Gang Tag, Rusted Steel

It is very difficult for an outsider to understand the real meaning behind gang tags, but they have always been a small subject of fascination for me. I imagine that the people who put them there are milky-eyed, lost, disillusioned, displaced, wandering the landscape and trying to fit into it in any way they can. Does leaving your mark on a harsh place make it feel like home?

This tag was on a long piece of structural steel in a junkyard by the University. Maybe by night it was a meeting place, some teeming cauldron of dangerous activity – or maybe this scene was simply a product of boredom, the foster child of coming-of-age and the long hours before sunrise.