tag,you're it

San Miguel de Allende has nothing on Barra de Navidad when it comes to scribbling on concrete.

Well, that is not entirely true. San Miguel has turned garden variety graffiti into consumer-accessible art (don't call it graffiti). Barra is stuck in an almost paleolithic tagging period.

The sidewalk in front of my house has long been a magnet for young men from the apartment building next door to numb the daily monotony of their lives with a Mary Jane date. You know. Acapulco gold. Pot. Weed. Grass. In the darkness of the night, my house smells like the club room at the Manhattan Progressive Caucus.

I have tried several approaches to dissuade the congregation of the brain-besotted. To no avail.

My best Chief Wiggum impression telling them to move on was greeted with an impressive John Locke-inspired defense that they had a legal right to sit on the sidewalk. They were correct.

A reference to the police was met with Little Orphan Annie eyes. They knew very well that the writ of the police does not run here. That authority lies elsewhere.

Resorting to "The Overture of 1812" and arias from Turandot had no effect. After all, to my uninvited guests, it was just another layer of welcome noise.

Even my "Ward Cleaver talks to Wally" failed. I thought if I nonchalantly wandered out there and sat down with them, my presence and conversation would induce the type of discomfort felt by every young man in the presence of old men. It didn't work. After a brief greeting, they sat there with glazed eyes. I am not certain they even remembered I was there.

So, I gave up trying the herd them away. That is, until that interesting signature at the top showed up. I have done enough criminal defense work to recognize its significance. It is the equivalent of urinating on a fire hydrant. My land had been claimed by others.

Living in Salem taught me one thing about tagging. Unless it is removed immediately, it will attract rival or allied tags. As certainly as kimchi will attract flies.

Even with loads of bleach and scrubbing, the permanent marker would not relent. And within a week, there were eight more tags in marker, ink, and chalk. All declaring the power of some group or other. The corner of my sidewalk had more claimants than a bunch of rocks in the South China Sea.

I asked a Mexican friend if he would find a way to erase the not-so-artful work. He kept putting it off. But, one night, he did confront the head writer making subtle threats that he spoke on behalf of the enforcers of civil authority.

That was the last night I saw any of them sitting there. When I now see them in front of the apartment building, they eye me warily.

Of course, as so often happens in these stories, the job I hired my friend to do never did get done by him. Instead I hired Donny, my neighbor Mary's handymen, who cleaned up the walk in a couple hours.

And that is where things stand now.

It would be tempting to say it has a happy ending. But this is a Mexican story, not an American one. Such matters often simmer unresolved.

As my uncle in Haifa says: "Hope for the best; expect the worst."

For the moment, I will enjoy the fresh air at the front of my house. It may not be the best, but it is better.