The Banksy Effect

When the police came for me I was in my underwear, watching TV and what followed was something that nobody believed happened to me.

This was during a time in my life where I was doing nothing and to my credit, I’m still doing nothing; I aim for consistency. I was between jobs and even further between career aspirations; I’d studied art and political science at uni which meant I was unemployed. I spent my days going for walks, pissfarting around at the park or attempting to clean my dirty little flat. Where I lived, a small leafy pocket of North Melbourne, was the archetype for all future messes in my life. The door was painted over by the last owner so to get into the flat you climbed in through the bathroom window. There were large black burn marks on the carpet from where the last owners had burnt books and graffiti covered all the walls

But it all began during that time. It was late afternoon one winter, I’d settled down after a long day of doing nothing to smoke and watch TV as I always did. Channel Nine was going to the evening news and it was a story about Banksy, the famous graffiti artist who had come to Melbourne to do some art.

Everyone looked very outraged.

“Oh what’s he done now?” I said aloud.

Banksy had done a large mural on a wall, ten stories high. It was of a large white bum, hairy and pimpled with red sores and out of its anus were large brown words that read ‘CRAPITALISM’. He’d painted it next to a primary school somewhere in Kew and the news showed a bunch of kids staring up a gigantic ten story tall arse as it shat upon their school from a great height.

“Yep. Really edgy. You got us good Banksy, you showed us something,” I muttered, leaning forward for a packet of smokes.

The cops were on the telly now, talking about how Banksy had gone too far and they were arresting anyone they suspected to be Banksy and bringing them in for questioning. Channel Nine then went live to an arrest. The news van was parked outside of an apartment they suspected to be Banksy’s. I leaned in more and realised it was my flat.

I slumped back into the couch and set out a large, long sigh “Oh shit”

Sirens flashed blue and red outside. Cops crawled through the bathroom window and behind me, I heard the front door being kicked down by a SWAT team, flakes of avocado colored paint flying everywhere. The SWAT team surrounded and knocked me to the ground, a couple of angry police kicking the TV to bits in anger while others were flinging all my pots and pans out the window, yelling the word ‘POLICE’ over and over they he did.

“Wait, hold on guys!” I yelled above the noise “You’ve got the wrong guy! I’m not Banksy…” but they were handcuffing me and pulling me to my feet. A mustached policeman, nametagged Johnson, looked me up and down.

“Well, well Banksy, we got you now”

“What?” I sputtered only to watch as the SWAT team kicked my lumpy couch into splinters and dust.

“You’re under arrest for vandalism, breaking and entering, defacement-“

“B-but I’m not Banksy, never seen him, never met him before!” I declared and he laughed

“Yeah, that’s what the last twenty said” and he lead me to my recently opened front door.

From the police car to the police station, I was shoved, pushed, prodded and poked before being dumped into a metal chair in an interrogation room. At this point, I was feeling more like a character from Kafka than a subversive artist with a penchant for spray paint. The mustached one, Johnson was there, along with a lanky one called Carver and another mustached one called Jimson They asked me my name, age, residence. And then the interview began:

---

(recording begins, cough from Carver)

Johnson: How long have you been Banksy?

Suspect: I’m not Banksy

Carver: Okay. So if you’re not Banksy, who are you?

Suspect: …I thought I told you?

Jimson: We’re asking the questions here mate.

Suspect …wait, what-

Carver: Can anyone account for your movements last night?

Suspect: No, I live alone

Carver: Hmmm. That’s very convenient

Suspect: Look, uh, Constable…uh

Johnson: Johnson

Suspect: Yeah, Johnson, there’s been a mistake here. I’m not Banksy. Never have been, I grew up in Footscray for god’s sake, never even travelled overseas. What proof do you have that I’m Banksy?

(silence)

Jimson: What proof do you have that you’re not?

Suspect: Wait, what does that even mean-

Carver: Put him in Holding with the rest of them, we’ve got more to process

Suspect: Wait, seriously-

(Suspect lead from room, recording ends)

---

I was led through the cream coloured bowels of North Melbourne Police Station, past ringing phones and sounds of filing cabinets slamming and opening like metal jaws, to a large open room.

‘This is Holding, you wait here until you get called. You’re last in the list” and I was pushed in to have bars closed behind me. I turned around to face the other occupants of the holding cell.

