Tattoo

by Michelle Rene

  “Ready for the reveal,” she whispered seductively.

  “Sure.”

  I leaned back in my designer chair upholstered with the finest blah-blah fabric from Turkey or Ethiopia or some shit like that. It had been my grandmother’s, like most everything I owned. Even the house had been hers. She was a mean old bat, but she had taste. I was sad when she passed, regardless of all the stuff she left me.

  With a slow spin befitting a pole dancer, Cindy dropped the translucent wrap she had been wearing along with that green dress. I thought her name was Cindy. It sounded right, but I couldn’t think clearly because she was in her bra and panties in front of me. Not much thinking was happening at that point.

  The tattoo wound around her body and ended just below her rib cage, telling me either she lied to me about her age, or she had lived a lot of life until that moment. I was on the pretty side of fifty but the ugly side of forty, and my tattoo barely made it past my waist. Surely, she was older than I thought, because I had been no slouch in the living life department.

  At first glance, nothing about her life story jumped out at me from the tattooed writing on her bronze skin. She had grown up in Southlake, with a-well-to-do family from the looks of it. Graduated college from SMU. Liked affairs and had two abortions. A few skeletons, but nothing I hadn’t seen before. Cindy was a pharma rep, just as she had told me at the bar. I had wondered if it was a lie, but sure enough, she was no hooker. A miniscule wave of relief passed over me, as I was a little cash poor at the moment, despite my inherited designer surroundings.

  When she felt her little reveal was at a close, she pointed to me.

  “Your turn, stud,” she said with a sexy smile.

  I stood and collected her in my arms. She was a solid little thing, and I kissed her with all the passion I could muster for a perfect stranger. A whisper of the chardonnay I had bought her at the bar lingered on her breath. I’m sure mine smelled of bourbon.

  “Ah baby, let’s be rebellious. I’ll turn off the lights and be anyone you want me to be.”

  Believe it or not, this tactic worked most of the time. In a world with no anonymity, where your entire life story was tattooed on your body for all to see, one-night stands were a tricky thing. Plenty of women swooned at the idea of imagining me to be whatever they wanted instead of the reality of what I was. This one, however, was not biting.

  Cindy pushed me away and crossed her arms over those nearly perfect breasts of hers. A dissatisfied line made up her once-beautiful mouth. “Not a chance. If you have herpes or something, I want to know.”

  “I don’t have herpes.”

  “Then you won’t mind showing me.”

  I sighed. There was no recourse left. I would have to oblige her. My only hope was for her have terrible nearsightedness that she was too vain to correct with lenses or surgery. With noticeable reluctance, I removed my shirt and stood before her like a lamb at the altar.

  She surveyed me for a few minutes and said nothing. Fleeting hope filled my addled brain. My body was nothing like hers, but I had managed to stave off the stereotypical gut men my age seemed to flaunt. It wasn’t tight, but it wasn’t flabby. When I heard no objections, I moved forward to try to kiss her again. With one dainty hand of steel, she stopped me.

  “And the back. Come on and turn around, cowboy.”

  My face was aflame just thinking about what was going to happen next. I knew what was coming, but I turned around for her anyway. This lamb was headed for the abattoir, and there was no stopping it. My broad back was exposed to her delicately wondering eyes. It was only a matter of time.

  “Oh, you’ve got to be kidding me,” she snapped.

  Her barbed words flew across the room and hit just to the left of my spine, where I knew the offending bit of information was etched perfectly. I winced at the invisible pain as I heard her begin to gather her things. She was beyond exasperated with her lost evening, and I was not about to explain or try to stop her.

  “You are fucking gross.”

  She stormed toward the front entrance, exited my opulent digs, and slammed the door.

  “I know. I know I am.”

  The next day, I took a long lunch and went to visit Dakota. When I walked in, she was blessedly alone in her piercing shop in Deep Ellum. A little bell jingled when I opened the door, and Dakota gazed up at me from some art magazine she had been perusing. There was a new tattoo on her since I had seen her last. The word pride was written in the maker’s perfect script across her forehead. For a long minute, as we stared at one another, I wondered what she had done to earn that.

  “You got a reason for the visit? I’m pretty sure we are paid up, counselor,” she said in that plain way she liked to speak.

  I had done some legal work for Dakota a few months back. Even though the piercing shop was perfectly legal, her side business was less so. It was this side business that brought me to her. She was good, she was discreet, and I knew she never bought from low-class skin dealers.

  “I need some help.”

  “That I can see.”

  “You available?”

  “Yes. No one normally comes around until the evening time. What’s your pleasure, counselor? We are having a special on nipple piercings, buy one get the other half off. No pun intended.”

  “I’m not looking for that.”

  “Hmmmm. I never pegged you for a ladder sort of guy, but we do that too.”

  “Not that either.”

  “Well then, are we going to dance around all day, or are you going to lay it on me?”

  I drew a big breath and let it out. Dakota’s eyes widened at my obvious embarrassment. She was going to see it all. Everything I had done to Wendy.

  “I need some tattoo work done,” I said while trying to focus on her eyes.

  “Indeed? You got money?”

