Permanent Adhesives (15 page)

“Did I interrupt you guys? Were you about to make out?”

“No,” I said. “It wasn’t like that.”

“Okay sure,” Kate said, smiling.

Back in the classroom I sat up on a desk with my feet on the seat part of it. I was needed again because there were a few worries as far as the stickering went. Anna came up to me and tucked her hair behind her ear. She took a breath and then sighed. “Some are concerned that we will be regarded as gang bangers.”

“What?” I said, kind of surprised. “No, maybe if you wrote a gang symbol on one of the stickers. I think this might fall under street art, and it’s not gang affiliated, so we’re all cool.”

Roberto showed up in the doorway to save my club goers from their irrational fears. “I was actually at that skate shop Ascend the other day with one of my sisters’ cuz all of a sudden she’s decided she’s a skater, and it seems some skaters are totally into stickers. They actually have this little sticker vending machine in there. It’s kinda cool. I totally hit up that neighborhood with yours’ Molly.”

“Aw, thanks Roberto.”

He gave me two thumbs up with a cheesy grin.

“We’re gonna sticker bomb the crap outta this city,” Kate said loudly.

“Huh?” was the general response.

“That’s what some people call it. I looked it up online,” Kate said.

“You’re such a nerd,” I said, laughing.

Kate raised her nose and pointed her finger. “I am not a nerd. Thank you very much. I was on a quest for knowledge regarding a subject I knew little about.”

“Nerd,” agreed Roberto.

Kate stuck her tongue out at me, punched Roberto in the shoulder, and threw a mean glare over the other club members, so they would not make the mistake of calling her a nerd. Some people just didn’t think it was cool to be in touch with your inner nerd; Kate being the main one.

*************************

I was scanning my latest page of
The Society of Prodigious Supberness
when there was a knock on the door. I clicked save on my computer and got up to get it. Elias awaited on the porch, bouncing on his toes with his hands shoved in his pockets.

“Hey,” I said, letting him in.

He came in and my sister instantaneously appeared in the dining room. “Why’s he here again?” she asked snidely.

Elias made a clicking noise with his tongue. I’m sure it was a
Hey biatch I’m standing right here
kind of noise
.

“He’s helping me out with something.”

Janie looked him up and down, turned, and went into the bathroom. Luckily, she had to work that evening.

“C’mon,” I said, waving him into the kitchen. “I bought some stuff.” I picked up one of the hardware store bags I had on a kitchen chair. Kate was kind enough to spot me a twenty, thus I was able to shop.

A smile crept across Elias’ face.

Out of the bag, I pulled out the supplies I went and bought on Sunday night after I found out what wheat pasting was. I pulled out a two-gallon bucket with a lid, a couple of very large paint brushes, and then this squeegee like thing used for flattening wallpaper. After I put my items on the table, I turned to the counter. I picked up the bag of wheat flour I bought at the grocery store before I went to the hardware store.

“You wanna go wheat pasting!” Elias said, sounding quite pleased.

“Exactly!”

“Awesome.”

“And look,” I said, pointing to my stack of 9x12 poster like things I printed.

“Very awesome.”

“I printed them on newsprint. I read it’s the best for our task at hand.”

“I do believe so,” Elias said, pulling his messenger bag off over his head and unzipping his jacket.

“You know all about this stuff already don’t you?”

“I’ve never done it though. There’s a few that I admire that do.”

“You help me out? This would be like the next level right?”

“Yep, and of course.”

I found a large pot in one of the bottom cabinets and put it up on the stove.

Janie walked in the kitchen dressed for work. “Are you guys baking?”

“”Kinda, I guess.”

“Whatever freaks, I’m leaving.”

I heard Janie leave as I opened the flour. “She’s lovely isn’t she?” I said as Elias moved my posters to the table, so they would be out of harm’s way. He smiled. I put some flour and the proper amount of water in the pot and let it simmer until it was at the perfect consistency. I stirred until there were no lumps. I then put on a couple of pot holders while Elias held the bucket I bought on the counter. I poured the wheat paste into the bucket.

