Tats

by Layce Gardner

  “Okay,” she says.

  Silence. She looks perplexed. Confused. She opens her mouth. Then shuts it again. By now I’m grinning from ear to ear. She looks like she’s going to speak...then doesn’t.

  Finally, she opens her mouth and says, “Shitfuckpissyouwin!”

  Oh God, I laugh so hard, I double over and fall onto the floorboard. I hold my stomach and laugh so hard tears stream down my face.

  Vivian taps on the brakes, looking at me seriously. “You want I should pull over? You’re not going to fuckin’ piss your pants again, are you?”

  Just when I thought I couldn’t laugh any harder...

  Chapter Five

  Knock, knock.

  “Who’s there?” I mumble.

  Knock, knock.

  “Go away,” I say a full octave lower than my normal voice, squeezing my eyes shut even tighter.

  Knock, knock.

  I curl into a smaller ball and wish the knocking to go the hell away.

  Knock, knock, knock. Louder now. What the hell is that? A woodpecker?

  I open my left eye just the tiniest bit. What I see makes no sense at all. I have my head on some kind of animal. I’m curled up, sleeping, with a tiger?

  I sit upright and wince because my left arm is asleep. I rub the pinpricks and start putting the pieces of the past few hours together. I’m inside a car. The green Pinto. I was sleeping in the front seat with my head in Vivian’s lap. That’s not a tiger. It’s Vivian’s skirt.

  I shake my head to chase away the aftereffects of the feel-good pills and look around. We fell asleep. At Sonic. They were closed when we got here so we parked and waited and—

  Knock, knock, knock, knock.

  A muffled voice says, “Excuse me?”

  There’s a girl standing outside the car with her hands cupped around her eyes, peering through the windshield at me. She raps on the glass with her knuckles.

  Knock, knock, knock.

  I roll down my window halfway and unglue my tongue from the roof of my mouth. “Wha’?” I ask.

  “You can’t just sleep here. The manager told me to tell you this is a restaurant, not a motel. The manager’s a dick. I don’t care if you sleep here, but you need to order something so he doesn’t call the cops,” she says.

  I look her up and down while all that sinks in. She’s blond with eyes that are too green to be human. Wait. She has one green eye and one blue eye.

  “You have different colored eyes.”

  “Contacts,” she says. “You gonna order?”

  I look over at Vivian. She’s asleep and snoring, reclined in the driver’s seat as far back as it’ll go, all stretched out and peaceful just like she’s in a king-size bed. There’s a little trail of blue slobber running out of the corner of her mouth. She must’ve thrown back some blue pills, too.

  I look back to the cute carhop. “We’ll have one of everything.”

  “Excuse me?” she asks.

  “One of everything on the menu. I’m hungry.”

  “Ooookaaaayyyy,” she says.

  I roll the window back up and watch her skate away. Damn. Nice asses keep getting younger and younger.

  I move Vivian’s knee out of the way, turn the key in the ignition and snap on the radio. It only gets AM stations. I scan through several until I find the one I want. A man’s voice rattles through the tinny speakers: “High of seventy-two with ten to fifteen mile an hour winds and a twenty percent chance of rain for your Thursday weather report. In local news, Tulsa police are looking into a grave robbery incident at Burr Oak Cemetery. The cemetery’s security guard, Thomas Winant, interrupted the robbery and was assaulted with a shovel and thrown into the open grave. Mr. Winant is recovering from his head injury at St. Francis hospital and has described his assailant as a white male, six feet four inches in height and weighing two hundred pounds. Anybody with any information is urged to contact the Tulsa police department.”

  I turn the radio off. It’s the first time I’ve ever been glad to be mistaken for a man. I can’t fuckin’ believe he said I was two hundred pounds, though. That kinda hurts.

  “I left my Choo shoe in the grave,” Vivian says.

  She’s awake now and sitting up.

  “You left your Choo shoe there?” I ask a little panicked.

  “It’s okay,” she says. “Right now they’re looking for a big man who wears heels. They’re probably rounding up every drag queen in town.”

