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ROBERT REED

GRAFFITI

It was a river town known locally for drunks and evil women, mayhem and crimes

too sordid to mention in decent company. But in the 1890s, a grisly and unsolved

triple murder made headlines across the country, and simple shame forced its

good Christian citizens to act. Originally called Demon's Landing the town

renamed itself Riverview. Corrupt law officers were replaced with a modern,

professional police force. The town and county were declared dry. New schools

were staffed with young women of unimpeachable character. Zoning laws and civic

projects brought a sense of order, while fortuitous fires drove out the

notorious families. It was even alleged that the mayor, a determined young

pragmatist, hired a wandering mystic to help protect Riverview from the criminal

element.

According to some, the mystic was a wild-eyed, tubercular man with a gaudy name

painted on his mule-drawn wagon. Yet just a few years later, no one seemed able

to recall his name or which direction he had taken as he left town. Hopefully he

was never paid for his questionable work. A terrible crime wave heralded the new

century's arrival. A favorite school teacher was molested in the most heinous

fashion, the bank was robbed twice in one year, and both a Methodist minister

and the beloved mayor were shot and killed by thieves. The only blessing was

that the rejuvenated police force, led by a young man named Bethans, managed

quick arrests, and under interrogation, every suspect confessed in full. The

murderers were hanged with suitable fanfare, while thieves and rapists spent

years in the state penitentiary; and for the first time, the river's vulgar

souls began to say that if you wanted to have some fun, you'd best have it

somewhere other than Riverview.

The next decades were built on small events and modest prosperity. Crime wasn't

abolished, but violence seemed to always end with quick arrests and telling

punishments. By the late 1960s, the little river town had grown into a tidy city

of fifteen thousand, its elderly brick downtown nestled against the wide brown

river, handsome older homes hidden on the wooded bluffs, and higher still, where

the country opened up and flattened, there were the sketchy beginnings of urban

sprawl.

There was both a public and Catholic high school. Macon Lewis played quarterback

for the public school's lackluster team. Eddie Cane was his classmate and best

friend. He lacked Macon's size or cookiness, but Eddie was the better athlete,

one of the top cross country runners in the state, and because of it, the boys

were social equals as well as friends.

Macon was six months younger, yet he played the role of older brother,

introducing his introverted, somewhat artistic sibling to the larger world.

Eddie's first date and first sex were both arranged by Macon. Eddie got drunk

for the first time with Budweiser bought by his best friend. As a team, they had

explored the wooded bluffs, pulled monster catfish from the churning river, and

when Macon heard a crazy rumor about the old storm sewer beneath Main Street, he

suggested that they sneak down there and have a look.

"A look at what?" Eddie wondered aloud.

"You like to paint," Macon reminded him. "Well, there's some really strange

paintings in that sewer. If what I heard is true, I mean."

They met after dark, armed with their fathers' best flashlights, Macon

shouldering a heavy knapsack that rattled as they slipped into a deep,

weed-choked gully. The sewer began where the gully dove into an oversized

concrete tube, the tube's mouth blocked by thick steel bars aligned in a

crosshatching pattern. There was a small door secured by heavy padlocks, and for

no conscious reason, Eddie felt relief when he thought they could go no farther.

It was just a sewer, of course. In eighteen years, he had never wondered what

was beyond the barricade. But he smiled in the darkness, smiled until Macon

said, "Over here. We can get inside here."

Freezes and floods had worn away a portion of the concrete wall. With the help

of a crowbar, chisel and ball-peen hammer, they enlarged nature's work. Then

Eddie, smaller by plenty, slipped easily into the sewer, and with a lot of

grunting and twisting and breathless little curses, Macon joined him, slapping

his buddy on the back, then whispering, "Follow me," with a wink that went

unseen.

