The Tattoo

by Chris Mckinney

  I looked down at him. I bent down and put my mouth an inch from his ear. “I’m going to my car now to get something,” I said, “I’ll be back to get the Blazer I left outside. You just sit here and do what you always do. Nothing. If you touch that phone while I’m gone, you’ll die. You touch that fuckin’ phone I’ll fuckin’ kill you. Then after I kill you, I’ll find your fuckin’ family and kill all of them, too. After that, I’ll go straight to the airport, straight to fuckin’ Korea, and I’ll kill any fuckin’ relatives you happen to have there, too. You touch that mother-fuckin’ phone, even put your fuckin’ finger on it, and I’ll fuck your world for life. You understand, mother-fucker?”

  He nodded. I saw sweat on the side of his head, I saw his wet sideburns.

  “You do nothing, which you like to do anyway, I won’t fuckin’ do shit to you. After tonight, I’m out of here anyway. But you do one thing that fucks me, I’ll never disappear. I’ll be the last thing anyone who knows you will ever fuckin’ see.”

  He nodded again. Satisfied, I walked out toward the garage. My words to the security guard had pumped my blood up again, and this was good because I was desperate to keep my rage high. I walked up to my Porsche and suddenly realized I didn’t have my keys. I yelled, “Fuck!” and put my hand through the passenger side window. The alarm blared, echoing in the covered garage. I quickly opened the door, opened the glove compartment, and took out my gun. Suddenly I found myself looking up at my rearview mirror and I saw the Bronze Star hanging. I laughed and grabbed it. It was then that I saw my right hand. The blood was running down my fingers, running across my green, SYN tattoo. The SYN was soon covered in my own blood. I took off my shirt and wrapped it around my hand. I put the Bronze Star in my pocket and walked out of the garage, leaving the blaring alarm behind me.

  When I got back to the Blazer, the faint sound of my alarm had finally stopped. I looked through the window and saw the security guard still sitting in his chair, not daring to look up. I started the engine and made my way to Club Mirage.

  When I got there, parking was a bitch. Suddenly I had a good idea. I parked the Blazer illegally across the street, knowing it would get towed. I wouldn’t have to worry about it after that. I paused before I crossed the street. I heard sirens in the distance. I thought about my plan, and I realized I didn’t have one. I tried to let my rage ebb from my mind so I would have room in there to think. Okay, I thought, first I get Claude or find out where she is. Second, I kill that fuckin’ Mama-san, and anyone else who’s with her. Third, I... Ah, fuck it, I thought, liberating my mind, I’ll just let what happens happen.

  I walked across the street shirtless, feeling the gun and the Bronze Star I had stuffed in my pocket. I took my blood-soaked shirt off my hand and grabbed my gun. I wrapped both my hand and the gun with the shirt and walked toward the entrance. The bouncers, my ex-coworkers, put their arms out to indicate that I was to stop, but I walked right past them and went through the red velvet curtain.

  Prince’s Let’s Go Crazy was playing. The first dancer I saw was Iris and she was busy squirting milk from her breasts at eager customers. I looked at one customer, a young local guy wearing a white Gotcha t-shirt, wiping the milk off his forehead with his fingers. He licked his fingers. I looked at his shirt and saw streaks of wet spots that looked the color of semen under the black lights. I looked back at Iris and smiled. She wasn’t smiling. She brushed her strand of white hair out of her face, stopped dancing, and looked away. She must’ve seen the shirt wrapped around my hand.

  I felt a hand wrap around my arm. It was Kaipo, one of the bouncers who followed me from the front door. I put the gun to his stomach and said, “Where’s that fuckin’ old cunt?”

  He looked at me and I knew for a second he thought about it. He looked into my eyes and practically told me he was thinking about trying to be a fucking hero. But then I think he remembered who I was. I was Ken-fuckin’-Hideyoshi, you fuckin’ with me, you fuckin’ with the best. So after that brief second, he looked down and said, “She’s in one of the party rooms.”

  When I got to the room, I opened the door and saw her sitting in between two men. I looked at them closely and recognized them as the two cops I had seen that first night when I was hired. The night of the crazy Samoan. The Portagee sat on her left, the Japanee sat on her right. Both were out of uniform. I walked through and closed the door with my foot, never taking my eyes off them. I looked at Mama-san and couldn’t read any signs of surprise or fear on her face. I looked at the two cops and noticed that they seemed unworried and confident. I lifted my gun and pointed it at Mama-san. She shifted slightly. Then I heard the Portuguese cop say, “Hey, put dat fuckin’ gun down.”