  “They wear inline skates now. Used to be quads back when,” I say.

  Vivian and I sit on the hood of the car, surrounded by everything on the menu. It’s like fast-food heaven if there really is a heaven and they actually serve fast food there.

  I slurp hard on the last of my chocolate malt, shake the cup to find more, and slurp harder. “You gonna eat that fried pie?” I ask.

  “You’re like a bottomless pit,” Vivian says, handing over the pie. “I don’t know how you can put all that food away and stay so thin.”

  “I haven’t eaten since IHOP,” I say around a mouthful of pie.

  “Fucking genetics. My body stores fat like there’s going to be another potato famine,” Vivian says, dipping one of her french fries into the dregs of my malt and then licking it off.

  Our carhop with the mismatched eyes spins to a stop in front of us and hands me another chocolate malt on a tray. “Here you go, ma’am.”

  Ma’am? I’m a ma’am? Shit, when’d that happen?

  Vivian hands the carhop two one hundred dollar bills. “I’m buying everybody here a sundae. Sundaes on the house. Can you do that?”

  “Sure, if that’s what you want.”

  “That’s what I want, sundaes all around. And you can keep the change,” she says generously.

  “You sure?” the carhop asks, her mismatched eyes widening.

  “Sure,” Vivian answers. “Get yourself a sundae, too.”

  “No, thanks,” the carhop answers, patting her perfectly flat belly, “I’m trying to lose a few l.b.’s before the homecoming dance.” She grins and adds, “Go Chargers and all that, you know?”

  Vivian perks up. “Homecoming? When is it?”

  “Tomorrow night. Thanks for the tip, ma’am,” she says, skating off.

  Vivian and I sit in silence for a while. But it’s not the good kind of silence, it’s the kind filled with thick tension, the kind filled with dread, my dread, because I know Vivian well enough now to know exactly what she’s thinking.

  Vivian and I turn our heads at exactly the same time and look at each other. She smiles. I don’t.

  “We’re going to homecoming, aren’t we?” I ask in a tiny scared voice.

  “You got it, babe. We are coming home!” Vivian exclaims, hopping energetically off the hood. She darts around the side of the car and hurriedly gets inside. “You ready?”

  I turn to look at her through the windshield. “Ready for what?” I ask.

  “Oh my God! We have so much to do! So little time, so much to do!” She honks the horn and I slowly slide off the hood, already knowing this won’t be any ordinary homecoming.

  “Beauty is not natural,” Vivian argues, pulling me down the sidewalk by the sleeve of my jacket. “And anybody who says beauty is natural is ugly.”

  “You’re naturally beautiful.”

  “Oh, honey, this ain’t natural. You don’t think I was born this way? This is the direct effects of lots of makeup, hair straightening, freckle remover and spandex.”

  “I don’t have freckles,” I say feebly.

  Vivian pulls me through the double glass doors of The Luna Bella Spa. “You have tattooes,” she says.

  “So?”

  “How is that any different than me putting on makeup?”

  “My tats don’t smear when I cry,” I say.

  “Listen,” she orders, putting her hands on her hips. “We have a trunk full of money. We can sure as shit treat ourselves to a Day of Beauty,” she says like the words are capitalized.

  “But this
place is too expensive,” I whisper.

  “You get what you pay for,” she says with a tiny wink.

  The fourteen-year-old boy who lives inside me looks at her tits and says, “Okay, you win.”

  Vivian turns and struts up to the receptionist, leaving me hanging out by the door. I watch her ass walk away and remember a bumper sticker I saw once: Be like a dog. If you can’t eat it or play with it, then piss on it and walk away. I look back through the glass door and wonder what would happen if I really did just piss on the floor and walk out?

  I’d blow my chances with Vivian, that’s what would happen.

