THE IMMACULATE CONCEPTION

So it’s the next morning after me and Na-Na put the mural up over the weekend, and I’m just waiting for the INEVITABLE reaction.

I step it up, entering the art room to find this crowd of kids all gathered around the mural, gazing up at it in astonishment. Not only the kids that were regular students in the class, but all these other kids too, including a number of black kids, who I’m sure had never even set foot in there before.

 They’re all gawking at it like they’re witnessing The Immaculate Conception, or something. Completely puzzled about how this could have suddenly appeared over the weekend.

The black kids are screaming out to their friends in the corridor, to come in and check out “the brothers” up on the wall. And now the din is really growing raucous. They’re even more confused than the white kids about the whole thing, because they can’t figure out how some white boys could have possibly painted this.

Silverstein is glaring at me in this stern silence, obviously annoyed by all the buzz. He really dislikes it when the quiet routine of class is disturbed, and I know he wants to come down on me - hard.

“Alright, alright, everybody! This is a classroom, please!” He’s shouting, in that pinched nasal voice of his.

“Let’s all calm down now, and go to our classes - I’m sure you all have other assignments to attend to!  You can come back after school today if you want to see it, but let’s move on! C’mon! Let’s go! Vamoose!”

He’s trying to make himself heard over the mess, but nobody is listening. Now, he’s becoming extremely red.

The black kids continue bounding in, hollering about this monument to “their culture.” There had never been anything like this in the school before. No tributes to black folk, famous or otherwise. While there were plenty of paintings and portraits of people like George Washington, Jefferson, Lincoln, and Kennedy. This is a first, no matter how it’s gotten there, and they’re all vocal about that. Suddenly, from out of the chaos, a loud shriek rings out.

“Oh shit! Thass Duke in that mofucker! Thass my uncle!  Mofuckers done kilt my uncle!”

“Oooh, Bobby - thass true! That be D’s face an’ shit!” exclaims the distinctive voice of Chuckie Jefferson, who sounds just like a crow.

Abruptly, the mood turns from a spirited curiosity, to one of rapidly brewing violence. You could just feel the seething tension rising up. One by one, other confirmations loudly join in, till a chorus of echoes spreads through the room.

“Yo, they fragged Duke!”

“Sure ‘nuff! That be his face!”

“Yeah, Bobby, thass him.¨
      ” Oh shit!  Some mofucker gonna pay for that - big time!”

I don’t really understand what’s going on now, you never really know what would set the black kids off. I mean, was this guy Duke everybody’s uncle, or what?

The suddenly outnumbered white kids have even less of an idea of what’s going on. Only that they’re reluctantly involved in something that they want no part of. Their bulging eyes vainly scope about for an escape hatch.

The black kids are howling now, working themselves up into some kind of tribal frenzy, as they advance on the flustered honkies. Just as it appears inevitable that a riot is about to break -

“Yo, yo, hold up, y’all!  Hol’ up!  Says here Na-Na Johnson painted this!  Yo, look, check it out! That be his signature an’ shit!”

Haley Cummings, one of the calmer of the black kids, detects our John Hancock’s up there, and is pointing up at them. For a minute, everything halts.  People even stop breathing, as it seems we all go into a kind of suspended animation.

“Say what?”

“Na-Na? Na-Na Johnson?!”

“Yo Chigger, you mus’ be buggin, man! Ain’t no mo’fuckin’ Na-Na Johnson paint this shit!”

“Yeah! Nigger, please!”

“Nah brothers, check it out!  Check it out!”

“Oh shit, J.B! Thass what it say right here! Nigga be right!”

“Nah, dig it man, thass them white boys, tryin’ to be fuckin’ wit’ our heads and…”

“Homeboy - ain't no white boys could paint that shit!”

They return their stares over to the frozen white kids, who are even more bewildered now than before, as they huddle together, and try to retreat.

“Dig it, blood, that shit be just too fierce for no white boy to do”

The white kids agree heartily, some of them even nodding in agreement.

“Some other name be up here too…Joe Mon-t-aperto- Mon-t-aperto - who that be?!”

All the white kid’s eyes turn immediately in my direction, relieved to be shifting the burden over to me.

“That mo’ fucka?”  A few blurt out in unison.

“Yeah…its – it’s me…”

“Say whaaat?”

“I’m… um - Joe Montaperto (I tried to sound calm and steady). Yeah, Na-Na and me - we came in here over the weekend…we did this mural. But I don’t know nothin’ about that guy…I just painted that girl over there on the other side.”

