Action Movie

Cheito waited in the dark until he was sure his mother was asleep. He felt his beeper vibrate against his leg and saw it was David, the third time he beeped him, so David, Juan, Celso, and Brian were already on the corner waiting. He wasn't sure how he would keep his dog Thug from barking when he got up. He sat up quietly, and as he lowered his feet to the floor (He'd been lying in bed with his sneakers on) he handed Thug a big rawhide bone smeared with peanut butter. Thug took the bone over to his best chewing spot in the corner of the room and Cheito walked out into the middle room. He could see Ma sleeping on her belly, breathing softly, her cat curled up by her head. He stealthed past Ma's door. He made it to the hallway and walked carefully down the carpeted stairs. Along the stairs wall Ma had hung the graffiti mural she'd had and David and him spray last summer onto a huge painter's tarp she laid out in the yard. Poor Ma. She thought that way Cheito would get it out of his system and not end up writing on the street.
He stood for a moment on the top of the stoop. It was a perfect night, the sky was overcast but it wasn't yet raining. If it rained so much the better. He opened the door to the storage space beneath the stoop, picked up the duffle bag with the spray cans and walked up the block toward his friends. This was the best part of the night when the streets belonged to them.
David and Cheito walked ahead, fast. They'd decided last night they'd start at the underpass where the subway emerged before it went elevated for a couple of stops and they wanted to get there as fast as they could. They wore black pants and black hoodies and were out of breath when they got to the spot on the avenue where the chain link fence was broken. They bent down, crouched under the fence, walked down the hill littered with bottles and condomns and shit.
"We know who that is." David pointed to the black curlicued S and L and o sprayed over their work. Cheito opened the duffle and laid out their materials on the ground. Juan grabbed the silver and liquidated Slo's tag. Brian opened the black book to the right page. D had the grid in his head for casting the design onto the huge stone wall close to the arch. A train rumbled above them, lit yellow windows, empty cars. They did what D told them.