Grandma Was Batman

My grandmother spraypainted trains. On the street she was known as Batman, because so few people knew who she was or what she did. Kind of like Banksy, maybe.

What she did was not tagging, not according to her (I would learn later from her peers). Tagging is gross and uncivilized, she said. She was an artist, and so are the other train painters. They don’t do it for money or public acclaim, they do it to both beautify and to rebel.

Grandma was seventy. To the rest of the world, she was a short, hunched, Little Old Church Lady. She spoke softly but laughed loudly. She shuffled more than walked and wore glasses thicker than windshields.

Like in one of those Christopher Nolan movies with Christian Bale where his sort-of girlfriend touches Bruce Wayne’s face and says that that’s the real mask, the “Grandma” that Grandma showed people was a front. A mask. Perfect, too, because who on earth would ever suspect that secretly, she maintained a two-minute strict plank, or that on some nights she sneaked out of her house and painted colorful murals on the sides of boxcars?

She stayed in better shape than me. I just watched a lot of Netflix. Not even Netflix and Chill. More like Netflix and Cheetos.

I’d seen some of her work, driving her to church each Sunday. I didn’t know it was her until just recently, when I happened…