Ava rode along the river under heavy cloud cover, past corner liquor stores and brightly painted houses with narrow yards. She was somewhere in the Irish Channel, or maybe Lower Garden. She didn’t understand what marked the differences between one neighborhood and the next, though everyone else seemed to see these borders as obvious and important.
She approached a small park with a basketball court, a playground, and a couple of skate ramps. She rode along the edge of it, then walked her bike over to a shaded bench. As soon as Ava stopped riding her body became drenched in sweat. The court was empty, but a dad and two little kids were over by the playground. Some skaters were sprawled on the steps near the skate ramps, idly rolling their boards back and forth. They looked the same here as they did in Iowa—teens with asymmetrical haircuts, wiry bodies, the same kind of baggy clothes and flat-soled sneakers.
One boy stood, started doing a few casual kickflips. Ava pulled a water bottle from her satchel and drank. She took out her book and half read, half watched the skaters. One of the little kids on the playground started to cry and the dad gathered them up to leave. They all held hands as they crossed the street and entered a lime-green bungalow. The boy who was doing kickflips skated over to the ramp and jumped it. His board rolled out from under him, headed in Ava’s direction. She stood up, stopped it with her foot, and sent it back to him.
“Thanks,” he called. “You skate?”
“Kind of,” Ava said. “But I haven’t practiced in a long time.”
“What can you do? Can you ollie?”
“I used to.”
“Come on,” he said. “Let’s see.”
She walked closer to him, leaving her stuff at the bench. He sent the board over to her and she caught it with her foot, mounted it, stood unsteadily. She tried to get a feel for the board, balancing for a moment. She kicked off and sailed a few feet, turned, stumbled, laughed, got back on.
The boy laughed, too, but not in a mean way. She stood on one end of the board, lifted it a couple of times, and attempted a clumsy ollie. She got hardly any air, but she didn’t fall.
“When’s the last time you were on a board?” he said.
“Two years ago, I think. But I was never that great, anyways.”
“No, you’re good. Especially for being out of practice.”
“Thanks,” she said.
She pushed the board to him. He flipped it with his foot and caught it in his hand, one easy, graceful movement. Ava wished she could be so at ease, doing anything. The streetlights over the park flickered on and shone down on his straight hair.
“I’m Jase,” he said. “And that’s Ben and Lizzie and Tru.” He pointed to his friends.
Ava introduced herself and waved to the others, who were coming over to them. They each nodded at her, said hey.
“Getting dark,” Ben said. “We doing this or what?”
“We’re about to split,” Jase told Ava. “You want to come with us?”
“Where?” Ava said.
“You’ll see, come on.”
The girl, Lizzie, looked at Jase. “Is she cool?” she said.
“Yeah, Liz, she’s cool,” he said, laughing.
Ava walked her bike alongside them. Lizzie and Tru zoomed ahead on their boards, jumping curbs and broken bottles in the streets, weaving into an alley lined with Dumpsters and an occasional folding chair propped by a back door. Ben followed close behind them and Jase hung back with Ava. He asked her about the bands she liked, where she rode her bike, what YouTubers she subscribed to.
“I don’t watch videos that much,” Ava said.
“That’s cool, most of them are lame. You like to read, right?”
“Yeah.”
“What was that book you were looking at?” he said.
“I found it in my grandmother’s house,” Ava said. “It’s these crazy stories. I picked it up cause I thought the cover was cool.”
“Can I see?”
Ava pulled the book from her bag and handed it to him. They looked at the cover, a stylized turquoise and purple tessellation. In the failing light, their heads bent close together.
“Oh, it’s like peacock feathers, right?” he said. “Is it about birds or something?”
“Not really,” Ava said. “In one of the stories this Bible salesman comes to a farm and everyone thinks he’s really nice and kind of dumb, but he ends up stealing this woman’s wooden leg.”
“That’s wild,” Jase said. “What for?”
“I don’t know. He likes it, I guess. He tells her he got someone else’s glass eye one time.”
“What a weird dude.”
“Yeah.”
Ben coasted back to them. “Lizzie found a dream spot, come on.”
“Dream spot for what?” Ava said.
“She’s a writer,” Jase said. “You’ll see.”
He dropped his board and pushed off, following behind Ben. Ava rode after them down the alley. At the corner Jase waited for her, held up a corner of chain-link fence that one of the others had bent away from its post.
“Hurry,” Jase whispered. “Leave the bike, come on.”
Ava leaned her bike against the fence and ducked under, aware of Jase’s proximity. His body smelled of clean sweat, like hay.
“Follow me,” he said, still in a whisper.
She stayed behind him. The others were up ahead, single file, running between the building and the fence until they stopped, suddenly, and Lizzie unzipped her bag. In the dim light ahead of Jase and the others Ava could make out some cylindrical objects in their hands, and then Ava understood: spray paint.
“She’s so dope,” Jase whispered. “Wait til you see.”
