Mindy Poppago: Blue: Part 2: Requests, Commands, and Full-Bodied Demands

by A. J. Hallenger

  “What? ‘I yam what I yam’? Popeye, silly.”

  “Thank you.”

  “W-t-f? God, you’re strange.”

  “Nevermind.”

  “You think maybe something happened to your brain when you hit your head? I mean, I’ve heard of people having heart attacks and feeling melancholy and crying all the time while they’re recovering. Maybe something like that?”

  “Well, I was kinda feeling it after I tattooed the guy—before the bike accident. I mean like, I was really feeling for him in a deep way.”

  “Hunty, we regular people might call what you're feeling a crush, baby. You've been smitten. I'm talking about getting down on your knees and begging for their loving devotion kind of smitten—but don't do that. I'm just talking about the feeling. Capiche? Is it like that?”

  “Oh, fuck oh fuck. But so many at once? What the fuck is wrong with me?”

  “I dunno, baby. Think you’ll be goin’ all-in on one of them soon?”

  “What? Well, no, but I feel like it’s more negotiable than it was before,” I said with a laugh, “like I’m open to persuasion.”

  “I'm sorry, did someone here say something about a curse a minute ago? But you know, it may not be a bad thing. You might be on the verge of an exciting adventure and find something or someone you never knew you wanted. True love! What'd he say? He said, true love, baby!”

  Now my mind was spinning again. I didn’t know what to think. “Fuckin' shit.”

  “Weren't you ever in love, sweetheart?”

  “Maybe, yeah, when I was only about fuckin’ 15 or 16. But I think maybe it was only that I was swept away with shitty naive excitement. I mean, she was older, and we spent a lot of time together when she was showing me the ways of giving each other bodily pleasures and fuckin’ and all that shit. She was fuckin’ beautiful and perfect and wise and loving, and I wanted to be with her all the time. But like I said, she was older and went off to college. And we didn't get together much after that. But one night when we set up a date to spend it alone together, she had a car wreck on the way over and died. I never told you this? I did, didn't I?”

  “Ok, now that you mention it, I remember. Diane wasn't it?”

  “Diana. You knew, you fucker. Why'd you make me tell you again?”

  “I wanted to see if you were talking about the same kind of feeling. You think?”

  “I don't know. It's kinda too early to tell. I still don't know them. I just met them! And I guess what confuses me most is I've never fuckin’ felt this way for a fuckin’ guy before. Shit, guys get to be slobs, don’t they? But I could imagine enjoying kicking the Marine guy’s ass if he ever got lazy.”

  “Oh, yeah, now that’s sounding like love if I ever heard it. I like that more than what you’ve got with that SEAL beast. Well, I can't wait to hear all the stories. What are you going to do next?”

  “Fuck, you're being the professor of love right now. Why don't you tell me!”

  “I know exactly what you should do. What do they all have in common—other than you wanting to fuck them all?”

  “I just met them all in the last three days.”

  “Better than that. They’re all attached to the hospital, right? St. Agnes? Go there.”

  “Go there? Why? What would I say I was there for? Just happened to drop by? Oh, I’m just here to stalk you? He’s married. What if his fuckin’ wife’s there?” I questioned lamely.

  “Oh honey, relax and think about it. Go there to check in on the guy you gave the tat to, and tell him how sorry you are for putting that shitty curse on him. Well, maybe you shouldn't mention the curse, but let him know that you're really concerned about his sorry ass.”

  “Ok. Yeah, maybe I should. And I am concerned; a lot. From the way he talked, I don't know if his family would visit him right now. Maybe some Marine friends.”

  “There you go—Bob’s your uncle! And who knows who you might run into? Big booby Ruby and your dreamy doctor, perhaps? And what about the guy with that dick that was with you when you wrecked? He’s there too, right?”

  “You mean, when he wrecked. Yeah, he's still in there. He's supposed to be there a few weeks. Poor fucker.”

  “And you'll be St. Mindy while you search for love.”

  “Holy shit, I don't know what you're fuckin’ talking about, and I'm not so sure you do either!”

  “Well, just think about it. Just sayin'… There could be magic in the air,” he sang.

