Pardon the Paint (714 views)

When Lils said they’d be going somewhere someone like Chad had never been, he furrowed his brows in confusion. So judging by the way she spoke and generally acted, he could only assume he was being led to a super sketchy part of Salem! That was pretty exciting! To be fair Chad should have watched the street signs as they whizzed but his attention was focused on the scenery as it grew less and less familiar. Chad didn’t even know how to get back to Metric from where they were.

When Lils parked her car, Chad got out along with her, leaving his paints in the backseat as he trotted along. Though as he took in the sight of the slab they were at, he found himself wishing he’d thought to grab the paints from the backseat. The canvas here was – well, admittedly, kind of dark and full of questionable designs – but still, it was so flat and perfect for painting on that Chad felt a strong urge to just walk away from Lils, steal some guy’s paints, and start designing something! Though he had a feeling if he tried that he’d get beaten to a pulp… so Chad swallowed a lump in his throat and followed behind Lils.

When he was introduced to Lils friends, their confusing sounding names flew right over Chad’s head. He knew Pete, that should be easy to remember, and Krish was short enough. Dane reminded him of dogs… but Montleroy? He’d start calling that guy Montreal pretty soon! He was relieved when he said he preffered Monty though. That was easy to remember.

”Uh, Kish, no, Krish, Dane… Monty.” Chad repeated, nodding once. Still, he was sure he’d forget their names pretty shortly. Though the girl of the group wasn’t Chad’s usual type, being here at ‘the slab’ after all, she had a pretty face. He flashed a charming grin at the group (though mostly aiming it at the girl) as they called him Vince rather than Chad.

”Nice to meet you! I’d say I’m not a Vincent – I’m better, more original. Just wait till you see what I made!” He winked, though when Lils told him to ‘show them’, Chad grinned and took a seat on the ground with the group, pulling out his phone. he unlocked it and then pulled up the selfie he'd taken with Lils, Mikey and his girlfriend making out to the left and the work of art Chad had created clearly visible behind them. "It's much better in person, but look at this! I even saved a marriage!"

Chad listened to everyone as they spoke and laughed along as they did, enthralled by Lils version of the story. Chad occasionally posed dramatically for Lils friends when they looked at him, especially for Krish, trying to act like he hadn’t bene practically pissing himself when those big beefy guys had come over and instead had been 100 percent confident that his art would be accepted by the owner of the house.

As Lils passed around her bottle of booze, Chad pulled out his bottle of vodka and then took a generous swing of it, pulling away with a grin at the familiar taste.

”If any of you want vodka I’ll share too! Only if you don’t mind sharing an indirect kiss with me.” Chad teased, puffing out his lips into a kissy face as he made a few obnoxious sounding noises. Then Lils suggested that ask first and Chad snickered. ”Yeah! I think we should start charging. I mean, that guy’s probably getting laid right now! He owes us so hard.”

Chad watched as Monty left from the group, somewhat thankful that the person with the hardest to memorize name had opted to leave. Chad glanced over at Pete with a grin and offered him the bottle of vodka. He laughed at Krish and Pete’s display of “abuse”, leaning back with his hands pressed against the ground. Sure, he hadn’t expected to be doing this of all things today, but Chad was always up for a new way to spend his time.

He then turned to Lils as she said they should probably pick a house owned by someone who actually had money.

”Hey! Maybe Mikey was secretly rich. We’ll never know.” Chad joked, though he seriously doubted Mikey of all people in that neighborhood was rich. Given the state of his house and that car his girlfriend had pulled up in, if Mikey was rich it would have been a huge shock. He snickered at her nudge. ”I live in the dorms at Metric, duh! Outside of that? I live with my dad a few towns away, closer to Hollywood.”

”Maybe we can stop by and see if she’s knocked up in a few months. If she is, there’s our answer!” Chad barked, taking his bottle of vodka back. He rose his brows as they talked about Hollywood. ”Yeah it’s pretty plastic, but then again so is my entire family! We’re a straight up dollhouse.”

