Nico

by J. B. Hartnett

  “Can you leave?” he asked.

  “I can tuck this whore house in, man. You go on home with Mommy and Daddy,” Zack teased.

  “Fuck you.” I smiled, but I was also worried. Zack, I was sure could sense something wasn’t right, just like I could.

  Pop followed me up the stairs to my house and paused on the front steps, taking in the Cliffside. Walking up from the studio, three cottages stood, two smaller, with another empty shop beside them off to the right, and a large one that sat above those, where I lived. It had been Mom and Pop’s first home together. Sometimes, I wondered if I would ever find what they had, but most days, I didn’t care. I didn’t have room for anything or anyone else in my life.

  When I put the key in the door. Pop walked in and opened my fridge, helping himself to a beer. I stood in the middle of the living room and watched him. He held onto the white tiled countertop, his arms spread wide, and let his head hang down. Then he quickly popped back up and said, “Get your shit, we’re going for a drive. Your mom’s waiting.”

  “Pop, you mind telling me —”

  “Nicolas.” His voice was serious, the voice that said, “Finish your homework, you’re grounded, choose which stick you want me to whip your ass with.”

  “I can go like this. Want me to drive?” I hardly ever used my truck, and I loved having an excuse to take it out, especially with my pop since we had restored it together.

  “No, son, I’ll drive.”

  Half an hour later, we pulled into the parking lot of All Saints Private Hospital in Anaheim. My heart sank when I saw my mom’s truck—she had always wanted a truck—parked not far away. I sat, staring out the window, my heart racing, and turned to my pop.

  “Tell me.” I said.

  “Just… it may be nothin’. We’re gonna go in there, and I’m gonna be the man my pop raised me to be, and you’re gonna be the man I raised you to be. Let’s go.”

  The waiting room was nice. The walls were a muted orange color, warm, comforting. They had every magazine you could imagine, covering anything from hot rods to knitting. The cafeteria had great coffee. I had a piece of yellow cake with chocolate frosting, a holdover from my childhood, and waited. Then I waited more. I came back to the waiting room and watched my pop from a distance, his face covered with his weathered hands.

  Two hours had passed before my mom came through the doors. I watched my pop jump from his chair and stride over to her. I couldn’t hear them. I just watched as he slowly led her over to me. I ran my hands through my hair and tried to hear them as my pop spoke, but I couldn’t focus. She gave me a silent nod, and everything just moved around me as I followed them into the doctor’s office.

  There were folders being opened and test results being discussed. I was thinking about the fact that Pop had finally bought himself a “hog.” It was a Harley Davidson touring bike. He fit the biker image perfectly, but he wasn’t a biker. He was an enthusiast that dreamed about taking Mom around the country on the back of his bike. The trip was mapped out. They had the money, and, in fact, they could both retire if they wanted to. But Pop had this thing about giving back and “keeping the balance.” So, they hadn’t gone yet, and when my mom reached down and took my hand, I was propelled to the present to hear the words, stage three, double mastectomy, aggressive, chemotherapy and radiation.

  I squeezed hers back just as hard and tried to be the man I was expected to be in that situation, but I just couldn’t. I felt a rush of shame when the heat hit behind my eyes and my vision blurred. It just didn’t sound good. I mean, I’d already given three women tattoos for loved ones they had lost to cancer. Stage three; that was pretty fuckin’ bad.

  The next few months were exhausting, but I would never complain. I did scale back my hours at the shop, and Becca started to take on some of my regular clients. I spent every night at Mom and Pop’s house out in Ortega. It wasn’t a huge place, but they were surrounded by acreage, which was just how they wanted it. Mom had a huge garden that seemed to magically flourish with a snap of her fingers. Pop allowed a local rancher to let his sheep graze on the land to keep the fire danger low. The whole place had this vibe about it; you’d never know there was twenty minutes between you and a six-lane highway. All you could see were pepper trees and oaks, smell the citrus and rose blossoms, when they were in season, and hear birds singing. They had transformed ten acres into heaven-on-earth, and Pop and I were doing our best to make Mom as comfortable as possible there.

