In 2001, Delfin Vigil was walking the streets of San Francisco and ran across the name “Nikko” carved into the concrete sidewalk. After seeing Nikko once, Delfin began to see the name everywhere. One block after another, there he was again and again: Nikko. The carvings numbered in the hundreds, seemed to go back decades, and Delfin Vigil became obsessed with finding San Francisco’s mysterious “concrete commando.”
Vigil’s story about the hunt for Nikko is beautifully written and illustrated (by Paul Madonna) in his self-published chapbook available at The Rumpus. It’s outstanding. The original, audio version of this story was produced by my future employer Stephanie Foo for the smokin’ hot, new public radio program Snap Judgment.
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