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meaning to hit him, but just sort of brush it away.
    He flinched and edged away. “I’ve got it. No worries.”
    I watched him grab a napkin from the table and wipe his face and shirt. “We should really do this another time. I’m so much better sober.”
    “I’m high too. It’s fine. Just relax. In fact, do you want something to relax?” He dug into his pockets and showed me a glass pipe done in royal blue and white lines. At the top of the pipe sat one big white star surrounded by red.
    I put the bottle of water down. “Is that the Cuban flag?”
    “You have a good eye.”
    “Is it?”
    “Yes.”
    I squinted my eyes and really studied him.
    He could be Cuban, but what kind of Cuban name is Sheep? There is none. Maybe he’s mixed. What the hell? Why does it matter? Just figure out the project and go back downstairs, before Coco comes up here and goes loco.
    I laughed out loud. Dr. Sheep edged back with a worried look on his face. Granted, I’d just spit water all over his face and then slapped him repeatedly in an effort to get the stuff off of him. I’d be weary too.
    “Sorry.” I coughed into my hand. “Allergies.”
    “When you have allergies, you laugh?”
    “Oh. No. You know? Let’s just go on with the commission.” I tapped my chest. “Like I said, just ignore my silliness.”
    “Okay.”
    I scanned the rooftop for the empty wall, which was what I should’ve been doing when I first got up there, instead of munching on snacks or drooling over him. “I don’t really see anything to paint on, besides the wall surrounding the door. Is that where you want the mural? Or. . .” I looked down on the ground. “Would you want the roof’s floor painted?”
    “You would do that?”
    “Of course. I would paint on anything that has empty space to get my voice across.”
    “I bet you got in trouble a lot as a kid for drawing on the walls.”
    “That’s an understatement. I have so many juvenile vandalism charges, the law should be named after me. I kept the cops busy one summer. There was a point when this particular officer just took me to the side and offered me a commission. He begged me to stop and so I took his commission.”
    He chuckled. “What did you create?”
    “I did a big castle for his little girl’s bedroom. A few of his friends asked me to do some others. It helped me get some extra cash during high school.”
    “No, not the cop’s commission. What did you create when you were racking up all of the vandalism charges?”
    “Nothing big.” I shrugged and picked up a chocolate ball.
    “Come on. What did you draw?” he asked. “Every street artist has that one thing they kept painting over and over when they were a kid stumbling around on the blocks. What was yours?”
    “Why?”
    He shrugged and took a few steps closer to me. “Just wondering.”
    “None of it’s impressive.”
    “Try me.” He dug his hands into his pants.
    “I used to draw Mickey Mouse with a huge penis.” I chomped on the ball and swallowed.
    A loud roar of laughter came next. “You just became my most favorite person at this party. Mickey Mouse with a big one? I love it.”
    “I have no idea how it started. I just did a long series of these. Mickey with his pants down. Mickey squatting over a fence and taking a dump. Mickey gripping his penis as he stands outside of a window and watches Donald Duck shower. And in all of these images, Mickey Mouse had a huge. . .one. Clearly, it’s a great combination, right?”
    “I’m sure Minnie would agree.”
    “Well, the cops didn’t like it. They had some poor guy patrolling certain courts at night, and I got caught red-handed. Paint cans all around me. No mask. Flip flops on so I couldn’t do a good chase. I was an amateur then, trying to emulate the big boys.”
    “And there could’ve been some penis-envy on your part.”
    I raised my eyebrows under the mask. “Excuse me?”
    “Don’t all women wish they could be re-birthed as men?”
    “Do all