30
T hey never got together with the school counselor. Instead, Adrien was sent home several months later with a pamphlet about a youth art camp that the school district was putting on for free that summer. His mother took one look at it and threw it in the trash.
“Don’t waste your time on that crap,” she said, puffing away on her cigarette. “I need you here watching the kids, not wasting your time with that hippy shit.”
“But I already talked to Mrs. Hernandez about it,” Adrien insisted. “She said I could bring them with me… and also that it would look really good on my college applications.”
His mother hesitated. She then heaved a long sigh. “ Fine. But you have to pay for your own Muni fare.”
The art camp ended up being one of the best things Adrien ever did for himself.
It was there that he met Erika Honda, and she introduced him to proper street art.
Every day she’d bring a copy of a different art book for them to pore over and the two of them would try their best to incorporate the designs into their own works.
One day in their freshman year of high school, Erika dropped a glossy-paged volume in front of Adrien during homeroom. She smirked down at him in glee.
“Keith Haring,” she announced, chest puffed out in pride. Adrien pushed aside his can of Pineapple Slice, flipping through the publication.
“Where did you get this?!” he gasped, riffling through the pages.
“Golden Gate Library, actually,” she told him, folding her arms over her chest in triumph. “They sell old books at the end of every year—it’s ours to keep.”
“These are amazing,” Adrien marveled, tracing his fingers over the designs. He gaped at a picture of unfinished painting , trailing his fingertips along the intricate designs rendered in indigo, dragging his nail down the drips of paint streaked across the blank portion of the canvas.
Erika continued to grin. “I knew you’d like it.”
“I didn’t know he did sculptures, too!” he said, gesturing for Erika to look at a bright orange and green bust. “Look at how complicated the patterns on the skin are! This must have taken days.”
“ You could make something like that.” Erika regarded the piece, thoughtful.
Adrien stared up at her, mouth agape. “What?! No way, I could never come up with enough to fill all this space.”
“I see the stuff you make in ceramics every week!” Erika insisted. “You’re good.”
“I’m messing around,” he muttered, shrugging into himself. “I’m not artistically inclined, it’s just kind of fun…”
“But what about that Voltron you made David?” Erika continued to press with an exasperated huff. “I know you made that thing from paper clay when you were like ten.”
“My mom says it looks like a piece of garbage,” Adrien retorted, closing the print book and handing it back to Erika. She pushed it back towards him, shaking her head in frustration. “She’s right. I don’t have any real talent.”
“You don’t give yourself enough credit,” she told him. “Keep it, I got it for you.”
She headed for her desk, but not before grinning over her shoulder at him. “You can look at it when you’re a big shot artist in New York and remember how right I am!”
“A big shot artist in New York, huh?” Adrien snorted to himself.
The next day Erika approached him with the proper forms to start a sculpture club in the ceramics room—her mom had already signed for it. Adrien only had to get his mom’s signature as well and they could start meeting twice a week after school.
Joyce was home late as usual, stumbling into the apartment at one AM.
She didn’t even address Adrien, who was sitting at the kitchen table drafting a submission for an art installation contest in the Mission district.
She went straight for the fridge and dug out that night’s dinner before starting to eat it cold over the sink.
“Hi Mom,” Adrien greeted her after a pause. She provided him with a nod before continuing to eat. “Did you have a good day at work?”
“What the fuck do you think?!” she asked, throwing her fork down into the sink with a resounding clang. “Always with your goddamn attitude, Adrien!”
“I’m sorry,” he apologized out of habit. “I wasn’t thinking, I was just—”
“‘ I was just, I was just ’,” she mocked in a high-pitched tone. “That’s your problem Adrien, you never think! What the hell is this?”
She reached out and snatched the piece of paper from him, squinting down at the design. He flinched as she crumbled the edge in her too-tight grip. “Is this some sort of gang shit?”
“No, it’s for an art contest. They’re actually trying to prevent gang tagging in the Mission and—”
“Always on and on with the art shit!” Joyce slurred, throwing the paper back down onto the table.
“You know what you should be doing? Studying to get into a good college or working a damn job to help get us out of this shithole! If you loved your brother and sister you’d be out there hitting the pavement, not wasting your time on this faggot crap. ”
She turned on her heel and wavered over to the bathroom.
Behind her, Adrien said, voice thick with spite: “Maybe if you didn’t drink half your paycheck away, we’d be out of here by now.”
His mother froze in the bathroom doorway, gripping the frame so hard that her knuckles turned white. “ Excuse me?”
Adrien stood in the kitchen, fists clenched at his sides. He stared hard at the linoleum floor, too scared to look her in the eye.
“ You fucking look at me when I’m talking to you, Adrien Marin! ” Joyce screeched. Their neighbor’s dog started barking. “What the fuck did you just say to me, young man?!”
“I said you need to stop drinking!” he responded with a shout of his own, meeting her glare. “You’re never home! You’re either at work or at the bar, and when you are home you’re stumbling around everywhere like a—”
“You ungrateful fucking brat !” Joyce charged at him with a raised hand, raining slaps down upon his head and cheeks.
Adrien winced, but took the abuse. There wasn’t anything he could do to stop her.
“You wanna know what my parents would do to me if I ever spoke to them like that?! Back in my day, kids did as they were told, you mouthy little—”
There was an urgent bang on their neighbor’s side of the wall.
“If you don’t stop yelling, I’m calling the goddamn cops!” the person on the other side shouted.
“For fuck’s sake!” Joyce screamed, throwing her arms into the air. “Look what you did, Adrien!”
Look what you did, look what you did.