The yowling started again, this time joined with caws. A raven swooped past her and perched on a tree next to a bucket. Although she was sore, she ran toward the bird.
"Dewey!" she yelled. The bucket was low enough to reach. "Thank you," she yelled to the raven as it flew off into the distance. It cawed back at her one last time before it disappeared in the forest.
Dewey hopped into Bridget's arms. She gave her a long hug and a forest full of kisses.
Hesitant, Bridget walked over to the creature. She bent to her knees and pulled up a flap of fur. It wasn't attached. It was a headpiece of sorts, a mask. She yanked at the head until it popped off. And there, dead as roadkill, lay Harold Richardson, C.E.O. of Greyhorn.
"Why'd you want to kill me?" Bridget asked. "You afraid I was going take your position?"
Dewey licked the cold blood seeping from Harold's ears.
"A special breakfast for a special dog," Bridget said, ruffling her sandy fur.
As they walked back to Cody's house, Bridget felt a party of butterflies fluttering within her stomach. What better place to relax, to get away from the hectic life, than in the boughs of a tree.
END
Digging Deep
I lifted the top of my daughter's urn. It was decorated with a seated marble cherub gazing down, somber. With all the care in the world, I placed it on the hospital-bib lined table.
"Rosa," I whispered, digging my index and thumb into her ashes. It was warm between my fingers, as if it were grains of summer sand. I sprinkled her into tiny plastic caps of ink and mixed it together until it felt right.
I took a shot of whiskey and began preparing my left arm. The razor I used was dull and it cut me badly the last time I used it, so I went slow. I wiped alcohol over the area and smeared on a thin layer of lube. I was all out of petroleum jelly and didn't think to grab more today at the shop.
I took another shot.
The wind outside the wooden shed walls was loud, and I was scared a branch or other loose debris would come crashing through one of the windows and scare the hell out of me and fuck shit up.
I positioned a piece of stencil paper with the sketch I'd drawn earlier this week onto my arm and dabbed over the area with a wet cloth. While waiting for it to dry, I took another shot, then peeled the stencil off. It left a beautiful outline of my Rosa.
I looked over at the original photograph of her I'd taped on the wall. She sat crossed legged in a white dress. Her hand waved up at me, her smile brighter than anything I could imagine. The promise of being able to see her big honey brown eyes looking up at me every day, to carry her with me everywhere I go as an eternal part of me was an unexplainable feeling of unity.
Sweat dripped down my face and armpits. I opened the window. Giant gusts of wind surrounded me like an embrace, and it felt good. I set up my machine. The vibrating noise from the needle shot above the outside commotion and echoed in my ears. I made two hits in the black ink. My hands trembled, but not because of the wind or the needled machine.
I took in a deep breath, lowered the beating needle to my skin, and began outlining the portrait. It felt like razor blades scraping over my arm. For a short time, the pain helped me forget about the emotional suffering from losing Rosa. It was a shift toward healing, toward the immortalization of her spirit.
I stabbed the pulsing needle deep inside my flesh until it hit bone and circled it like a paintbrush until my consciousness drifted to an ethereal place, a place where it often ventured; where not even the thrashing wind could interrupt.
Rosa was amazing. I mean, she lit up my world. Oh, and give her a mic and watch out, she'd tear it up. Even got me singing with her sometimes. We video recorded one session and put it online and got mountains of positive comments. I think it gave her confidence a kid her age needs. Was hoping we'd make it on one of those daytime talk shows but, you know how it is, you can't have everything.
The transplant list made it hard for us to make any concrete plans. With a condition like she had, an aggressive tumor had attacked her organs, I wanted to show her the world, since there was a chance she might not get to in the future.
After undergoing the six-organ transplant to rid her body of the cancer, there wasn't anything else we could've done for her. She died in a frigid hospital room where the windows overlooked an unwelcoming city and the TV always played, on mute, Bugs and Daffy.
