Down The Ave.
An Ethertown Tale
The Ave. is the kind of place every real city has. Once a railroad yard,now overgrown with weeds, rusted beer kegs, and a plethora or graffiti and generations of cigarette butts, beer caps, busted beer and liquor bottles, the ghostly remnants of too many conversations, a kind of place the young lost their innocence.
A place where short and long-lived garage punk bands were borne out of all night exuberant conversations. Fuelled by grass and teenage angst and energy, the kind of place the junkies went to shoot up, underage drunks went to drink, wild-eyes writers went to write by moonlight or streetlamp, and the kind of place Les found himself for the zillionth time.
The Ave, last bastion of wild freedom. Les Climbs down the stone wall onto the old train track, rusted and overgrown with summer.
Walking down to his favorite spot, where for innumerable teenage nights he slept under uncertain stars, he found Madcap sitting underneath the great graffiti spider.
A cold Tallboy of Beer in one hand and a slow burning cigarette in the other.
“Hey Lester Boy, what brings you to the Ave. tonight?” Madcap asks.
“Ehh, not too much” is Les' half hearted reply, as he kicks a rock into a puddle left from an already forgotten rain. “I just needed to get out for a while, take a walk, think.”
“Always good, Always good” Madcap Replies, offering Les A beer, Who obliges hastily.
“I’m here for much the same reason” Madcap Says, “I have been up for about thirty six hours now and I am not the least bit tired. I went downtown today without so much as train fare. I jumped the fucking T entrance and robbed some singer songwriter bitch. Dude! These yuppies were tossin’ TWENTIES in there! HA! She didnt stand a chance. I got enough on me to hold me for a good while. I bought a sixer and a pack of smokes and I barely cracked my earnings.”
“See man” Madcap began to revv himself up “you really can live you own fuckin’ way, no matter what these mother fuckers tell you. You still thinking about taking that college course for writing? You should do it man, I always see you scribbling in that notebook.”
They sit on a giant cement block left of center to the long twisted train track, out of use longer than either of them have been alive.
Beyond the twisted track lies a space known as the Catacombs, which to any but the doomed or the crazy was off-limits. Both Les and Madcap made sure to avoid it, for it was where the bums slept, shank in hand.
Just across from the seemingly endless cement block they sat upon was a giant building wall covered in graffiti.
“This is true Art,” Madcap said, making no attempt to cover his thick boston accent. “I mean, these Artsy Fartsy Fuckers spend a FORTUNE on paintings that are just the same old shit that their parents and grandparents bought, and here they are missing the greatest art of the past 30 years. I mean look Les! There are some fantastic pieces here! Some of this work stretches all the way back to the 70s! You can see the progression in the street style. You know what’s odd? You couldn’t frame this stuff and stick it on a wall at some stuffed up museum or pretentious, precious gallery. It has to exist as part of the city, as part of the landscape.”
He puffs his cigarette.
“Seeing it in person, here, at The Ave., is such a huge part of the effect you could never do it. As amazing as some of the works are, the would’t impress me half as much half as much if they were framed and hung indoors yaknow?”
He continues. “I mean look at this one, the splashes of orange, the use of bubble lettering which definitely place it in an early 90’s period. I love these pieces. You’ll never catch me downtown at the Museum Of Fine Arts, and that’s because I don’t need to. All the art I need is right here. I mean how can you beat that giant cartoon spider descending over The Ave. with is Bulbous eyes that look like they belong on some freakish half frog half cat monstrosity? That spider is the watcher of The Ave. man, this graffiti is the living skin and soul of the city, its rotted and its rusted and that’s how I love it. If they ever were to try to come through here and pave it up, to gentrify it like the rest of the city, I would be the first one down here with a gun. I would shoot any mother fucker that came within range of any of these works of art. I know there has been talk of it, but I will NOT let it happen. everyone’s got there purpose in life. I wouldnt mind it if mine became the preservation of this historic landmark. Tear down The Ave ?? and build what, a bike trail? Paint some multiethnic city mural generic bullshit over this ACTUAL art? I wont let it happen. These city planners will never have any idea Les. They will never know that right under the cartoon spider I took my first hit of grass, that you wrote some of your greatest poems in that same spot. Remember when we came here and dropped acid and you brought that notebook and just started jotting down all those wild thoughts in your head? I still have all the ones you gave me. College is gonna be great for you, you can walk in and show those fucking professors how it is! Or you can stay here and write under the great graffiti spider forever more! We could guard the Ave from the Yuppie invasion together. One ain’t any better than the other. That’s one thing I have learned Les. No matter what decision on life you make, it is never really better than the other.”
Madcap tosses his emptied tall boy into the ink black emptiness beyond.
The air is crisp and cool, it is a beautiful, warm June night.
Lester runs his fingers over the base of his unopened can of beer, allowing the cool of the can to excite his senses.
There is a cold, familiar comfort to The Ave. as well. Standing at the entrance, with its Gnarled and rusted metal gates, he feels the spirit of eternal youth shot through with all the worry-killing laughter of old friends and family now gone into that silent and final sleep we all one day concede to.
The Ave. Carries with it everything Les loved about his neighborhood. The rawest, earliest refuge of any Ethertown Kid’s existence. A gang that constantly must change with every year due to the unavoidable extinguishing of youth in favor of adulthood. An urban peter pan soul permeates from The Ave.’s walls, all manner of wild invention born from its gaping maw.
A few months later, in an attempt to protect The Ave. from the inevitable bulldozers, Madcap blew up a cop car with a molotov cocktail. Currently he is awaiting trial. They are in process of making the space formerly known as the ave into a public park.
Lester is currently attending Maverick City College for A B.A. in English.
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