The police had gathered anyone they thought could be Banksy. But since no one knew what Banksy looked like, what gender, age, height, race they were, it meant that the police had gathered a wild assortment of people ranging from the usual suspects to the unusual ones.

And the holding cell was full of them all: there was a large bodybuilder, flexing and twisting his body into proud strong poses. There was a crazy looking guy with thick milk bottle glasses. There was a burlap sack filled with cats with the word ‘BANKSIE’ written on the side. There was the man who ran the milk bar down the road, three worried looking businessmen, and a variety of students all bearded and top-knotted. And another thirty odd people.

If I was last in the list, this could take hours. I went up to the bars and whistled for the policeman called Jimson to come back over.

“How long do I have to be here?” I asked

“As long as it takes,” he replied, brushing biscuit crumbs out of his mustache

“As long as it takes to do what?”

“To find out if you’re Banksy or no

I paused “I can make this easy for you mate. I’m not Banksy”

He chuckled “Nice try Banksy.” And he laughed all the way back to the wall.

Sitting down, I sighed loudly. I felt really under dressed in my only underwear; I was sore from the beating and worried about this absolute mistrial of justice.? I didn’t even like Banksy, far from it; I wondered how far you have to crawl up your own arse before you’re designated as a missing person. How could I prove that I wasn’t someone who didn’t have an identity?

I didn’t have much to me in all honesty. I’d grown up in Footscray, the sort of childhood that is decidedly average; parents split up, decent grades at school, gap year overseas. I was told I was a promising student but I chose to be average when I could done something exceptional. I knew that beneath it all, I could have been great, always making excuses and missing out on the right information, always just late of a great thing. I was wasted potential, through and through; I was a blank slate. And it wasn’t that I was apathetic, I just didn’t care.

Staring around the cell, I realised I’d amounted to this. I’d amounted to being mistaken for someone else who probably didn’t care I was here. The cats in the bag pissed themselves, the smell wafting up across the cell prompting someone to violently projectile vomit.

This had to be the second worst day of my life.

---

Time passed and I got to know some of the people in the cell. There was Brody, he was the beared crazy looking guy with large thick glasses. I didn’t mind Brody, but he knew a lot of weird animal facts, which was something he loved to tell to break silences.

“Ducks have corkscrew shaped penises” he told me.

“I thought I told you not to talk to me about that” I replied

Brody was special because he was the only one here who actually wanted to say that he was Banksy. He said that if he took Banksy’s identity, he would get artistic recognition from everyone, he’d be given a gift of instant gratification and the ability to be seen as an artist.

“But Brody, if you say you’re Banksy and you’re not and you didn’t do anything to earn it, doesn’t that kinda mean you aren’t Banksy?"

"No, let me explain."

"Also won't you go to jail? And you're not an artist"

He stood, getting hysterical and yelling, leaving me sitting on the bench.

“NO! Being a real artist isn’t about being an artist, it’s about the connections you have and following the zeitgeist, nobody wants real art, they just want easily digestible pieces of pop culture!”

“Brody-“

“It’s about standing up for something, being a representation of an ideal!"

“Oh Brody just sit down mate” I said, offering the seat next to me.

“You fucking sit down!” he pointed angrily at me sitting down. I didn’t say anything to that, there wasn’t enough logic in the world to cover that up.

He fell silent and sat back down, defeated and broke the silence with.

“You know… the echnida has four penises actually. One of them is on the Australian five cent coin...one echnida that is, the animal, not one of its penises”

I sighed “Shut up Brody”

Later, I met the business men who claimed they were an art collective called ‘Banksy”, the bag of cats just screamed and howled at me and the bodybuilder claimed he was Banksy when he wasn’t bench pressing cars and showing off at St Kilda Beach. I didn’t know who to believe.

The hours slowly ticked by, the passage of time was only evident by a large clock on the wall outside the bars. In here, all stale recycled air and some of the smell was beginning to get to me, especially the sack of cats and the bodybuilder, both of which smelled like sweat and unwashed fur. I was feeling claustrophobic, trapped in this beige room with these people. Everywhere I looked, I felt like I was going completely insane. I needed a cigarette badly, my mouth felt dry.

The police looked to be losing their minds as well. They were running out of time and with options and interrogations failing, they were devising new ways of finding the culprit in our midst. We were forced to watch the Banksy documentary ‘Exit Through the Gift Shop’ as a group, the police watching us for reactions and clues as to who the real Banksy was amongst us. When that didn’t work, they sent us back to the cell and tried a new approach. Every few minutes a policemen would leap into the cell and call out “Bansky?!” and whoever turned around in response would be taken away. When that didn’t work, they showed us the film again, and we cycled between the two for most of the night.

