"Sir, I Didn’t Know It’s Illegal..."
My sketchbook, notebooks and even my textbooks were packed with doodles, characters, names and anything that came to mind when I zoned out in class (spoiler alert, that happened a lot) I even managed to sell “custom names” to my classmates, and not gonna lie, I hated being called "talented" as if it were something that just happened to me, instead of something I spent hours obsessing over, ruining pages, starting again, and slowly figuring out what felt right.
When social media was “social”, I met a guy with the same interest, despite him living in a different city but, later that year we managed to meet up and go paint together,
It was a warm 2013 summer weekend. One of my friends came along, not because he cared much about graffiti, but because he was always up for anything rebellious, more on that later.
There we were, three guys and a bunch of cheap spray cans, and a stairway covered in tags and random paintings. We didn’t think much of it. Just a little spot to practice, or so we thought.
Halfway through our "artistic expression" we heard the unmistakable sound of heavy boots on concrete: “Pick up your stuff, hand me your IDs, and follow me to the police kiosk” the officer ordered, No handcuffs, no shouting. He even said, “You don’t look like thugs. We don’t want you to look like criminals,” almost like he was doing us a favor.
We grabbed our tools and marched down to the police checkpoint on Rainbow Street, There we were greeted by a third officer, who seemed to act disappointed as if we ruined his shift “Well, boys, what have you done?”
We stumbled over our words, trying to convince them it was all art. “We didn’t know it was illegal,” we said, pointing to the wall, which was already covered with layers of graffiti.
The next hour was a classic “good cop - bad cop” routine. They played their roles so seamlessly it almost felt rehearsed, One minute they were threatening to take us to an actual police station. The next, they’d soften up “You seem honest, we might let you go” Then they’d flip again and suggest punishment: “You’ll paint over the entire stairway”
At some point, they pulled out the ultimate threat “We’ll call your parents” As if the situation wasn’t terrifying enough already.
In the end, they let us go, no cuffs, no charges, just a wasted time and a lesson learnt… or so they though, That moment kicked off a decade of confusing relationship with authority versus freedom, legality versus morality, and choosing whether you want a quiet life or blaze of glory.
And yeah about the 3rd guy, the one who joined purely for the thrill, he kept pushing
boundaries with the authority even after the spray paint was gone, while we were catching tags, he was catching felonies.
Note: the banner image is from a different story for another time*