  “And it's scaring the shit out of me. You're scaring the shit out of me!”

  I was still comfortably nude. “Is it okay if I take a quick shower?” I asked.

  “Of course, baby,” Julio said. “Always. Why’d you even ask?”

  “Oh, I figured,” I said. “It’s the least you could do for fuckin’ my brains out.”

  “Hey, ho, who did all the work? And we still gotta talk about my new tat. I’ve got ideas.”

  “Yeah, yeah,” I said as I slipped off the massaging bench and walked to the shower. Then added, just loud enough for him to hear, “How about a nice crucifix? Those are popular these days.”

  “That’s you trying to be funny,” he yelled back. “Sure, bitch, I’ll keep that in mind.”

  After a refreshing shower, I put my jeans back on and my stilettos shirt, gave Julio a big hug, and left the studio. I was pre-occupied with my dream and emotions, but at least I was relaxed and pain-free. He earned a very special tattoo. Fuckin’ queer. Sure, he owed me already, but he fuckin’ outdid himself this time. I loved Julio, and he knew more about pleasuring my body than I did.

  I had stopped for a big burger before I got to the tattoo shop. The weed and Julio’s over-the-top euphoric massage made me famished. It was a Monday, and Jerry likes to keep the shop open seven days a week, but Monday's are usually dead. If I have an early appointment scheduled, I'll make it in earlier, but we usually don't see any steady trickle of business until after five or six. That works for me because I'm much more creative and focused at night. It’s when I'm more relaxed, and my art skills are better. I even considered going to see Dale and how he was doing before I went to the shop, but I’d rather not feel rushed. I wasn’t sure I ready to see him yet; I could see him tomorrow.

  I love the sun, but the daytime scene is stressful and highly over-rated. They say the freaks come out at night, but daytime freakiness is full of mundane habits and rituals I don’t fit into. They just can’t handle an actively creative and fresh lifestyle like mine. And I say, fuck it. I can support myself, and I'm not hurting anybody. Day freaks can fuck off unless they’re coming in for a tat or can interest me in a fuck—emphasis on the word interest. There I go again, I thought to myself, looking for the quick fizz. Someday I’ll stop—I promise. I’m hopeless.

  I got to the shop at four o’clock. Jerry was wrestling a super-sized philly-cheese when I walked in, and it looked like he had it down for the count with a two-fisted choke-hold. He had been working with a client since eleven and was finally getting his lunch. It was for a Japanese tat, which he is well known for. He likes Asian ink styles, and lately, he's seriously been getting into Indian mandala art. He does the best line-work I’ve ever seen.

  “Hey there, dude, sorry about the weekend. Was it busy?” I asked.

  “Not too bad. I had to turn a few away, but a couple of them wanted you to call them back. They liked some of your work on the wall. I put their numbers on your bench. What the hell happened to you, anyway? I was half-expecting to see you all bandaged up and shit.”

  “Yeah, well, I got lucky, I guess. I was ridin’ on the back of this dude’s Harley, and the fucker ran into a damn-ass pig."

  Jerry lost his focus on his sub and looked up at me with a quizzical look.

  “You serious?”

  “I went soaring in the air, and the next thing I know I was being rolled into the friggin’ emergency room on a fuckin’ stretcher!”

  Jerry scrunched his brow. “No shit?” he asked. He was starting to grin.

>   “Yeah, no shit. Bruised my ass up a little, but I’m still good for cheap liquor.”

  “Hell, girl, yeah... You were lucky. You could have been messed up bad. ‘Cept you shouldn’t have hit a pig.”

  “I didn’t hit a pig—the guy I was with did, goddamn it. He got it a lot worse, too. He’s still in the hospital. Sucks.”

  “Who’s that?”

  “I don’t know. Some fuckin’ guy I met at the bar. Jake—yeah, Jake.”

  As expected, Jerry ultimately dropped his philly-cheese and started laughing. I really like Jerry. I don’t know where I’d be if it weren’t for him. He’s Diana’s brother, and he feels like a brother to me too. He’s one of my exclusive family members, and he’s the one that got me into this tat business. I like to think he saved me from being a CEO’s secretary, and thank God for that. How could I ever have given up my colorful hair and tattoo tapestry for a corporate professional look?