Chad took another drink of his vodka, not really bothered someone else had just drunk out of it. Besides he’d been the one to offer to share in the first place – it’d be kind of stupid for it to bother him. When lils asked if he wanted to walk, Chad grinned.

”You paint! I wanna see, I wanna see!” He hopped up off of the ground and tood beside Lils. ”Lead the way, Lils!”

Chad followed Lils down the slab, his eyes taking in the years and decade’s worth of art and graffiti that littered the cement. He’d never been down here, never even knew such a place existed in Salem. He lived in the privileged parts of town, which were the parts associated with Metric. He didn’t even know that Salem had this kind of an area! He wished he’d known sooner… as he looked at all the art he judged. His was better than some of these! He should come down here and overtake this graffiti and bubble letter art with his gorgeous scenery and paints. Then everyone could be impressed!

He turned the corner with Lils and when she came to a stop he did as well, looking up at the work that she’d created.

”You’re not a scenery type of person like I am, huh! Well words look kinda fancy too! Maybe next time I can do the scenery and you can make the words.” Chad said, shooting a wink over at Lils, ”Once we get an interested customer anyway! Though I don’t know if they’d appreciate any swearing… did you do a lot of not-academy friendly stuff?”

Chad grinned as Lils led him along, his eyes focused on the artwork on the slab rather than anything in particular. He listened to her voice as she explained her history in the fine art of spray-painting, nodding along, all the while wishing he’d brought his bags from the back of Lola’s car to start his own masterpiece on this covered up slate.

When they approached Monty, Chad didn’t look at the other guy and instead focused on what he was painting. Chad grinned when he saw how Monty was making the octopus interact with other peoples’ tags. It was really cool! Chad was caught off-guard when Monty threw a can of paint at him and Chad caught it while accidently spraying a little of it directly onto his shirt. He snorted at himself before he finally looked back at Monty. When he was challenged him to a collaboration, Chad grinned.

”Are you sure? I don’t want to overshadow you.” Chad said, shaking his can before he stared at the art before him. Now with blue, how could he improve this? The first option was bubbles or adding some water around the octopus, but where was the fun in the predictable? So instead, Chad took to designing small strands of seaweed on the bottom of the wall, extending them up underneath the octopus. At first is seemed stupid to use a deep blue to design green seaweed, but as he created more fluidly shaped strands it became more obvious that the only dark blue ones were underneath the shadow of the octopus – which in turn, made the octopus Monty was creating seem to stand out even more than it already did from the wall, with its tentacles looking 3D as it interacted with tags of past artists who’d painted on this very spot.

Done with the seaweed until he could get his hands on some dark green to make the shadowed seaweed stand out even more, Chad grinned at his work before he shook the can again, looking for inspiration for another thing to add.

When the bag of other colors was placed at Chad’s feet, his grin grew. Immediately Chad wasted n otime and grabbed a dark green, completing the details of the seaweed that he was drawing in. Once he had access to a dark green he added even more seaweed to the bottom of the slab, twisting and turning it up in shaded strands that interacted with the octopus. Though by the time he pulled away Monty was already putting the touches on an image of a shark approaching the octopus. Chad watched as Monty used his own style of spraying to achieve the image he wanted. Even though Chad was self-centered it was always fascinating to see how differently – oddly, in Chad’s opinion – other people created their own mental pictures. He watched as the shark came to life with a grin.

”Damn, he looks scary.” Chad said, but once he had caught sight of Monty’s shark, he knew exactly what he wanted to respond with.

He traded the green and blue paints he had for a red one and a white one. He wanted to put this part of the image a little higher up, but since he only had so much room to work with that would be hard. Though as he started to create lines, he realized the perspective he was aiming for worked way better this way!