In the beginning, I didn't think there was ever a moment I'd lose her. But during Rosa's last week alive, I'd seen the devastating toll it'd taken on her and I questioned everything. With all her body fat gone, her skin had been left a protruding roadmap of blue twisted veins. It had wrapped so tightly around her bones she was nothing more than a twitching corpse. Her energy had plummeted to nothing. And to be honest, I pretended not to notice.
Blood and ink was smeared all over my arm but I continued touching up any imperfections until it was flawless. I wiped off the excess fluid on my arm and took a look in a broken mirror standing on top of the table.
Something dense pounded the roof and I jolted backward, kicking the stool from underneath me. I fell onto the gasoline stained floor and the mirror shifted off balance and shattered into two large pieces across the table. For a while, I laid there beneath the dangling light bulb. It swayed from the wooden ceiling where shadows from every object in the room danced in harmony.
My eyes opened at a thunderous drone of a passing freight train. I lifted myself up and, careful not to step on the vomit, opened the shed doors. I was blinded by bright morning light. A cool breeze rushed over me. Warped branches lay about the grassy yard.
I thought I was able to maneuver until I tipped over and fell, snapping the branches below me. My arm felt like a cat was scratching at sunburned skin. I looked down at the portrait and smoothed my fingers over my inked area. Despite being swollen and red, it was much more real than the flat photograph I'd used as a reference. Rosa was smiling up at me. It was getting to be too hard to look at.
I flicked off dried plasm stuck to the outside of the portrait. The rest of the tattoo felt slimy and warm, and somehow it felt like a separate part of me.
I looked over to the area where the photograph was taken, in front of two ancient yew trees. Side by side, their branches bound together. My mind wandered into a twisted illusion. Below the yews, I saw Rosa sitting on the grass, steak knife in hand, wafting the blade through the long grass.
For a while, I stared at her. What was she was doing with the knife? I'd never allowed her to touch a knife; she was too young. I shook my head. My arm burned feverishly, but I continued watching.
With one swift cut, she tore open her white dress, revealing a delicate stomach.
"Rosa," I yelled to her, but she paid no attention. What was she doing ripping her new dress like a spoiled kid? It wasn’t paid off.
The wind picked up. It whipped through Rosa's hair and dress and she began to whimper. She started slashing away at her stomach. Blood splattered her white dress until she was able to dig a deep enough hole to reach into. She shook her head violently while probing her insides with both hands and opened her mouth to scream, but nothing surfaced.
Like a syringe of adrenaline straight to the heart, I crawled up and ran toward her. As I neared, she drifted away in surges of wind and I collapsed there where she had sat. I wept.
Hot blood oozed from the portrait and dripped to the ground.
* * *
I arrived late to work. I wasn't worried, though. I had a solid managerial team running the shop so they opened up for me, no questions asked.
"Check it out," I said, showing Lexa, one of the shop managers, the portrait. She parted her straight black hair to the side, revealing an inner layer of bright green strands.
"Aw, that's so sweet, man," she responded, her voice hoarse and drawn out. "When'd you get it done, last night or somethin'?"
"Yeah . . . did it myself. Couldn't sleep again," I responded. "Been wanting somethin' similar since she was born. Wish she coul
d've seen it, yah know?"
"That's sweet, man, really cool. Better than I could've done on somebody else, let alone on myself. You're truly a master artist."
Every other minute, my eyes drifted to the portrait, as if monitoring a hovering wasp. My thoughts jolted back to the apparition I'd seen earlier. It made me feel uneasy, which made me feel guilty. Why had my mind conjured something so monstrous? What's going on with me? It was like my mind is trying to fuck with me.
By the second day, my swollen tattoo had risen like embossed leather. Never had I seen this before. It reminded me of a sub-dermal implant, but this was much more elaborate. Must've caused scarring. Guess I went kinda rough. I can't remember.
By the end of the day, my emotions were getting harder to mask and I threw up for the third time after rushing to the toilet between clients. Since I knew it wasn't from the shots I'd done earlier, I took another one to calm me down. I wiped the vomit from my face and hands with bunched up toilet paper, rinsed my mouth, and returned to my client, a middle-aged woman requesting a floral bracelet tattoo around her left wrist.
