If they didn’t like painting out graffiti, they could always demand to go to jail.

Mike and Andy contemplated the wall in the morning sun.

It was a mess.

It is a long wall, and it was going to be a long day.

They were looking at a stretch of graffiti a block long, reaching above their heads.

Swastikas, “Skaters Rule,” indecipherable spray-paint cuneiform, layer atop layer, swirls and spikes of red and blue and green, the grafitti ran from where they stood behind the Victory-Vineland Community Center to Vineland Boulevard.

Mike and Andy were not going to be able to leave until all the graffiti were invisible.

There were two police officers there, handing them buckets of paint and paint rollers, to make sure of that.

The officers were easygoing and friendly. But they were there to see that Mike and Andy put in at least seven or eight hours work and got rid of the graffiti.

Mike and Andy had each been sentenced to perform “community service” for running afoul of the law. Mike rolled a stop sign. Andy punched a guy.

The community service they had been assigned was to paint over this wall. If they didn’t like it, of course, they could always demand to go to jail instead.

In the coming weeks and months, there are going to be a lot more Mikes and Andys contemplating a lot more walls, said Officer Dan Elefante, who is in charge of getting rid of as much graffiti as possible in the LAPD’s North Hollywood Division.

He devotes two days a week to this and has been using any volunteer labor he could find--homeowners’ groups, even Cub Scout troops. But Elefante was encouraged to contemplate the future, which promises a rich supply of non-volunteer workers, husky adults with more advanced motor skills than the Cub Scouts.

“We met with the judges, and they agreed to send us lots more people. Some are just going to be assigned to graffiti work from the start,” instead of being allowed to choose from other community service work, Elefante said.

One of the painters was not happy with the consistency of the paint.

“This stuff is quite viscous,” complained Mike, an educated man with an educated vocabulary. “It’s like trying to paint with putty.”

Mike, 46, is an unemployed furniture designer and artist, although he looked like a pirate--a gold hoop in one earlobe, a mustache and short beard circling his mouth, and a black and white silk kerchief knotted buccaneer-style on a mass of curls.

“I hurt my leg, and my life just kind of went to pieces recently,” he said. He supports himself as a live-in helper for a handicapped woman in return for room and board. So when he got a ticket for rolling a stop sign, he couldn’t afford the $75 fine.

Eight hours of wall time was his alternative.

He probably would not, in the ordinary course of life, have hobnobbed with Andy, a taciturn, muscular 20-year-old mover.

Andy had words with the driver of another car “who almost ran me off the road, placing me and a lot of other people in danger of losing their lives,” he explained with studied precision, probably because this is what he practiced to tell the judge.

“We had a quarrel and he called me a nigger, and I just lost my temper at that and hit him. I know I was in the wrong, but that made me pretty angry.” Andy has green eyes and appears to be white, but said he does “have some black blood.”

The judge apparently was not impressed by Andy’s motivation because he drew 250 hours for battery. This was his first day. Mike would be free at the end of the wall, but Andy faces 242 more hours. If he spends all his days off painting walls, he will be free by the end of the summer, he hopes.

Elefante and Officer Tony Inderbitzin agreed with Mike that the paint was too thick, although thickness is what Elefante was looking for. “This is the first time we’re using this stuff,” he said. “I was looking for something that would make a nice thick coat, to keep the graffiti from bleeding through.”

Elefante got into a professional discussion with Cynthia Kepler, who was from the Operation Clean Sweep office of the Los Angeles Department of Public Works. Kepler, wearing a red T-shirt bearing the words “You and I Make Los Angeles Beautiful,” also was interested in the new paint.

She and Elefante agreed it appeared to be impenetrable and should be used elsewhere.

Mike said he is originally from New York and graffiti there “was a lot better than this. These guys just don’t have their acts together. This is just scrawls. Now, if it had some aesthetic value . . . murals, that would be a lot better. With some artistic value they could take pride in their work.”

Andy was unimpressed with the aesthetic alternatives.

“It’s all just ridiculous,” he said, perhaps thinking of the 30-some days of this that lie before him all the summer long.

A thinner mixture went on faster. Mike worked with a roller, Andy with a roller on a long pole for the high spots.

Elefante and Inderbitzin prepared to leave, saying they would be back occasionally to check on progress and to sign Mike’s “ticket,” certifying that he completed his sentence.

The day grew hotter.

“Hey, Andy,” Mike said. “I brought a bottle of iced tea there. Help yourself.”

“Thanks.”

Their arms pistoned up and down, up and down.

The heat increased. The wall looked very long.