  “I’m a little cash poor right now.”

  “I see? And how were you planning on paying me?” she asked.

  “If you do this for me discreetly, I will forever be indebted to you,” I said.

  “How so?”

  “Any legal fees or favors you may need are on the house.”

  “For how long?”

  “As long as I’m around to perform them.”

  Dakota’s eyes widened with alarm. For a woman operating an illegal business such hers, the offer was more than tempting. She had her bribes out to correct people, but you never knew when the correct cops were going to get replaced. The wheels were turning in her head. I could see it in her face, and by the fact she didn’t tell me to fuck off right off the bat.

  “This must be a doozy of a job.”

  “It’s just embarrassing, and I’m ready to be rid of it,” I said looking down at the floor.

  “Okay. It’s a deal. Follow me into the back room,” she said as she made her way past the glass cases of jewelry and through an entrance with a thick curtain.

  “Said the spider to the fly,” I muttered under my breath.

  “I heard that.”

  “Sorry.”

  The place was a little dark, but clean. She motioned for me to make myself comfortable on a cushioned chair that looked like one of those massage things. There was cradle for my face and everything. It smelled the way an old lady’s couch smelled when covered in plastic.

  “Take a good swig of this first,” she said, handing me a bottle of cloudy, purple liquid.

  “What’s this?”

  “Something to ease you into this.”

  “I can’t get loaded today. Will I be able to work after?”

  “Sure. Just eat after we’re done.”

  I threw back the whole bottle, removed my shirt and tie, and relaxed onto the chair. My bare back was exposed to Dakota for her feminine judgment. I heard her move a stool closer, and there was a strange sound too, like a whir of something electrical. Delicate, gloved hands maneuvered their way gently over the globe of my back, revealing my life story.

  “So, which things here am I tak
ing away?”

  “All the ones that would make a woman not love me,” I replied.

  She made a ticking noise with her teeth and tongue as she surveyed my landscape.

  “That’s a tall order, my friend.”

  I felt her hands danced close to the area just to the left of my spine.

  “Had a thing for livestock, did we?” She was suppressing a laugh.

  “I grew up in the country and was drunk a lot, okay? Besides, you don’t hear me asking you about your newly acquired face tattoo, do you?”

  The half-hidden giggle inside her dissipated, and she returned to her scrutiny.

  “What’s the verdict?” I asked.

  “I see three main events here that probably need to go. The obvious one involving...your...country living, the one about your friend, and the one involving Wendy. Sound about right?”

  “Yes.”

  “All right then. The stuff you drank should be numbing you pretty well by now, so I’ll go ahead and get started.”

  “Wait, Dakota.”

  “What’s up?”

  “Leave the one about Wendy.”

  She looked again at my flesh and placed a gentle hand on the part of my back where the Wendy affair resided. I hadn’t killed, raped or even married her. I had done something so much worse.

  “Are you sure? In my opinion, it’s one of the biggest offenders. I mean, you obviously loved her, but you left her in that motel room alone with a bloody mess. It was your fault she got pregnant in the first place.”

  “I know, but I don’t want to forget Wendy, even if it costs me dates. There were good times too. Just the other ones, please,” I said while trying to disguise the quiver in my voice. “I just...I just don’t want to forget her entirely.”

  “I could leave some of her. I don’t have to take it all,” she offered.

  “There are some things that shouldn’t be forgotten, so you know not to do it ever again.”

  “Okay. It’s your skin, counselor.”

  When the deed was over, I felt so much better. I couldn’t even remember what the stories were that Dakota had removed from my life. Well, I could, but they felt like memories of a movie I once saw as opposed to my memories. That was why she was so good. Most of Dallas and half of Fort Worth went to her for things like that. Whatever she had removed had been replaced with some masterfully woven story of her own making. I didn’t feel a loss at all. No gaps, no blank spots, no missing pieces.

  I felt lighter somehow, relieved of an ancient burden I could no longer recall. I waltzed back into my office building, whistling. My secretary looked at me with a confused expression. I dug into the complimentary candy dish on her counter and asked how her morning had gone.

  “Fine?” she said, as though it were a question.

  I pulled out a hard butterscotch candy and grimaced. “Evelyn, can’t we get some less shitty candy in here, I mean really? Something with chocolate?”

  “You asked me to throw out all the good candy. Said it was too tempting.”

  “I did! So sorry, but I’ve just been a total ass lately. Let’s go get some better candy. You only live once.”

  I was perky, and she didn’t know how to handle me.

  “Mr. Mansel, Judge Taylor is waiting in your office.”

  “He is? You didn’t offer him any of this terrible candy did you?”

  “No sir.”

  She couldn’t help but gawk, open-mouthed like a fish at me while I smiled a toothy, idiot grin into those heavily painted eyes of hers.

  “Good. Well done, Evelyn. You are so helpful.”

  I strode down the hallway, greeted a few confused interns, and opened my office door to see a grave-looking Judge Taylor sitting in my chair. He was sucking on what was obviously one of Evelyn’s terrible candies. I grinned, thinking what a good liar she was.

  “Judge Taylor,” I said as I walked in, my hand outstretched in greeting.