"So how'd you get it raised like that? Can you do that to mine?" she asked, and with her free hand scaled over the portrait, smearing a small amount of blood.
The portrait drew a helluva lot of attention. Every client commented on it. How eerily lifelike it was. And people even asked if they could touch it—and some touched it without permission.
"Ah, hey now," I said, lifting the spitting machine from her wrist and backing away. "Not healed yet."
I couldn't make sense of the skin reaction to myself, let alone to her or anyone else. She was the fourth person today asking, and I hoped the last.
"So, tell me all about this precious girl on your arm then."
I continued working on her wrist, only explaining a few small details to her. "She was supposed to go back to school this week . . ."
"They say time heals everything," she began, "but that's just positive thinking, yeah?"
"We'll see," I told her, tensing my jaw until pain stabbed my nerves. My eyes began to swell with tears, but not from the physical pain.
"I try so hard to restore the positivity Rosa's life brought me, but the negative images are fucking difficult to clear out of my spinning head," I told her. And now I've got a permanent reminder on my left arm, and she's forever looking up at me, helpless. The thought crippled me, and my brain cried out for a shot of whiskey.
"Ink Olympics is tomorrow, right? They picked your shop to host this year, right?" the woman asked, squeezing her eyes shut as I pushed the drumming needle into her wrist.
"Yep. First time. I'm taking part in it, too. Better win. Could really use publicity around here," I said, feathering the needle over the outline of a leaf. "And the money, too."
"Money equals more publicity. I have a feeling you're gonna win. Look at this thing," she said, admiring her newly finished tattoo. "Or at least close second. Or third."
After the woman left, without tipping me, I bandaged my arm. Though the physical burning lingered, concealing the tattoo gave me a feeling of instant emotional relief. And I felt guilty about it.
Later that night, after I'd taken two more sleeping pills and a shot of vodka than usual, I passed out early. I don't know what time it was, but a thunderous explosion forced me into a groggy awakening. At arm’s length, I reached for the window by my bed and parted the dusty shades. The yard was lit up by motion detector lights and I could see, faint on the hill, only the larger yew standing. The smaller one had been detached and was strewed across the yard, laying over the shed like a fallen tombstone.
As I was about to let go of the shades and pass back out, I saw movement below, under the standing yew, where a dark mass distended. It moved at a higher frequency than anything earthly I'd seen before. It creeped on all fours, circling the standing yew. Although it was a shadow, its form was clear; human, small. It was a child—Rosa.
A spiking pain flared beneath my bandage. I let go of the shades and squeezed my arm, making things much worse. I'd had infections from tattoos before, but this was a different type of aching. It felt as though I was being burnt with a handful of lit cigars. I even thought I smelled burnt meat. It—the tattoo—wanted my attention.
I tore off the bandage as I darted to the bathroom. I turned on the sink and drowned the portrait in a freezing stream of water. I heard it sizzle and, with the moonlight beaming down through the skylight, I saw a rush of steam rising.
I slumped over the running sink. Despite the unrelenting pain, my mind dozed off. After a few moments, I dried my arm with a towel and glimpsed down at my charred skin. It had been burning.
I slid my fingers over the area. The pain eased at once. I lifted my arm into the moonlight again and what I saw made my stomach flip and my body flinch into shock.
"Rosa . . . Sweetie . . ." I whispered, nearing my arm closer. The portrait pulsed with the pace of my racing heart, like it was alive. No longer did my daughter wear a sugary smile or wave a sensitive hand. Now, her face was devoid of joy. It was twisted and frozen into an agonizing gaze. No longer were her eyes a honey brown. Now, they bulged out, charred, unhappy, terrified; ailing. No longer was she relaxed. Now, her tense skin was wrapped around her bones. Her cadaverous limbs throbbed, covered in veins distending like blue earthworms.
My insides wrenched with nausea. I closed my eyes until my vision blurred. I didn’t want a clear view of the affected area; I rewrapped my arm with a new bandage.