  It started with the cooking. Mom complained — well, she didn’t complain so much as stated — that water tasted like metal. Everything she ate, she either puked back up or it came out the other end like fire water. She was in hell. The surgery to remove most of her breast tissue and lymph nodes apparently went well. She had “negative margins,” which they said was a good thing, then started on chemotherapy. She took about a billion pills each day that Pop had laid out in a mini-muffin tin he had labeled to keep track. We had to force her to eat, so the competition began.

  I would like to say that my roast chicken with sage and onion stuffing was a clear winner against my pop’s chicken and dumplings, but I let him have it. Watching Mom’s face light up briefly as Pop and I bantered back and forth for her benefit was worth it. As hard as it was for me to watch my mom suffer, I knew it was worse for him. Mom was his whole world. He bathed her, cleaned up every possible fluid that could exit the body, fed her… everything. And in the afternoons he carried her to the front porch and rocked her in their swing. They didn’t talk; they enjoyed the vista of her beautiful garden, the breeze through the canyon, the birds, and each other.

  I knew it was humiliating for my mom; she didn’t want me to see her like that. She made it very clear I was not to see her naked or wipe her ass. It was a huge joke at the beginning of all this.

  Four months into her chemo, my parents kicked me out.

  “Nico, son, let me walk you out to your truck.”

  “Do you need me to pick something up?” I asked, oblivious.

  He put his hand on my shoulder, and I saw my black duffle bag sitting on the front seat. I opened my mouth to speak, but he put his hand up to stop me.

  “You’ve been going back and forth for four months. You haven’t gone out, you haven’t done anything, and I know you’ve been putting off your other clients, and that’s not like you. You’re wound up tight, Nicolas. Go and live. We’ll be fine.”

  I wanted to say bye to Mom, but again, he stopped me, reading my mind.

  “She knows you love her,” he said gently. “We need some time together, and she needs some time to feel this. She’s trying to keep it together in front of you, son. But she needs to feel like she can cry and yell and scream, and she just won’t do it if you’re here.”

  “Fuck,” I said on a breath.

  “You come back in a few weeks. I got this,” he said, moving next to me. Then he put his arms on my shoulders and pulled me to him.

  It was just like being a kid again, the only difference being, I was now a man. I shouldn’t have needed my pop to give me that comfort, but the truth was, the only other person in my life that would have given it to me was Mom.

  His customary pat on the back and squeeze of my shoulder was forgotten on this occasion as he got close to my ear and whispered, “She is not gonna die, you hear me? Go have some fun. Get your dick wet.” He chuckled. Then the shoulder squeeze and pat on the back came while he shoved me toward the driver’s side and opened the door, smiling the entire time.

  I pulled up to the back of the garage, the smell of seaweed strong, and I was home. It was Saturday night. the Blow Hole would be going off. They had a great D.J. on Saturday nights, so I called Zack and Becca to tell them I was back. I knew my time helping my parents and being part of the process had come to an end. Pop didn’t have to explain that to me. I thought about it the entire drive back, how I was hurt in one way that mom couldn’t do what she needed to do with me there. But my hurt was replaced by awe. My parents were a te
am, first and foremost. There was no doubt in my mind, the love they felt for me, but they needed to be alone, and I respected that. I also envied them.

  Over the next two months, I fell back into my normal routine. I had eight new female clients and six regular ones. The summer crowd brought in the tourists and this year was huge. A new surfing competition was scheduled to take place just down the coast, so accommodations were completely booked out everywhere. An ironman and iron-woman competition had been organized, as well, so all these events meant a huge swell in business for us. Becca had well and truly made herself at home in my absence, because, if I was really honest about it, I was there, but I wasn’t really there.

  Mom was returning to her ‘normal self,’ and by the end of May, she and Pop had decided to stay at the empty cottage next to me for a week. They usually came and stayed over the Fourth of July weekend; we’d barbeque and sit on the roof, drink, shoot the shit, and watch fireworks. They’d do whatever they’d do, and I would go downtown and party somewhere to give them some privacy. Pop showed up a few days before and opened the cottage to air it out.

