online that could identify you. None. Not a one.”
“Still.” Phelps settles back. “I can’t be caught doing this. You guys know. You don’t know, though.” He stares at me, face drawn, the scar on his lip a livid white. “I have two kids. I can’t afford going to court. I can’t go to jail.”
“They don’t send people to jail for sticking up posters.”
His hands are shaking. “I don’t know, though. It’s all knee-jerk these days. I don’t know.”
We’re all silent for a while. I push my tiny coffee over to Seb. She gulps it down. “Look,” I say. “She asked for fifteen photos. They’ll be exhibited for a few weeks and sold at auction. Nobody is going to see any more than they would if they were up on my blog. This isn’t going to expose you.” I look around the group one by one. “Any of you.”
That’s when Voda leans in, just like he did on Wednesday night. His eyes are wide and jittery and rimmed with red. “How much are you making out of this?”
I shrug. “Don’t know. It’s an auction. Maybe nothing.”
“Bullshit,” he says. “And we’re the ones that did the work. You never got up there with a fucking roller. That was us. You owe us.”
I don’t know what to say. For the first time, Voda is actually making a strange sort of sense. “Man, I could give you guys the money, whatever I make. It’s not a big thing.”
“Hell no,” says Seb, “you’re not giving us money,” and that’s when Fiver slaps his hands down on the table hard enough to make everything rattle. The noise echoes off the walls of the shop. Coffee spills over the edge of one cup and runs in a thin line to the edge of the table.
“It’s not our money,” he says, very slowly. “It’s his money. We invited him along and he took our photos. We can’t now take it all back.”
He ducks his head a moment. “I did not think you would do this. We had so many talks that I thought you understood. But maybe you don’t yet understand what we are doing.”
“I understand-“
He cuts me off with a wave of the hand. “No, you do not. It was good, what you did. You let people know about us. Maybe they will join the fight, too. But you still think of money, in the end.”
“I just said-“
He looks away, as if he’s ashamed of the sight of me. “We are best as four horsemen. It was stupid to think of five. You should go now.”
Seb is staring at her hands. She doesn’t look angry or even sad. Just frustrated. There’s something trying to get out but she’s keeping her lips shut. Phelps… I can’t read Phelps. He has a perfect poker face.
I try and work out the words. “I didn’t want the money. I just wanted to show more people what you do. And I liked being out with you guys, I really did. You’re doing… I think you’re doing something right. Well. Maybe. At least you’re doing something.” I realise I’m rambling and clamp down. “If… if I said no to her, then could I keep coming out with you?”
Fiver shakes his head. “I think you have taken some good photos. As I said. That is enough for now.”
His voice is final. I’ve been reading people for a good few years now, and I know that he doesn’t like the decision any more than I. But things have to be done, and it isn’t worth splitting up the Horsemen for a few more photos. I nod again. “Thanks. It was good.” I lay down a twenty on the table. “I’ll send you all an invite to the exhibition. Whenever that is.”
They don’t say anything until they think I’m out of earshot. Then it’s Voda who speaks, his voice nasal and whiny across the coffee house. “We should be the ones with the damn exhibition.”
“Shut up, Voda,” says Seb, and I can’t help but grin at that.
* * *
The smile doesn’t last. Back at home it’s cold and quiet. I check my emails. Nothing but spam. I eat cold tuna from the can and download the days photos. Nothing worth keeping.
The email from the owner of the Tumnus Gallery is waiting. I start to type a reply: Thankyou for your offer, and I’d love to take part…
My fingers feel leaden. They fumble on the keys. I take out my phone and scan to Seb’s number. Maybe if I rang her and asked real nice, she could put in a word to Fiver…
No. That would be begging. That would be something Voda would pull.
I finish the email and stare at it for a while. It doesn’t sound like me. All thankyou’s and fawning appreciation. Last night I was running from the police, and now I’m scraping my head on the floor as I bow.
I swallow my pride and send the email.
There’s a message from Seb waiting. Hey, you okay? That was a really shitty thing that Fiver did. Come meet me for coffee. I delete it without replying.
The Tumnus gallery is squeezed between an Irish pub and a newsagency. It’s thin and scrubby, paint peeling from the lintel and the sign hanging crooked. But the front window is polished crystal clear, and inside enormous paintings hang in heavy gilded frames with plaques beneath. A woman in a cardigan and thick glasses sweeps the floor. She looks up at me, smiles, and motions me inside.