  “Mr. Mansel,” he responded seriously, taking my hand and shaking it.

  “What brings you here today, sir? Not Evelyn’s terrible candy, I take it.”

  “No, that’s not why I am here. I have an assignment. I’d like to assign it to you.”

  He never did have much of a sense of humor, but the judge’s whiskered face looked more solemn than I last remembered. The silvery white hair was plentiful for a man his age, and he wore it down the sides of his face as mutton chops. Their whiteness stood out starkly against the good judge’s dark skin, almost like a caricature of a style rather than the look of a real man. His dark eyes were grave, and I took what was normally the visitor’s seat, allowing him to return to my seat behind my desk.

  “Do you remember the before time, Mr. Mansel?”

  “Please, sir, call me Elliot. We’ve known each other so long.”

  “The before time, Elliot. The time before tattoos and the judgment day?”

  “No, sir. I’m afraid I was too young to really remember.”

  “Well, I do. I recall a time when babies were born pure and without their birthdays etching into their scalps. People were unmarked unless they wanted to be. Then, it was a matter of choice to tattoo yourself with some image or saying or something. A girl from my neighborhood had an entire illustration from a book running down her arm. It was beautiful. Back then, the justice system had to work to convict people. There had to be evidence and proof beyond a reasonable doubt. You couldn’t just catch the criminal and read their body to see if they had done the deed. Forensic scientists were used to gather evidence and prove guilt through DNA testing and fingerprint analysis as opposed to what they are today—just a bunch of brainy fellows who are relatively good at deciphering if someone’s story had been counterfeited or not by a tattoo artist. Can you imagine what it must have been like back then, before God stole our anonymity?”

  “I honestly cannot imagine, sir.”

  “Well, you had better start.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “There is a young woman in custody right now who is completely unmarked.”

  My eyes felt as wide as dinner plates, and I was sure my mouth fell open. Surely, I had heard him wrong.

  “She’s...unmarked?”

  “That is what I said.”

  “Is it natural or counterfeit?”

  “The boys in forensics say natural.”

  “How? How is that possible?”

  “I don’t know, but I went and met with her myself. She hasn’t a mark on her. She doesn’t know who she is or where she came from. Claims a tattoo artist made a life for her to help her blend in, but it vanished the next day. She won’t give up the name of the artist.”

  I gaped at the old man, waiting for some sort of hint he was joking, but Judge Taylor wasn’t the joking type, and his face never faltered.

  “Does she remember anything?”

  “She seems to remember waking up in the hospital a few days ago. Some people helped her escape, then the tattoo artist, and then a halfway house. A squad car picked her up yesterday on the street running from some sketchy people. She has memories, but none of them are written anywhere on her.”

  “She’s lucky the flesh dealers didn’t get to her first.”

  “True, that’s one blessing, but now, Elliot, we come to the crux of the matter. This girl has to be put on trial, and I want you to represent her.”

  “Trial? We haven’t had a trial in years. Since...”

  “Since your defense of the Borgie brothers.”

  “Judge Taylor, that was so long ago...”

  “...and you were brilliant.”

  “Thank you, sir, but what exactly is this girl charged with?”

  Judge Taylor lowered his eyes, and I could tell there was shame in there. For some reason he had a soft spot inside his old body for this girl.

  “Failure to register.”

  “What?”

  “It’s silly, I know, but nothing she does registers on her body. It’s like the old days with her, and we are not a socie
ty that can handle someone like that any longer. Gone are the days when a person could easily hide their infractions. A girl such as this could be a criminal or a target, and there is no way to register the events in her life. She could do anything, and the governing body of the United States would not know. I’m afraid she is on trial for her anonymity.”

  “Sir, how on earth can I possibly defend this girl?”

  “That is something I hope you can figure out. You are a brilliant lawyer, when you are sober. I believe you could’ve held your own in the old days. Right now, a young woman needs your help. Please don’t leave her waiting.”

  I didn’t.

  After a quick straightening of myself in the men’s bathroom, I headed directly for county lockup. The guard on duty was an odd duck. All bluster and muscle. However, she had a way about her that read well. A sparkle in her eyes said she had something behind them worth knowing.

  When I first saw Jane, her appearance was so shocking I gawked like a bystander at an accident. The bald head with the perfectly unmarked flesh was jarring. I experienced a kick to the chest the second I saw it. But those eyes, those big doe eyes of hers, they told me more than what wasn’t written all over her. She was afraid, no, she was terrified sitting in her little cell all alone.

  The first interview was more or less small talk—we were becoming acquainted with one another. Jane didn’t seem to remember much of anything past a few days previous, and even her name had been invented by some tattoo artist who had tried to help her out. She wouldn’t reveal the artist’s name, but I had a good inkling who the culprit was. It wasn’t just mere coincidence that Dakota suddenly showed up with a fresh forehead tattoo. Dakota was the best in town, and the only one I could imagine who would dare try such a stunt.

  I could have interrogated Dakota, but I figured I wouldn’t have to. She was my client, after all, and we had all that attorney/client privilege between us. Plus, I guessed it was only a matter of time before she learned what had happened to her little pet project.