THE CONSEQUENCES

The next thing I know I’m being blasted out of bed by Cat Scratch Fever! Freakin’ Ted Nugent, man.  What are they doing playing that on WABC radio anyway?! Especially at this time in the morning?! I had just intended to lie there in bed for a little bit to rest my eyes. Figure I’ll be way too pumped up to sleep. Instead, I wind up drifting into this freakin’ coma, before Nugent rudely and loudly smashes me into wide-eyed consciousness.  

So now, I’m out of it. Groggy. Headache. Pissed.  Everything annoys me! But there’s no way I’m missing school today - not this day.  Just an hour ago, I was racing down the street against the sunrise, battling to get in before my father gets up. Full of excitement and pride and secrets.  Now, I’m trudging up the same street (3rd Avenue), the morning sun glowing in my face. It’s piercing my eyelids, which are stuck together by what feels like a ton of sand. The ruckus of the cars whizzing by, honking at the rush hour, sends painful shrieks up my spine. It’s all too much. Sensory overload. I just want to get back to my nice dream world.

I’m beginning to wonder if all this shit that happened this weekend…did it really go down? The Savoy? Probably witnessing a murder while in a drug induced state? To say nothing of smoking ganja and drinking, for really the first time in my life?  Breaking into the school?  Creating a mural? Come to think of it - that’s a crime, man. That, and stealing Silverstein’s paints to put up a mural he doesn’t even want. I mean, realistically, the cops could even be at the school this very moment! Jeez.

I step warily into the school hallway - scoping the whole area. No cops, no FBI agents lurking around the doorways, brandishing handcuffs. So far. I breathe easy for a minute. I walk softly towards the art room, slowing way down to take a peek at what might be going on.  Good. Nobody in there yet.  Just Silverstein sitting at his desk, seemingly staring at the mural.  Wonder what he’s thinking? Sitting through that first period waiting for art class is torture.  Agony. It’s like waiting for that guillotine to come streaking down on my head. It’s inevitable. My thoughts then wander back to the French Revolution. I contemplate what those Frenchies might have been thinking about right before the blade descends…in half a second, your head would be rolling down the platform. Nasty. What would it be like to think in French, anyway? Would they be the same kind of thoughts English-speaking people had? Or would they be thinking about flamboulie, or pate, or whatever?

The bell for next period mercifully rings. Time to face my destiny. Again. As I shuffle half-hesitantly, half-anxiously, down the hall towards the art room, I hear this major commotion.  

What the hell is going on?

A FINISHED PRODUCT

This Sunday night is our last one, and we’re back in the art room. This is it - nights to put the finishing touches on our masterpiece!! Rummaging through his huge ring of keys again, Na-Na picks out a distinctive looking gold one, the smallest key in the pack, and heads over to Silverstein’s art closet. I’m puzzled, because I know that nobody has that key. Silverstein was the only one who had that, and he guarded it like Zell, the Nazi dentist from the movie, The Marathon Man, guarded his diamond stash. Maybe that’s what I’ll call Silverstein from now on - Zell.  Ha, yeah he’d like that. Zell.

Na-Na opens it up, the closet - and I can’t believe what I see! More colors than I could ever imagine. Some of which I had never seen or even heard of before. Bright colors.

Tangerine. Sky Blue. Burnt Auburn. Teal.  Bright pink, and that’s just to name a few.  Cans, and tubes and tubes of brand new paint. What the hell was Zell doing? Hoarding paint for his old age, or something?! This is ridiculous. I look over at Na-Na. He’s smiling like he’s just scored a pound of heroin. For free.  We set up everything, and hungrily divide up the paint, like we’re gangsters from those old, Superman TV shows, after a bank heist.

“Listen, Peanuts - one for you and one for me, see?”

We do our spliff thing, and I get up on that ladder feeling giddy and free, a myriad of fresh paint at my disposal.

Etta James is again wailing away in the background, and everything eventually just morphs into a sea of bright colors. It becomes almost psychedelic, the high from the ganja turning it all into a dreamy ambiance.

In my imagination, I’m one of those hipster artists from, like, the 1920s or 30s, wearing a beret, and hanging in the Cotton Club, or one of those funky speakeasies in Harlem. Great black musicians jamming, the energy wild, intense, and cutting edge. You feel, somehow, like you’re either watching history - or making it.

