I was walkin across the river last night with my case and a gasper. It was late, the high hats and the drunks and even the junkys were in. I don’t sleep too well sometimes… well, most of the time. I was doin what I do, taking a stroll with Mable, stopping to play from time to time when the mood struck, exploring this massive city… I haven’t found an end to it yet. There are no limits. On the bridge, I seen some kid down below. He was scurrying back and forth in the darkness, on the embankment. And there was this… rattling. I never saw anything like it, not in my previous lifetime or this one. It took me a while, I sat down on the edge of the bridge hangin my feet off the edge. I finally realized he was painting. Painting his name. The embankment was at least… oh I’d say fifty, sixty feet high, slanted upwards away from the river but still flat enough to balance on. His name took up the whole thing. There it was, even in the darkness of the night, screaming at the city around it. “Here I am!” It said “OVER”. Over must be the kid’s name. Or at least what he calls himself. Then he saw me watchin him. I stood and waved, I thought he’d run. But his painting wasn’t finished. So I took out Mable, up there overlooking him below, mopped her once or twice, and played. I played and he drew. We developed somewhat of a call and response. Blind Lemon taught me call and response when I met him here for the first time. He’d swoop his can of paint and I’d blurp out a phrase, the aural version of what he was doin. And vice-versa. I played through the night, until he was finished completely. By the end the light was barely stretching over the horizon but the sun was still hidden. I never got close enough to make out his face. He dipped soon as he was done. I wanna meet this kid.
-Sonny