“I’m Marianne,” she says, extending a hand. “I’m glad you said yes. We’re one short for this exhibition, and I couldn’t bear having an empty wall.” Her teeth are tiny, like baby teeth. “I’m making tea. Do you take sugar?”
We sit on a couch upstairs. This is her home, she explains; a one-bedroom apartment above the gallery where she balances the books and watches TV. Unfinished paintings lie about on the carpet, thick with oil and pastel. “I used to paint,” she says. “I would like to begin again, properly. But time is very short these days. Do you paint?”
I shake my head. “Ah,” she says. “That’s alright. Your photography is a beautiful art.” She nods at the camera hanging about my neck. I’d almost forgotten it was there. The weight of it seems natural. “Your photos. I found them by accident, really. It’s not that I enjoy graffiti. But they were special. There is something very sad about them. Like David and Goliath. Do you know your bible?”
“Enough of it,” I say.
“Well. Then you know David and Goliath. But I think you have many David’s, and they are different. David knew God would guide his stone. But yours… I think they know that this Goliath is too big.”
“That,” I say, “is why they work together.”
She serves the tea. It’s sweet and calming. “Yes,” she says. “They all seem very sad. But they are sad together. So you will exhibit?”
I nod. “Good,” she says. “There will be four others. Two are painters. They do landscapes. Not very exciting, but they will bring friends. And you will bring friends?”
“Of course.” I think she senses the truth, but she doesn’t pry. “It’s a lovely gallery you have.”
“Yes,” she says, as if it is not a compliment but a statement of fact. “I bought it a great many years back now. And it is nice to live so close. I can read, and think of painting again while I watch television.”
She points to her TV. It’s a big black flatscreen wedge mounted on an old oak cabinet. “It’s a nice one, yes? I bought it new. It is very clear.” She sighs, sounding genuinely dismayed. “I wish they showed more things on the news about painting, or gardens. There is very little about gardens.”
The TV is huge behind her. I’m reminded of Kubrik’s Sentinel looming over the apes. Marianne holds her teacup delicately between thumb and forefinger, and she looks so terribly sad as she speaks of her gardening shows. Sad and small.
I’ve been unscrewing the lens without thinking. I raise the camera. There in the viewfinder; Marianne, on the downward slope of middle age, dreaming of gardening. Behind her, the television she bought to watch shows that don’t exist. But she’s proud of it, truly proud, even though it doesn’t show her anything she wants. She’s proud of it because it’s clear.
I take the photo.
* * *
Back on the street I wander with the Hasselblad slung around my midsection like a rifle. It’s high noon. Café’s are full of students and heavy beats leak out from every boutique store I pass, vibrating through the pavement.
I know somehow that I won’t find anything here.
A tram takes me back to the city. It’s a bit different here. Men in dark suits ram their way through the crowds, holding briefcases as shields against oncoming human traffic. Spruikers shout at me from storefronts, telling me of deals I didn’t know existed. The noise here is oppressive. I can’t hear my own footsteps. It’s all sweat and hubbub and jostling elbows.
On the corner of Lonsdale and Swanston is a billboard mounted on the side of a cinema. There is an action hero up there, some ex-wrestler with a crew-cut covered in gun-oil and the blood of his enemies. His eyes are dark and maddened. His movie is opening nationwide tomorrow.
A woman dressed in a torn cardigan and old boots is shuffling along the sidewalk, step by painful step. I can see her toes through holes in the leather. Her hair is matted and filthy. She asks a passing teenage for change; he pretends not to see her, lost in his music. She walks on.
Anyone who says great photos just happen is a liar. Sometimes you have to see them coming and be ready. I crouch down, adjust the focus, and wait.
One step. One more. She’s right in front of the sign. She stops, scratches behind her ear. She looks up and takes it in. The man, his vendetta, his two hour action epic. She looks confused, as if peering into a foreign land. That’s when I take the photo.
She hears the click but doesn’t look around. Like she’s used to being a sideshow attraction.
I feel dirty. Maybe I’ll keep that shot to myself. Some things just aren’t proper. There will be other ones.
And then I look around at the milling crowds and the storefront displays. Mums in tracksuit pants weighed down with shopping bags and kids crying behind them for treats and toys. Students staring at rows of shiny laptops and iPods behind plate glass.
