Assured Destruction by Michael F. Stewart Read Free Book Online Page B

make a sort of circle and pull back a bit so it no longer drips and then … then I’m painting. And spraying.
    Soon my hands are speckled, and I wish I was wearing crappy clothes. The air is redolent with spray paint. I stop thinking of what my mom will say about my best jeans and keep going, stepping back, checking my mural out. Adding a detail here and there.
    After a bit I head over and steal some new colors.
    Jonny cranes his neck.
    “No, wait until I’m done,” I say. And he nods. I can’t tell what he’s doing yet. Looks pretty abstract.
    An hour goes by, then another, and I run through the can of yellow I’m using for highlights. Besides the paint, it smells musty in the shadow of the bridge, and cars race above us, thunderous as they pass, but that all fades into the background.
    “Okay!” I call, and I don’t want to step back to see it until he gets here. When he does, he laughs and I can’t tell if it’s at me, the art, or something else. His eyes twinkle like his avatar’s and I can’t believe I never before saw the light in them.
    In my picture is this big stick-person head with a wide grin and paint on him like war paint. He’s got an oversized paint brush between his teeth and is reaching down with another brush to draw on his missing foot, something I totally copied from my favorite artist.
    “Escher,” he says and I smile, delighted he caught the reference. The only reason why I know about Escher is because the guy was a mathematician.
    “Actually, it’s you,” I tell him.
    “I’m very yellow.”
    “You with liver disease.” I laugh.
    “From sucking on too many paint brushes.”
    “Let me see yours.” I dash over while he stands before mine.
    I can almost smell the roses and daisies and lilies that twist and dance in Jonny’s mural as if they’re blown by a warm breeze. In the middle, someone is submerged in a blanket of poppies; a hand reaches to the sky, and from a bouquet of tulips, the tip of a shoe pokes out. I look down. The toe of my shoe.
    “Paradise,” I whisper.
    “What’s that?” he asks.
    “Paradise,” I repeat, staring at his art.
    “You’re pretty cool.”
    Heat rushes through me and makes me shiver and rub at my arms. I check out Jonny, who is leaning back on one leg, hands and elbow crooks full of paint cans and a critical look on his face. In the shadows of the overpass and with the bright sunlight beyond, it feels like we can only see each other, as if it’s another world.
    He’s tagged the bottom of the painting and like all good graffiti it’s practically illegible. I finally make it out. Sorry. It reads.
    I look back to the cyborg, realization dawning on me. The cyborg wasn’t a nice thing to draw. Jonny was making fun of me. That’s why he was reluctant to let me see it. It’s why he said sorry when we arrived and offered to cover it.
    “Jan,” he calls over to me.
    I don’t answer, but look over.
    “Do you want to go out?” he asks.
    “Like go to a movie?” I reply.
    He’s still facing the painting, his Adam’s apple bobs.
    “Yeah,” he says. “A movie.”
    “You like me?” I glance back at the cyborg.
    “I just drew a picture of you,” he says. “Of course I do.”
    So his foxy mother drops off his computer, I steal it, and now he asks me out. Who says crime doesn’t pay? But there is the picture of the cyborg. The sorry . And my gut telling me that this would be considered ill-gotten gains. Besides, real relationships end badly and the look in his eyes is way too real.
    I walk over to him and he doesn’t budge, still back on one leg, arms to his side, every muscle flexed.
    “Today was really fun,” I say, my heart pounding.
    He looks away, and all I want to do is reach up and thread my fingers through his woolly hair.
    “But ...” he says.
    “Yeah,” I shrug. “I have to work like every night.”
    His head bobs and he smiles sheepishly.
    “Sure.”
    “But I’m a really good online friend,” I add. I pull my