It was beyond her control. What did she think she could do, a thirty-seven year old woman with no training? As she zipped along the Bronx River Parkway the scattered litter and the graffiti splattering the retaining walls and once graceful stone bridges kept drawing her eyes away from the road.

Jan brushed her long brown hair off her face as the warm October wind whipped it about. The anger at her own helplessness constricted her muscles. She could join a CAG group, Citizens Against Graffiti. CAG members were often ridiculed and threatened. And killed. There were rumors, unexplained deaths of members, not many, but through the years, enough to frighten.

Watch the traffic, she admonished herself. Think of home.

There was still some beauty at home. In the year 2059, the backyards were safe. There was a garden in the back with grass and flowers. Large rhododendron and forsythia bushes walled her yard from the neighbors. It was private and gave Jan a sense of safety and peace, but for how long? How long before the back gardens were trampled as the front gardens had been?

The houses had been turned over to the graffiti gangs years earlier. Just after she and Martin had married, they had painted their newly acquired house the standard battleship gray.

“Can’t we stop them?” she had asked Martin, as the neighborhood gangs had come with their spray cans. She had wanted something beautiful. A battleship gray house with a front yard of blacktop and concrete was not beautiful like the houses in the old photographs her grand- mother kept, but for a few days it had been untouched and clean.

“Why do we let them do it, Gran?” she had cried as she watched the gangs paint lines and squiggles over the gray.

“Because there had been too many deaths before. No one wants to repeat the graffiti wars which started in the early teens and lasted for almost ten years. Vigilante groups and gangs roamed the streets. Blacks, Whites, Chicanos. All nationalities got killed. Poor kids and rich kids and their parents. Carry a spray can and you got arrested. Get caught using it, and you got shot. And the kids shot back.”

Her father had been shot in June of ‘18, four years before she was born, in the last great graffiti battle. After that, there were fewer battles as the authorities gradually gave up.

“That was a bad year,” her grandmother had said. “Nobody could go out at night. The graffiti gangs kept coming. Marching, like an army. Something in the blood of these kids. Either in their blood at birth or they pick it up, like some virus. It spread everywhere.”

She had felt a sadness as she watched the lines wiggle and snake across the front of her house, a sadness which would remain, ready to surface again and again.

“A big conclave of gangs had organized together to do Rockefeller Center,” her grandmother went on “It was always well guarded. Shoulder to shoulder, the guards stood, guns ready. Grim, stone faces, daring the gangs to move on the line. The gangs took up that dare one night, and, when it was over, there were twenty-three dead and thirty-nine wounded. Your father was shot for just watching. He wasn’t spraying much by then, but he had to go see.”

He had gotten too old, her grandmother had said. That was the only hope, growing up and growing out of the gangs. But there was always a new crop of teens reaching the gang age. As older gangs dissolved, younger ones sprouted up, faster than poison mushrooms.

Her older sons, Sean and Tim, aged 14 and 12, were in gangs. Eight year old Billy was too young, but Jan saw the longing in his eyes when his older brothers went out. It was safe now for the gangs to be out at night. She didn’t have the worries her grandmother had. She didn’t fall asleep listening to gunfire and sirens. She didn’t have to wonder at 2:00 a.m. if her sons would come home in an ambulance or a hearse. That was something anyway, knowing they were safe. They were good boys. They listened to Martin and followed the rules.

“No joining a gang until you are 10,” Martin had told them. “Never spray inside, and, when spraying outside, no dangerous climbing. And, never, never on the windows of any building.”

The stricture against spraying windows wasn’t a law, but an unwritten rule, a promise extracted from the graffiti gangs as the wars dwindled to an end. It wasn’t much of a concession, leaving the windows clean, and had been granted freely. The ability to spray around windows, the more numerous the better, became a challenge and a point of pride amongst gangs. A really talented graffiti sprayer could stand six feet away and pinpoint his spray paint on the frame and moldings, leaving the window pane clean. Sean was almost at that level of talent. She tightly shut her eyes as if to squeeze out her sudden burst of pride at Sean’s technique.

Next spring, as he did every five years, Martin would give the house a new coat of gray paint. The boys were getting restless now that the splatterings and splotches, having spread like a leprous disease across the outside of the house, covered nearly all the gray. She feared the boys would soon ignore the rules and paint inside.

Sean and Tim were in the living room when she got there, staring at the white walls, hands twitching, jumping, like hot loose wires. Billy was carefully packing his brothers backpacks with spray cans of paint, holding each can gently, lovingly.

All teenagers needed an outlet, needed free space. Bad for their psyche to hold anything in. It was her duty as a parent to give them this freedom, and it was their right to expect it. No, they weren’t bad boys, her sons. They did well in school and caused no trouble. They were just a product of their times.

“We’re going to the library to paint on the new wall,” Sean said.

“Why not go inside the library and read. Leave the walls alone.”

“That sounds like radical thinking,” Martin said, coming into the room.

“It’s not a bad idea. Read more and paint less.”

“That’s CAG thinking,” Martin said. “Better watch it, Jan.”

