In May of 2015, my fellowship travels take me to Tucson, Arizona. When I arrive, my friend, Melissa, was still at work and would not be able to join me until after 4pm, so she gives me directions to her home where her partner, Mel, is waiting.

As soon as I arrive, Mel is so warm and inviting. He invites me to sit in the living room for a spell. To open the conversation, he announces that we have something in common: his family was raised in El Paso.

Mel is a wonderful artist. He shows me a painting of a mariachi group that he painted and tells me that his grandfather had a traveling mariachi group as a young man. He often uses him as inspiration for much of his artwork.

And then — feeling comfortable, as if we’ve known each other forever — he begins to tell me about his life.

It goes like this . . .

Mel started his artistic career as a graffiti artist. As a teenager, he would get up late at night to spray-paint walls and buildings around the city. For years, no one knew he was one of the tag artists that City officials had been complaining about, looking for ways to catch him or his in the act.

One night while tagging a large wall, Mel was almost caught by local police and had to hide undetected while they searched the area. He lay still, not able to move a muscle for fear of being caught. At one point, Mel feels mice scurrying across his back, but manages to hold still so as not to be caught.

When he returned home in the wee hours of the morning, his mother was waiting for his. As Mel walked in the door, his mother asked his only this before he went back to bed: “Do you want to pay the city or do you want the city to pay you?”

It was this moment when Mel decided to change his life course. Who was he kidding — it seems that even his mother knew all along what had Mel had been trying to hide. The next day, he went to the City officials, turned himself in and offered to clean up the graffiti and replace it with a beautiful mural.

Melissa ➤➤

Tags: Tucson