  I move over to the nearest corner, hoping to be somewhat inconspicuous by hiding behind a tall plastic palm tree. The interior of this place is Pepto-Bismol pink trimmed in silver with touches of shiny chrome. Women are everywhere, sitting, standing and reclining. And they’re all talking at once. It’s a cacophony of chirps and giggles and whispers. There are women with their hair in painful looking rollers sitting under hair dryers; women wearing shower caps with thin strands of hair sticking out of little holes; women fake-smiling in mirrors; women patting, poking and prodding other women’s faces. My eyes start to water from the battling aromas of lotion, hairspray and chemicals. In fact, if smells were music, this place would sound like Rimsky-Korsakav “Flight of the Bumble Bee” meets Sid Vicious singing “My Way.”

  I’m right smack-dab in the middle of Frank Capra’s Miracle Woman.

  And I’m drowning in estrogen.

  I stick my hands in my pockets and offer a fake toothy smile to a gossipy little circle of hens who are staring at me like...well, like I don’t belong here.

  Vivian talks animatedly to a receptionist, using lots of hand gestures. They both look at me for a second and I smile back, but the receptionist frowns and jots something down in a notebook. I hope I never see what she just wrote because it’d probably scare the shit out of me.

  The receptionist jots down a few more notes while Vivian nods and points at me, takes a wad of bills out of her cleavage and talks some more. What the hell? I turn away from them so they can’t see how red I’m turning and I really shouldn’t have done that because now I’m face-to-face with myself in a big mirror and for a split second I have one of those out-of-body experiences where I’m looking at myself with somebody else’s eyes. The woman in the mirror looking back at me really needs some professional help. She looks like she just got back from that reality show Survivor. Then I realize that the reflection is me and I look away before I see me staring at me. Vivian is right. I’m a mess. That’s the second where I decide to let these women have their way with me and any kind of makeover would be for the better.

  The receptionist crooks her finger at me to approach. I slide my boots over to her and lean on the desk. She smiles sweetly and talks to me like I’m a four-year-old. “Sonja will be taking care of you. She’s good with your type.”

  “What type?” I ask, then immediately regret asking.

  “You know,” the receptionist, Paula, (her pink name tag reads Paula) says. “The au naturale type.” She waves the back of her hand up and down my body in a Vanna White gesture. “Sonja will love you.”

  I hope Sonja is not some big German woman with muscles and meaty hands who will pummel me half to death.

  I just nod.

  “Follow me,” Paula says. She leads the way and I lag a little behind. I glance over my shoulder at Vivian who shoos me with a wave of her hand like I’m some fly she’s trying to urge out the screen door.

  Paula leads me down a short hallway and opens a door and I walk inside. She winks at me, saying, “Your friend said you’ve never had a facial before and to give you the works.”

  “The works?”

  She smiles mysteriously and says, “Don’t worry. Sonja is very good. You’ll like her.”

  She shuts the door, leaving me alone in the small pink room. I try to make myself at home. Which means I take off my jacket and throw it over the back of the chair before I sit down. It’s one of those hydraulic up/down chairs that eerily resembles something in a dentist’s office. Not a good omen.

  I fold my hands in my lap and look around. There’s a sink and mirror and a countertop with all kinds of painful looking surgical implements that send a shiver down my spine. There are a few Georgia O’Keeffe prints on the walls. Am I the only person in the world who knows she just painted pussies and gave them flower names? I always get a little embarrassed looking at them in a public place.

  I sniff the air. The absence of smell makes me nervous.

  I feel like I’m waiting for something excruciating to befall me. I’m all alone in this little windowless room. I hate small spaces. They make me feel crowded and too big for my own body. I lay my head back and try to relax but I only end up searching the ceiling for any possible escape hatches.

  The door opens and in walks Sonja. I know it’s Sonja because her name tag says so. Sonja is dressed, or rather, barely dressed, in clothing that leaves nothing to the imagination. She has explosive tits (Donny and Marie) that she must’ve spent an hour coaxing into a red T-shirt that’s a good two sizes too small. She has on a black leather skirt that she must’ve bought over in the children’s section because it certainly doesn’t cover a grown woman’s ass. Long, wild-ass blond hair and pouty lips. Paula the Receptionist was right. I like Sonja.

