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“Call me Delic,” their guide said, “short for Psychedelic. This place used to be dodgy. You wouldn’t walk in here without a weapon. But when Banksy had the idea in 2008 for a mural celebrating graffiti as art, life in this tunnel changed entirely. No one was allowed to enter while he worked, until the day he unveiled it. Since then, the city has allowed graffiti here with no penalties. You won’t find much of Banksy’s original art left. In fact, you can come here every couple of days and see something brand new.”
“This is going to be amazing,” Lyssa said softly to Cal.
The problem was that being with her felt amazing. And he was starting to crave it—the chance to see one more smile, to hear her laugh, to breathe in her sweet perfume, to watch her walk across a room toward him.
Delic led them into the tunnel, naming some of the artists as if they were international stars, none of whom Cal had heard of. But even he had to admit the art was remarkable. It covered the walls, the curved ceiling, the overhead beams. There was word art, flower art, bird art, psychedelic art, people art, animal art. He and Lyssa stood before a ferocious wolf.
“It should be in a museum.” She was as enthralled as he was.
Delic stopped next to Lyssa. “Take pictures,” he advised. “It’ll be gone in two or three days. I wish we could preserve them, but that’s the nature of street art. Here one day, gone the next.”
“I thought graffiti was just for gangs or hoodlums. But it’s truly art,” Cal observed.
Delic’s mouth curved in a wolfish smile that reminded Cal of the painting on the wall. “There’s big money in street art now. People get commissions.” He waved an arm encompassing the entire tunnel. “It’s also a venue for up-and-coming artists to show off their style.” He moved three murals down, Lyssa and Cal following. “Look at this one.”
Cal could make out the words Do Or Die in mesmerizing colors. A figure was built into each letter, an old man, a young Black woman, an Asian teenager, a middle-aged Russian wearing a babushka, an Indian woman in a sari, a bearded man with a turban.
“You see how it brings all the peoples of the world together, young and old, whatever ethnicity.”
“It’s beautiful,” Lyssa said on a breath of wonder.
“I’ve been all over the streets, and this is the first time I’ve seen this guy. I’m telling you, he’s going to be huge. Take a picture,” he ordered. “Remember the name—Han Solo.”
“Like Han Solo from Star Wars?” Lyssa asked as she snapped a picture.
Delic snorted. “You think anybody uses their real name?” Said the man who called himself Psychedelic. “No one knows who Banksy is.”
Cal felt a surprising excitement running through him. He’d be looking for this Han Solo. And he wanted to find out more about Banksy too.
They walked from there, sometimes getting on the Tube, then getting off at another station to view the side of a building or a long wall covered in fantastic murals, until they ended up in the East End.
Delic gathered the group around him. “More than anyone else in London, East Enders love their street art. Prepare to be dazzled.”
And the street art dazzled Cal. But Lyssa shone even brighter.
She took pictures of everything, asked great questions about the artists and what the graffiti meant. The art wasn’t just paint on walls; there were statues plopped down in the middle of a sidewalk, even a man standing on a plinth, his clothes painted exactly like the building behind him. At certain angles, he disappeared into the background. There were even little dragon statues glued to the tops of light poles, hidden gems everywhere you looked.
They wandered among ramshackle buildings now reinvented with mind-blowing murals, the colors bright against the sky. The art changed as the clouds passed overhead, took on different hues, the shifting light bringing out new facets.
“Come back in a week, and the place will be entirely different.” Delic shrugged. “It’s transient, like people are.” Then he shot them all with two finger guns. “And I guarantee you will be back.”
At the end of the block, he waved in his flock. “We’ve arrived at the moment you’ve all been waiting for.” He held up his hands like a maestro. “Now you create your own street art.”
Cal looked at Lyssa. “Did you know about this?”
She grinned. “I thought it might be best if I let you discover the full extent of our day out once you’d been enraptured by the street art we’ve seen.”
“I’ll watch you do it,” he said.
She batted his arm. “Oh no, you won’t. You’re going to create some magnificent graffiti today, or I’ll tell my brothers you chickened out.”
She made some bawk-bawk sounds, and without thinking, he reached out to cover her mouth with his hand.
