“I want to do that,” I thought, staring at the radical ghetto hieroglyphics that radiated from the subway; and, just like that, Starr’s stunning spray-paint style ignited a bonfire that roared inside me for years.

IT WAS A SUNNY JUNE DAY in ’78 when all-city graffiti legend Starr 153 changed my life forever. Taking a leak at my homeboy’s crib inside the towering Grant Houses on 125th Street, I’d peeped out the small project window and watched as the IRT #1 train crept from the darkened tunnel.

Resembling a slinking metal snake, the subway bounded onto the elevated tracks built over Broadway. “Oh snap,” I mumbled, pissing on the floor by accident as I marveled at the two train cars splattered from top to bottom with a stunning Starr masterpiece.
“Yo Kyle,” I screamed at my boy in the next room, “go to the window!” Forgetting to zip my pants, I ran into the living room. Kneeling on the red-velvet slipcovered couch, I joined Kyle in front of the jungle of houseplants that lined the windowsill.

Opening the window, we stuck our heads outside. Eight stories below, some knuckleheads with dueling boomboxes blasted Heatwave’s scorching disco hit “Groove Line.” Like a broken door, my mouth swung open as I scoped Starr’s huge drawing of comic book billionaire Richie Rich lounging in a lawn chair sporting Cazel shades and a purple jogging suit.

Enthralled by the movement of the jagged lettering and explosive colors, a surge of electricity rushed through my body. “I want to do that,” I thought, staring at the radical ghetto hieroglyphics that radiated from the subway; and, just like that, Starr’s stunning spray-paint style ignited a bonfire that roared inside me for years.

•••

Unlike some of the hard rock boys I’d grown up around uptown, my bank teller moms occasionally dragged me to cultural shit like museums and galleries. Standing in front of the Van Gogh painting Sunflowers at the Metropolitan a few days after being rocked by Starr’s piece, I innocently asked, “Where we at?”
Mom  flinched. “You think I spend $50 a month sending you to Catholic school so you can speak worse than a derelict? Now, what are you talking about?”

“I wanna know about the Black artists. Where we at?”
“We just went through the Arts of Africa room.”

“I don’t want to see that Tarzan stuff,” I screamed. “Africa doesn’t have nothing to do with me.”

The second I said the words, I regretted them. I backed away, fearful that a smack was coming towards my mouth. Mom might have been from Pittsburgh, but watching Roots the year before had turned her into a permed-hair revolutionary.

“Let’s go, now,” she murmured harshly, high heels tapping across the marble floor. Silently, I walked behind her.
For the next two days, moms barely spoke to me.

•••

A few weeks after spotting Starr’s two-car masterpiece, he and I finally met when he walked down the soiled back stairs inside of my apartment building.

Being a freak for the Human Torch in the Fantastic Four comics—the fiery superhero kid Jack Kirby created who screamed “Flame on!” to activate his powers—I had adopted the moniker FLAME 153.

“What you think you doing, young blood?” barked a teenager I had never seen before. A skinny dude who was as lanky as J.J. Evans from Good Times, he was the color of caramel. Dressed in a blue tie-dyed tank top, Lee jeans and red suede Pumas, his slightly accented voice startled me.

Shitting bricks, I thought he might be a gang member, maybe one of those freaks who called themselves the Ballbusters. I dropped the red El Marko pen on the dirty marble steps.

“I wasn’t doing nothing,” I mumbled, hands stained with red ink.
Like a scene out of Hitchcock, the marker slowly rolled to the bottom of the steps. On the wall behind me, the tag was still wet. As I fixed to dart down the stairs, the skinny stranger grabbed me roughly by the back of my dirty white T-shirt.

“Chill little man. I ain’t going hurt you or nothing.”

Walking in front of me, he picked up the uncapped marker. Obviously coming from Stan the Weed Man’s crib, he smelled like a mixture of Brut, reefer and charisma.

Holding the tip to his wide nose, he inhaled deeply. “God, I love the smell of ink,” he said, tagging his name a few feet away from mine. With the control of a true artist, homeboy wielded that marker as though he was a ghetto Picasso.

“Oh shit, you’re Starr,” I blurted, amazed by the writer’s flamboyant skills as he drew crimson clouds and trademarked stars orbiting around his famed name. Never staining either his hands or clothes, Starr recapped the marker. Realizing I was in the presence of graff greatness, I didn’t know what to say.
“How long you been writing…Flame?” he smirked.
“Not long. I kind of just started out.”

“You suck,” he blurted. “But, you could be better.” I wasn’t sure if I should be pissed or proud, but from that point on, I became Starr’s number-one disciple.

•••