He was like most people, afraid the CAG groups would cause another outbreak of violence. She would like to join one, but it would mean writing letters and delivering pamphlets. It would mean recruiting new members. It would mean exposing herself to ridicule and danger, and even if Martin didn’t object, she lacked the necessary courage.

***

Jan took her lunch to the park not far from her office, and, before sitting down, she cleaned up the area around the bench. She imagined the park without litter and graffiti, a park with flowers, large beds of golden and russet chrysanthemums. And grass. Rolling mounds of velvety grass replacing the dirt and littered stubble.

Her dreamy imaginings surfaced more often lately. She looked at her surroundings as if she had x-ray vision, getting under the paint and dirt, seeing the flowers, even the fountain, bubbling clean and clear, sounding like tinkling piano notes.

Without paying any attention to her route back to the office, Jan continued to imagine an earlier time. She wandered into unfamiliar surroundings. Behind her was the bustling business area of White Plains; in front was a deserted street with warehouses and sheds on both sides, caked with layers of old paint, all empty and crumbling. She walked about 100 yards to where the buildings stopped. A narrow dirt lane, which could not be seen from the street, curved sharply to the right.

Following the curving lane, Jan continued slowly, steadily, as if she were being drawn in by a pulley. The piles of rubble and garbage grew smaller, getting lost in fields of goldenrod and ragweed. The scene was one she could have imagined: wild flowers, tall swaying grasses, and a thick wall of yews, over seven feet tall.

Feeling somewhat like Alice in Wonderland, Jan tried to peek through the branches, but they were too thick. She bent low to the ground and peered underneath the yews. Now she really felt like Alice staring at a life size picture from her grandmother’s scrapbook.

Just beyond the wall of green yews was a pristine white picket fence surrounding a manicured yard. A flagstone walk led to the front steps of a clean white cottage with green shutters and organdy curtains billowing through the open windows in the soft breeze. Real flowers grew in splendid profusion in a front garden bordering the house and lawn. Geraniums, marigolds and chrysanthemums spilled from window boxes.

Flattening herself, she crawled under the branches and stood in the space between the hedge and the fence. Who lived there? How had it remained in such perfect condition? Even the air was pure and sweet smelling. Sitting on the ground, she watched the house for nearly thirty minutes before returning to work, entranced by its beauty and serenity. She held her breath, afraid that any sound from her would break the spell.

Nearly every day she returned to the cottage, bringing her lunch and a drop cloth to keep her clothes from getting soiled when she crawled under the hedge. She varied the route and wouldn’t go down the street of empty warehouses if anyone were within sight. The cottage had escaped detection for years, and she would keep its secret.

She sensed hidden eyes watching her from behind the curtains and was certain she was being scrutinized and evaluated. She would be patient and wait quietly. Let them know she could be trusted. Then she would ask them to reveal their secret.

Each visit brought an increase in her desire to see other untouched houses. They must be somewhere, secret and hidden from the gangs and the populace which had become lazy and indifferent. Even the politicians and the police, who once had advocated vigilance and new programs and new thinking, had been content for years to accept the graffiti in exchange for the peace. Only the CAG organizations offered some help and some hope, but she was still afraid to get involved.

Jan timidly suggested to Martin, that when the time came to repaint their house, the boys should leave it alone and that their friends should be kept away.

“What’s gotten into you, Jan?” Martin asked. “That’s crazy talk.”

“Yeah, Mom,” Tim echoed. “What’s gotten into you? Have you joined a CAG group?”

“No, but don’t you think a house without graffiti would be a good example of how people lived in the past?”

“There are pictures of the past and an entire two story house in the Smithsonian,” Sean said.

“That’s not fair,” Billy said, pouting. “Dad promised I could start on our house next year, before I join a gang.”

“Something should be done to preserve our heritage,” she insisted, wanting to shake them all. “There are so few relics left.”

“What relics, Mom?” Tim asked.

“None. I mean we should create one. Our house for example.”

“No way,” the boys and Martin said together. “Forget it. It’s crazy and too dangerous.”

***

Snow caused Jan to cease her visits to the cottage. Her footprints would attract attention. She checked the street occasionally and saw no evidence of a plow or traffic and imagined the cellar in the cottage stocked to the support beams with a freezer and canned goods and pictured an old couple snug inside. Sometimes she imagined younger occupants, the old couple’s children, or grandchildren who had been taught to save the house.

Jan resumed her visits to the cottage when the last of the snow melted, anxious to contact the occupants. Martin would paint their house soon, and Jan’s desire to have it remain graffiti free resurfaced. She hoped her desire alone would be strong enough to change her husband and children, without her joining a CAG group. Martin wouldn’t like it. Nor would the neighbors like a CAG member on the block.

She had kept the secret of the cottage; the occupants owed her something for that. They must share their knowledge. She ventured up the flagstone walk, past the flowering tulips and daffodils, and knocked on the door. Receiving no reply, she slipped a note underneath, and, on successive days, waited for the door to open and be invited inside.

