Cellophane
For who are the people who paint their names or initials in public places and on the rocks that face our highways? Driving from San Francisco to Reno through the Donner Pass you see them by the hundreds, some painted so high that the rocks must have been scaled, dangerously, to do it. I used to puzzle over them; to paint your name or initials up there in the mountains wasn’t impulse. It took planning. You’d have to drive over a hundred miles with a can of paint on the floor of the car. Who would do that? And who would wear the caps stitched with initials and the jackets with the names on their backs? It was plain to me now; they are the people, of course, who feel they have no identity. And who are fighting for one. They are unknown, nearly invisible, so they feel; and their names or initials held up to the uninterested eyes of the world are silent shouts of, ‘Hey look at me!’...To have never been anyone and to be forgotten completely was not to be born.
-Jack Finney, “Hey, Look at Me!”
While I love to hear the sound of my own voice breathing life into prose, carefully metering poetry, I do not like to be read to, not usually. Part of this is that I form a relationship with my literature; having someone reading aloud can be like having a third wheel on a date. Which is fun, if one is into that sort of thing. But, I am best one-on-one and another person’s inflection and interpretation can be salt in the sugar bowl.
This was not always the case. In my childhood, at meals when Dad was telling a story, he would often make a connection to something he’d read, push back his seat, and hurry to the other room. Returning in long strides to his place at the table, he’d flip to the page with the line or passage remembered as he gave context for what he was about to share. Then, as though another person lived inside his throat to take the mike when it was time to read versus speak, Dad’s vocal tone shifted gears and the expression on his face turned serene. I liked it. I truly did; it wasn’t a meal without ending with Dad digestifs.
But away from the table, when Dad would ask if he could read something to me, I’ve rarely been keen. Typically, the response is immediate and blatant: lips tighten sour causing my cheeks rise, resulting in eyes squinting. A clearer visible “no” has likely never been communicated.
Except for the rare occasion I say yes.
It was a decade ago that Dad and I were talking on the couch. I am not sure what prompted Dad to grab his red, hardbound copy of Alfred Hitchcock Presents: Stories That Go Bump in the Night to read me Jack Finney’s story. Perhaps we were discussing my growing interest in graffiti: not what has come to be known as a form of art (although still illegal), but the scribbles and scratches on walls, the tagging on freeway overpasses. As Dad read, I found myself engrossed with Finney’s description at the end of the short fiction. As Finney narrated that Max did it because “Max had to be someone, who had to be, did as they did, finally, from desperation,” the melody to “ Mr. Cellophane” from the musical Chicago played faintly in the back of my mind.
Are all of those taggers really feeling like nobody sees them? Clinical psychologist and artist Mandy Kok observes that tagging and graffiti (and there is a difference) is “a visible and public way to make your unique mark” that gives that rush of adrenaline people often crave. “There is a special thrill in engaging in low-risk, highly ritualized, antisocial behavior”. Beyond what most objective observers would agree is art, tagging is gang related, a way to say “this is our turf”. This has never made sense to me. It’s like writing “I spit in this” on a quart of milk so that nobody else will drink it (especially if the person did spit in it, and honestly, a person who is going to write that likely did with the rationale, “it’s just a little extra backwash; I’m drinking from the carton and my spit’s in there anyway”. Of course, this is a dare, a taunt, and thus the inevitable layered sign will appear, an opposing group indicating: “So did I”. Likely, they will drink most of the carton and leave just a bit, too; not even enough for a bowl of cereal. It’s the ultimate “F you” to a person trying to be territorial and possessive, unwilling to share.
But what of the restrooms?
Often, I sit in the stall of a public restroom and find myself being spoken at while I pee. Sometimes, an initial comment has been replied to. Most amusing is when arguments build between a chain of people, telling each other off into a black hole, clearly written in separate sittings; I cannot imagine the first person ever hears the fourth explain exactly why she is so unlucky with love. What’s the point?
Who are these people who go through the world with Sharpie pens? And, how often have I sat, the urge to weigh-in on a debate about why or how written on a bathroom wall just as strong as the urge to pee that brought me to the stall in the first place, but knowing that I would be another anonymous voice, speaking out to a shitting citizen, and wondering: what would be the point? All I pack beyond my wallet and keys is lipstick. Do those folks make a point to travel through the world with markers just in case they happen to be in a stall and especially angry or thoughtful and needing to be heard?
Does this fascination come from admiration: do I want to be one of them? How many times have I noticed a snarky or clever comment I agreed with sprayed on the wall of an overpass as I sat at a red light, before adjusting my pencil skirt to continue off as the light turned green to make a meeting on time. I would never dream of it, but I dream of it. The older I get, the more I notice, too. I confess to living as an admirer of those who scale rocks to make their mark, as I make my mark on the land below in more socially conventional ways. Is bathroom journaling for the vanilla vandal?
Hypothetically, this passive observer and recorder may have packed a purple marker in a purse. Stall prisoners, take note: there is an new number two.