A trickle of water, antifreeze, and discarded oil led the way, spilling down a

long slope before turning beneath Main Street, slowing and spreading until it

was little more than a sheen of moisture and reflective slime. Modern concrete

gave way to enduring red brick. The sewer had been built in the 1890s, arching

walls frosted with an excess of mortar, and the mortar was decorated with

colorful, even gaudy paintings. Holding a big Coleman flashlight in both hands,

Eddie focused the beam on the nearest work. In clinical detail, it showed a man

and woman making love. Except they weren't making love, he realized. The woman

was struggling, and the man, taking her from behind, held a knife flush against

her long and pale screaming throat.

"This is real," Macon reported. "Everything you see here happened as it's

shown."

Other paintings portrayed other violent crimes. A man dressed in an

old-fashioned suit was being shot in the face, pointblank. A second man was

being gutted with a long blade. A third was being battered from behind with a

baseball bat. And in each case, the painting looked astonishingly new, and the

murderous person was shown in photographic quality.

It was a kind of gallery, Eddie realized. Utterly unexpected, and inexplicable.

Yet Macon had a ready explanation. "The way I hear it, our town once made a pact

with the Devil, or someone just as good." He illuminated his own face, proud of

his knowing grin. "If there's violent crime anywhere in Riverview, it appears

here. As it happens. By magic." "How do you know?"

A mischievous wink, a brighter smile. "Pete Bethans told me." Pete was the

police chief's son and a third-string running back. "A slow kid," was Macon's

harsh assessment. "You've been around him. Slow in a lot of ways, but that's why

I believed him. He couldn't invent a crazy story if his life depended on it."

Eddie nodded, slack-jawed, wandering downstream.

"Chief Bethans comes here once a day, just to check the paintings. Because if

there's anything new, that means that it just happened." A pause. "Pete's dad

and granddad were both Chiefs, and Mayor Smith has been mayor for thirty years.

It's supposed to be their secret."

A face sprang out of the gloom. A boy's face. Distorted, in agony. Eddie

hesitated, then in horror realized that they knew him. His family had moved into

Riverview a few years ago, in mid-semester. The boy had sat beside Eddie in

homeroom. For about two weeks, he was the quiet newcomer. Polite, but distant.

Then came rumors of an unspeakable scandal, and for no clear reason, his father

drove the family sedan into their garage and shut the door and let the engine

run. Which was too good of a death, Eddie realized. Shining the beam past the

suffering face, he saw the father, saw what he had done, and for all the

horrible things that Eddie might have imagined, this was worse. A thousand times

worse. How could the boy, or anyone inflicted with this kind of hell, not just

die of shame?

For a long while, neither boy made the tiniest sound.

Then Macon forced himself to give a nervous little laugh.

Feeling tired and hot, Eddie started upstream again, his entire body aching as

he sobbed quietly.

For his benefit, or maybe for both of theirs, Macon said, "That sort of crap

happens. Every day, all around the world --"

"Not in Riverview."

"Exactly." Macon gestured at the first painting, the one of a woman being raped.

"These things help the police keep law and order. And what's wrong with that?"

"You said we made a pact with the Devil," Eddie replied.

"I was teasing," Macon promised. "Nobody knows what's responsible for them."

Overhead was the rumble of a big truck rolling down Main Street. They heard it

through a nearby sewer grate.

"Besides," said the quarterback, "these are just pictures."

What did that mean?

"If you can't stand looking at them, don't." Macon was talking to himself as

much as to Eddie, his voice suddenly large, filling the sewer from end to end.

"If they bother you too much, just shut your eyes!"

From the time he was eight, art teachers had praised Eddie for his drawings,

particularly for his attention to proportions and his precise sense of detail.

His doodles were well-received in study hall, and some of his work had ended up

in the last two yearbooks. People with no special gift liked to tell him,

without a trace of mockery, that he had a great career as an artist waiting for

him. Yet Eddie had enough appreciation for art and its demands to know that he

had no future, save in some narrow commercial venue. Talent was a fire, and he

couldn't feel any fire, and the truth told, he wasn't even a little sorry for

its absence.