I don’t even know where all these images are coming from. Maybe from some of those old photos I saw in that jazz book the Professor was showing me a while back? All I do know is that I am so locked in. What had before just been outlines and forms, are now coming to life with depth and clarity. As I mix the array of paints, I find just the right shade for Esperanza’s skin tone

Again, we work through the whole night, and when dawn hits, we know we got to get out of here. It’s Monday morning, and the staff will soon be arriving. We finish up as best we can - mine all bright colors and flash, a testimony to love and beauty. Na-Na’s masterpiece recreating the darkness of that night, of that world. Violent, muted colors, with brilliant splashes of red creating a metaphorical contrast. Somehow, though, it meshes - the two pieces. The opposites say something, are connected in a sort of profound way. Although, it is far from perfect. I mean, I don’t think you can ever be totally satisfied, but I believe we both came away with a deep sense of achievement. We’ve created something meaningful in only about eighteen intense hours. Yeah.

I leaf through, The Prophet, which I had brought along with me this time, and I begin searching for something to jump out at me. Something that would tie up the significance of the whole thing. I find something interesting under the heading, Speak To Us of Beauty.

“Where shall you seek beauty, and how shall you find her, unless she herself be your Way and your Guide?

 And how shall you speak of her, except that she be the weaver of your speech?”

I ponder that for a few minutes, letting it soak in, and circulate through me. Alas, it doesn’t strike me in a way that really summarizes what I’m trying to say. It just doesn’t hit it. With dawn pouring in, I decide to put down the first words that pop into my head. It’s a phrase that comes from an Etta James tune, one that really touched me.

At Last, I Found a Dream That I Could Speak To.

Na-Na writes down:

By Whatever Means Necessary.

I don’t know where he gets that from, and have no inkling how much I will become connected to it later on.

“Hey Na, man, check it out - should we sign our names?”

He stares at me for a couple of seconds.

“I mean, we’ll be totally busted if we do.”

A defiant smirk crosses his face.

“Let’s do it.”

We sign, clean up the paint, I snap a few pictures with my mother’s Polaroid Instant Camera I had carried with me. Then we gas out of there, to get maybe an hour of sleep before I have to return. No way I’m going to miss this morning.

THAT DEEP FEELING OF ACCOMPLISHMENT

It’s the next night at the high school, the night after Na-Na has hipped me to both the Hawaiin weed and the incredible voice of Etta James…and now we are ready to make our dream a reality.

Na-Na and I meet at the school again that night, me with my LOOK magazine in tow. We go through our herb ritual, he hips me to Al Green, another master of soul, on the boom box, and we get down to business. The business of transforming our creations into a full-scale reality. Me working off the Raquel picture to unleash my Esperanza, he on his scene.

It’s six in the morning again, and I extract myself from my labor of love, to come down to check out what I’ve done. A deep feeling of satisfaction runs through me. Not too bad. There are definitely flaws, no doubt, but I could see Esperanza up there. I had caught in pencil, in charcoal, a good deal of what I wanted to.

I exhale.

I amble over to Na-Na’s side of the room, where he, too, is taking a well-deserved break.

“Holy shit, Na-Na!”

My body goes cold – then frosty.

That face. I immediately recognize that face. It’s the one that was in my sketchbook the morning after the night at The Savoy. The one I have no recollection of. Except this one is way more vivid. Deadly vivid.

It’s not only that it’s that guy’s face, but his whole body is crumpled to the ground. With a pencil in his neck. Another guy, a pimp, apparently, is standing right over him. Victorious. Like a linebacker. Like Dick Butkus standing over a fallen running back, after he had just made a game saving stuff at the one-yard line. There’s another guy, too. Crouching next to him, who’s jeering at the guy on the ground, or maybe exhorting him to get back up. The thing is, the detail in the fallen guy’s face is freakin’ chilling.

He did it, Na-Na did. He had captured that netherworld look of a dude in the last couple of milliseconds of his life. As it’s ebbing away. Brutal.

Just as intense, is the almost blank, yet satanic smirk on the face of the pimp, who had apparently just offed him. He knew he had won, but it was almost like it didn’t matter, either.

Na-Na’s form was still kind of crude though, I think. Rough. I definitely have technique up on him. But the thing is, I think he might have totally just nailed that expression of the guy. The essence - maybe better than I have done with Esperanza. I feel both a sense of jealousy, and admiration, running through me at the same time. It’s hard to take your eyes off it. This is what happened that night at The Savoy. Whoa.  Spooky.

As I step back to take it all in, I’m struck by the contrast in our styles. His characters are smaller than my full-length portrait, kind of representative type art. Exaggerated features – bodies, muscles. Sort of tribal. African. The same style he had shown me in his sketches before, only even more pronounced now.  But the whole thing works, somehow. We pack up and leave…both feeling, I’m sure, like, we had definitely accomplished something here.  One more night to go.