  "You are fuckin' crazy, bitch. When was this, Friday night?"

  “Yeah. About three in the morning, I guess. Fucked up, huh?”

  “Woman, you are fucked up. You sure you’re up to working? You’re not going to faint or bleed out on me or anything?”

  “Yeah, I'm cool. I need this. It's good medicine for me being here," I said, but, actually, I was beginning to feel a little on the weak and dizzy side. I hoped that my strength would come back while I worked.

  “Okay, but if you’ve got to leave, leave. It probably won’t be that busy anyway.”

  “That’s what I was thinking. Two came in and liked my work, you say?”

  "Yeah, the numbers are over there. They were jazzed with your new-style mermaids and seahorse shit."

  “Hey, watch what you’re callin’ shit, Homer.”

  “Yeah, whatever. Fran and Jess should be in anytime. Lula will be here around six. She’s got an appointment.”

  As I mentioned before, I love to tell my stories to Jerry. He’s easily my best audience. He’s the one who told me, “You need to start writing this shit down—you could write a fuckin’ book!” So I started keeping journal notes and found it easy to remember shit that happened by what my hair color was at the time. Weird, but true. So I’ve kept the notes in colored folders that matched my hair. That’s why I named this first book, BLUE.

  I went over to my bench to check out my supplies and tools—basically making sure nothing got borrowed and not put back. Things looked clean and in order. I am pristinely neat at work with my tools and space; it's just at home and when I let the freak out that I get a little messy. Then to my surprise, next to the message about the tattoo requests, I saw a calling card from the fucking police department.

  “Hey, why do I have a card here from the fuckin’ police?”

  “Oh yeah, shit, I forgot—the cops came by here looking for you Saturday. Said they just wanted to talk to you about something they were working on.

  “What? Really?!” I exclaimed in disbelief.

  “Said you weren’t in any trouble,” Jerry replied to pacify me.

  “Well, nothing they probably know about anyway. They didn’t say anything else? How the shit could you forget to tell me that?”

  “Yeah, sorry, it’s something about a guy’s fuckin’ tattoo they had a question about. I bet it’s that one you did Friday night—bloody jabbin’ that mermaid and shit. Fuck, I don’t know. I just told them I would give you the message. They didn’t ask for your phone number or anything. Didn’t sound like they fuckin’ wanted to arrest you or any shit like that.”

  “Huh. Well, shit, I guess it must be okay then if it didn’t sound like they wanted to arrest me or anything. Jesus! So you think maybe they just wanted a tat? Fuck!”

  “Yeah, mermaids and sea horses.”

  "Fuck you. I can draw some freakin' badass mermaids and sea horses, you know."

  “You’re killin’ me.”

  “Shut up! You’re fuckin’ killin’ me! That guy got shot, you know.”

  “What? Really? The guy you gave that mermaid tat to?”

  “Yeah, it was on the news. Crazy, right?”

  “I heard about a service guy getting shot, but I didn’t know it was him. Shit. The police didn’t tell me that. Cray-cray.”

  “Yeah, I feel kinda responsible,” I said. “I think I cursed him.”

  “Probably,” he said, not taking me seriously. “A lot of people might go out and get themselves shot after getting a tat like that!”

  “Oh, fuck you!” I fired back.

  Jerry and I actually do have a shit-load of respect for each other’s art and skill. Like, last year, a mocha skin-colored woman named Vanessa with a fantastically endowed body came in from the city and hired me, supposedly because I was a woman and she had heard that I was good at inking sea creatures. She hired me to tattoo an octopus, like from the Japanese painting, The Fisherman’s Wife, all over her body as close as it was drawn in the painting as possible. She was a rich girl and wanted to surprise her girlfriend who was yachting around some macaroni island or some fucking place. She wanted the octopus's suctioning tentacles, winding their way around her smooth narrow torso, to reach her gorgeously fine golden-orbed boobs and wrapping its thin end-fingers around her firm, stand-up nipples, and then down and around her soft, firm, kissable thighs, into the sacred crack of her perfect, bronze, melon ass and its mouth right at her scrumptious cunt, so that she was sexually ravaged by this all-encompassing, super-erotic, pleasure sucking, motherfucking sea creature all the time, forever.