Macon didn't understand about fire and talent. Eddie was an artist, and when

Macon had his own inspiration, he worked hard to solicit Eddie's cooperation. It

was several weeks after their secret visit to the sewer. In two more days, their

school would play crosstown rival Plus. There was no bigger game every year. As

always, the smaller Catholic school had recruited from across the county, and

they were a virtual lock for the state's Class B championship. "They creamed us

by five touchdowns last year," Macon complained. "And Haskins is even better

this year. Throwing, running. He could play us without his front line, and he'd

still beat us shitless."

Haskins was the enemy quarterback. Big college scouts had been coming through

Riverview for two years now, the All-State senior being the prize and Notre Dame

rumored to be in the lead.

Knowing his friend's crafty mind, Eddie asked, "What are you thinking? You've

got a stupid idea, don't you?"

"Not stupid. Brilliant!" Macon felt deservedly proud, laughing and drumming on

his belly with a happy rhythm. "Who's the heart of the Pius defense?"

A junior linebacker. A farm boy named Lystrom.

"Exactly. And suppose we make certain neither Haskins or Lystrom play Friday

night. Just suppose."

"We'll lose anyway," Eddie replied.

"Maybe so," Macon allowed. "But not by five touchdowns, and I won't get the shit

beat out of me."

"So what's this idea of yours?"

"First," said his best friend, "promise that you'll help me. Tonight. A couple

hours' work, tops. What do you say?"

Eddie never agreed to help, but he never quite wrestled his way out of the

onerous duty, either. "I'm not a good enough painter," he kept telling Macon,

right down to the moment when they reached the sewer's entrance. Arms aching

from carrying paint and brushes, he said, "It'll take too long, and we don't

have enough light. And besides, someone's sure to find us --"

"The only ones who'd want to find us are home asleep," Macon snarled. "Put that

crap down and help me. We've got bigger problems here."

Someone had blocked the way in, patching the concrete and plugging the gap

between the bars with heavy hog-wire. But Macon had a thorough nature, and he'd

come prepared. Bolt cutters removed the wire, and the new concrete hadn't set

properly, flaking off without much fuss, leaving enough space for both of them

to squeeze inside.

The graffiti hadn't changed in their absence. Eddie wondered if Chief Bethans

bothered coming every day, or if once a week was enough. What if their clever

work went unnoticed? He asked that reasonable question several times, and he was

rebuffed, Macon finally turning to him, saying, "Paint. Now. And tell me where

to point these damned lights."

Mimicking the colorful, almost photographic style wasn't simple. Making the

faces lifelike and plainly recognizable seemed practically impossible. Eddie had

brought a Pius yearbook and several newspaper photos, and he worked with

deliberation, moving too slowly for Macon's comfort, finishing the faces by

midnight. Then came portraying the crime itself. They'd decided on a rape, its

victim blessed with an anonymous face. The police would be forced to hold the

football stars for days, searching for a nonexistent woman. But there is no such

thing as a truly anonymous face, and whenever Eddie thought he saw something

familiar about the nose or jawline or eyes, he would have to retreat and make

changes. Nobody was to be genuinely hurt tonight. He wouldn't be doing this if

he thought there was the slenderest chance of harm.

Occasionally, Macon would say, "Hurry."

Besides the patient trickling of dirty water, the ancient brick sewer remained

silent. Utterly indifferent.

Eventually, Eddie couldn't hear his friend's calls for speed. Fatigue and worry

vanished. He found himself going back again, adding details that felt right. The

victim was naked, on her hands and knees, twisted into a painful, unnatural

position, her naked attackers buried in both ends; and he worked hard presenting

the dangling breasts and the curl of varicose veins, then the fearful eyes, blue

and huge, and her sweaty and matted short brown hair.

Hours passed in a moment. Nearly finished, Eddie suddenly pulled back his brush,

realizing this was what the artist's fire felt like. It was past four A.M. One

flashlight had died, and the big Coleman's beam was weak, trembling in Macon's

tired hands. But Eddie had never felt more alert, smiling now, telling his

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