  I went outside to the back of the studio, took out a smoke, and flicked the lighter while I puffed that delicious toxic paper-wrapped tobacco goodness.

  “Nico!” my mom snapped as I inhaled and swallowed at the same time.

  “Fuck,” I sputtered. “Mom!” I coughed and tried to catch my breath. “You scared the hell outta —”

  My mother, who stood five-feet-five-inches tall to my six-feet-two inches, ripped the cigarette out of my mouth. Then she pulled me to the steps that led up to the cottages, left me standing on the bottom one, and climbed two steps up so we faced each other eye-to-eye, and slapped me. Not just any slap. This slap was going to leave a huge red mark, and maybe even bruise. She hit me that hard. I grabbed my cheek, stunned, disbelief, and shame the first emotions I could grasp in that moment.

  “Rachel!” I heard my pop yell as he ran down the stairs.

  “You stupid little shit! You think cancer is fun, Nicolas? You wanna end up like me? We raised you to be smarter than this! You promise me, you promise me right now, no more!”

  My mom had never, not once, ever laid a hand on me. I’d been in trouble as a kid; I wasn’t perfect or anything, but they had a way of getting me to do what they wanted without getting physical. Any threat of being spanked or smacked was just that, a threat. I had been caught smoking cigarettes with two other kids. Pop sent them home and said nothing to me. After dinner, he and my mom sat in the backyard like they normally did, but this night, he said, “Rachel, you wanna smoke?”

  “Sure,” she’d replied. “Son? Why don’t you join us.”

  I had about four then started to puke up my dinner while they laughed their asses off. It worked though. I didn’t smoke again until I was nineteen. But there was one time they did punish me that stood out above the rest.

  Mom had asked me to do something, and I refused. I was only nine at the time, but old enough to know better, and when Pop came home and Mom told him I didn’t do what she’d asked, he asked me why. I told him Mom was being a bitch. I didn’t know what it meant; I’d heard it at school. When he slapped me, it was so fast and so unexpected, I stood in the kitchen, stunned.

  “You apologize to your mother!”

  He never yelled, and even more than the slap, I could still remember how his bellowing voice reverberated in my chest. This was the second time in my life, a parent had slapped me in the face, and I knew, once again, I deserved it.

  When Pop reached her, she was physically shaking in front of me. I, on the other hand, turned away from them both.

  “Don’t you turn your back on me, Nicolas,” she said. “You turn around and face me.”

  I took a deep breath, and then another, and when I turned around, I saw the tears running down her face.

  “I came here, we came here, because I wanted to ask you to do me a favor. But now, there are gonna be two favors. Number one, you are gonna quit smoking, right now. And number two, my scars are healed, my skin is better now from all that poison, and when I get my one-year scan and it comes back clear… because it will… you are going to put your beautiful art where my breasts were.”

  Her face suddenly became a blur, and it hit me; my mom was going to be one of my women.

  “I know it’s a lot to ask, baby,” she cried and reached for my hand, “and I know it’s gonna be hard for you, but I need you to help me get my own anger and pain out and help me heal. This disease took my dignity and part of what makes me feel like a woman, no matter what your pop says,” she said, turning back to look at him. “Now I’m in control of what I put in their place, and I’m asking you to help me do that. I wanna look at myself in the mirror and see something beautiful again. Will you do that for me?”

  I pulled my mom into my arms so hard, I just about knocked the wind out of her. And right there, at the back of the studio, middle of the afternoon, I cried like a fucking baby.

  Chapter 4

  May 17, 2007

  One Year

  Today, we got the results of my mom’s one-year scan.

  It was negative.

  That meant she was going to be coming into the studio for an extensive tattoo. It wasn’t just going to be me though. It was going to be a collaboration of myself and Zack, and we were hoping to have it done by Fourth of July weekend, as long as she and her skin could handle it. We had a schedule of five sessions, roughly a week and a half apart. She wanted it to be finished before Fourth of July, as she put it, “To celebrate my independence from fuckin’ cancer.” Mom wasn’t big on swearing, but when the situation called for it, she didn’t hold back.