Before I could stammer back to bed, my legs gave out and I collapsed into the hallway.
* * *
The next morning I awoke, unsure of why I was lying on the ground and why my arm felt like it was broken. Blood seeped through the bandage on my arm, but it had dried so I didn't bother changing it.
I opened the bedroom curtains and saw the collapsed yew. It laid sideways, as if taking a nap, using the shed as its pillow. Its thick limbs had protruded inside the roof, leaving a deep, ugly gash. It was a project I’d have to save for another day because today was the Ink Olympics and nothing else fucking mattered.
I put on my best T-shirt, a black one I had specially designed for the shop. On the front of it, our logo, Blaquebird Tattoo Shop, gleamed out in white. I made it mandatory for all my employees working today to wear it for the Ink Olympics.
I raced out the door early today to set up shop for the event. The camera crew from Channel 92 Eye Witness News was already waiting outside the shop's glass doors.
The camera operator began mounting an ENG camera on a tripod in the center of the shop. Another fastened a camera on her shoulder and another tested a boom microphone.
An hour had passed and the people who couldn't fit inside the Shop gathered in swarms outside. They peered in through the window, hoping to get a glimpse of the event. The three hosts from Ink Olympics, two middle-aged biker dudes and one younger skateboarder, mingled among the crowd. They all wore black matching shirts. The gilded Ink Olympics logo was displayed over the front.
Five minutes and the clock would strike ten. The hosts herded the competitors, which included myself, to the back end of the shop where we took front stage. They lined us up and one of the biker guys asked the Channel 92 crew, "We all ready to start?"
The question made my lungs shrivel to prunes so I hurried to the back room and chugged down whiskey I had hidden behind a bookshelf. I waited for a second or two with my eyes closed, face toward the ceiling.
I got a flashback from last night. I remember looking out at the fallen yew and seeing shadows, maybe Rosa. My attention dove to my arm, which felt worse than usual. Even when I didn't move, my skin felt like rusted nails were scratching away at weak skin.
I still felt groggy from last night, so I hunted through the mini fridge until I found an energy drink. I guzzled it down within a couple gulps and, by the time I got back out, the live broadcast had already started. A Channel 92 reporter, who looked out of place with his purple button up shirt, black pants, a
nd shiny chrome belt, was going down the line of contestants, asking their names, what tattoo shop they were from, and how long they'd been in the business.
It was my turn. The boom microphone glided over my head and the reporter asked, "And you, what's your name?"
I hesitated. I couldn't see straight, but I stayed coherent and replied, "Ron Vega . . . work right here at Blaquebird Tattoo Shop . . . Five . . . years in the biz." I waited for him to ask another question, but he turned toward the camera and went off talking about how great it was to be here or something.
"Let's set these dudes and dudettes up, shall we?" the reporter asked the camera in a flamboyant, chipper tone. "We'll be back later to show you what progress these talented artists have made. You don't want to miss it."
The three Ink Olympics hosts gave us each a small card and told us not to turn them over until they say so. They began splitting us apart and guiding us to different workstations. Each station had an eager person, the clients, sitting on one of the two chairs.
My client, a frowning gray-haired man, tits sagging like two oddly shaped bags of gelatin, wore a yellow-stained wife-beater, which he hauled off at the sight of me staggering toward him. He shook my hand. "Name’s Ben."
"Ron," I replied.
"It's time to separate the big mouths from the peons and show us you're not just talk," the skateboarder host fired up the crowd. "Alright, with that said, you've got ten hours on the clock. Now turn your cards over and start the madness."
I flipped the card and read aloud, "Hungry cannibal. Position: Back."
"Think I'll get myself comfortable," Ben said, leaning over the chair, exposing his monstrous back.
"How big?" I asked him.
A burning itch tore through my arm, distracting me. My client blabbed on about what he wanted. I heard him, but I don't care enough to listen. I scratched at my arm until the bandage peeled loose. It's my ass on the line here anyway, not his. I ripped the bandage off and scratched at the portrait. It started bleeding.
Wake the Wicked Page 14
