After living in New York and Philadelphia for many years, I know my vandalism. Entire quadrants of those metropolises have been given over to the imperial aerosol kids, who take possession of signs, vehicles, buildings and bridges by way of spray-painted symbology. With their tags and codes, they tell each other who owns what, and any street or place in view of the marking is dominated by proxy. Outsiders and downtowners can't begin to pretend to understand the language, but the basic message is very clear: this doesn't belong to you.
Moving to the Providence area has taken some adjustments.
Here is something I found on a Rhode Island Public Transit Association city bus a few days ago. It's a Post-it note with a graffiti tag on it. There were others on seats as well, clearly all left by the same marksman. I'm not really sure what the intent was here, but there's very little threat or danger inherent. It takes me back to by dormitory days -- "street-tough" in that context means removing the Post-it, drinking the milk, and casually telling your roommate that you never saw it when confronted. Perhaps this is the way rival gangs in Providence manage their territory too.
The cross-town ride gave me a lot of time to focus on the Post-it tags, as I watched polo-shirted businessmen, elderly ladies with flower-print purses, and man-children in oversized Avirex coats came on and off the bus. They stepped on the Post-its with muddy shoes, picked them up, balled them, sometimes leaving the notes crumpled in the seatcushion canyons with discarded newspapers and Dunkin' Donuts cups.
How like life, I thought. We boldly strike forth, fashion an individual shape that distinguishes us from the rest of the race. We make our marks in this world, but they're hardly indelible. Our work is underappreciated, trod upon, misunderstood, and after we've reached our final destination, it's nearly impossible to make sense of what we left behind. We're not dust in the wind, we're Post-it graffiti tags on a small-city bus. What chance do we really have?
