The Infamous Archives: Crazy Sightings

Holy Bats, Man!

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Graffiti writers tend to be out late night and in some strange places, which results in seeing a number of bizarre scenes. Here are some of their stories.

Illustration by Akil Nuru

I remember me and my old partner getting raided after doing a freight somewhere in upstate NY. The cops chased us into an abandoned warehouse in the dead of night. It was pitch black in there and the place was surrounded with cops. We were making our way through the place by feeling and touching the walls when my partner found a door. As soon as he opened it, I heard this crazy, high-pitched noise that got very loud, very fast… A noise unlike anything that I had heard before. All of a sudden we got bum rushed by a bunch of bats. They were everywhere. I closed my eyes and felt them all over as they whipped by us…
–MONE AOK TFP
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Scared Crooked

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You’d think being caught in a West-Coast crossfire would make Enem ATP reconsider his graffiti habit. It didn’t.

Illustration by Akil Nuru

I almost shit a bone, homie jumped out a cab in Oakland, Cali, on 98th and Bancroft streets. I’ll never forget it: I was tagging these apartments. It must have been 1989 – my style was weak but I wanted to get up, not being from Cali and all. Anyway, the bol jumped out the cab screaming, “Now what, partna?!” I see about four dudes start to scramble but then out of nowhere the bols start shooting back with like three hammers. I’m in between this shit, like, what the fuck? So I get down under this car hoping they gonna stop but hell naw they busting their shit like it’s a tennis match. I’m thinkin’, fuck, I’m going to die tagging a whack building that ain’t even on a bus route. Then it just ends. I get up, everybody gone, but I can see the lights and hear the sirens. As they pull up I’m walking away. They glance at me but I think they knew I was just a pup out there, plus I looked like I seen a ghost. No doubt, it took me weeks to get up again and nowadays I don’t even flinch when I hear niggas busting their heat. I been scared crooked!
–Enem ATP
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Yard Job

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From dodging rabid racoons to hiding from hoods with heavy artillery, Con BA NSF shares some of his many bizarre stories.

I was with Super, High, and Mover in a yard on the East Side of Baltimore. We had just walked into the spot and we’re making our way down the tracks and I noticed some movement. These shadows were cast under the train towards us because of the way the yard lights were shining across this open section of the yard with an access road. I signaled everybody to chill a second and we crept up toward a coupler to look over and we see a guy standing there with a submachine gun. Beyond him were two cars that were backed up to each other, trunk to trunk, in the middle of the yard with about six guys moving around the open trunks. A few of those guys were carrying guns as well. We stumbled right into a pretty serious deal going down: either a big drug transaction or they were unloading some bodies out of the cars to throw into the coals! We didn’t stick around for a second to find out. I remember holding my breath praying that none of my cans would rattle and inched the fuck out as fast as we could.
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