“Shall we try this out?”

Elias nodded.

I grabbed one of my posters and a paint brush and went into my room. Elias brought the bucket o’ wheat paste. “We’ll try in here first I figured.”

Elias smiled, and I plunged my brush into the bucket. I looked from my oozing brush to my bed I stood on. Probably should have put down a top sheet or something. I held my one hand under the brush and then slapped the bristles to the wall. I painted a good sized rectangle and then picked up my poster that featured a front view of Sasha kicking in the air. It was the pose I was working on when my story here started. I smoothed the poster on the wall and then ran the squeegee thing over it to make sure it was good and flat. I was waiting for the poster to peel off the wall or something, but it actually stayed up.

“Yay,” I said with delight. “Let’s go outside and stick one somewhere.”

Elias smiled at my idea. I threw my paint brush in the bucket o’ wheat paste and slipped on my ski vest and some shoes. We went outside into the brisk fall air in search of some little spot around my building where most wouldn’t notice a small poster.

“Alley?” Elias suggested, his hair blowing across his face in the breeze.

I went down the gangway to our building, through the small patch o’ backyard, and out the back gate next to the garage. I chose a lovely telephone pole to paste one of my posters to. Elias kept an eye out, but it seemed besides garage doors and garbage cans and a possible rat, we were the only ones out there. I put the bucket under my left arm and painted on the paste—making sure I made an area slightly bigger than my paper. After I got a nice rectangle up, Elias handed me my poster, and I smoothed it over the pole. I got out my squeegee thingy, but then realized it wouldn’t work that great on a curved surface, so then I just used my hands. I pressed the newsprint into all the nooks and crannies the telephone pole had to offer. The wheat paste soaked through, making the whole poster look wet and kind of transparent. As I smoothed the poster down, little fleckies and small dough balls formed under my fingers. I ran my fingers along the edges trying to make sure I got out all bubbles and small wrinkles. The texture of the light pole started to show through the paper.

“Hey, if ya want, I think I have some gloves in the garage you could use,” Elias said, chewing on his thumbnail.

“Okay cool,” I said, taking in the gooey mess on my hands. I showed Elias my palms.

We left our supplies outside and went in, so I could wash off my hands. While I was inside, I grabbed a small pile of cutouts I made of just the heads of the members of
The Society of Prodigious Supberness
. Once back outside I went to attack a few more things before I went to get some gloves with Elias. I just couldn’t resist. We went around to the front of the building, and I found a nice sized rock next to the front porch. I painted on the paste and smoothed on the paper. Just the mere act of smoothing the wet paper over the rock was soothing. The paper became a skin for the rock, taking the exact shape of where I smoothed it down, catching any turn that it made. It became one with the rock. It was like they were meant to be together.

“Look, this is awesome. I think I love wheat pasting.” I showed the rock to Elias.

He smiled. “It’s addictive in nature.”

“It might be. Where else?”

I walked around the front of the porch, back to a corner against the building. I squat down and painted a small patch in the corner. The cement drank up some of the paste, and I slathered on another coat, watching dirt and little gravel fleckies get stuck in the bristles of my brush. Elias handed me Cecile, and I smoothed her face on the porch. I made a mental note that wheat paste took very well to cement. I then stacked a couple of rocks in front of Cecile so nobody would really notice. Elias squat down next to me, and picked up a large rock or it might have been a cement chunk, but either way, he handed it to me. I flashed him a large smile and ran my fingertips over the flat side of the rock. I plunged my paint brush into the wheat paste and slathered the rock. It was perfect for Becky Gonzalez. I placed the rock back down, so Becky was looking up at us. Very cool, I thought. I stood up and looked around to see if there were any other discreet places I could wheat paste something. It was still quite light out so a couple of my options would have been pretty daring to attack.

“Whatcha doing around midnight?” I asked Elias.

“I do believe I’m going wheat pasting.”

“Excellent.”

