blog 8 personal esay 1 draft

Stephen Mesa

Writing Creative Non-fiction

Professor Chandler

Personal Essay Number 1 Draft

The following events are based upon a true story, only the names and places have been changed to protect the innocent.

On the Side of a Highway

The night started out as many of them did back then. My friends and I were drinking back by the lake in the woods in a remote part of town. We had the fire going as usual and Tim brought his old boom box as he always did. A mix of The Smiths and other punk rock band’s music filled the crisp summer night’s air with background music as we sat around the fire sharing jokes and anecdotes while drinking beers. I, being the active, energetic one used to enjoy jumping over the fire and doing standing back flips because the ground was soft clay back there. It was one of the girl’s birthdays. I don’t remember which one exactly but I do remember that’s why we were gathered there, that and the simple fact that we all liked to drink because there was nothing better to do at night, like many teens do.

But I had something better to do. During this confusing, adolescent phase of my life I felt tiny and insignificant in a vast, complicated and fast moving world that quickly forgets and leaves most people behind only to exist in ambiguity and mediocrity. I was not about to go down in history like that, or not at all. I wanted to be noticed. I wanted to make an impression. I wanted to leave my mark on the world. So I did, with a spray paint can. Most call it graffiti and look at it as vandalism; I looked at it as a progressive in your face form of modern art and my cheap chance at fame. See what most people don’t understand is that it is not about damaging property, at least for me it wasn’t. It is about getting your name out there. It’s about getting noticed in world where almost everything an individual does is inconsequential, at least in the grand scheme of things that is. So that’s what I did. Every night after getting together with my friends I would drink myself up enough courage (because I am otherwise a paranoid anxiety ridden mess, who would never dream of doing the things I used to do when I was drunk) and go out and write my name all over the world, or at least all over New Jersey, which was the world to me at the time. Now don’t get me wrong, I never defaced anyone’s personal property such as businesses, houses, or any buildings for that matter. I was a dignified graffiti artist, with morals, not like those little kids who just scribble all over everything with no concern for aesthetics whatsoever. I stuck to state property that I thought no one cared about (apparently I was wrong). Among my list of things that I thought it was “ok” to leave my mark upon were trains, anything along train tracks, and my favorite, highways. Highways were the best because everybody driving by would see it, including myself, and thousands of other people traveling down a highway on any given day so there my art had the greatest chance to be seen. Forgive me for the digression but I felt it important to vindicate or at least explain the reasoning behind graffiti because I am totally aware of the fact that most of society just views it as mindless vandalism when that notion is just as ignorant as they think graffiti is because it is so much more. So now I hope you have a better understanding of what compels people to commit such a crime, a crime that I always thought to be victimless, so therefore not a crime in my eyes.

Anyway after drinking my fare share of beers and dancing around the camp fire I had a good buzz going and safe to say I was feeling pretty confident. So as the party and the fire were dying I grabbed my back pack full of paint and hopped in my friend’s car and we took to the highways as we so often did on many a night back then, or should I say early morning because it was usually between the hours of 1 and 5 that we went out, since that was when there was the least amount of traffic and the least likely chance to get caught because we were shrouded by the darkness of the night. Thank God I wasn’t driving I think to myself now as I look back.

“I’ve got a new spot we can hit.” I said as I directed them towards and interstate highway and the overpass that I intended to paint. I was always the leader of these missions since I was also kind of the glue that kept my friends together and I was the without a doubt the one that got them into this obscure hobby to begin with. And that’s exactly what these were, they we missions. Graffiti was exciting. It was the greatest rush I ever felt, so that, as illegal as it was, which was half the rush anyway, is what kept us coming back time after time. We parked the car in an adjacent neighborhood to the spot that I had done some reconnaissance on earlier and we got out bags out of the trunk. The bags contained our paints which were like our guns. Mine contained black and white cans of spray paint only. I liked it that way. It was simple. Just like my letters, BIG, simple, and in your face. There was nothing to interoperate or misunderstand. It was right there in plain English as simple as black and white. Plus only having two colors in my book bag made it easier and faster for me to re-load when one can ran out since I did not had to look around for certain colors. There were only two. I had to be as fast as possible when painting so as not to get seen or caught.

We walked through a park and came to a path that leads through some trees. “This way” I said, as they followed through the bushes, which always happen to be thorn bushes by the way. The path lead to train tracks, which back in those days I was always happy to see because where there is train tracks there are spots. So we followed the tracks down to where they intersected with and went over the highway. I saw a tag on the middle of the overpass, the part that is literally above the highway that read “CEP.” He was some kid from a town near me that had been going over and crossing out all of my work in a desperate attempt to get some attention since I was obviously better than him. “That little bastard actually climbed out there, he’s got some stones.” I thought to myself. “I’m gonna do it.” I told my friends. I had to climb out across the overpass and write my name over his because that had been what we were doing to each other and I wasn’t about to lose this war just because I was scared of heights. Plus, remember I was pretty drunk so I had all the confidence in the world in me and no voice of reason telling me that climbing out on the side of an overpass over a busy interstate isn’t a good idea. So I did. My friends did not even try to stop me. “Ha Ha cool your goin out there.” They said as they egged me on. For in the world of graffiti this dangerous stunt, which isn’t all that uncommon, is called a “halo” spot. It is where one hangs on by the tips of his fingers and stands on a couple inches of steel and shimmies out along the side of a bridge, then hangs on with only one hand as he paints it. It is called a “Halo Spot” because there is a good chance of dying. This is what I was doing. At first it was easy. I stepped out onto the narrow ledge and shimmied out without hesitation, because this really before I knew what I was getting myself into. I kept on scooting further and further out, painting over everyone of my rival’s tags, and then going even further out than him to show that I had more courage. It was not until I was done painting that I took a moment to look back to the ledge from which I had begun my climb. I looked to the right and looked to the left; I was in the dead middle of the highway. And I was so engaged in painting that I had not even noticed that it had begun to drizzle a little. It was at this point that my adrenaline started to wear off, I started to come down off my buzz and the frightening reality of the situation started to sink in. If you recall earlier I told you that I am normally an anxious mess who’s also afraid of heights, well I made the worst mistake anyone who’s afraid of heights can make in that situation and I did what they always say not to do in the movies. I looked down. All at once I became paralyzed with fear. My head started to spin, my hands started to sweat and my body started to shake. I grew afraid that I would not be able to climb back to the safety on the side of the highway from which I came. I started having thoughts that I may slip and fall backwards onto the concrete and hit my head, and if that didn’t kill me an eighteen wheeler would run over my body for sure. It was certain death in my mind to try and climb back across the highway to where I had climbed out from, especially in the weakened, woozy state I was in now. My friends had noticed that I stopped painting and wasn’t moving. “Steve are you okay?” They called out from their safe positions in the bushes on the side of the interstate and that’s when I decided “I’m gonna jump!” I told them.

