heard you had an exciting morning at school,” Mom commented. I wasn’t sure if she was talking to Dad or to me.
“You mean the graffiti? It wasn’t that big a deal.”
Dad looked at me. “Not a big deal? Do you have any idea how much money it’s going to cost to sandblast that stuff off the wall?” He shook his head. “No one respects public property anymore.”
“It was on the news at lunchtime,” Mom said. “It’s certainly interesting. Not your typical graffiti. It seemed more, I don’t know, professional?” She looked at Dad like he might be able to supply the appropriate word.
“Well, it just might be,” he admitted. He told us that Trent’s alibi was a good one, that he was out of state visiting his grandmother that day. He got home around eleven, a fact established by a gas receipt, and went to bed at midnight, which was confirmed by his parents.
“And we think the vandalism occurred around 1:00 a.m.,” Dad said. “He could’ve left after they thought he went to bed, but his folks let us search his car, and we didn’t find anything. No paint, nothing. So Trent may be innocent.”
Unless his parents were covering for him, I thought. Why would he be visiting his grandmother in another state the night before school began? I didn’t say anything about the article I’d read, but I didn’t have to. Dad had seen it, as well.
“This same thing happened in Tennessee just a few days ago. We think it was some guy traveling through town, looking to stir up a little trouble.”
Mom reached for her glass of wine. “Well, it certainly is strange.”
Dad shrugged. “It’s probably a one-time thing. This guy tagged the town and moved on. Some other town will get those gorillas next.”
“Tagged?” Mom asked.
“It’s what they call it now.”
After dinner I went to my room to work on my history paper. I had looked up some definitions of art and tried to find a clever way to use them. The problem, I discovered, was that no one could come up with one single definition for art. It didn’t have to be beautiful if it was considered “significant.” But who decided what was significant?
I figured I could spend hours on the question and still not come up with an answer, so I decided to use a quote from Hippocrates because I knew Mr. Gildea liked the Greeks. “Vita brevis, ars loriga,” I typed at the top of the page. Then I included the translation: “Life is short, art endures.” I argued that the gorillas on the school wall weren’t really art because, in the end, they would not endure. They would be removed within the month, and if they had truly been art, wouldn’t someone want to keep them around longer? I knew it wasn’t the most solid argument, but I figured the ancient Greek quote would earn me some points and besides, weren’t all teachers supposed to be opposed to defacing school property? Mr. Gildea would like it, I was sure.
I put away my schoolwork and got ready for bed. I couldn’t stop thinking about the wall. I was sure Trent was behind it, but maybe someone was helping him. Maybe Brady and Reva were working with Trent, not just covering for him, but painting, as well. I told myself to stop coming up with conspiracy theories and get some sleep, but I couldn’t seem to turn off my brain. As I was drifting off, another thought occurred to me: what if Eli was helping Trent?
3
DAD WAS ONLY PARTLY RIGHT about the graffiti leaving town. The gorillas did appear in another state, on the side of an abandoned restaurant in Beulah, Arkansas, a small town east of Little Rock. This time, two gorillas were pictured, and the thought bubble above their heads read “We love vegetarians.” It appeared three days after our school had been “decorated.” Suddenly it did not seem possible that Trent had been involved. There was just no way to drive all the way to Arkansas Wednesday after school, paint a building and be back in time for class on Thursday morning, which was exactly where Trent was.
Dad knew about it, and an online search for “gorilla graffiti” would lead someone to several articles, but most people didn’t know or didn’t care. Trent seemed happy enough to take credit for the prank at our school, and everyone seemed happy enough to give it to him. His adoring league of freshmen followers quickly squashed any rumors that he wasn’t responsible for the popular artwork. Still, something felt off to me, although I wasn’t sure what it was. I guess part of me hoped that Cleary did have a resident graffiti artist. The mural had caused a commotion and shattered our boring routine, if only for a little while.
On Friday, the gorilla mural at school changed. Someone had added to it. “This is art” was stenciled in the right-hand corner of the wall. One of the gorillas was now holding a paintbrush while another grasped a spray-paint can. Again, it looked professional. And again, it caused an uproar.
“It’s just stupid,” Tiffany Werner proclaimed during our first period debate. “I mean, they’re going to sandblast it this weekend, right? So what’s the point of adding to it? It’s a desperate cry for attention.”
I was reminded of the quote I had used in my paper defining art. I had written that it wasn’t art if it did not endure. At the time, I’d believed it. I mean, all truly great art had endured, right? How old was the Mona Lisa?
Lan raised her hand, and Mr. Gildea nodded at her. “If he wants attention, then why has the artist remained anonymous?” she asked. “What if he doesn’t want anything but for us to look at it, to enjoy it? Isn’t that what art is for?”
I knew Lan was just disagreeing with Tiffany for the sake of disagreeing with her. Lan had come to school on Tuesday wearing her favorite orchid pin, the one made with hundreds of little stones in different shades of ivory and red. Tiffany noticed it and stopped in front of Lan’s desk before class began.
“Are those real rubies?” she demanded in front of everyone.
“Of course,” Lan said, making sure to look Tiffany directly in the eye.
Tiffany just smirked. “I’ll bet,” she said before walking away. Lan was furious and since then had been looking for any reason at all to make Tiffany look bad in public. So far, she had achieved only minor success.
Brady Barber agreed with Lan’s opinion about the graffiti artist, and the debate was soon picking up speed—and volume. Mr. Gildea finally had to quiet everyone down and tell us to open our books. We were already behind, he said, but we could debate for ten minutes every morning as long as we remained civil with one another.
“Debate is probably the best learning experience you’ll ever have,” he said. “Second best, of course, will be learning about the Carthaginians. Turn to page sixteen.”
I was relieved to finally get off the topic of the school gorillas. It was getting a little crazy. The local paper had featured a picture of the mural on its front page, and of course our student newspaper dedicated two whole pages to it, interviewing nearly everyone. I’d heard that some kids were planning to protest the sandblasting, scheduled for Saturday, but figured it was just another one of Trent’s crazy ideas. He had a real knack for self-promotion.
I was still thinking about it when I arrived at work. I was expecting to find Bonnie, but Eli was there, working on his math homework.
“Bonnie’s not here?” I asked.
“Don’t worry, she left you something,” he said.