I don’t need the bag lady. They’re everywhere. A hundred opportunities. A hundred people begging for whatever the big guys have chosen to sell them.
I let my trigger finger run wild.
* * *
I email Marianna my photo selection.
Are you sure these are your final choices?
Absolutely, I reply. I think they provide a nice variety.
Even the photo of me? I don’t know if that’s really proper.
I think it’s perfect. She doesn’t respond after that. The choices are in my hands. I send the shots off to a local printer, get them mounted on plaster-core, deliver them to Marianne. She offers me another cup of tea.
All there is to do now is wait for opening night.
At night my hands curl around a telephoto lens that isn’t there. The air in my apartment is tepid and stuffy. I want to be out on the streets.
Again, Seb emails me. Hey. We hit up some pretty big boards in town. You should come see them.
I reply with the opening date and time for the exhibition. She can come if she wants. I try to convince myself I
don’t care much either way, but it’s a lie.
* * *
There are people milling around the gallery entrance when I arrive. Smiling men in suits and ties and women in tall, uncomfortable looking heels, lips painted unnaturally bright. They laugh at dog-whistle pitch, and I start to wish for the quiet of the alleys. The rumble of the paint roller against long sheets of paper. The deliberate pauses when everyone ducks down, waiting for a car to pass.
I miss the Four.
I circle for a while, hiding in the corners, trying to listen in on people looking at my photos. They all speak in art wank. But there are a few that linger. Who see the beggar woman before the theatre and nod, as if they’re just received a secret message, meant for them and them alone. They look at Seb vanishing into the crowd and hunch their shoulders, like they too are hiding. I see this and I wish they were here to see the same.
I turn. There are two figures in the doorway, heads down. I recognise them immediately from how they shuffle through the crowd. Phelps has a cap pulled down low over his eyes, and Seb has her hoodie pulled up, casting her whole face into shadow. I try to keep my voice calm, to hide the excitement. “You came incognito.”
“Well, yeah.” Phelps looks around nervously, hands in his pockets. If he’s trying to stay unidentified, this is the worst possible way of doing it. “Thought I should see how it came out. It’s a good crowd.”
“They’re not all for me.” I point him to the wine. “Get a drink. I’ll meet you up the back.”
He waits for me there, sitting down beneath a tall Victorian lamp. He extends his hand, and I shake it. “You’ve got some good pictures here,” he says. “The ones of the people. Like that woman and her TV. Where did you get the idea for those?”
“Well.” I try to sound nonchalant. “You guys, really.”
“Huh.” He stops, hands in his pockets, unsure. I don’t know what he wants to say. Then, finally – “You sure nobody knows who we are?”
“No one.”
He relaxes, shoulders sagging, days of tension falling away. “Thank God. I’ve been up all night. Told the wife I had the trots. Goddamn.” There is sweat on his forehead, and he wipes it away with the back of his sleeve. “She think I’m cheating, you know that? Because I’m out late nights. How stupid is that?”
“Pretty stupid,” I admit. “You think it’s worth it?”
“No. Well. It’s worth doing. It’s not worth losing my wife.” He sighs. “Did I tell you I have two daughters?”
“I knew you had kids.”
“Two girls,” he says. “Amelia and Petra. Petra is eight now. Funny, how kids minds work. You know what she asked for, for her birthday?”
“Christ, Barbies?”
“Scales.” I must look confused, because he keeps going. “To weigh herself every morning. She doesn’t want to get fat. What is an eight year old doing worrying about that?”
“Man, that’s normal,” I say. “When I was eight I kept doing up my hair like Travolta in Grease.”
“It’s not the same!” He twists and crushes his cap in his hands. “She’s only eight. I’d be fine with Barbies, you know. But she wants to be thin. I don’t think she even has a reason for it. I thought about taking her magazines away and stopping her from watching TV, but what would that do? Really?”
Glasses clink in the nest room. Someone laughs, low and booming. I want them all to shut up and leave. Something is happening that’s more important than this exhibition. Phelps looks up at me, and his eyes are hard. The scar on his lip doesn’t look so nasty anymore. It reminds me of the Renomierrschmiss, the duelling scars German officers wore as marks of pride.
