Ink for the Beloved

by R C Barnes

  They spent an hour at Luther’s place, and Echo got to see where Luther lived. She got to see his kitchen. She got to see the bookcases filled with the works of Richard Baldwin, Langston Hughes, and Maya Angelou. She got to hear the soft spiritual music in the background with Mavis Staples singing, and she got to meet Luther’s cat, Chauncey. Luther’s place is peaceful and inviting with its warm colors and smells of earth and spice. I’m sure Echo wanted to stay.

  It was a clandestine meeting, but it had its desired effect. Echo could now visualize the life Luther was living. The unfortunate thing was we were not a part of it anymore.

  Well, not legally.

  After telling me about Ollie’s secret visit, Luther warned me not to try the stunt myself. “Don’t you be bringing that child over here. Your mother can still shut the whole thing down. And I don’t want to see you in more trouble than you are already in.”

  Obviously, the man doesn’t know me very well.

  CEASEFIRE

  “Who was the father of Paris?”

  “King Priam,” I answered.

  “Paris?” Dusty wondered. “How do they determine the father of a city? How does that even happen?”

  “Paris is a character,” I explained. I was going through the supply cabinets in the shop, taking inventory notes. Dusty was cleaning the sterilization chamber. It was a typical Saturday morning, and we were preparing for the appointments of the day and whatever else walked through the door.

  While we worked, my mother did her crossword puzzle. She did them daily. Usually, she liked the one published in the newspaper, but she kept a paperback book of crosswords in the rear office in case she needed to engage herself mentally during a quiet interlude. My mother loved crosswords. I, on the other hand, liked visual puzzles. I was the Queen of Tetris and loading the dishwasher.

  “What did you say, Bess?”

  “King Priam. The answer is King Priam.”

  My mother was silent for a moment as she did the configuration. “It doesn’t work.”

  I held my ground. “The father of Paris, the man who is responsible for the Trojan War, is Priam. I’m pretty positive that is the answer.”

  My mother and I were operating within a truce. After two weeks of her giving me the silent treatment and my delivering the same with equal venom, we had reconnected in a late-night ice cream raid. We had both snuck into the kitchen at the same time targeting the last spoonfuls of Chunky Monkey in the freezer. We realized we had a shared goal, dropped our weapons of hostility, and consumed the ice cream together.

  She was still seeing Todd and was sharing more and more about him.

  I was trying to be open-minded. Luther had counseled me to do so – to not be closed off and dislike Todd because ..well because he wasn’t Luther. My mother was happy. Let her be happy.

  I was finding this thinking hard to maintain. It was like a nasty pit in my stomach; a nasty pit with thorns and toxic goo. There was nothing I heard about Todd that I liked. He didn’t seem genuine to me. Every glowing thing my mother told me about him felt like something I could spin to show he was a fake and a liar. I couldn’t put my finger on it, but I felt like Todd was just an act. From his impossibly good looks and freaky crocodile smile, he seemed like a guy who got up in the morning and put on this Todd suit before he presented himself to the world. He was a wolf in sheep’s clothing. And we were the stupid sheep letting him waltz through the door.

  This evening my mother was planning on having Todd come over to the house, and Echo was going to meet him. I argued it was a bad idea, and it was too soon. But my mother put her foot down. It had been almost half a year since she and Luther had broken up, and she had a right to date and secure her happiness.

  There are times I wished she could listen to herself. I’d love to playback her words so she could hear how often she says “me, me, me” and “mine, mine, mine.” I conceded to her dinner party. My one request was that Dusty be there. I didn’t want the evening to feel too much like family. In fact, Dusty had started dating a woman named Carrie, and I suggested Dusty could bring Carrie as well. I wanted to fill the house with people, so I mentioned Rueben and Joanie should come over too. That way, Todd wouldn’t be special. I didn’t want him to think he was special in the slightest.

  In my mind, Todd was not a keeper. He was the rebound guy, and that’s it.