“Hey, let me run across the street real quick,” Elias said, seeing that we were done for the moment.

“I’ll come with ya.”

“You don’t have to. I’m just popping into the garage.”

“But I want to.”

Elias shook his head no.

“Do you not want me in your garage? Are there dead bodies in there or something?”

Elias sighed. “Let’s go.”

I left my bucket and brush next to the porch, and Elias and I stepped between two older model cars and crossed the street. Elias opened the rusting gate next to his building, and I followed him down the dark damp gangway that led to the back. The sidewalk was barely there, a lopsided piece here and there sticking out of the ground; weeds grew out of the places where the sidewalk should have been lying. Assorted beer cans and wrappers crinkled and crunched as we stepped on them or kicked them out of the way. The gangway kind of smelled like a litter box. We reached the back of the building where there still wasn’t any sunshine, just a cracked cement patio with rust stains and a dying garage with warped siding and shingles missing from the roof. I took in a deep a breath and stood staring at the garage for a moment.

Garages held odd memories for me, especially ones that were slightly dilapidated. It was not long before my mom, sister, and I moved out, leaving our dad behind, when we were renting a brick bungalow in a neighborhood very populous of elderly citizens, and in the back of the house was a garage, much like the one in Elias’ yard. Well, it was after one of my parents lovely fights when my mom tried to strangle my dad with a dish towel because he came home drunk and didn’t have a dime left of his paycheck. It was one of those fights where my mom’s plan backfired, and I had to call the police because I thought my dad was going to kill my mom because he started to strangle her back. Now, I know I’m sounding all nonchalant about this, but it was a common occurrence in my house. I hated those evenings with a passion because my heart would race like a hundred miles an hour, and my hands would tremble like crazy, which made it hard to dial the phone, and I had to press my tongue to the roof of my mouth to stop myself from throwing up. Now I tried not to think about those lovely memories my father had provided for my sister and I that often because they kind of upset me.

So anyways, the cops showed up, and they said if my mom didn’t have any kind of charges to press they couldn’t really do anything because it was his house, and they couldn’t prevent him from entering. The cops searched around for my dad because he ran out the door before they got there, but they couldn’t find him. So needless to say, that evening, I got very little sleep because I was busy pressing my tongue to the roof of my mouth because of the anxiety of thinking that he might show up again and the scene would be re-enacted made me want to throw up. Sometime during the night he showed up, but I guess my father got the message that time (he was not welcome in the house), so he slept in the garage, and that was where he lived until my mom, sister, and I moved out.

Whenever he was home, well, home in the garage, I would see the light on in the small window that looked at the house, and it would give me the most anxious feeling. It was like he was just out there waiting to attack. After a while, people started coming and going from the garage, male, female, from skeezy to druggie. It got to the point where people started coming to our front door looking for him, angry looking people, guys’ with large guts and pissed off eyes. We weren’t too sure about what kind of trouble he was getting himself into, but we knew it was time to go, and that is what I thought about standing behind Elias’ apartment building while he kicked at the side entrance door so he could enter the garage.

Elias finally got the door open with a couple of kicks and a shoulder shove, and he disappeared into the garage. I followed him and hovered in the doorway at first. It took a few seconds for my eyes to adjust to the dark, but then they borrowed a little light from a small stream coming in through the unblocked part of the window. The garage was full of garage like junk: a much unloved car a few decades old, crates, toolboxes, rakes, empty paint cans, a couple of ladders, and various boxes and containers. Elias was bent over next to the car on the other side of the garage looking through an assortment of general junk. I looked over to the left of him where there were a couple of clotheslines stretching from the left wall to the one behind Elias. Tee-shirts were pinned up. They all said
The Society of Prodigious Supberness
. There was like twelve of them. On the ground below was Elias’ screen printing supplies. In the corner, there was also a plastic chair, and it was as if Elias sensed me looking at it because he jumped up to his feet and threw an empty crate on it—covering up what looked like a sketch book. He drew his eyebrows down at me and continued in his search for some gloves.