The random red and white lines he created on the wall seemed out of place until, with the red can, he created two long flippers coming from the bottom white lines, the one in the back significantly shorter than the one towards the front to add more to the 3D of the image. He then grabbed a dark grey can and added what looked like a blurred helmet on top of the red lines at the top of the image he was creating and then added in what looked like a harpoon gun taking aim at the shark, with a rope extending out towards it, as though it’d just been deployed.

”It’s a metaphor.” Chad insisted, grabbing the blue paint and adding the shoulder and left arm of the diver hunter he’d added to the scene. Now, it was very clear that the diver was wearing a scuba suit that was basically a stretched out version of the American flag. He laughed, then added, ”Your shark’s going down, dude!”

Chad took a few steps away from the mural when it was done, grinning cockily at the image now before them as Monty and Lils discussed the preservation of the octopus’ life.

”Yeah that’s what he’s there for! America’s gotta save the day all the time, right! Mr. King of the Sea ain’t got nothin’ on the land of the free, dude!” Chad said to Monty, then turning around towards Lils. He pulled his phone out of his pocket, and handed it to Lils, assuming she’d know he’d want a picture of it like he’d wanted of Mikey’s house. He turned back towards Monty with a toothy grin to match the one he’d received in return.

”Not too shabby? I’m an artist! Just look at this piece of work.” Chad emphasized, grinning, ”You’re not that bad either. Are you an art student too?”

”Well duh! Scuba Sam doesn’t go into the water unprepared. Your shark is going down.” Chad continued, grinning ear to ear when Lils snapped the picture. He couldn’t wait to show this to his dad! Though given the location he was at he felt like his dad might not care… so instead, he’d put print it out and put it on his wall! His wall of completely artwork sin his dorm room. He wanted to put up the one of Mikey’s house too, but he had to be careful where. He didn’t exactly want to look over at Mikey sucking face with his bimbo girlfriend while balls-deep in some girl. That would just be awkward.

When they talked about Monty’s schooling history, Chad laughed loudly, wondering why on earth he’d want to get kicked out of Metric! Sure it was stuffy and dry there, but it was like the best arts school in California. A degree from there was a guarantee for success! Well, probably, anyway.

”You’re an idiot, Monty!” Chad said, ”So I’m just hanging out with the troublemakers huh? You guys gonna try to contaminate me?”

He snickered, eyes darting down the slab as he watched some other people paint away before he looked back at Lils and Monty. ”By the way that picture is totally going on my wall. I have a wall of all my art! It’s pretty impressive!”

Chad laughed as Monty and Lils talked, having to admit he found their banter really entertaining! He could get used to bothering the people at this slab or slate or whatever Lils had called it. To him, he saw it as a canvas – a canvas already covered in art, waiting for more artists to come and go as they pleased to bring the dull grey of the backdrop to life.

”I gotta say, I like you both.” Chad winked, grinning at Monty’s grimace when Lils said he’d leave Chad high and dry. Chad wasn’t entirely sure what Lils meant by that either – his first thought was the type of one night stand who just never called you again, but that was really what he was, not Monty – but it was still funny to see Monty’s face at her comments! Though when she brought up minimalism Chad tried to think to minimalistic art he’d seen.

As an art student Chad had taken a lot of courses throughout the years he’d been in attendance. He saw some works that were ‘minimalist’ and none of them had ever really resodnated with him. The teachers liked to say they were deep, or that they were metaphors but in art form, but Chad just felt tired when he looked at them.

But he did like that shark and octopus. Chad grinned at the art before them as Monty left, not giving the other male a glance as he focused instead on the joint creation they’d made together with pride. He didn’t acknowledge Lils until he saw her petting the octopus’ head and his proud look turned into a grin.

”Don’t thank me, thank Sam!” Chad said, gesturing towards the scuba diver from America with his harpoon gun raised. He then turned towards Lils with a sneaky grin, and honestly, she had to see this one coming given Chad’s personality: ”Issues he needs to get over? So, is Monty your ex-boyfriend or something?”