The wall was clean white stucco, the side of a bungalow-turned-corner store. Ava saw a round Pepsi sign protruding from the front of the building. It lit up from the inside and read ED’S LIQUORS EGG BREAKFAST. Because she was alongside the wall she could not see what Lizzie was making, but Ava watched her arm move, heard the hiss of the can above the cicada buzz of night.
Ava had seen murals everywhere in the city but had never thought about them being made like this—spontaneous, sudden. Lane spent so much time sketching and thinking before she painted anything. Ava didn’t know that art could be this immediate. Watching Lizzie’s direct expression of creative energy, Ava felt a new sense of possibility. Heat radiated from the sidewalk and the air and Jase’s body in indistinguishable, overlapping waves. Ava breathed it all in, inched forward until she was almost touching Jase’s shoulder.
He reached for her arm, tugged her closer, so she could see. The paint was dark purple against the white wall, a cartoon outline of a long-eared rabbit with wheels instead of feet. It was almost as tall as Lizzie, and looked like a robot version of a rabbit, with a squared-off belly. Next to it Lizzie drew a symbol, an eye with a square iris.
“That’s her tag,” Jase whispered in Ava’s ear. “Robot eye.”
“It’s awesome,” Ava said. She loved watching this thing happen, this transformation from a regular wall to a piece of art. Seeing these shapes flow out of the can. Everyone should do this, Ava thought. There should be paintings on all the buildings. The world would be so much more interesting.
Farther down the wall Tru was throwing up tags, messy scrawls of black paint, the same indecipherable letters over and over. Ben held Lizzie’s backpack in one hand, looking out into the street beyond.
He gave a low sustained whistle, distinct from the other night sounds. Lizzie dropped her paint can and turned to Ben, who jerked his head toward the direction they’d come. Jase ducked, ran back to the hole in the fence, pulling Ava behind him. They had to run single file, Ava between Jase and Ben, Lizzie and Tru at the rear. Jase got to the hole in the fence and grabbed his board, pulled the chain-link up, shoved Ava through then followed. She scrambled out of the way of the others.
From the sidewalk a man yelled, “Hey! You fucking kids!”
They were all in the alley now, the other four already on their boards, yelling, Go, go, go.
The man came roaring toward them, his unbuttoned shirt billowing at his sides. Ava turned to Jase and the others, but they were around the corner, out of sight, the sound of their wheels receding.
“Stop,” the man yelled out.
Ava froze.
“I’m calling the cops,” he said. “So sick of this shit.” He held his phone in his hand.
She looked at the wall through the fence, saw the marred stucco, understood all at once the transgression. This was somebody’s place, it belonged to somebody. Ava was horrified at what they’d done, how stupid she’d been not to realize it was wrong.
“Sir, I am so sorry,” she said. “I didn’t know—we can clean it. Oh god.”
“We? Who the fuck’s we?” he said. “Your hood friends scattered.”
“I’ll fix it,” Ava said. “I really am sorry, I didn’t know what they were gonna do.”
He squinted at her. “Why didn’t you run?” he said.
Ava shrugged.
“I just met them,” she said. “Please don’t call the police.”
“Well, somebody’s got to take care of my wall.”
“I can paint over it,” she said. “I painted my bedroom last year. I mean, I helped. I remember how to do it.”
The man looked her over. She was young, he saw, younger than he’d thought at first. Something about her made him aware of himself. He began buttoning his shirt. He’d been in the middle of getting a late dinner together, tomato salad, cold cuts from the fridge in his apartment at the back of the store.
“Alright, I’ll call your parents,” he said. “Bet they don’t know you’re out roaming with those punks.”
“My parents are dead,” she said. Straightforward, simple, just a statement of fact. But then she started to cry.
Maybe she was a little con artist after all, he thought. He ignored the tears. “Well, I’m calling somebody.”
“I stay with my grandmother,” she said, through her tears. “You can call Oliver, he helps her out.”
She gave him the number. He dialed, explained the situation.
“Alright,” the man said, “He’s coming. Christ, I’m sick of this bullshit. This neighborhood used to be different.”
“Can I—” she said. “Is it okay if I get my bike?” She pointed down the alley, where a cruiser leaned on the fence.
“You have a bike. And why are you still here?” He shook his head. Something was off with this one, he couldn’t quite tell what. “I’ll get it, alright. Hold on to it til this guy shows up.”
She nodded, stayed where she was as he walked down to the bike. She could run even now, but he didn’t think she would. There was a small backpack in the basket, no lock, no nothing.
“This bag belong to you, too?” he called.
“Yes.”
He walked the bike back to her. “You can’t just leave this lying around, girl. You should lock it. Keep your stuff with you.”
“Yes, sir,” she said. “I usually do.”
The rain that had threatened all day finally started falling, large warm drops that made a racket.
“Shit,” he said. “Come on.”
He took the bike around front and unlocked the shop, pushed the bike inside, and parked it in the aisle of canned goods. The girl hesitated behind him, standing in the rain, already nearly soaked.