  I ignored him. “Where da fuck is Claudia?”

  “She go home,” Mama-san said.

  “Where?”

  “Home, to your apartment.”

  I looked at the Portagee cop. “You hea dat?” he said, “Now get da fuck outta hea, befo’ we trow your Jap ass in jail.”

  I looked at his Japanese partner. He didn’t say anything. I felt my arm getting tired from holding up the gun. The tiredness crept from my arm and started spreading to the rest of my body. I looked at Mama-san again. I began realizing that the paint on her face prevented me from seeing the real woman. It was like a kabuki mask of anger.

  “You fuck wit’ me again,” I said, “I no give a shit if you fuckin’ Claude’s madda. I goin’ fuckin’ kill you. She no stay home, I coming right back ova hea, and I goin’ fuckin’ kill you. So you tink about what you telling me. Cause if I come back, I no kea if you get fuckin’ fifty pigs ova hea. I fuckin’ kill ‘um all.”

  She smiled. “You fuckin’ dirty Japanee. Tink you can just take my daughter.”

  The Portagee cop jumped off his seat. “I goin’ tell you one more time, you get da fuck outta hea you fuckin’ Jap or I goin’ fuckin’ bury your madda-fuckin’ ass!”

  I looked at him and smiled. “You fuckin’ fat fuck, try right now. I no fuckin’ kea, I fuckin’ kill you right now.” I pointed the gun at him. I wanted to shoot him. But I was so tired. I wondered if I even had the strength to pull the trigger.

  Suddenly the Japanese cop stood up. “Nuff arready. No worry, she stay at your apartment. But I goin’ tell you one ting. When you get to her, both of you betta run. Mama-san disowns both of you, so you betta get out of town. Cause, you get Mama-san on your ass arready, and now you get da cops against you, too. Not only you goin’ lose, but your girlfriend might lose, too.”

  I looked at Mama-san before I left. Her eyes did not avoid me. She hated me and I wanted to kill her. Fuck, I wanted to kill her so bad, but I was so tired. I watched as she sat there, quiet and still. It was like nothing could upset her. She was giving up her only child, and still she sat there and just ate it. Even though I hated her and wanted to kill her, I still felt an enormous amount of respect for her. This lady saw some even worse shit then me, I thought. I asked her, “Where’s my fuckin’ money?”

  “You pay for Craudia, you pay for my nephew’s life,” she said.

  I wondered which one of the Koreans was her nephew, whether he was the bald one, Mr. Yellow Teeth, or the other one. The knowledge that I had killed Claudia’s cousin made me even more tired. I lowered my arm, turned my back to them and opened the door. I felt someone behind me rushing forward, heard the steps, but I didn’t turn around. I heard another body crash into the one that had charged me. Japs sticking together. Without looking back, I again closed the door with the heel of my foot, but this time I was walking out and not in.

  When I got back to the Marco Polo by cab, I saw Claudia sitting on the curb in front of the building. She was wearing a clean white t-shirt and denim shorts. Suddenly my tiredness evaporated, and I was excited. After I paid the Vietnamese cab driver and turned to the curb, I noticed that she still sat on the curb, unmoved. I sighed and sat down beside her. With her head down she looked at the shirt still wrapped around my hand and touched it. I looked down, and totall
y forgot that I had never let go of the gun. She looked at her fingers and rubbed her thumb and index finger together. Then she wiped her fingers on her denim shorts. I looked at her feet, which were planted on the asphalt, and noticed that she was barefoot. I put my unsoiled hand on her leg. She leaned her head against my naked shoulder.

  I looked out to the street and watched the cars whiz by. It was probably past two in the morning, but cars were always on Kapiolani Boulevard. As each car passed, I suppressed a sudden urge to laugh. “They don’t know,” I said to myself, “they don’t have a fuckin’ clue.”

  As I sat there watching the cars, Claudia climbed on top of me. She sat on my lap facing me, her arms and legs wrapped around me. She squeezed me hard and I squeezed back. I became aware that our bodies began rocking. The movement began to soothe me. I wondered whether I was rocking her, or she me, or whether we were rocking each other.

