So Ron got to work on his little project. The first thing he needed to do was get some spray paint. The authorities had already thought of this and were quick to make spray paint illegal. However, just like everything else illegal, there was now a thriving black market.
Ron got a can of spray paint from a friend, Matt Collins, who Ron drove to the black-market clinic when Matt threw his back out. Matt was an accountant—well, former accountant. Everyone was now a “former” whatever they did before the Collapse.
Matt had always been a pretty vocal conservative before the Collapse; not a social conservative, but more of a libertarian. He had even gone to tax protest rallies when that was still legal. If anyone was likely tied into the Patriots, Ron thought, it would be Matt. Like Ron, Matt became a gray man when the Collapse started, and had done all the things Ron had, to appear to be a Loyalist.
Both Matt and Ron even had a “Recovery” sign up in their yard. These were the yard signs that said “We Support the Recovery,” meaning the government’s recovery efforts of nationalizing the economy, jailing people for no reason, and stealing everything. These “Recovery” signs were just like the ones in the First Great Depression that said a person supported the 1930s “New Deal” programs. Many people in Ron’s Olympia neighborhood had “Recovery” signs up. In fact, everyone got one when they signed up for an FCard.
One day Ron took Matt to the clinic where he was seen by a doctor and got black market pain killers for some FCards. Matt said to Ron, “Thanks, man. If there is ever anything I can do for you.”
Ron really wanted a can of yellow spray paint – the Patriots’ color, matching the Don’t Tread on Me flag – and was willing to take a risk to get some, even though he was pretty sure he could trust Matt.
“There is one thing you could do for me,” Ron said.
“Name it.”
“A can of yellow spray paint,” Ron said, as he looked straight out the window while driving. “Sherri does arts and crafts, you know.”
“‘Arts and crafts’,” Matt said with a laugh. “That’s the best you can do?”
Ron was silent. This was serious business, and there was no time for kidding around. Ron, the Mormon accountant, wasn’t used to committing crimes like this. Matt sensed how hard it was for Ron to have asked for the yellow spray paint.
“Done,” Matt said. “My wife is into ‘arts and crafts,’ too.”
That evening, right before the 8:00 p.m. curfew, the doorbell rang. Ron got his revolver and went to the door. No one was there. He carefully opened the door, and sitting on the porch was a paper bag with “Arts and crafts supplies” written on it. Ron felt an enormous relief. Matt had been a Patriot. Then Ron had a moment of doubt. Matt was probably a Patriot. Or a cop. Ron shrugged. This is one of the risks a gray man takes. It couldn’t be avoided.
That night, Ron couldn’t sleep. At about 2:30 a.m., he quietly got out of bed and went into his home office where he had stashed some dark clothes. He changed into them there, grabbed a little backpack and put the spray paint can in there. He got his jacket and took his Ruger SP-101 .357 magnum revolver from the backpack, and shoved it into the pocket of his light jacket.
Ron quietly left his house. He felt so weird sneaking out of this own house, like a teenager going out to toilet paper someone’s house, only this little prank tonight could get him thrown into jail or maybe killed.
It was quiet in his neighborhood. There were a few gun shots every hour or so, far in the distance, but nothing like there was around May Day when the sound of gunshots in the distance was constant. No cars were out, as no one had gas.
There was a real danger out that night: criminals. They didn’t seem deterred by the curfew laws.
Ron reverted back to his hunting skills of walking silently and keeping near cover, like trees and bushes. He wasn’t walking in an exaggerated ninja way; that would draw suspicion. He was just walking very carefully, trying to be quiet so dogs wouldn’t hear him. Dogs were a person’s worst enemy when trying to sneak around.
He gripped his .357 in his jacket. He really, really, really hoped he didn’t need to use it, but this graffiti thing was dangerous. This wasn’t like the old days when a vandal would be given five hours of community service and fined $100. Now it was considered “terrorism.”
As Ron was sneaking around and fearing for his life, he thought about how people in the future would think spray painting graffiti was not exactly heroic. They’d have no clue what a risk it really had been.
Ron had picked out a great graffiti location the previous day when he was driving around. It was at an intersection about a mile from his house. Two busy roads with a decent amount of traffic—well, a decent amount now given the drastically reduced number of cars on the road. Ron walked up to the intersection.
There they were.
The big square utility boxes on two of the corners of the intersection. He looked at them and realized this was his last chance to chicken out. He could turn around and walk home.
Nope. Ron looked at those utility boxes and decided right then and there that he was a Patriot and would fight to the death. This was his way of fighting for freedom. “Fighting for freedom” had always sounded so corny to him. However, in this moment, he understood exactly what it meant. He was in a fight. And it was for freedom. There was no formal war going on now, at least in Olympia, but he was fighting for freedom in his own way.
Ron kept looking around and listening. He realized he was stalling himself. He was scared; really scared. He was trying to give himself another chance to chicken out and go back to his nice warm bed.
No way. He couldn’t stand by and let this continue to happen. The stealing. People going to jail for no reason. The killing. No more. As he removed the spray paint from his backpack, Ron surprised himself at how calm he was, despite the fear he felt running through his body. He walked up to the first utility box on the corner and laughed to himself that his hand couldn’t be shaky because, if his graffiti looked like scared handwriting, it wouldn’t show the confidence and defiance it was supposed to convey. He very calmly looked at the can of spray paint. He could see from the street light enough to determine which way the little arrow on the nozzle was pointed. He decided to do a test blast on the grass nearby. He hit the button and the sound of spray paint came out right where it was supposed to. Now he was ready.
Ron assessed the size of the utility box and decided how big to make the lettering. It wouldn’t be perfect, but that was OK. His first message was the one that had made such a strong impression on him, “I miss America.” He sprayed the “I” and then “miss” and below it “America.”
Ron felt a rush. It felt so incredibly good to actually be doing something to help bring these bastards down. To fight them for all the horrible things they’d done to him and his family and his country. To get even and hurt them, even a little bit by just spray painting a slogan. It felt so great.
Ron stepped back and quickly looked at this work. He went over to the second utility box and sprayed a simple “Resist” on that one. That was a good twin message for that intersection: remind people seeing it that they missed America and that, to do something to get it back, they needed to resist. It was perfect.
Ron put the lid back on the spray paint can, threw it in his backpack, put it on, and started running faster than he’d run in years. Adrenaline was an amazing thing. A person can truly run faster than they ever have when they have that pumping through their veins. He was flying down the street.