How Graffiti Saved My Life-edited version

A few years back I had dinner with Mare 139 and a few other graffiti guys. Mare said something that intrigued me. He commented something that if he could live his life over again, he just might skip graffiti. It made me wonder about his perspective and think about my own love/hate relationship with the sub-culture. For better and for worse, graffiti has played a major role in shaping who I am today. Even with all the grief and trouble it’s caused me over the years, I would do it all over again in a heartbeat. Maybe just a little bit differently.

From the age of three, I was groomed for a life of failure and self-destruction by the folks who raised me. My aunt Elsie and her husband Ernie. I spent my childhood isolated, neglected and I suffered every kind of abuse imaginable on a daily basis. As a kid I couldn’t wait for life to end. As a result, I grew up angry, confused and hateful. I was socially awkward, lacked confidence and the ability to express myself. I showed an early aptitude for art by the time I was four. A gift I inherited from my mother and grandmother. Drawing was my only means of expressing myself. It was the only time I felt free and at ease with the world.

My aunt Elsie had a deep resentment towards my mother because she claimed she was the source of my father’s suicide. She hated anything that reminded her of my mother, including my love for drawing. I was forbidden to draw and the punishment was severe if I got caught doing it. Instead, I was given books because my father was an avid reader. Fortunately, I loved to read almost as much as I loved to draw and I was able to escape my world by losing myself in a book.

Alcoholism and cancer was kicking my aunt’s ass. Her weak husband Ernie was as much of an alcoholic as she was. Despite a daily diet of Twinkees and Yoo-Hoos that I had to steal from the corner bodega in order to eat, I managed to grow into one strong, pissed off kid. Elsie and Ernie’s beatings had less and less effect on me and it was only a matter of time before I attacked back. Then I left my house. I was eleven years old.

I was picked up as a run-away while sleeping on the number one train by two policemen and placed in a group home in East New York, Brooklyn. The seedy home was a huge improvement in the quality of my life. It was the most peaceful and stable environment I have ever experienced. Soon another aunt, Titi Olga located me was gained custody of me. I was taken back to Washington Heights.

Washington Heights was and still is a tough place for a kid to grow up. Most kids come from single parent homes that lack education, resources and ample options. Mothers tend to spoil their boys and encourage a perverse sense of entitlement by showering them with all the material things they can manage to afford. Kids come out of their homes misguided into streets so infested with drugs and violence that it all seems normal. The results are not good. Washington Heights doesn’t have many success stories to share with the world. 

Titi Olga felt sorry for me because of my tragic childhood. In an effort to make up for it, she entrusted me with a riduculous amount of freedom that I could never be prepared to handle.

“Titi, what time do I have to be home?”

“Just not too late, honey.”

Soon, not too late was three, four and even five o’clock in the morning. Every other kid I befriended was crazier than the last. My friends stole, robbed, fought, experimented with drugs and sex. All I wanted in life was fit in and try to be normal. Fortunately for me, I had enough hate and rage within me that it didn’t take very long for me to become “normal” for Washington Heights standards.

As an adult, I know no less than 50 people who I grew up in the streets with who have either been murdered or are serving life sentences in prison. I know enough now that this is far from normal. I once had a girlfriend who would tell me whenever I was down that considering my background, I was a huge success story being that I wasn’t dead or doing life. She often mused what my life would have became of, only if I had a half decent upbringing. I’m convinced much different and for the better. But it’s not over yet though.

I’m also convinced that there is one real reason why I am not doing life in prison or worse. That reason is graffiti. Graffiti did one simple thing in that it took me out of my neighborhood and exposed me to other neighborhoods and lifestyles and to people who thought and behaved differently. I made friends with white kids, jewish kids, black kids and other latin kids. Graffiti showed me that there was a lot more to life than Washington Heights. I got to meet people like Keith Haring, Andy Warhol, go to art openings in Soho and drink wine and eat cheese with the sophisicated people and hang out with kids who had real hopes, dreams and ambitions and the belief that they can actually achieve whatever they wanted to in life. These are the things that seperated me from the other kids who stood on their streets back in my hood. These are the things that made a difference to me.

Like Mare, graffiti’s brought me my share of troubles and grief, but it also helped to save my life.Without it, I would just be another ghetto statistic.

Posted on October 04, 2007 at 10:57 AM   |   Previous Entry   |   Next Entry   |   Entry List   |   Email Entry   |    Digg

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