“What are you crazy?!”

“No, I’ve jumped off of higher things on my skateboard” And truth is I have, but the difference is, there was a skateboard under me to distribute my weight and absorb a lot of the impact so that my ankles weren’t just taking the brunt of the force. But I did not realize this at the time because my mind was not in the right state due to alcohol, fear and adrenaline. I figured I was better off taking a controlled drop, even hanging a little first to lessen the height, onto a grass median than I was accidentally falling on my back from 25ft onto the cold hard, traffic filled, concrete interstate highway.

So I Turned around, wrote “JUMP!” on the side of the bridge and I let go.

“STEEEEEEEVE!” was the only thing I remember hearing as I free fell from the highway over pass. I recall the sinking feeling in my stomach, like the feeling of a drop on a rollercoaster, as I was in mid air. To this day, when I think about it, it still makes my stomach drop. I didn’t even close my eyes. I kept them open and watched the ground come up quickly, into my vision. I saw the grass come up to me faster and faster, closer and closer was the earth below me until… Booooooom! I saw a flash of white, and then black, I guess because the severity of the impact forced me to close my eyes for a second. Then a familiar feeling, I was hurt. At first I thought I just sprained my ankle. It felt warm with the rush of blood and just funny like I knew something wasn’t right but I stood up and hobbled across the three-laned highway. It was by some sort of Devine Intervention that I made it across those lanes of traffic, whether it was my guardian angel or the hand of god, but someone was carrying me because as soon as I set my first foot on the grass on the other side of the highway there it was. My left leg just collapsed. It was like nothing I had ever felt before. It just gave in under my weight, the bones were broken clear in two, and the lower half of my leg was no longer attached to the rest of my body.

“Are you okay?” my friends asked.

No, my leg is definitely broken. I can’t walk. You’re gonna have to go get the car and pick me up.” I told them

They didn’t even remember how to get back to the car, or how to get to the highway that I was now crippled on the side of so I had to give them directions while in excruciating pain.

After sending the troops to go get the tank so that they could pick me up and take me to the hospital I remember just laying there on the cold curb on the side of the highway, holding onto my leg and trying to keep it in a level, straight position so that the two bones who almost stay together and not get too out of place so that they are not to hard to re-align. I remember the feeling of the two rubbing and clicking together every time I would move my leg and they would pass each other underneath my skin, like no single bones are ever meant to do. The recollection of the feeling still makes me feel queasy. I was lucky I was probably in shock because I remember thinking “this hurts like hell I wish I would just pass out from the immense amount of pain already” but I never did. I just laid there in pain for what felt like an eternity, on the side of the highway, waiting for my friends, hoping the cops wouldn’t find me first because how was I to explain why I’m on the side of a highway with a broken leg and paint all over my hands. Better yet how am I going to explain this to my mom, who later met me in the emergency room after my friends, finally picked me up and dropped me off there. They told me I broke my fibula and my tibia clean through and chipped my ankle. I told everyone I did it skateboarding.

To this day I have still never told my mom the truth, which I feel terrible about but I’m sure she had an idea since it was 3 in the morning she was picking me up from the emergency room and my hands were covered in paint. I just couldn’t tell her what I was doing and there are something’s I think that parents just ignore instead of asking their kids because they fear they won’t like the answer. I spent the next 6 weeks in a cast, wondering if I would ever walk again. Of course I can walk today but at the time the thought crossed my mind. It has been two years since the incident and my leg has not been the same since. It is just always stiff, or locking up, cracking or in pain. I cannot skateboard nearly as well as I used before because my ankle is weak now and easily re-injurable. My ankle constantly aches now; especially when it rains and I am reminded of this event every time I do something as simple as take a step because it hurts with every step and now I can’t even run normal. Not to mention the fact that I feel like these aches and pains are not something that will get better with time but only get worse as I get older, it does sever damage psychologically thinking about that. I often see people running, jumping, skateboarding or performing some sort of physical stunt like a back flip that I used to be able to do that I am no longer able to do because of one stupid night and it makes me depressed. At least I learned my lesson though. Thanks to this occurrence I am a lot more cautious now and less likely to injure myself again. Also I don’t get drunk anymore and do stupid things and I don’t paint anymore so there is a positive side to it all. Plus I got one heck of a story out of it.

Here is an example of what I was doing (though this picture is not actually me) that is exactly what I was doing, just incase I didn’t describe it well enough to get the correct mental image. I’m just including this in here because I feel that it may be hard to get the full idea of what I was doing unless you’re familiar with it or have a picture. (btw my graffiti looked a lot better than that lol)