K is for Kid Chapter 19

Kris called me to come get my art.

"What??" I asked. "Why?"

"The landlord called. He wants us out." he said.

"Don't we get 30 days?!" I asked.

"No. He heard about the charges. It's all over the paper." he sighed and hung up.

I went down to Kronos and listened to Kris talk about how messed up everything was. The papers had not only shit all over Kronos, they also named Kris personally. And many of the writers did not have unbiased views of the situation. Which did nothing but paint Kris is a negative light.

"It's so bad that a lot of places won't even let me come look at a place. They already know that they don't want to rent to me." he said.

I started taking my art down, and he started cleaning the walls. Some Kronos kids showed up to help. As we were all working on packing the place up, everything hit me at once. I felt a pain in my stomach that echoed up my spine. I started crying. I couldn't do this. I couldn't let Kronos get pushed out like this. I couldn't let them treat Kris like this! I had to do something. But what the fuck could I do? I started tearing my artwork off the walls. I stomped on a painting until it busted apart. I threw a clay figure again the wall and watched it shatter. I took a relief sculpture and swung it like a baseball bat into the column. It broke apart like a piñata. I picked up a stained glass piece and held it up to the light from the window. I slowly walked over trying to decide if I really wanted to do this. I opened the window, and stuck my head out, holding the glass in my hand. I took in a deep breath of warm air as I extended my arms out infront of me. As I exhaled I let the glass slide out of my hands. I watched it fall and then hit the ground and shatter. Zane was walking out of the door as it shattered. He gasped and looked up. I just stared down at him and the broken glass. He put the painting he was carrying into Kris's jeep and ran back upstairs.

He looked around at the destruction. Kris came in behind him.

"You know what?" Kris said. "Fuck it. Fuck this, and Fuck them!" he said pointing in the direction of city hall."

He walked into the storage room. There was one gallon of red paint left.

Mandy and Mae walked into the room. We all stared at Kris with the bucket of paint in his hand.

He opened it up, and stuck in arm down into the red paint. Then pulled it out and smacked a big red hand print onto the wall. "They will try to paint over that, but they will never succeed."

Mandy pulled out a pile of sidewalk chalk she had found and started righting "FUCK YOU" on the brick wall. We all signed it.

Then we picked up the last of the stuff in the gallery and left.

- - - - - - - - - two days later.

Kris had arranged for a city hall meeting to address the issues surrounding Kronos. We made a Facebook page to encourage people to come out to support Kronos.

"Just showing up is support!" I posted on the event page. "We will have strength in numbers!"

Other people posted how much they'd hate to lose Kronos for good, how Kronos was their home, and how important it was to them. People told stories about how Kronos impacted their lives and what could have happened if Kronos wasn't around.

"There is literally nothing to do in Staunton if you are young." one poster said. "Except Kronos!"

Kris had made up a proposal to the city asking for financial assistance in getting a larger space. So the plan was to have as many people (mostly kids) from Kronos tell city council their stories and then have Kris pitch his idea.

We all gathered in the Wharf parking lot, wearing Kronos shirts, and "Question Authority" shirts, and other Kronos related attire, and marched our way to city hall. There was around 100 of us. When we first entered city hall the guards looked shocked and confused. They had to be reminded that this was public forum and that we were allowed to come in. The meeting was supposed to take place in it's usual spot for "unimportant matters" , a small conference room off the main council room. But as we started filing in they realized there were far too many of us to fit in such a small room. So they moved us to the actual meeting room. We filled up most of the rows and faced the members of city council while they sat on their podium. Kris went up first to introduce us, and briefly explain how he felt about recent happenings surrounding Kronos. He pointed out that no other business had to police their sidewalks. And that because we had to, it placed unnessesary chaos on an already tricky situation, which just made more problems, and those problems ended up in the paper and NOW no one will rent to him.