Right now, I am livid. (If you don't know that word, look it up in the dictionary. It's a good word. In a bad sort of way.)

Okay. So.

Remember Imhotep? Probably not. I do, though, because he was my friend. He was also known as Sasquatch (if you'd ever seen him, you'd understand), but his real name was Richard.

He died a year ago last March. A very sad loss. The paper here even ran an article about him when he died.

He was a cool sort of person, who stacked rocks meticulously in the little rivers that run through town. He built a labarynth out on Mim's Beach (one of the nude beaches), and painted the rock at Painted Rock (one of the other nude beaches), and built a giant peace sign under the water by Painted Rock. He was a generally gentle, kind person with all sort of neat ideas and quirks, and loved everything and believed very strongly in karma (which is why we found it all ludecrous when he was accused of stealing things from Wal-Mart while working as a night stocker there, mostly because he was really weird looking).

My favorite memory of Imhotep was sitting at Cat's birthday party, and trying to fit small stuffed toys through his stretched ear lobes.

Anyway.

A handful of years ago (I still remember it) the city got a grant to commission a number of local artists to put murals on a huge blank back-alley wall, an area that was well travelled (because, oddly enough, the city's fanciest restaurant resided in said alley).

Imhotep's mural was a map of the city, each block carefully marked out in fantastical colours and the streets all in gold. When you stepped back, though, you could see a silhouette of Imhotep in the lines, hugging the city.

This was definately his city.

Anyway, the was a door in this wall (it had always been there), and recently we heard that a leather store had moved in there, and was setting up.

We were all excited.

Until, two days ago, Judy was walking by to come visit me at the theatre, and found his mural to be painted over.

It was some pukey maroon colour.

She was livid.

I went to see it today, and found myself even more hurt than I thought I'd be. There was some guy sitting on the stair in front of the door.

"It's almost done! You can see it now!" (They'd put in huge windows on part of the wall; it wouldn't have messed up Imhotep's mural, though.)

"Yeah," I said kind of sadly. "I'm just mad about Imhotep's mural."

The guy got really nasty!

"Yeah, well, he didn't do anything for my business now did he?"

"He's dea--"

"I know he's dead," he said, cutting me off without *any* sympathy. "You know who you should be mad at? All *those* people, who graffiti. *Those* are the people you should be mad at!"

(Secretly, I know why. One of my friends went to see it and was so mad that they scrawled: WHERE IS SASQUATCH? right across the fresh paint. That made me happy.)

He showed no sympathy. I would have let it go if he had, because that's life. Maybe if he'd said something like: "I'm sorry, I didn't realize it was so important to so many people." or "I didn't realize he was dead." I could have dealt. I would have dealt.

A few other words were said, nasty ones, but I don't remember. The feeling he gave me was the same my old boss Frank gave me. Pure, uncontrollable hate. I decided it was time to leave, so I turned.

"I'm not mad at the graffiti..." I said as I walked away...

It made me really upset. I was so mad I was shaking.

I was going to go and visit Judy and Janette on my way home (and they were home, I know), but I was so close to tears I decided to go home instead.

That man...I hate him. I honestly do. I don't want to go into his store. I pity his employees, but I'm not surprised he's opening a store. He's *exactly* that type.

Fucker.

I'm going to go to the SCA event tonight, and drink until my brain hums. Then stop. Because I may be mad, but I'm not stupid.

.

Rosie.

Before&After