  She had also decided on a new career path. For a long time now, she had seen the side of a woman’s life when shit goes south. She called an old friend by the name of Cherry who owned an upscale bridal shop in Newport Beach. Coincidentally, Cherry needed a store manager, and Mom had called at the perfect time. She was still having appointments every six weeks, but Cherry was happy to accommodate Mom’s needs. In the meantime, Pop took her shopping. She had a new wardrobe for her new job, and, to make sure she filled out her clothes properly, she also had three new prosthetic bras.

  When we began the design as she described it, I started to think about all the women I had “helped” and still seemed to be gaining. Unfortunately, I had gained another new client, and my focus on my mom and her design drifted as I thought about her.

  Yolanda was a beautiful Hispanic woman with brown eyes, long brown hair, and money. Some people, you just knew by sight, they had wealth behind them. Whatever she was wearing — I couldn’t begin to guess about designers — I was sure her entire outfit cost more than my truck. Actually, my Chevy Apache was fully restored and probably around the thirty-grand mark, so maybe not, but still, she was rich.

  She was also very professional when she came in and asked if she could speak to me privately, so I led her to the back and offered her a seat.

  “So, Mr. Grant, I understand you ‘help’ women who have had some sort of history of abuse?” She scrolled down the screen of her smartphone while she spoke.

  “Yeah,” I responded. No need to tell her it didn’t end there.

  “And the women, they tell you their story and you transform that into a tattoo, a sort of commemoration of an event or events?” She had a slight accent, but it wasn’t the Spanish of the local Mexicans I was used to hearing.

  “Yes, but I don’t need to hear their stories. It’s enough that they want my help, but they know they can say anything and it will never leave this room.” I sat down on the bench behind me and waited for her to finish whatever she was doing on her phone.

  She turned the screen and showed me what I knew was a Dia de Muertos skull.

  “Day of the Dead.” I told her. “Listen, I don’t know if you would consider it, but my partner out there, Zack, that’s more his style. I can do it, but I’m more faces, photo realism —”

  “Mr. Grant,
I know what your style is. You gave my niece, Flora, that horrible screaming rose.”

  Jesus.

  Flora came in and told me a story about things her great-grandfather had done to her. Fucking sick shit, and he always called her his rose. She said she could never understand why no one responded to her screams. She described to me a rose, blood dripping from its petals, and the gruesome face of a monster clawing its way out. She was dressed like a punk, and the tattoo, even though it represented something horrible, had been photographed and featured on an album cover for her friend’s band.

  “This is what I would like, Mr. Grant.” Yolanda had another photo of a sketch on her phone. The background was a sacred heart. Against that was a large pillow with a traditional Day of the Dead skull laying on top. Then she flipped to a picture of an old man with dark, beady eyes. They were the kind of eyes that looked right through you, devoid of humanity, and she didn’t have to tell me they were the eyes of the same monster that had abused her niece.

  “The tattoo must have these eyes. No other feature except the eyes, and I know you will do an excellent job. I will pay you twenty-thousand dollars.”

  She should have just punched me in the face. “Excuse me?” I asked, just to make sure I heard her right. “If you know my work and what I do for women like your niece, you also know I don’t — I won’t — accept money —”

  “Mr. Grant…” She walked very slowly to me and spoke less than inch away from my ear. “My Grandfather had many victims, and the women in my family were not the only ones. But it seems that justice was not something the men in our family, who knew of his proclivities, were willing to punish. So, six months ago, in the Durango Hills Nursing Home, I asked my grandfather, a man of means from birth who bought the silence of everyone, including his family… I asked him to confess what he had done. His mind was still sharp, even for a man of ninety-one. I demanded he ask my forgiveness, or I would see him on his day of judgment. He smiled at me, Mr. Grant, and told me I was his favorite among his victims. He did not ask my forgiveness and thus had made his choice.