  My mother was erasing what she wrote down into the puzzle. “It’s not working, I tell you. That’s not the answer.”

  “Let me see.” I moved behind her and peered at the puzzle over her shoulder. She had a good portion of it completed. I could see where she had written down the answer to Paris’ parentage, and she was right; it was not linking with what she had written down for the response to where Paris had met with the goddesses. Mount Ida was the correct answer there. This was a crossword with a Greek mythology theme.

  I saw the problem immediately. “You spelled Priam wrong.” I pointed out. “It’s with an “I” not a “Y.”

  “That’s how you pronounced it.” My mother was annoyed at the correction.

  I shrugged. “That’s how it’s pronounced, but it is spelled the way I just showed you.” I should also point out my mother is great with crossword puzzles, but she does employ creative spelling. Usually, if she can’t decipher something accurately, it is because she misspelled one of her answers. The answer is right, but the spelling is uniquely hers.

  “Okay, maybe you know this one as well. I was trying to see if the answer would slowly reveal itself, but you might know it off the top.” She pointed to the question asking the name of the God of Wind.

  I closed my eyes and let my mind drift a bit. I had a book on the Greek gods at home and at one point, had memorized them pretty thoroughly. But the real trick I had accomplished was I had mentally photographed the pages in my head. I let my mind drift, and I visually turned the pages of that book until I hit upon it. “It’s Aeolus,” I said, a bit triumphantly. I knew my mother would not be able to spell it, so I did it for her. She clapped her hands, gleefully like a child. She then leaned over and gave me a quick peck on the forehead.

  “Thank you, honey. You are so clever. My little problem solver.”

  “Stop giving her problems to solve,” said a husky voice across the room. The statement was intended to be as loaded as it sounded.

  My mother flipped the bird at Dusty. (See what I mean, she is the founding member of the Peter Pan Society.)

  The door opened. There was the jingle of bells, and our first customer of the day walked in. He was clearly someone looking for Dusty as his loose-fitting utility shorts revealed bio-mechanical tattoo work on his calves. Dusty greeted him. She knew his name, but he was not scheduled in the books. It looked like an impromptu consultation.

  “I was thinking…” my mother started. I looked over at her. From her expression, I could tell she had been looking at me for a while. I know parents do that. They stare at their kids, and strange thoughts run through their heads.

  Since she had delivered the layup, I had to take the shot. “Thinking is dangerous for you.”

  She smiled at my unoriginal response. “I’ve been thinking we should plan a weekend getaway soon. We haven’t been up north in awhile. I’d like to take some family time up in Guerneville. Wouldn’t that be fun?”

  “Stay at Dusty’s place?” I asked.

  “Yes, just us.”

  Dusty has a tiny one-bedroom cabin up in Guerneville, a small town that sits near the Russian River. It is a little artist’s glen with craft fairs and festivals and it’s a popular destination for lesbian couples - the same way Palm Springs has become a popular place for gay guys. I have no idea what the mass appeal for Guerneville is outside of its proximity to wineries and its rustic ambiance. But that’s why Dusty has a place there.

  “Just us and Todd?” I had a suspicion.

  My mother looked away, and her agenda was revealed in that one maneuver.

  “It’s too soon,” I said. “Stop foisting
him on us.”

  “I haven’t,” my mother countered.

  “But you want to,” I pointed out. “You want Todd to be included. You want him in our family unit. What little of one we have.”

  “And what is that supposed to mean?”

  We were speaking in hushed tones, but the volume of our discussion increased as our emotions were rising. Dusty looked up at us from her station and frowned. The client was engaged in his description of what he was looking for. He was pointing to his forearms and then gesturing at a piece of paper on the drawing table.

