Saturday 15 January 2011

Of all the places in all of leeds how do they always happen to catch me

So its midnight, and armed with my bucket of wheat paste, wallpaper brush and about 38 sheets of A4 paper i set out to exhibit my A4 exhibition piece in a different, slightly less legal way. Well me and my trusty helper who will for this post simply be named as 'him' for legal reasons. I find a wall that i like, its reasonably well lit, its deserted, it's perfect. Before we start we go over the simple but effective plan;
me: what happens if we get caught?
Him: we run
me: if i shout run we run, seperate directions deal
Him: i don't trust you to be able to run that fast
me: shut up - we run! deal?
Him: deal
I had the papers in order to make this go as smooth as possible, He starts slapping the wheat paste on to the wall as i start slapping the paper on top of it, we get the first line up in less than 20 seconds this could be it - this will be awesome if it works, on to the second line, a boy walks down the street and i wanted to stop right away- im a jittery kind of person, then a car pulls up on the road along side us close enough for me to want to go - leave this as yet another failed attempt- but he says no- the person in the car isn't actually doing anything, it's diesel engine roars in my ears, we carry on for one more sheet now with a total of 8 up and the car moves on slightly ahead of us and then stops- the engine stops the person is watching us i just know. It's time to go so i pick up my bag, shove the papers inside and tell him to RUN and i go left expecting him to be behind me, i almost get to the corner when my phone falls out of my pocket, the thought crosses my mind to leave it, but i stop and turn to pick it up and realise he isn't behind me! hes still there and a very tall, very angry asian man is walking over to him. what do i do? i can't go back, i can't leave him, so i walk around the corner and try to act as normal as possible. i crouch at the corner, feel stupid, get back up and start walking swiftly away, i start to feel terrible, guilty why hasn't he ran away? i stop and just stand in the middle of the street like the idiotic girl i feel- why don't i ever pick the easy projects? just as i am running out of options i run into to someone i know, its a friend of His, i try and tell him what's happening but  i sound overly excited, giddy he asks me if i've been drinking, i finally relay the information that He is around the corner i say He's in trouble and its my fault. the friend goes to find Him and i go the opposite way, ill stick to the plan and we will me up at my house like arranged, i txt Him let him know where im heading. As i turn the next corner the man in the car is in front of me getting out of his car, i duck and go back the way i came "fuck it" i think what could possibly happen i feel braver now i'll go find Him we'll go home  everything will be fine. I get back to where we where pasting and find my paper crumpled and stuck to the floor- bugger! no sign of him and if i go across the road the man will no doubt spot me! i see His friend again a little along the road and run to him, he's on the phone to Him, we wait and a minute later we spot him running back towards us- towards the scene of the crime- we defineatly would not make master crimminals! my First reaction was why the hell didn't you run when i told you to? and then i notice He isn't wearing the hat He had on, and He is seriously out of breath. We go to His friends house who luckily lives on the same road. And ther sat in a disgusting hovel of a student kitchen i find out that he thought at first that the man was just curious about what we where doing and saw no need to run,  but i transpired that the man who turned up was the brother of the man who owned the building that was attached to the wall we were pasting onto! just my bloody luck that would only ever happen to me! So when the man started shouting He tried to explain it was just a project that it was only paper and that it would wash off in the rain- the man did not like this and had apparently been filming us (so that explains why he stayed in the car and when i thought he was watching us he was actually filming us) the man tells Him he has his photo, that he demands to know where He lives- thankfully He doesn't tell him, but then the man got angry and aggresive, all of His attempts to calm the man down failed and the man was about to hit Him, backed Him against the wall and pulls His hat off. The man then started pullling down what little of the piece we had managed to get up, getting angrier still as the pages with their thick paste start to stick to him, a taxi pulls up and then another one they seem to know the man, HE takes this as his key to run- finally and he does, runs as far away as he can get without going to base in case he is being followed. After a ten minute wait in the friends house we make are way home slowly a taxi pulls up beside us and we run, not knowing if its anything to do with the man but not wanting to find out either. I get to my front door with a stitch in my side and all i can think is "how the hell to graffiti artists get away with it when i cant even manage not to be caught in under two minutes" and then i realise that my only evidence that this even happend is this story as yet again i was caught too quick to get my camera out and to be fair this was not the situation in which to start taking photographs

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