“Give me one of those, just like you have,” and soon enough she felt her eyebrow get clamped and then the sweet sting through her that ended too quick. He explained self-care instructions as she thumbed the piercing. She wanted to push it in and out of her skin, to risk infection in hopes that it would go through her brow, down her spine, and impale the deep spots within her where the hurt lies.
She needed more, and moments later she was on her side, listening to the hum of the tattoo needle cutting into her. The sensation began as sharp and intense, but soon it became natural and invited, until finally she hated the moments in between the coloring and etching. She wanted the cutting feeling all over her. The hot scratch of the pin dragging across her flesh and the humming noise that hit some hidden brain frequency put her in a trance. She drifted into a sleep away from the world with vivid, electric dreams.
“Don’t need a picture here; just need to turn the insides out, is all. You’ve got some colorful insides,” the tattoo man told her.
Her whole body tingled, and her life, like her nerves, seemed on fire.
She sat in the front waiting room on a sunken leather couch, braless in her loose, white shirt. The bandage over her tattoo had quickly been taken off, and she spent moments starting at it, looking at the raised flesh, watching tiny traces of blood beading. The ongoing burn was still intoxicating, but her body craved more.
When he locked the front door, she watched his blue eyes, examined the shape of his shaved head, and traced the outline of his tattooed arms with her eyes. This was the more she wanted. She was vulnerable and see-through but still, it was she who used that man. She wouldn’t let him touch her—he couldn’t touch her, but he could be used, and after some words and a cup of coffee she was on top of him, ordering him not to touch her, and with each command he obeyed, she gained power and devoured him.
And this was her first encounter with Macon. She would never know if this was the date of Lyric’s conception or if it happened sometime within the next week, but burying Max was also the start of her life with Macon, and finally the birth of this beauty of a child. Spirit in, spirit out. She thought of it as The Big Bang because it created a whole new universe full of fitness and therapy, Pilate’s classes and yoga, marathon finishes and Paleo diets, and a surge of energy came upon her.
If she could make something as amazing as Lyric, maybe she wasn’t defective, maybe something glorious and angelic could come from her body instead of something flawed and defective that couldn’t last. Macon inked her body in the years to come and covered the scars from her life of cutting. She did her own part by sculpting her muscles and forming her body like clay.
We did it. We did it. We did it, yeah… the TV blared the words of Dora.
Lyric’s cartoon was ending, and Erin made one last rinse of her hair, realizing she had been in the shower much too long. There was a rustle at the door of the hotel room, like room service or the maid had arrived. She was sure she had locked the door, but hadn’t bothered with the Do Not Disturb sign. It was well before sunrise, so why should she?
“Lyric. Lyric,” she called out and turned off the shower.
No answer.
“Lyric!” she yelled again, louder.
Cooler air was sucked into the bathroom, and the foggy mist faded. Erin grabbed a towel and stepped onto the linoleum and yes, through the bathroom door she saw the outline of light spilling in from the hallway. Her heart raced, and she moved quickly out of the slippery bathroom to eye her child.
No sign of Lyric.
An open door.
She’s lying between the two beds—but a few quick steps showed nobody. With a towel wrapped loosely around her and shouts of Lyric with every few steps, she covered the room and even searched the small closet.
Where is my child? Who has my child?
She swung the door open, ready to run down the hallway. Goddammit! How did the door get open? With one glance to the right and another to the left, there, in front of the vending machine full of skittles, chips, and Hershey bars, stood Lyric. And right next to her stood a larger man, the hotel clerk, apparently helping her make a selection.
“Lyric, what are you doing? Come here… come here right now.”
Lyric didn’t move but just turned around, and Erin saw a dollar hanging out of her hand. The clerk got up from his kneeling position.
“Lyric, come on, get inside. What are you doing? You weren’t supposed to leave.”
Erin wrapped the towel more securely around her, but Lyric still didn’t budge, and Erin wanted to snatch her right up. She wanted this man gone.