  For me to broach, our precarious nature of family was walking into dangerous waters with my mother. I hesitated, not wishing to touch this live wire – the third rail of our family. How do you mention something my mother feels is her business and no one else’s; the fact I am literally the result of a one night stand and she didn’t marry Echo’s father and had no intention of doing so. She has a fly-by-night life and hides behind her creative genius, and everyone is supposed to accept and deal with it. No judging. This is what I hear all the time from her. No judging. Don’t you dare judge me.

  But stating a fact is not judging. It’s stating a fact. And she has placed my sister and me in unstable and precarious situations because neither one of us has a male name listed on the line which says “Father” on our birth certificates. My mother believes this gives us freedom. And has this absurd notion she is rebelling against patriarchal views and moral judgment. But of course, she is not the one that has only one birth parent listed on her certificate. She has two birth parents. She has the luxury of rebellion.

  I was rescued from delivering the sentiment racing through my mind and would have surely plunged my mother and me into another war when Dusty called me over to “get the paperwork started on her client.”

  Dusty’s bio-mechanical guy had a name. It was Glenn. Glenn must have a secret desire to become a virtual cyborg as he already had full tattoos covering his calves depicting metal and wiring beneath his skin. The concept behind the ink was of somebody slicing through the core of Glenn’s humanity and discovering hardware; that secretly, he was an android or something. Dusty had once explained all this to me, but anybody with a brain could see it.

  It was evident from the sketches Glenn was hoping to continue with his desire of art, transforming him into a metal creation. Drawings at the station were to be tattoo sleeves for his arms, and it looked like Glenn may even have something more substantial in mind as I saw a piece that could only be turned into work for his back or chest. This was a huge commission if Dusty was going for it.

  Dusty introduced me to Glenn and explained I was kind of like the office manager of the place, and he would work with me to book the sessions. Glenn toured with a traveling theatre company as their road manager and had some dates where he would be out of town. With all that established, Dusty pulled me away to the shelves and sterilization unit to discuss ink and needle orders.

  That’s what she told Glenn, but in truth, what Dusty wanted me to do was a little more clandestine. Let me explain - there are times when somebody enters Cosmic Hearts, and they are studio shopping. They are planning on doing a large tattoo – something that will require multiple sessions, and they want to make sure they have a good rapport with the artist, and they trust the artist’s skill and overall vision for the piece. They will go to a few places they have either gotten through recommendation or seen an appealing tattoo on the Internet. They book an appointment for a small piece of work. Usually, the design is something done under two hours. They scope the place out. They see how the artist responds to their idea, and if the experience is a good one, they come back for the more significant piece.

  When someone comes in who has had extensive work done someplace else (and Dusty wants them as a client), Dusty usually asks me to check out the person and “get the paperwork started.” Dusty thinks I get my information by asking questions, the right questions, and people just guilelessly cough up the information. I’m like a perceptive fortune teller. She has no idea why I am so accurate.

  Glenn was hoping to commission an artist to do a sleeve on his upper right arm and a sleeve on the lower left. Eventually, when he saves up enough money, he wants to do something on his back. Glenn wants the same person to do all the work. When Dusty asked him why he hadn’t gone back to the artist who did the ink on his calves, he said the person had left the area and was no longer in California. Dusty suspected an artist she knew personally, Curtis, had done the work, and as far as she knew, Curtis was still in town. She wanted to know why Glenn was shielding the truth.

  I talked with Glenn and asked him basic scheduling questions, making sure everything seemed smooth and fluid on the financial end. There are times with big pieces where we don’t take the entire amount upfront. If the artwork is going to take four sessions, I will break the payments up into three installments. The idea is that the whole piece is paid for before our artist finishes the work. Tattoos don’t work on a layaway plan. I can’t tell you how often we hear people say, “I’m good for it,” and they’re not.

  My mission was to discover what problem Glenn had with Curtis – easy enough. I asked him if he minded sitting on the stool and laying his leg across the table so I could photograph it and allow Dusty to use as a comparison as she created new sketches. This is all part of a standard consultation anyway. He did. And then came the weird part because I had to touch the tattoo, and calves can be a sensitive area of the body. I pretended there was something on the leg and blew on the ink designs as if I were a perfectionist, and I couldn’t possibly have any lint in the way. After blowing, I looked at Glenn and asked permission to touch his leg.

