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Fiction Short Story

by  A. C. Ellis

Juice

The large block letters of florescent blue spray paint scrawled across my garage door in a nervous hand read: Juice.

"It's a common enough tag, Mr. Fletcher," Detective Sergeant Andy Garcia said as he inspected the graffiti. "One kid in just about every school uses it."

My stomach churned. "Then it's gangs."

He shook his head. "I don't think so. It's what we call tag graffiti, probably just local kids. Normally they don't venture more than a few blocks from their school. There's a middle school three blocks from here, isn't there?"

"Yes," I said. "So you're saying it's not crime related." I'd imagined a gang marking my house for a future break-in.

"Other than defacing your property, no. See how shaky the hand is? He was afraid of being caught. Gang members usually aren't frightened. Not so they'd show, anyway."

I nodded. "What now?"

"I'm afraid there's nothing I can do."

"You mean he got away with it?"

The detective nodded. "Unless he does it again, and you catch him and can identify him."

"I don't believe it."

He shrugged. "I'd paint it over right away. As soon as another tag artist sees it, he'll add his own. Before long, the whole alley will be covered with this stuff."

"I will," I said. "And thanks." We shook hands, and I took him around to the front.

As the detective pulled away, I noticed Mr. Simms sitting on his front porch three houses down the block. He waved.

# # #

I figured I'd go out and get a can of paint to cover the door before Jeanne saw it. After all, seeing that name splashed across our chipped and faded garage door would upset her needlessly. But Mr. Simms caught me on the back porch, and short of being rude, I couldn't shake loose.

He said he thought he'd heard something in the alley this afternoon. Retired, he was almost always home, working on his lawn or around his house. When he came around to investigate the noise, he saw a short black kid running down the alley, and the fresh graffiti on my garage door.

A lonely man, he went on for half an hour about how his life had become busy after his wife died. Consequently, I never got out for the paint, and Jeanne saw the graffiti when she arrived home from work.

"We have gangs in the neighborhood?"

"No." I told her what Detective Garcia said.

She cocked her head and frowned. "Why would ordinary school kids do something like that?"

"I don't know. Peer pressure, I guess. It's a different world from the one we grew up in."

"But we wouldn't have even thought of doing something like that when we were kids."

I shrugged. "Like I said, it's a different world."

###

The next day was Saturday, and I got up early and went out for the paint. I figured I might as well do all the trim. Between scraping and painting, the work on the garage took up the entire day. The old wood soaked up the paint, and I had to brush on three coats. It might have had something to do with my inexperience; I didn't know how much to apply with each coat.

The following day, the lawn beckoned for attention. I hadn’t gotten use to this weekend ritual. Although I liked the work—the pure physicalness of it never seemed to end. The lawn took as much time as I was willing to give.

Mr. Simms walked over about 2:00, while we enjoyed tuna sandwiches on the patio.

"I see you painted your garage," he said.

I nodded, and told him it took three coats.

"Are you serious? Did you use sealer?"

"Sealer?"

He shook his head and smiled. "It looks good, anyway. Your garage is the face you present to your neighbors on the alley."

I grunted non-commitally.

"Fullbright's needs work," the old man said. "So does the Bilkers' garage, down on the corner."

I looked out across the lawn, to Joe Fullbright's garage across the alley. It did need paint. Fullbright, a thirty-year-old single computer programmer with a major consulting firm, spent little time at home. The Bilkers were a young married couple with twins.

"These young people just don't seem to have the time to keep their property up."

I nodded.

"I'd better be going," Mr. Simms said. "I don't want to disturb your lunch."

"You didn't disturb it," I assured him. "You're more than welcome to stay and have a sandwich."

He hesitated for a second. "If your gracious wife doesn't mind."

"Not at all," Jeanne said, getting up from the table. "I'll go inside and get another plate and glass."

"So," Simms said as Jeanne disappeared into the house, "how do you like your new home?"

"We like it very much." I leaned back in the plastic patio chair. "But it takes more work than I would have thought."

Again he shook his head and grinned. "Three coats."

I smiled back.

"You're right, though. These older places do take more effort than a newer home. When was yours built?"

"Twenty-eight," I said. Most of the houses in the neighborhood were small bungalows of about the same age.

