A taste of our part of town. A few nights ago, my wife and I were waiting for the bus to go home. It’s a pretty sketchy part of town, and so we were standing further down the sidewalk in front of a massage parlor that I’m pretty sure is the ‘happy endings’ type. We do this to avoid being asked for a spare cigarette or change.
Across the street, we watched a young man using black spray paint on a white-washed brick wall. From our point of view, it looked as though he was painting the moon, or a planet of some kind, maybe.
After a minute or so, another gentleman comes around the corner wearing a reflective vest. We couldn’t hear what they were saying, but the man with the vest took the spray paint. I thought at first he was security, but instead of ousting the young man, he walked further down the wall to write, “FUCK SPD”. SPD stands for Seattle Police Department.
He then conversed with the young man for a moment, and then went back around the corner with the spray paint. The young man then danced as he walked away from his crime scene.
Our bus soon arrived, and as we passed his ‘art’, I saw that it was just a tag, or gang-related graffiti.
One thing of note, was the font the man in the vest used to write his message. The F-word was in a pretty standard block lettering, but the way he wrote, “SPD” was in a different font. A font that I recognize from other graffiti, that seems to be a standard when tagging no matter what city in which I’ve lived or visited.
It’s similar to the graffiti in this image, where the ‘S’ has a very large bottom and smaller top.
Still, I’m really not sure if there was anything lost or gained by that situation. He did take the spray paint away, but he wrote an even more egregious message. The young man’s message only means something to him and his cohorts, whereas the other message is clearly understood by everyone that lives here.
Thank you so much for reading. Have a wonderful day….[[|:-)