  We were woken up the next morning by the sun shining through our bedroom window, and when my eyes opened, I felt Claudia’s arms around me. I felt the stickiness which was squeezed together where our flesh touched each other. I looked over to her and saw that her eyes were already open, for how long I didn’t know. I looked away and felt the throbbing in my hand. We had bandaged it the night before and I saw that the now reddish-purple dried blood had failed to penetrate completely through the white gauze.

  I sat up. She let go. “What time is it?” I asked.

  She sat up. “About eleven.”

  I stood and walked toward the bathroom. I turned on the water in the shower and stepped inside thinking about the night before, wishing that I could tell myself it was a dream. But I knew it was real, it felt real, and if I had any doubt, the throbbing of my hand, the burning of my forearm, combined with the pain the water was now causing, told me it was definitely real. I began to peel my bandage off slowly. I’d learned at an early age that when dressing sticks to a wound, it is better to wet the area first, let the dried blood soak up the water, then the adhesive of blood would dilute. After my hand and bandage were completely wet, I peeled off the last layer of covering. I slowly clenched my fist and was glad to feel that I hadn’t broken it. I looked down at my knuckles and saw two big cuts, cuts which probably required stitches. I looked at the burn on my forearm and saw that a bubble had formed. When I popped the bubble, a clear liquid ran down my arm. A wrinkled layer of dark gray skin remained. More scars, I thought, more scars. I ran the water over my hand and, after a while, the pain began to numb.

  Claudia entered the bathroom and stepped behind me in the shower. She picked up a bar of soap and rubbed the bar into a wash cloth. She began to wash my back. “So, what do we do now?” she asked.

  I thought about this for a moment. I knew we had to get out of town. I thought about other places we could live on the island and suddenly I began to feel tired again. Without turning around, I said, “I don’t know, but we gotta get out of town. It’s not safe for us here.”

  I felt her scrub the small of my back. “I know. We gotta get out of here. I was thinking, maybe we should get really far away and start over. You know, no family, but our own. What about the mainland?”

  I cringed. There was no way I was going to the fucking mainland. Fucking wall-to-wall haoles there, the rat race, a world filled with people I couldn’t relate to. I turned around, grabbing the soap and cloth away from her. I told her to turn around and began washing her back. “C’mon Claude, you know I couldn’t survive up there. Fuck, up there they expect their Asians to be docile. How many haole asses would I have to kick before I got any respect up there?”

  Without turning around, she said, “Well, I don’t know what else to do. I mean, at least up there I could do a PhD or something. And we’d be far away from all of this. To me it seems like the only option.”

  I put an extra coat of soap on her shoulders.“I don’t know. For me, I’d rather we stay in Hawai‘i. Here, I’m somebody; here, I’m respected. Up there, I’m just a Jap. Besides, I don’t have the money anymore to send you to school. And what kind of job would I get there? I don’t have a degree. I’m telling you, if I go up there, they’ll make me invisible. I read about how they make people invisible up there. I’ll be invisible and I won’t like it.”

  She turned around and grabbed the soap and cloth from me. She lathered up the cloth and began scrubbing my chest. “I don’t know,” she said, “I thought maybe being invisible would be good for us for a while. Besides, what kind of job can you get here?”

  “I can get a job. Here, I know people. Up there, with the haoles, shit, they’ll treat me like a damn peasant, and give me a job to match. Treated with that kind of disrespect, I’ll probably go off like those post office guys up there do all the time.”

  “And you’re not going off here? And stop saying ‘haole,’ like it’s a bad word. Remember, I’m half haole.”

  “Yeah, but not by your mother’s choice.”

  At that I felt her suddenly scrub hard underneath my belly button. I grabbed the soap and cloth from her and said, “Hey, watch it down there.” I lathered up the cloth and began scrubbing her chest and arms.

  She tried to convince me that the mainland was the only choice, and I was determined to fight her on it. Suddenly, I came up with an idea that would kind of solve our problems. It would be a compromise, and I thought carefully before I pitched it. “Okay, this might sound a little wild, but let me finish before you say anything.” She nodded. “Okay, let’s go and stay in Ka‘a‘awa for a while. I figure we can stay with my father rent-free, we could work and save money, then as soon as we have enough, we can take the first flight to the mainland.”

