Where the Paint Settles

It feels like a betrayal. That’s the first, hot thought that floods my head as I round the corner into the alley off Albert Street. The air, thick with the smell of sun-baked asphalt and fried onions from a nearby chip stand, suddenly feels thin, hard to breathe. All week, I’ve been thinking about the bison. Not a real one, but the ghost of one painted on the ruddy brick wall of the Gregg Building. A faded, majestic silhouette advertising some long-dead furrier, its form slowly surrendering back to the brick for the last eighty years. It was perfect. A quiet testament. My secret.

"So, this is it?" Leo’s voice pulls me out of my stupor. He's already halfway down the alley, hands in his pockets, his worn skate shoes scuffing on loose gravel. "The legendary... uh... cow sign?"

"Bison," I correct, my voice tight. I can’t take my eyes off the disaster. Where the bison’s powerful hindquarters and tail should be, there’s now a riot of aerosol colour. An explosion of electric blue, screaming magenta, and acid green forming some kind of hyper-stylized, geometric wolf howling at a circuit board moon. It’s technically brilliant, the lines are sharp, the concept is... there. But it’s a wound. A desecration.

"Whoa." Leo stops, finally seeing it properly. He whistles, a low, appreciative sound. "Okay, that’s new. And pretty sick, actually."

"Sick? Leo, they destroyed it!" The words come out louder than I intended, bouncing off the brick and the metal dumpsters. "It’s gone. They just... they just erased it."

"Dude, chill. They didn't erase it, it's right there." He gestures with his chin at the front half of the bison, which remains untouched. "It’s like a mashup. Old meets new. Kinda cool."

"It's not 'kinda cool,' it's disrespectful! This sign was part of the building's history. It was a landmark." My hands are clenched into fists. I didn’t even realize I’d done it.

"A landmark for who? You and like, three architecture nerds?" He walks closer, tilting his head to look at the new piece. "This is public art, man. The whole point is that it changes. The city’s not a museum."

"So nothing's worth preserving? We just let any kid with a bag of spray cans paint over anything they want?"

"It’s not just 'any kid,' Leaf. Look at the can control. This is a pro." He's right, of course. The fades are seamless, the edges crisp. But that almost makes it worse. It’s a calculated act of destruction, not random vandalism. It’s an artist who saw a canvas and didn’t care that something was already there.

I pull out my phone, my fingers fumbling as I open my photo gallery. I swipe to the picture I took last Tuesday. The full bison, majestic in the hazy afternoon light. Faded, yes. Flaking, absolutely. But whole. Complete. I hold it up to the wall, a futile comparison.

"See?" My voice cracks. "This is what it was supposed to be."

Leo sighs, scrubbing a hand over his buzz cut. "I get it. You liked the old thing. But you can't be precious about this stuff. It's an alley wall in downtown Winnipeg, not the bloody Mona Lisa."

"It was my Mona Lisa," I mumble, turning away.

The silence stretches, filled only by the distant hum of traffic on Portage and the drone of an air conditioning unit kicking in above us. I feel like a child. Like I’m throwing a tantrum because someone coloured in my favourite book.

A Truce of Steamed Milk

We end up at Parlour Coffee, the tension between us a tangible thing. I’m huddled over a latte, staring at the screen of my laptop. Leo sips his black Americano, pointedly scrolling through his phone. The air is cool and smells of roasted beans and cardamom. It does little to soothe the anger still simmering in my gut.

I’ve uploaded the photos I took today, the 'before' and the 'after.' I zoom in on the new piece, the garish wolf. I’m trying to analyse it, to understand it, hoping that if I can deconstruct it, I can hate it more intelligently. The artist has talent, I can’t deny that. There’s a flow to it, a kinetic energy that the stoic old bison never had. But it’s loud. It screams for attention.

"Find the artist's tag yet?" Leo asks, not looking up from his phone.

"No. It’s unsigned. Cowardly," I spit.

"Or maybe they want the art to speak for itself. You know, not everything is about ego."

I ignore the jab. I keep flicking between the photos, the calm, earthy tones of the original ghost sign and the jarring neon of its replacement. My finger slips on the trackpad, and I accidentally zoom in to a weird, pixelated corner of the new mural, right where the new paint meets the old brick. It’s a messy transition, the spray paint bleeding slightly into the porous surface of the brick.

But there’s something else there. Tucked away, almost completely obscured by a flourish of magenta, is a tiny detail. It’s a small, stamped mark in the original paint of the bison's hide. I’d seen it before, a maker’s mark from the original sign painters: a tiny anvil inside a circle. It was one of the details I loved most, a signature from a ghost.

And right next to it, worked into the design of the new wolf’s fur, is an identical shape. Not a stamp, but skillfully painted in a deep, shadowed blue, almost invisible unless you knew exactly where to look. A tiny anvil inside a circle.