“It’s in her head,” he says. “Taking her stuff away won’t change that. She’ll just get the message somewhere else. Isn’t that sad? They’ve sold it to us so many times that we’re the ads now.”
A lecture from many years before is springing to mind. “They’re memes. Do you know what a meme is?” He shakes his head. “Okay, stop me if I go on too much. A meme is a self-replicating idea. You could call most religions memes, because they all have this clause that says to get into heaven or nirvana, you have to convert others. So the idea lives on. I guess… a meme is like a virus in that way. So all these ads and products are the same. See… buy a Barbie, that’s just a line. But if you say Barbie parties with your friends are fun then the idea forces people to tell their friends. To replicate. You can’t have a Barbie party alone. That’s a meme.”
It’s been ten years since I used the word, and suddenly the connection is staggeringly clear. “You can’t attack a virus one on one and expect it to die,” I say. “Because it’s already passed on. What you have to do is create a different meme. Something that travels and takes the place of the original. You get it?”
“I do.” He looks browbeaten, tired. “Everyone is a billboard. Maybe this is something better left to the young. But I don’t want Petra being something she’s not because the TV told her so. That isn’t right.”
“Then keep doing what you’re doing.”
He smiles tiredly. “Thanks. I like what you’re doing too. These photo’s… they’ll stick. Someone will buy them and look at them for the rest of their lives.”
“Yeah. If they don’t throw them out. Your way is better.”
“You think?” He scratches his head. “None of those posters ever last. A day or two, max.”
“Maybe. But people see them.” I extend a hand and pull him to his feet. “That’s how you win.”
“I don’t know.” He adjusts his hat. “Guess we’ll see.”
We thread back through the crowd. Seb is waiting by the door, inspecting a painting of a nude man reclining by a riverbank. Lillies wash past in autumnal drifts. “What took so long?”
“Just talking.”
“Well.” She looks me up and down. “I’m all done. Let’s go.”
She and Phelps slip out into the still winter night. Phelps breathes on his hands to keep warm. I watch them from inside, through a throng of simpering critics.
Seb sees me. She stands under a streetlight and waves, all the little zippers on her jacket winking as they catch the light. It’s the same jacket she wore the night we met, face-down under the bridge. She mimes lifting a mug to her lips, and then taps her watch and holds up two fingers.
I give her the thumbs up. Sounds great to me.
* * *
Two hours later I’m in Starbucks. The air tastes different here. In the gallery it was all perfume and musk. Here it’s almost clean. Seb is reading a travel magazine.
“Anywhere you were thinking of going?”
“Yeah,” she says. “Tahiti. After I graduate.” She puts it down. “It was a good exhibit. You were the best there.”
“Thanks.”
“Fiver shouldn’t have kicked you out.”
I nod. The hurt is still there, but it’s not half as intense any more. I’m actually relieved in some small fashion. I know I’ll be spending my nights in bed, instead of running from the police. “He really wasn’t happy with me, was he.”
“Nah. He’s just blinkered. Love of money is the root of all evil, that sort of thing. Bring down the aristocracy. Sometimes I get the feeling he’s pretending to be some revolutionary. Like Che Guavara. Or Tyler Durden.”
“From Fight Club?”
“Yeah. Like he saw the movie and decided he wants to be some big inspirational leader. I guess he is already. But I think he’s making it up as he goes.”
“That’s the impression I got, yeah.”
“Look, I’m not knocking him.” She sounds hesitant, and I get the impression that Fiver doesn’t take well to being knocked. “It’s just that… he’s angry at everything. So we’re out doing lots of things to lots of people. But if you asked him what he really hates about any of the corporations we’re hitting up… he wouldn’t know.”
“Fumbling in the dark.”
“Mm. And he doesn’t need a light, he needs a goddamn map. Because he doesn’t know what really needs to be hit.” She spreads her hands wide to indicate the café. “Like this. He hates Starbucks. Maybe because they’re everywhere. I get that. No little ma and pa coffee shops any more. And the coffee here really isn’t that great. But hell, they use fair-trade beans, and that’s a start, yeah?” She points to the Fair Trade poster on the wall. I snap a photo. “I mean, that, that alone gets them a get-out-of-jail-free card from me. But not from Fiver.”
