Sketch - Laramie Briscoe Page 0,2
a cover up, and then you’ve blocked out five hours for some dude named Arson?”
I laugh. “He’s a friend of mine, in an MC. It’s a memorial piece, and it’s going to take a while.”
“Is Arson his real name?”
“If he told you his real name, he’d have to kill you, Jackie.” I level her with a look that makes her take a step back.
“Some of the guys you know, Sketch, I wonder how you’ve made it this far in life without dying.”
I shake my head at her as I make my way out of the shop towards Starbucks before turning around and yelling at her over my shoulder. “Text me your drink order.”
As soon as I’m out of the shop, I think about the last six months and wonder how the fuck I made it this far without dying too.
Chapter Two
SKETCH
My back is killing me, but it’s a good kind of hurt. The kind of hurt that comes after I’ve spent hours bent over someone’s piece of skin, memorializing them forever. I’m the only one Arson allows to touch his skin, and that makes me proud. The tattoo I’m giving him I worked hard to create, and there’s a sense of satisfaction that it gives me. Nothing else compares.
When I’m in the zone, I can go hours and not need a break, but the clients may, and I try to respect that.
“You need a break, my man?”
Arson stretches out his arm and turns his eyes to admire the ink I’ve put on it. No color for this guy; it’s straight up old-school dark lines and gray shading. “Could go for a smoke.” He motions outside.
That means he wants me to follow him. Reaching over into my station, I grab out my hard pack of Marlboros and beat the box on the palm of my hand as we walk out onto the shop’s patio area.
“How’s it goin’?” Arson asks as he lights up and hands me his lighter.
He and I have talked here and there. He knows what’s been going on in my personal life. Taking a drag off my cigarette after I light it, I blow the smoke away from him. “Living, man…just living.”
“Has Nina tried to get in touch with you?”
It jars me to hear her name being spoken. Hardly anybody has talked to me about it. It’s like a forbidden topic no one wants to bring up. “I got a text from her today asking if she could come get some of her stuff,” I tell him, trying to keep the hurt out of my voice.
Who am I kidding? It still hurts. Every day I wake up trying to move on from where I was that night she left me in the driveway, but it’s hard.
“That’s rough,” Arson echoes my thoughts. “Are you gonna try to talk to her?”
That’s the question I keep asking myself. “I don’t know. I figure I’ll play it by ear. It’s not like I can tell her about my day, she hates this place.”
“She doesn’t,” he argues. “I’ve seen her here with you before, dude. She may not love it like you do, but she’s proud of you for havin’ it. I could see that in her face.”
“When she left, she blamed it on the time I spent at this goddamn shop. Her exact words.”
“Anger and hurt makes people lash out; sometimes they say things they don’t mean.”
“I’ve known Nina for fourteen years—since freshman year of high school. We’ve been together just as long. When she says something, she means it.” And I know that without a doubt.
Arson looks like he wants to say more, but instead he flicks his cigarette out of his hand and squashes it with the toe of his boot. “Then let’s get this over with so you can go do whatever it is you need to.”
*
To say I’m not looking forward to this is an understatement. Nina and I haven’t seen each other in four months. In these four months, I’ve taken a hard look at my life and made changes. Those changes are for me, though; I don’t expect her to notice them. One night, with a bottle of Jack, I made an idiot out of myself at her new apartment building and realized I had to make some changes in my life. It was time.
Gone is the fast food I was so quick to grab when I was on my way home to her; gone are the lazy nights in front of Netflix. Three nights a