  It was about an eight-week job between the times she could gather the strength for the next addition of more groping, molesting tentacles. Jerry was grinding his molars the whole time I worked on it. He envisioned the Japanese stylistic flair he would have put on it to make it a knock-out showpiece of his skill, and he was gracious in suggesting design tips to me. Plus, enduring the whole process made him horny as hell, which was fun to watch since he usually keeps the sexual side of himself ramped down. How could I blame him for getting turned on? I was being shamelessly aroused the whole time I was inking her!

  But the mistresspiece was mine, and it was stunningly gorgeous. Not only was it one of the best ink jobs I've ever done, but, holy fuck, following the sensual curves and focusing so much attention to the bodily intimacies of her precious womanhood, her natural scents and delicate perfume, and, oh, the warm smoothness of her mocha skin, aroused me to heights that I didn't think I could stand much more of and remain professional. If I had only appreciated a woman's form and features before, I worshiped them when I was finished. O holy goddess of endless lust and sucking tentacles, I am yours. Too bad she lived in the City, and fucking really too bad she was too sore and faithful to think about messing around with me after any of the sessions. I haven't seen or heard of her since. I really hope her girlfriend liked it––if she didn't, it would be some really fucked up shit. I would say good riddance and find another girlfriend quick. Seriously, that tattoo was solid. She should get in touch with me; hell, I’d hook up. I can’t imagine ever getting tired of hittin’ that chick’s shit.

  Clients like that are few and far between. I could be driving a much nicer car if I had more clients like rich Venessa. But I’ve got plenty of pictures and awards on my wall featuring that octopus tat, not to mention our web page, and they draw a lot of attention and work to my station. I love taunting and teasing Jerry about that job at the right moments. He’s so easy. Every so often I find ways to slip in the word octopussy to catch him off-guard. Like suggesting the air smelled of octopussy, or open my lunch and say, What, octopussy again? It makes us laugh, but, yeah, we’re hopelessly stupid-silly together.

  The shop phone rang, and I went over to the front counter to answer it. We were still waiting on Fran to arrive. She usually does the phone answering.

  I answered, “Show me your ink.”

  “What?”

  “D’s Boulevard Tattoo shop,” I said flatly. I like answering the phone to test the callers on the fun meter. This one’s h
itting zero right now.

  “This is Detective Edwards with the Crime Investigation Division,” a man with a rough voice said. “May I speak to a Ms. Mindy Poppago?”

  Fuck. “This is Mindy.”

  “Ms. Poppago, I hate to bother you, but we’re trying to get some answers about a case of ours, and we thought you might be able to help us out. There are one or two tattoos that we’re interested in, and we were told by some other, uh, tattoo person in the area, uh, she said that one tattoo that looks like it may have been done very recently looked like something you might have, uh, done. We’re just wondering if you could take a look and tell us if it’s one of yours and, if it is, if you can tell us anything that he might have said to you.”

  “Well, I don’t know. We tattoo people are really busy. Can you describe the tattoo? I can probably tell you if I did it or not over the phone and save you some trouble.”

  “I guess I can try. It appears to be a mermaid getting stabbed to death by an old guy with one of those pitchfork things.”

  “Goddammit!” I yelled. “That one? They’re not supposed to die!” I uncontrollably exclaimed.

  “I’m sorry?”

  “My bitchin’ mermaids! Fuck me! They’re too sexy and smart and beautiful to be killed. They’re supposed to be elusive and invincible; worshiped and adored. Really? You’re calling me about that one?” I asked, then thought of Dale. “Is he alright?”

  There was a pause before he said anything else. “The tattoo is one of yours, then?”

  This cop didn’t sound like the brightest daffodil in the garden. “Well, yeah, ’fraid so. Why, what happened? I heard he got shot. Is he okay?”

  “No, ma’am, I’m afraid they’re deceased.”

  “What?! No - I just inked him a couple of nights ago!” I felt my blood and energy drop to my gut, and I wanted to cry.

  “I’d like to come talk to you and get any information you have. It sounds like you were one of the last people to talk with him. Do you remember what you two talked about?”