“Go on,” said the man and put his hand on Lyric’s back to nudge her on her way. “You can come back later and have anything you want.”
Lyric turned sadly, her little hands still grasping the large dollar bill, and scooted to her mother.
“I’m sorry, Ms. Facinelli,” the clerk said.
Erin flashed him a half-smile. She wanted to know how Lyric got out, wanted to know what the hell he was doing with her. She also wanted Macon to return and all of them together.
“How did you get out, and why did you leave?” she fired at Lyric.
“It was my fault… I knocked on the door,” said the clerk, with bowed head.
Erin hadn’t heard any knock.
“Come on, we have to be ready for Daddy. He’s going to be here soon, and we need to be ready. You know what he’s like when he’s angry.”
Erin pressed the towel down secure, took a step inside her room, and wanted this clerk to know she was protected.
“Oh yes, the jogger,” the clerk said. “He will love the beach; maybe take a swim, see some fisherman. You go with him next time, and you’ll have hours of fun.”
Erin wondered if she was exposed and gave him a quick, friendly, get-the-hell-out-of-my-way smile, then shut the door behind her before making sure it was locked. The clicking sound of the door gave her relief.
“Lyric, you never do that. You never open the door. You never leave this room—you don’t do that!”
She was eye to eye with her daughter, face to face, pleading with anger and love and the strange mix she’d felt toward all her loved ones and things over the last six years. The fear she might lose them gave her words a quaking undertone.
Then she heard the wrapping of knuckles at the door and the sounds of keys from the hallway. The man was still there.
Chapter Three
The hotel lobby was a shining bright star in contrast to the dark, quiet parking-lot spaces surrounding it. Macon walked quickly out of the Comfort Lodge lobby and immediately took some strides in the cool, refreshing darkness, winding down the snake-like curves of the road.
His heart pumping and legs moving felt good. The muscles had been sculpted into a suit of armor, and they felt so fresh and ready, but his brain still couldn’t grasp what the hell he was thinking by signing up for a marathon. Marathon. He said it over and over in his brain, and each time it gained more mystery, became more menacing.
He fought these fears, doubts, and nerves by shooting faster down the road. The sound of his plastic soles pounding the pavement couldn’t be heard over the jamming of his headphones, at this moment blaring some Ramones, which even to his taste was a bit too early. Too early for Ramones, now a dad, watching Dora the Explorer, wanting to be a husband—damn, he never thought he would identify with that list.
Tomorrow morning. What the hell did I get myself into? he wondered, and just to confirm he was in marathon shape, he started to pick up the pace. His blood became warmer, chemicals began to stir, and his soul started to slip back into a womb-like warmness flowing through him.
Too fast, way too fast, and he knew it. Erin had warned him on the flight that he needed to hold back, that any fast runs now would waste his marathon. Ah, but he was stronger than she knew, and really this whole race was just to confirm this—just a test.
He was strong, he was worthy, and he could be a father to his child Lyric.
&nb
sp; So tomorrow, when he finished the race, he was going to get down on one knee and propose to Erin. As long as he finished, there was no way she could say no. This whole thing was just a test of his discipline, right… just a test of resiliency to see if he was strong enough to be part of their lives forever? This may have been unspoken, but it was loud and clear.
His fingers felt at his pocket. The ring was zipped tight inside where it had remained since the flight. It was wrapped in tissue, then in tin foil, and finally in a plastic baggy in case of rain. He never let too much time pass without checking on it to avoid a panic. Through security at the airport, or randomly while driving, it was always at his side. It had cost him six weeks of paychecks, and the fear of losing it would remain until the moment he proposed. It was his secret, but just one of his secrets. Some weren’t so romantic, so full of fresh surprise.