Hadn’t she proved herself by now? Hadn’t she waited long enough? Why didn’t they make her welcome? She became obsessed with the need to know how the cottage had survived all these years, and its secret became as important as breathing. Desperate, after three days of trying to rouse the occupants, she walked around the cottage, looking in the windows, but saw only tidy rooms with no people.

“Hello! Hello!” she shouted, knocking louder on the door and scaring the birds. “Your

house is like a miracle. How did you do it? I promise I won’t tell anyone about you. Please, I need to know.”

She sensed them watching her, waiting for her to go away. She felt their concentrated will, compelling and heavy, like a pressure in the atmosphere, urging her to leave them alone. But she couldn’t; she fought against their will and their silent pleadings. Each day she returned with another note to slip under the door after knocking and calling out, and each day she became more anxious and a little more careless about her movements.

She hurried to the cottage now during her lunch break, taking the quickest route and not checking to see if she were seen. Twice within the past week she thought she heard a noise, but continued. Just the wind banging a loose board on one of the dilapidated sheds.

Martin had nearly finished the repainting of their house, using the drab gray paint, and, for a few days, it would be clean. “Jan, give it up,” he had shouted at her. “It won’t work. You can’t change the way things are, so forget it.”

On Saturday afternoon Jan returned to the cottage. She had to speak to the occupants, now, before her boys covered her house with graffiti. Carrying another note, she ran past the fields with their fresh crop of wild daisies and buttercups.

“Hey, Man.”

It came from up ahead.

“Hey! Move over. That’s my wall.”

Feeling the air escape her lungs as if her chest were being tightened in a vise, she went forward, clawing her way under the yew hedge.

Long orange stripes blazed across the front door. Red hearts with cupid’s arrows and sets of initials marched neatly under the windows. Squiggly lines in black and green wrapped themselves around the sides of the house.

“Stop!” she shouted. “Leave it alone!”

“Hi, Mom,” Sean and Tim said together, turning around.

“How could you? My own children. How did you find…?”

“We followed you last week when we were on vacation, but you were tricky. We always lost you, until yesterday.” Sean said, stepping over to the picket fence to give the boards a purple streak.

“We know the rules, Mom,” Tim said. “See. We haven’t touched the windows.” Tim walked over to the other side of the yard and gave the fence a matching purple streak. “So this is the relic you wanted to save. Wonder how they kept it for so long.”

Jan took a few steps on the flagstone path toward the house. “I’m sorry,” she said to the invisible occupants inside, still holding the note in her hand. “It’s not my fault. I just wanted to know how to keep my house clean like yours. Why didn’t you tell me how?”

As she spoke, the shades in the windows were lowered, one by one, and the cottage seemed to shrink and shrivel in size while she watched. The air turned sour and foul as the wind brought in the odor of rotting garbage from the littered fields. Jan moved a little nearer the steps and extended her hands in a supplicating gesture. “The boys don’t know anything else, so it’s not their fault, really. It’s the times we live in, you see.”

Putting her ear against the front door, she strained to hear some sound of understanding from within, but the silence had deepened as even the birds ceased their chattering. “It’s your fault, not ours. I kept your cottage a secret. Why didn’t you share your knowledge? Sean and Tim are not really bad boys, you know. None of them are really bad boys.”

“Hey, Mom, we’ll keep this our secret,” Tim said, interrupting his spraying. “We’ll tell only Billy.”

No. Not Billy.

“Shut up!” she said. “You had no right to this house. Why couldn’t you leave it alone?” She snatched the brushes from the boys’ hands and slapped their faces with them. “Don’t you ever come back here and don’t ever tell anyone about this place.”

She was wrong to blame the occupants for her sons’ damage. She was wrong to think that her boys would change without her getting involved. It may be too late for Sean and Tim, but Billy still had a chance. The younger children could still be trained.

“What? Why did you do that? What do you mean we can’t come back?” The boys sputtered and shouted as they tried to wipe the paint from their faces.

“Because I said so. It’s a new rule. Some buildings are going to be off limits. This cottage and our house to start.”

A sudden wind rippled through the garden, swishing the yews and bending the tulips. When the air was still again, Jan heard a muffled rushing, sighing sound from within the cottage, as if it were breathing.

“I promise to clean this up,” she said to the silent cottage. “I know I can’t continue to stand back and whine and wait for some secret help, for some miracle. I’ll find a way to change my boys, especially Billy, even if it means going against Martin and the neighbors. Even if there is some danger. There’s still time for the younger ones.”

As she turned to leave, Jan thought she saw a shadow behind a window to the right of

the front door. Then slowly the shade was pulled up, just a little higher than the others, just

enough to let some light inside.

 

About the Author

Adelaide B. Shaw

Adelaide B. Shaw lives in Millbrook, NY with her husband. She has three children and six grandchildren. Her stories have been published in several literary journals. In addition to writing fiction, Adelaide writes haiku and other Japanese poetic forms, such as tanka and haibun. Her collection of haiku, An Unknown Road is available at www.modernenglishtankapress.com. Examples of her poetry may be seen at www.adelaide-whitepetals.blogspot.com