"Mine was built in nineteen sixteen."

"It doesn't look it."

He lifted his left eyebrow. "I put a lot into it. I have the time since Ida passed."

We sat in silence for a few seconds, until Jeanne came out with a plate and glass. She poured him some lemonade. Before he took a bite of his sandwich, he asked why we moved to the neighborhood.

"We spent the last eleven years in a condominium," I said. "After that, we wanted something where we couldn't hear our neighbors if they sneezed."

"But why this neighborhood?"

"It seemed nice and quiet," I said.

"And there weren't any gangs, until now," Jeanne said. We'd investigated the area before we put a bid on the house—gang activity hadn't been reported within ten miles of this block.

Simms frowned. "There'd better not be!" He took a drink of lemonade; his hand shook.

"What about our garage door?" Jeanne asked.

"Oh, that's nothing." I had to agree. After all, it was only tag graffiti.

###

Three days later, both Fullbright's and the Bilkers' garage doors displayed identical spray painted graffiti. Juice had struck again.

Ed Fullbright painted his garage, before I had a chance to see it. It looked good.

I went down the alley and talked to Frank Bilker who stood on a ladder scraping the light gray flaking, peeling trim. His garage was in the worst shape of the three. He would have to paint it all.

"I see you got hit, too," I said as I approached.

He grunted his acknowledgement as he reached up to scrape a patch of peeling paint above the door. "Damn, it pisses me off."

"I know how you feel. He got me last week."

"That's what old man Simms said."

"He's been over already?"

Bilker grunted again. "He got a look at the kid as he ran down the alley. Said he's seen him around the neighborhood."

"He saw him do my garage door Friday. Small black kid."

Bilker looked down at me from the ladder, a puzzled frown on his face. "A tall white kid."

"That's strange."

"Damn right, it is. Would two kids use the same name?"

"I wouldn't think so," I said. "Not from the same school."

An odd thought struck me.

"Are you going to paint the entire door?" I asked.

"Sure. It needs it anyway. I figured I'd get all the trim while I was at it."

"Don't."

"What?"

"Don't paint the whole thing. Just paint out the name."

"Why?"

"I think I can catch the culprit if you don't do the whole door and leave the rest of the trim alone."

Bilker shrugged. He balanced the scraper on a rung of the ladder and climbed down. "I promised the kids I'd take them to the movies, anyway."

# # #

All three occurrences took place during the day, while owners were at work. I called the office and made arrangements to take five days of accumulated vacation. If I was right, that would be all I'd need.

My plan involved getting up early each day. I sat on the back porch carefully hidden behind the overgrown bush I hadn't gotten around to trimming, read the paper and drank coffee. For two days, nothing happened; the only movement on the alley was Mr. Simms puttering around his back yard. Each morning I read the entire paper, from front to back.

On Wednesday, at about twenty after ten in the morning, a back gate clanked open. I put the paper down and got up. Peering around the bush, I saw Mr. Simms step out into the alley. He carried something in his hand.

I waited until he was out of sight, and followed him into the alley. He shuffled toward the corner, toward Bilker's house. In his hand, he held a can of spray paint.

I crouched in the alley, behind a dumpster. He painted graffiti on Frank Bilker's garage door. I hurried inside and called Detective Sergeant Garcia.

# # #

Two days later, the detective called back. "It was him, all right," he said.

"Simms did all three garages?"

"That's right. He admitted to all three."

"Why?"

"It was just like you thought—his way of getting the rest of you to paint your garages. His personal neighborhood beautification campaign."

"What's going to happen to him?" I asked.

"That's up to you and your neighbors."

"I think I can talk the others out of pressing charges," I said.

"That's probably a good idea."

Garcia was silent for a few seconds. Finally, he said, "As it turns this out, our perpetrator isn't so much Juice, as Prune Juice."

I laughed.


About the Author
A. C. Ellis has two science fiction novels published in paperback editions: Death Jag by Manor Books and Worldmaker by Ace Books. Worldmaker was reprinted in Germany, and was recently optioned to an independent Los Angeles film production company.

Ellis has published two more SF novels as e-books, as well as a handful of short works in both print and electronic formats. His e-books can be accessed through his Web page at www.acellis.net.

Ellis lives in Denver, Colorado.