  “Do you mind?” I asked. I want it to be a clear picture.” I’ve done this before, and nobody ever sees the imaginary lint I am trying to dispose of, and everybody says it is fine to brush this imaginary lint away.

  Mission Accomplished. With a sweep of my hand, I acted as if I had finally gotten rid of that pesky lint, touched the tattoo in the process, and then snapped my picture with the digital camera we keep in the shop.

  When I touched Glenn’s tattoo, incredibly strong emotions pounded through my body like a jackhammer. I felt fury and anguish all at once. It was an intense feeling, and I had to hide the shudder that raced through my bones because I didn’t want Glenn to think that touching him had repelled me. I backed away under the pretense something had gotten into my eye – maybe the pesky imaginary piece of lint. After a beat, I squared my shoulders and looked at Dusty with a smile. The smile was to let her know I had what she needed. I knew why Glenn had not returned to Curtis at Vulture Tattoo for any follow-up work. And he never would.

  Later, I gave Dusty the rundown…

  Curtis is the lead artist at Vulture Tattoo and has a steady clientele of men who are into displaying their machismo with ink. Military guys, motorcycle guys, wanna be motorcycle guys, and guys with gang affiliations all take up residence at Vulture. From what I learned by touching Glenn’s tattoo was that Glenn had two problems. One, despite his extreme interest in becoming a science fiction muscle guy, Glenn did not look like a muscle guy. He was kind of soft and nerdy. Glenn was the type of guy that should wear glasses because then there would be a point of interest on his face. The clientele at Vulture Tattoo terrified him, and he inwardly hated that they terrified him, and part of his metal transformation was to combat these feelings of male inequality and literally have inner titanium strength “implanted” within him. He was finding it impossible to build on his tough-guy persona when he was surrounded by real tough guys who could squash him like a stinkbug.

  The second problem Glenn had, and it was something Dusty could use as a bonding tool, was that Glenn had developed a massive crush on Curtis’ wife, Erika. She was this buxom number with short blond curls and a full open face who ran Vulture Tattoo. When Glenn first started going there, Erika was still just a girlfriend, and Glenn thought he actually had a shot. There were probably many men who believed they
had a shot with Erika. She was known for her flirtatious behavior and the way she would rest her size DD breasts on the display counter when going through a flash design tattoo binder.

  However, a month ago, Erika and Curtis ran off to Reno and tied the knot. She now was Curtis’ wife, and Glenn felt bad ogling another man’s wife. He thought he needed to take his business elsewhere. I wondered if that move on Curtis’ part was going to cost him other business. Not that many men have a problem checking out the rack a married woman displays, but some men don’t like it and try not to place themselves in situations where temptation is beckoning. Glenn was one of those men, and I made a mental note to remind Dusty perhaps this is a potential avenue to pursue – Honorable men who want tattoos but can’t go to Vulture anymore.

  There was another interesting piece of information I gleaned from Glenn. Glenn wanted to create a club of sorts. A secret club kind of like fight club. His idea was that these people, he thought both guys and gals, would be like “future people.” They would be identified by their bio-mechanic artwork. I couldn’t tell if this was something Glenn was attaching to a post-apocalyptic zombie attack or if he thought merging humans and androids was the wave of the future, or what. But it was a secret desire that had been emotionally attached to his tattoo work, and it was either odd strange or odd cool.

  When I shared the bio club aspiration with Dusty, she got this quizzical look on her face, but I could tell there was some deep thought processing going on. “Hmmm, that’s interesting,” she said while nodding her head.

  “Weird, huh.”

  “A little. But harmless and perhaps a money maker for me.” She planted a kiss on my forehead. “Thanks, kid. Now, I’m sure you have homework to do. Get out of here.”