Halfway through the fifth viewing of the film, a young student girl with radically coloured hair leaned into me and whispered.

“Are you him? Banksy? Everyone in the cell thinks you are” and I stared across at her indignantly

“No, I’m not.”

“Do you have a girlfriend? Banksy has a girlfriend” she replied

I was genuinely surprised “He has a girlfriend? Poor her, I didn’t know Stockholm syndrome could be so severe”

“You don’t like him?” she asked and I scoffed, pulling out my university art knowledge

“Every Banksy piece is the same. Basically it’s just fuck the authorities, you’re a slave, have fun being a corporate sheep.”

“What have you got against Banksy?” she hissed, people around us looking at me anxiously

“I’ve got nothing against him, I just wonder how his village is doing, missing their idiot.”

“Well fine, I’m not going to talk to you ever again” And she turned back to the screen before turning back to me seconds later “But seriously, are you Banksy?”

“I thought you weren’t talking to me” I said, staring hard at the movie.

The police saw us having this open conversation during the movie and leapt upon me, shouting the word “POLICE!” over and over as they carried me up out of the cell and back into the cream coloured halls. The path to the dark interrogation room lay ahead. Everyone watched me go, probably thinking ‘Ah, they’ve got him now’. I would be locked up for what I did, doing up that wall. All those rats I had painted and now this. I shouldn’t have done it in front of the school but how else would kids grow up and question their parents and CCTV. Wait, what was I talking about? I wasn't Banksy.

---

They sat me down in the chair and began the questioning all over again. I deflected, explained, cajoled, but to no avail. Jimson, Johnson and Carver seemed intent on indicting me for something I never did.

“So Banksy, what do you have to say for yourself?” Asked Johnson and at that I snapped

“But I’ve told you! I’m not Banksy! I don’t like him, an- look, I think having counter cultural art is important, it gets us to question what we accept as normal- but I honestly think he’s playing a huge joke on us, don’t you? I mean, all these art critics and people look up to him and say ‘Wow, that’s transgressive’ or ‘Wow, that’s so edgy and irreverent’ but it’s just a rat! IT’S JUST A RAT WITH A SIGN! It’s all just ‘kill the bankers’ with no context, like are you rebelling against society or your mum? He’s making this statement about capitalism and corporate consumerism by selling t-shirts and books? He’s fucking laughing himself to sleep over that one! How could I be Banksy when I hate him so much?!”

I was breathing hard as I finished ranting. The police stared at me quietly, taking in what I said.

“That’s exactly what Banksy would say” said Jimson

I was getting frantic “But anyone could be Banksy! You don’t even know if he’s a girl or a guy or whatever” I pointed at all of them. “Anyone of you could be Banksy”

It got quiet. Jimson looked at Carver. Carver looked at Johnson. Johnson looked at Jimson. Then they all leapt, trying to arrest one another while yelling each other their rights. As they fought, scrabbling on the ground, I left through the door and walked out of the police station.

In the harsh morning sun, I began the walk home, people staring as I passed by in nothing but my white briefs. I was a free man once more. But something was niggling in the back of my mind, a little doubt bouncing its way, getting bigger with each bounce: I had no idea what to do now.

Maybe I really had done it. I knew I hadn’t but who’s to say I wouldn’t, we all want to do something controversial, something to get noticed. We all want to be quoted and remembered and so maybe Banksy was just wryly communicating about the paradox of our times. In an age where we’re so connected, we have so few intimate ties and anything we say is lost under all that information. Everything disposable and transient.

And maybe I was like that in a way too: lowly, small and disposable. There was nothing to me, so much so that for a night I could have been anyone, even someone who nobody knew.

Maybe the Banksy was in our heart all along. I smiled, thinking that to myself. Maybe all of us are Banksy in our own little way. Tomorrow, I thought, I’d clean up my flat then maybe look for a job. Or write something, comment on the world, make a big artistic statement.

I returned to my trashed flat, sitting on the smashed remains of my couch in my underwear and lighting up a well-deserved smoke. If only for a night, I had been someone important, I was someone people talked about, discussed and held in their minds, a nobody and a somebody. For just one night, I had been Banksy.

#fictions #fiction #banksy #art #literature #kafkaesque #australian #writing