She brings out the best in me, and if I don’t finish the 26.2-mile run tomorrow, or if she says no when I propose, or if there is any hesitation or delay…
His legs were gaining strength with each stride, and he imagined that seeing the vast ocean in front of him would give him such a sweet rush. He drew a picture of this in his head—white foam of crashing waves sparkling in the morning light—and imagined inking this image onto someone’s back. They’d have tranquility, where earth meets sea, as part of them forever.
Businesses on the side of the road emerged in the dark. Storage buildings, closed-down machine shops with signs out front looking for drill operators, CNC and CMM programmers lined the street. The road couldn’t be more boring, and he was ready to forget about the path to the sea until the shape of a little-league baseball diamond was outlined in the dark, and beyond that the darker outline of some woods appeared next to the highway.
He ventured past the tiny bench that served as a dugout and ran through the dirt infield, wanting to run the bases in a sprint, but instead ventured into the outfield, trampled on uncared-for grass, and then back to the infield dirt of another baseball diamond, this one a bit smaller and more broken-up than the first.
But there was no trail, no trail anywhere. Dammit! Dammit, he thought.
He took his headphones off as if it would help him to see better, then stopped and scanned the area. Brush had perhaps overgrown the trail. The whoosh of infrequent cars on the highway was all that could be heard, until the small jingle of chains, like a collar, rang in his ear. A figure with a three-headed beast—no, three dogs, big, black and anxious, pulled out of the dark and were heading to the road.
“Excuse me. Excuse me,” Macon said, approaching carefully and slowly. In this darkness, anything could be mistaken for a threat, and he stopped well short of the three dogs leering at him with sharp, disciplined eyes.
The man returned eye contact; a gaunt, thin man who weighed less than his dogs and was probably really their servant. The canine guardians were all black, with patches of identical brown that went from their jowls down their underbellies.
“Good Morning,” Macon said in pleasant greeting. “Is there a trail around here? There’s supposed to be a trail that goes to the beach.”
“Hmmmm, you jog, eh? You a jogger? There’s a park other side of the highway. Or you can jog around here just as well.” He gummed his words through a toothless mouth.
“Yeah, but there’s supposed to be a trail; know anything about that?”
“You got dogs?”
“Um, no—I mean, yeah I used to.”
“How ’bout right about now, you got dogs?”
Macon shook his head. This was awkward.
“Never you mind. Just jog then.”
The man pointed toward where the brush met the highway.
“You have to go under the bridge, by the highway. Then it’s a straight shot right on down. But be careful, you hear, jogger.”
“Sure thing. Thanks so much.”
Jogger. No runner likes to hear the word jogger. Maybe he used to be a jogger, but now he was a marathoner.
Macon took one last look at the man and realized he couldn’t see his other arm. Yes, the man only had one arm. The other was gone, or at least much of it. I know a man who gave up his left arm to be ambidextrous, flipped through his mind more quickly than it should have.
Macon watched the man venture to the backstop of the baseball diamond and sit down. He saw the spark of a flame, noticed a small fire burning, and then realized a makeshift tent had been attached to one of the fence poles. This was the man’s home.
Don’t need a dog, he thought in response to the camping homeless man. I’m a fucking pronghorn and can outrun anything or kick its ass if it tries to run me down.
This wasn’t always the case. He first started running with Erin out of love, out of lust, and out of wanting to be on the inside of everything about her. The sweat that glistened off her sunburned back, the determined look in her eye, and the aura of confidence radiating, all of this set his life on fire. Macon wanted to burn with all of it, so he learned to love running too.
He felt Erin’s blood boiling underneath when he had first given her the tattoos.
Every day he went to her after their first meeting seemed strange, but she dug him unlike any other, and they wallowed in their weirdness all night. She’d wake up at 4:00 a.m. to go on her runs and then come home to drink shakes for breakfast that seemed more like potions. Macon stayed back and slept.
No, he never ran before he met her. He just did some marital arts for a period. But he could respect her passion and dedication, which gave her that sweet, biting edge. She was in such strong shape when the baby came and her muscles contracted so snug and tight around Lyric, yet still, she was unable to give birth natural and they had to perform a C-section to bring the child into the world. He loved Erin with aggressiveness and had a primitive craving to survive by being with her, and with what she had been through, it was exactly what she needed.