“Come in,” he said. “Look, I got nieces. Younger than you, but. Come out of the weather.”
Ava stepped over the threshold into the dark store. The man turned on the overhead lights, fluorescent tubes that illuminated a room filled with shelves of liquor, groceries, a wall of refrigerated cases in the back. Near the door, a counter with three stools, a cash register at one end, a small griddle behind it.
“Have a seat,” he said. “My name’s Ed. You hungry? You want a soft drink, a Coke or something?”
“No, thank you,” she said.
“Sure you do.” He pushed a roll of paper towels toward her. “Dry off a little. If you want.”
She took a couple of towels from the roll and blotted her face and arms. He walked over to the cases and got her a cold can of Coke, put it in front of her. He went behind the counter and stayed there, so as not to rattle her further. He twisted the cap off a bottle of sweet tea and said “Cheers.”
She opened the Coke and took a sip. He’d never seen a more miserable child in his life. She had stopped crying, at least.
“Why you running around with those kids anyway? You’re not one of them.”
“They were nice to me,” she said. “I feel so stupid.”
“Hey, you know, we all make mistakes,” he said.
He felt sorry for her. She didn’t have the hard look, the tough sheen of most kids her age, with their earbuds and their quick sarcasm. How would a girl like this make it in the world?
The door chimed. They both looked to see this man, must be Oliver. The girl looked more miserable than ever.
“Well, well,” Oliver said, closing his umbrella, dripping water on the mat. “Always knew you’d end up in juvie, it was just a matter of time.”
“Hi,” the girl said.
He held out his hand to Ed. “I’m Oliver,” he said. “So what’s the story here?”
“Ed. Look, I don’t think she meant any harm by it. The others, those kids are no good, the ones who got away. She stayed and offered to help. But the thing is, my wall.”
“She offered to help,” Oliver said, smiling.
Ed thought for a minute, studying the man and the girl together.
“Now who are you again, to her?” he said.
“Personal assistant to her grandmother.” Oliver explained who Lane was, described his job while Ed watched the girl. She looked so sad. Something didn’t feel right, just letting her go with this guy.
“I know this place,” Oliver said, looking around. “I got an ex used to live around the way, Jeff Gruen?”
“I haven’t heard that name in a while,” Ed said. “We went to Franklin together.”
“He loved your breakfast sandwich. He graduated what? ’03?”
“Yeah, a year behind me. He was always a decent guy,” Ed said. “Hell of a hitter. Where’d you go to school?”
“La Salle,” Oliver said. “I would’ve finished in ’06, but.”
Ed nodded. Katrina year.
“Look, I’m sorry about all this trouble,” Oliver said, gesturing to Ava. “A hundred bucks take care of it?”
Ed nodded, accepted the money.
“Ava, go on and put your bike in the trunk. Here’s the keys.”
They watched her wheel the bike out the door, into the rain.
“I appreciate you being so understanding about this,” Oliver said. “If I had to deal with police or whatnot, this would’ve been a shittier night.”
“No problem,” Ed said. “Look, man. Is something kind of like, wrong with her?”
Oliver laughed. “She’s alright, she’s just from Iowa.”
“Huh.” Ed nodded, taking this in. “Well, tell her to be more careful who she gets mixed up with.”
“Oh, I will.”
Oliver went outside and got in the car. Ava sat looking straight ahead, already buckled in. He put the car in gear and headed back to Lane’s.
“So let me get this straight,” he said. “You pick up some gang of, what, street thugs?”
“They seemed nice,” Ava said. “They were just kids.”
“Okay, so your nice friends vandalize this dude’s store, this regular, hardworking corner store dude—he could’ve shot you or something. You’re lucky he felt so sorry for you.”
Ava stared at the rivulets of rain pouring down the window.
“So then your nice, sweet new friends run off, and then—” He had to stop talking, he was laughing so hard. “Sorry,” he said. “Ah, god, this shit’s funny. Okay.” He caught his breath. “So instead of running away with your new friends, you stay behind and tell this guy you’ll repaint his wall?”
“I swear I didn’t know the place belonged to somebody. I mean, I thought it was like Lane’s murals, there’s murals and graffiti everywhere around here. I thought it was okay.”
“You realize that if you took off on your bike, you could still be with your new best buds, and I could still be relaxing at home, and it would’ve saved your grandmother a hundred bucks.”
“I’m sorry,” Ava said.
“Don’t be sorry,” Oliver said. “You little weirdo. I haven’t laughed this hard in a long time.”
“Thanks for coming and getting me,” she said.
“I’m not going to let this go, you know. I am going to keep making fun of you for this indefinitely, you realize that?”
“Okay. Fine,” she said.
“Thug,” he said.
“Shut up.”
“Delinquent.”
“Shut up.”
“Should we stop by the store and pick you up some spray paint?”
“Shut up.”
But she was definitely smiling now, he could hear it in her voice. He felt proud of her, in a way. Maybe she’d turn out to be a normal kid after all.