Tagged: Painting the Town Red

Hometown graffiti hotline comes to the rescue.

About nine o'clock on a cool, clear summer night—and a school night at that for all of us work-a-dayers—I walked my friend to her car, which was parked outside of our house. As I hugged her goodbye before she stepped into the driver's seat, the street lamp in front of our yard drew my eye with every suburbanite's horror: graffiti. The word Dhoofuses* dripped redly down the lamp post, each jagged letter standing out against the gray concrete.

After ascertaining that the ne'er do wells had left my friend's car in tact (which they had), I waved her off with repetitive statements about how we'd never seen anything like this—not in this neighborhood. She didn't look terribly freaked out by it, but I certainly was. As my friend drove off, the embarrassment ebbed, and the paranoia set in. Who were these hoodlums calling Dhoofuses? Did they have something against us nerds? Would we be murdered in our beds clinging to our pocket protectors?

My husband didn't buy into my grisly scenarios. He was mostly sorry that the graffiti was emblazoned onto a concrete surface, over which, he imagined, the city would slap an ever obvious, sloppily painted square as cover-up. On the bright side, he told me, the word was legible and not even obscene. Eventually, even I conceded that the "h" was more amusing than threatening, and we could call about it in the morning.

Anger and paranoia kept sleep at bay, however, and I leapt out of bed at an ungodly hour to search for solutions on the Web. Without too much trouble, I found the city's FAQ page and was surprised to see that graffiti had made the list of frequent topics. Like many other communities in the area, our city has a graffiti-removal hotline. You can call any time of day or night to leave a voice message detailing the location of the offending scrawls, your contact information, and any other necessary details. While on the one hand, I felt "handled" and unimportant, it was oddly satisfying to be able to take even this preliminary action in the dead of night. No need to wait until 9 a.m. to talk to a bored bureaucrat! After leaving my message, I had no trouble falling asleep.

In the light of day, my feelings of empowerment were gone, but so was most of my ire. Dhoofuses glared ugly and bright in front of the house, but it didn't seem as creepy in direct sunlight. Sure, I'd left a message on the hotline, but I didn't expect action from the city any time soon. It was likely they'd never even press play. We would just have to figure out something to do in the meantime—maybe wrap it in a sheet, I thought as I pulled out of the driveway to run shopping errands.

As I followed my normal route through the neighborhood, a pattern emerged. Red, scrawly Dhoofuses adorned lampposts and city signs about truck weight limits all the way to the main road. The ruffians had traced their path through the neighborhood—but not a piece of private property sported red letters. Suddenly, I felt better. The scamps weren't calling us Dhoofuses—that was their name for themselves. I also tried to quash the tiny spark of gratitude I felt for their conscientious defacing of only city property. Of course, the result was still ugly and annoying—but didn't it mean something that they weren't tagging houses and family pets? Didn't that make them more likely to be bored teens than psychokillers?

My mind eased, I concentrated on finding whatever goods and groceries were on the list that day and loading them into the car. On the way home, I reminded myself to take note of the various Dhoofuses locations so that I could record them on the answering machine of futility. I turned into the neighborhood and questioned my memory. Hadn't I seen evidence of the Dhoofuses on that truck weight limit sign on the corner? Maybe I hadn't. I slowed to turn into our driveway and stopped halfway. The lamppost was completely clear—no paint of any kind. I got out and rubbed the surface of it, looking for scratches or flecks of red paint. Nothing at all. If I hadn't had witnesses, I would have been hard pressed to prove Dhoofuses had ever been there.

With a rush of gratitude, I thrust my groceries into the kitchen and high-tailed it to the phone. I dialed that precious hotline number and gushed praises of the most sincerely inarticulate nature, describing the phenomenon as if no one on the other side of the phone had ever heard of such a miracle. "There was graffiti, and I called, and now it's gone," I stammered. "It happened while I was at the store. I didn't even see a truck." I couldn't shut up, and it wouldn't surprise me if they changed the hotline number immediately after hitting delete.

But the gratitude is real. When the graffiti appeared on our lamp post, I felt that my faith in the community would be forever shaken, that I would always be looking over my shoulder and wishing for the good old days before the hoodlums put their mark on every tree. But I was surprised to find that just the fast response from my city's graffiti-removal hotline made me feel such civic pride. Dhoofuses will come and go, but we don't need to cherish their memories. Removing graffiti as fast as it appears means my city isn't ready to let the vandals win, and that it's actually trying to keep this a good place to live. It's not often these days for me to feel a surge of pride for my government, but just this one little piece of tax-paid magic in my favor gave me a much needed dose of hope.

Graffiti-removal hotline: *****


*The word has been changed to bring less satisfaction to the guilty—although, presumably, the Dhoofuses know who they are.