Two right hands

Wednesday was beautiful. Pale sun, pale sky. A great day for visiting some of those features in Larryville that puzzle me. Like this wall, with two right-hand prints. They are so deliberate. Nothing close by is painted black; whoever left these prints must have brought the bucket with them to this spot, stuck their hand in it twice, and imprinted the wall.

Can't you see it? It was two fifteen year old boys, they just found this can of paint in the trash on the monthly discard day. It's 9:00 on a warm summer night. They snicker as they pry open the lid, watching the mouth of the alley for intruders. They dare each other to stick their hand in and mark the house, selected for its location on a backstreet. After the deed is done, each with a black hand, they realize that they have to figure out how to clean up enough that there won't be any questions when they get home. But this is their neighborhood and they know who has an outside water source that is easily accessible. So they ditch the paint can in someone's garbage and stealthily make their way down the breeze way between two houses and scrub their hands at least well enough to get the worst off. Now, over a year later, they don't see each other very much. But every time they walk through the alley on the way to the Giant Eagle, thay think about that summer, with all of its trials and tribulations.