Willy (People I've Never Met)

A vignette from the upcoming "People I've Never Met" compilation.

There is something deep about that one-millimeter plastic bag.

The cracks in his face grip the eye. His paint-covered pants ask what his mission in life is. William Lee Jr., silvered hair competing with his head as his feet struggle against the weight of his boots.

For 12 years, William has worked as the same man, the same pattern every day. At seven a.m., he boards the train in South L.A. �" a train so full of hope and destitution, struggle and ease, production, peril, & plight.

He and his static bag, full of gas station lunch & reeking of the mediocrity threatening to engulf him, would travel the 45 shaky, steel minutes to his destination. He worked every day, for eight hours, every day, painting the very same wall the very same color. White.

As monotony would have it, the company which payed him the same two-hundred dollars per week, Halbert White-Washers, specialized in just that �" white washing.

Some days, with the sun on his back and sweat crawling for the crevices on his face, he begged for color, daydreamed of greens and pinks to grace his pail. Other days, in between the dunk of his bucket and the gleam of the wall, he breathed in the sterile idea the white paint offered. Willy the painter laughed at the odd contrast of his dark, callused hands against the snow white walls.

He took a special comfort in the idea that his muddy hands would clean anything at all. In a world which screamed out from every living room that he was nothing, in a country which blindly belittled him, telling him melanin was near sin. In a city that shouted from both sides of the line in the sand, here stood Will, foam roller in hand, washing it all away.

Days as these, he would whistle a tune, and as it echoed back from whichever empty room he painted, he would swish the melody along its path, letting each stroke and fluttering note carry his cares, his worry, his endless breath along downstream. These days the man would skip his lunch, for fear of his shattering plastic bag; of being reminded of the banality which surrounded him.

Within these walls, as he breathed in a fresh skin and rolled another brilliant white layer upon his masterpiece, there was no sign of any of it. No need for a far-fledged mission, no end to seek. These days there was nothing else in existence, just a breath, a brush, a bucket.

Four relentless, definite hours from now, he would climb aboard the tin train to tackle his own tail, to ride the unwavering rail back to his minuscule cell. But here, in this heartbeat, William Lee Jr. is completely empty, and missing nothing.