  I looked at her and she frowned.“I thought you hated your father? Why would you want to go back there?”

  She was right, I still hated him. But I figured if she was so hot on the idea of going to the mainland, I’d need a good amount of money before we went. I didn’t want to scrounge up there. If I was going, I wanted at least to have some power, some assurance that they wouldn’t be able to treat me the way they’d treated my mother. Also, if Claude was going to convince me to leave, I wanted a chance to spend time in the country, so I’d have a chance to say good-bye. Besides, I was an adult and I figured there was no way my father could abuse me any more. The times I had talked to him on the phone, he seemed to speak to me with respect. Suddenly the idea sounded really good to me. I figured, what could the old man do to me now? I was grown up. And if he did do anything, it would give me a chance to do what I’d wanted to do for years. I’d beat his fucking ass. Then I started thinking about Koa, and how much I missed seeing him around. Yeah, I began thinking, yeah, let’s go to Ka‘a‘awa.

  While scrubbing her stomach I said, “Listen, if we go to the mainland, there’s no guarantee we can get jobs. We need jobs. We need the medical. How else are we going to pay to have this baby? I figure I can work with my father in construction. Get a job immediately. It’s bus’ ass, but good money, and the baby will be taken care of. I figure we stay until the baby can travel. Make money, then bam! We get off this rock.”

  She stopped my scrubbing hands with hers. “Your mind is set then?” she asked.

  I nodded.

  “Well, promise me you’ll stay out of trouble when we’re down there. Promise me that nothing will happen between you and your father. Promise me that we won’t get stuck there.”

  I shrugged my shoulders. “Yeah, yeah, I promise. Don’t worry, there’s no way I’ll let us get stuck there. I don’t want to be stuck there.”

  And I meant it. I didn’t want to be stuck there, I just wanted to spend time there so I could kiss the Windward side good-bye forever. So we washed the rest of each other’s body in almost silence. We only heard the streams of water strike the tub below. It was a good quiet for me. I thought about going back over the Koolaus and began feeling anxious. I wondered what Koa and Kahala were up to, I wondered what my father and the rest of the boyz, like Freddie, were up to. We were going over the mountains, going
to my territory. Mama-san could not reach me there, not with her lackeys, not even with her town cops. If she tried, her soldiers would get stomped. Her kingdom ended at the foot of the mountains, and beyond this she had no jurisdiction. We’d be safe there, I thought, there was no way she could touch us.

  As I scrubbed between Claudia’s toes, I suddenly realized that she hadn’t asked me about last night. I was glad. I began to realize why my father and grandfather had never told me what I wanted to hear about war, about killing. You just don’t feel like talking about that stuff. It’s ugly and boastful. You tell people that you’ve killed and you start feeling like a criminal even if you were innocent. It was great of Claude not to ask. And as I scrubbed the last of her toes, the love I felt for her was even more powerful. I’d do anything for her.

  One day later, we had everything packed and loaded into my new Nissan Pathfinder. I had traded in my Porsche to get some extra money since I had lost what was hidden in my books. In fact I’d sold those books, too, because since that night with the Koreans, I had really lost my desire to read. I think I got like two hundred dollars for over a hundred books at Jelly’s. Evidently, they weren’t worth shit. Anyway, Claude and I were packed to go and, ironically, I was about to travel down the Pali with nine thousand dollars in my pocket.

  So the black Pathfinder was packed and ready to go. I was anxious to leave. I was surprised how easy it was to tell my father that I wanted to come back. He seemed enthusiastic about it and guaranteed that he’d get me a job. When I told him that he’d be a grandfather, he sounded happy.

  I looked through our things. It didn’t look like we’d left anything behind. I even brought Musashi with me. Against Claude’s wishes, I had picked up the crumpled print and tried to smooth it out. It was permanently wrinkled, but I had him reframed anyway. I didn’t know where I was going to put him, if I was going to hang him up at all. I knew my father would’ve probably liked the print if it wasn’t wrinkled, but because it was, I didn’t think it would fly with him to hang it over the swords or something. I stepped back from the Pathfinder and looked to see if everything appeared secure. On the roof sat our queen-sized bed and two longboards. I checked the rope. I looked toward the apartment and saw Claudia walking into the revolving door.