Leave My Mark in Graffiti

“So I tried my hand at being an artist. I went to the Major Deegan on 230th Street in the Bronx and put my very first piece up on a wall. I was proud because I knew that I had officially submitted my talents to the universal culture of Street art. The next day while riding in my mother’s car, I eagerly pointed out my artistic genius to my boy. And then I saw that someone had written “Toy” over my work. Reality set in and I made another lateral transfer and became an MC.”

“I was twenty-two and desperately in love, but the relationship had entered its beginning-of-the-end stage—a fact I couldn’t admit, even after my soon-to-be-ex moved away. I’d recently acquired a degree in graphic design and worked a minimum-wage job at a bakery. Every morning I looked in the mirror and thought, You have a bachelor’s, and now you’re off to make cookies. In this dreary state of mind, I decided to inform the world of my misery. No one would care if I spray-painted a brief message on a soon-to-be-demolished bridge. Surely the police in Tempe, Arizona, had bigger crimes to worry about. Under cover of darkness I rode my bicycle to the dried-up Salt River bed, walked to the old bridge, and, afraid of getting caught, hurriedly spray-painted, “I love you Ronnie,” on one of the supports—a pretty novice bit of graffiti, using only black paint and simple letters.”