  Sonja locks the door behind her. I guess she recognizes the panic in my face and thinks I may be a flight risk.

  I try not to openly gawk at her as she walks up to the side of my chair.

  “Hi.” I smile.

  She doesn’t say a word. Maybe she doesn’t speak English. I’m thinking about trying out my high school French, but when she takes my face in both her hands, I can’t remember a damn thing. I can say how are you in seven different languages, but right now I can’t even remember how to say it in English. I am mesmerized by her green eyes. Green with little flecks of gold. And those damn lips. The image of those full lips sears itself into my brain.

  Then Sonja does the most amazing thing. She leans over me, her hard nipples brushing across my surprised face. I close my eyes and just wallow in this moment. She must be reaching for the chair’s lever, because suddenly I’m being lowered and reclined at the same time. I wonder how much one of these things cost. I sure wouldn’t mind having one of my own.

  I guess I moan or do something encouraging (okay, I admit it, I may have accidentally put my hand on her ass) because she throws one leg over and sits on me cowgirl style. She just sits there a moment, looking at me. I guess it’s my move. I slip both my hands under her skirt and raise it up around her hips. She’s not wearing any panties and she’s a natural blonde.

  Sonja raises up on her knees, stares straight into my eyes and has my belt and pants down around my thighs in no time flat. She strips off her shirt, pops a nipple in my mouth and rubs herself all over me.

  Holy shit. This must be the works Paula was talking about.

  Sonja takes my right hand and sticks my index finger in her mouth. She takes her time licking and sucking and cleaning each and every finger. When she’s done, she guides my hand to exactly where she wants it the most. I realize she was planning this before she walked in the door because Sonja the Cowgirl has been ready for a while.

  She grabs my tits like they’re a saddlehorn and rides me like a broncobuster in a rodeo. It doesn’t take her long before she’s ready to come. I know this to be true because she tells me so. The whole thing has blindsided me in such a rush that I’m half surprised to find myself coming right along with her.

  I shatter into about a thousand little pieces and barely have time to put the pieces back together before Sonja gets out of the saddle, inches her skirt back down and wrangles Donny and Marie back into her shirt. She leaves as quickly as she came. Pun intended.

  Did that really just happen? Are all spas like this? Is Vivian doing the same thing right now?

  I take my time pulling my pants up over my wobbly knee
s and washing my hands. I look in the mirror and think the same thing I always think when I first see my reflection: Help! I’m trapped in a body that doesn’t look anything like me. I reverse directions and try on a smile for size. A smile looks fake as all get-out. What’s wrong with me? I just got laid and most people would be happy, but all I feel is guilty. I wipe the smile off, sniff my hands and promise not to look in a mirror again that day.

  I open the door and reenter the bright world of reality. As luck would have it, the first person I run into is Vivian. I feel like apologizing to her and I want to tell her it’s not really cheating on someone if you were actually thinking about them the whole time. I clench my teeth so that what I’m thinking stays inside my head where it belongs.

  Vivian takes one look at me and staggers backward half a step. “You look great!” she exclaims. “Your skin...you’re absolutely glowing.”

  “Thanks...” I say, reining in my thoughts with a forced smile.

  “Where’s your girl?” Vivian asks. “I want her to do to me exactly what she did to you.”

  “No, you don’t.” I grab Vivian by the elbow and lead her down the hallway as far away as quickly as I can.

  I’ve given in to the swift current of Vivian’s glamor treatment and I float lazily down the river in my innertube trailing my fingers along in the water.

  I jerk my fingers out of the cup of goo, Vivian’s laugh jerking me out of my reverie. Vivian and I sit side by side in front of twin Vietnamese manicurists. The only way you can tell these little women apart is that one talks constantly and the other never opens her mouth.

  I have the one who talks constantly. And right now she’s examining my hands and nails and chirping in her strange little accent, “Big hand. Strong hand. Big like man.”

  “Thanks,” I respond.

  “Nail, bad. You no take care. Nail too short. Why short nail?”

  I shrug. I don’t really care to get into all that with a perfect stranger.