It was a feeling he hadn’t felt since he worked with Tency, his tattooing mentor. Tency was like an exotic species who didn’t have a breed name yet. Her artwork was masterful, and she’d forgotten more about tattooing than he would ever know. She taught him how to work the autoclave, how to make and apply stencils, how to shade and make gradients with black and greys, and she watched as he made flash art with the Prismacolor pencils. Her precise work made him feel like a prison scratcher, not an artist, but it challenged him to look within.
She saw something inside of him; never said what, but took the time to teach him the line work of new school tattoos, to make depth and boldness with varying line weights, what needles to use for tight lines, for shading, and how to not scar the hell out of your canvass. He remembered the look on her face when he showed her the pig skin he’d retrieved from a butcher shop to practice on.
Finding his style and his place, it started with Tency. She was a guide, but not a pilot and became his blood sister, not a lover. Tency would always be a part of him; she was the one who put the main piece of work on his back, the monkey tattoo, with its googly eyes and Mona Lisa smile. The monkey face was mixed with clown-like foolishness and insidious aggression. A hint of evil mischief gleamed in its carefree eye. It was a new style, cartoon-like tattoo with googly eyes that went against Tency’s usual black and greys, her realism, or even her emerging intricate Japanese-style work. Macon had seen her ink finely scripted dragons and tigers onto high-profile business men who then walked into their board meetings with their suit-covered tats nowhere in sight, but subliminally threatening business partners as if they were now predators hunting prey.
Her clients weren’t just bringing the dragons and tigers into the fight—they were also bringing the spirit of Tency.
“Whoever inks you stays stuck in your fabric forever,” she had told him.
Maybe that’s why he nearly killed for her.
Chapter Four
Chocolate muffins and orange juice swirled in Lyric’s belly. Her heart thumped, and she was scared for what she did wrong. She wanted to go back to bed, wa
nted to cuddle up in the big, white sheets and watch Dora or go wrestle with her dad. But now she did something wrong, so she stared up at her mom, waited, and listened.
“What do you want?” her mommy yelled through the hotel room door and made quick peeps through the peephole. Lyric waited but didn’t hear an answer. She tried to stay as still as she could and wait for Mom to be okay and not angry. Her mom was mad at first, but now she seemed scared and mad. She kept looking around at the walls, down at her feet, and then back to squint one eye through the peephole at the hotel clerk man.
“We’re busy,” her mom said again loudly and then slid the chain into the door thingy.
Lyric didn’t know if she should go play, start cleaning her mess, or do something else to make mom happy. She wanted to talk but was so scared. She was in trouble—that was for sure, but after her mom put an arm around her shoulders and pulled her into the towel, it felt better. The towel was white and fluffy, and she wrapped herself in it as much as she could, pressing herself against Mom’s belly. She could feel her mom’s lungs breathing fast, and her whole body’s skin was beating from her heart. She looked at the mermaid painted on her mommy’s belly and pretended the mermaid could swim inside her momma’s tummy if she wanted to. Lyric wanted all the way inside too.
“Okay, okay, Ms. Facinelli,” the hotel man yelled from the other side of the door. Lyric felt her mom exhale a sigh. “I have some zoo coupons for you. Please stop by before you go.”
Her mom had one hand clutched on the chain. She looked through the peephole for a really long time, and Lyric pressed into her skin. The clammy, wet flesh stuck to her, and she wanted to stay there instead of being in trouble again.
“Go sit down, please. Sit on the bed. You sit there, and don’t move.”
Her mom pointed with her whole arm toward the bed. Lyric dashed there and sat with her back against the headboard. The room wasn’t so fun then. Her mom was there a minute later draped in towels. Lyric looked at her, trying to read her face; she clutched a pillow and hugged it tight.
On the Lips of Children Page 3