“So.” I sip my coffee. It’s finally cool enough to drink without burning my tongue. Is it a bad blend, a burnt roast? I can’t tell. Too much free wine. “The fair trade thing. Do you think Starbucks would have ever started doing it if it weren’t for people raising a stink?”
She shakes her head and smiles, almost wistful. “Probably not. Like I said, the problem isn’t Fiver. We need Fivers. There’s a lot of messed up stuff that people need to know about. The thing is that Fiver shouldn’t be in charge. It needs to be somebody who can pick the real targets. Like Phelps.”
“He’s good?”
“He’s realistic. He can see when things are worthwhile and when we’re just… messing about. He thinks. Sometimes Fiver doesn’t.”
Outside, the stream of cars has died away. A single pair of headlights crest the hill, catch us on high beam. For a second I’m blinded. Then they slide away into the night. I imagine what it’s like to be a rabbit on the highway, frozen between the beams. Knowing you have to move but stuck on the spot as surely as if you were nailed down. “What about Voda?”
“Ha!” She finishes her coffee and wipes her lips. That mocking smile is back. “He’s a sheep. A lapdog. Stick something in his ear and watch it slide out his mouth. No, we need someone like Phelps. Someone who isn’t just… lashing out.”
I want to blurt it out. That it isn’t Phelps who should be leading, that there’s only one person in the Four Horsemen that understands how things should be done. But I know that she already knows it, and so it stays unsaid.
“You sticking with them?” I ask.
“Yeah. Probably.”
“Good. Although. Don’t take offense.” I lean in close. “You guys need a new name. You sound like a bunch of kids trying to be cool.”
“Ha!” She nods. “I know. We need to grow up. Lot of growing up needs to happen if we want to get things done.” She reaches out to touch me on the back of the hand. Her fingers are rough and warm. “Maybe you’ll come out with us again, sometime.”
“Maybe. If Fiver wants me.” I pull my hand free. “I think I’d prefer to work with people that use their real names. No offense.”
“None taken.” She cocks her head. “Seb is my real name, you know.”
“Bull.”
“Sebastien. My folks are weird that way.”
“And the fourteen?”
“That’s when I started tagging. What about you? When’d you start?”
“Seventeen, I think.”
“Why’d you quit?”
There are memories there that sting. “It’s been a while. Memories are hazy, you know.”
“Just tell me.”
I swallow. “Okay. We were out doing some throwups on a rooftop. Someone called the police, so we did a runner. I was the fastest, so I got away. None of my friends did. One of them, Benji, he got pretty messed up. Broken ribs and everything. One of the cops kept punching him in the head. He was in the hospital for a week.”
I wish I had another coffee. “Anyway. They all got fined. Tom even got two years probation. They hit him up for every tag he ever did. But I got away. I hid. I didn’t even turn up to his court appearance. I never saw Benji in hospital. So that’s why I quit.”
I haven’t spoken of Benji in a long time. Maybe I’ve been denying he was ever around. But it feels good to finally get it out in front of somebody else. She looks at me for a while, not saying anything. Then, mercifully, she stands up and stretches. “Time to get going. War needs to be fought.”
“True.” I stand as well, and then reach out to shake her hand. “Good working with you. I think you’re doing it right, you know. You just need to do it… honestly. You can fight this without being Brad Pitt.”
“Damn straight. I’ll tell that to Fiver.”
“Like he’ll listen.”
“You never know,” she says. “You never know.”
* * *
Two weeks later, I’m eating cold cereal when my phone rings. A number I don’t recognise. I answer, and recognise the voice on the other end instantly. “Hello there. Are you doing well?” It’s Fiver.
“Yeah,” I say. “Doing just fine.”
“Are you rich yet? Does everyone know your name?”
“Come on. I sold about half the shots. Made a grand before tax. Nobody gets rich doing this. What do you want?”
A pause. The speaker hisses static. I can hear him breathing, somewhere very far away. He coughs. “Will you come back?”
I’ve been waiting for this for a fortnight. My throat seizes up. It’s hard to get the words out. “Why do you need me?”
“People will not know us, without you.”
“Then you’re doing it wrong.”
Another pause. “Seb has been talking.”
“Yeah? About what?”
“Brad Pitt.”
I start to laugh, and he protests, his voice tinny and insignificant. “What is funny? What is funny?”
“Don’t worry,” I say. “You’ll figure it out.” I hang up. The apartment is silent once more. It’s a good sound.
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