His eyes are focused on my other tattoos. I already have four. Obviously he really checked my driver’s license to verify age. I’m barely eighteen.
He sits on a rolling stool and turns away, muttering in Spanish. He’s a big guy, brawny, and is wearing a white wife-beater with holey faded jeans. His face is all hard lines, bushy eyebrows, and thick lips. On the bridge of his nose is a pair of thick black glasses, and over the tank is a tan buttoned sweater.
There’s only so much you can tell about a person from the way they look. Clothes can be deceiving, as can the way a person does their hair, or even the makeup they wear. One thing I’ve learned though: If the eyes are the windows to the soul, then shoes are the official gatekeepers. Tony is wearing black flip-flops.
It’s like he can’t decide between nerd and hottie. The weird thing is the look works on him. He has a tattoo of a dragon along the back of his neck. It’s breathing fire, one eye staring at me. And I can almost hear the condemnation. The words Tony can’t say because it’s none of his business.
Plastic tears away from plastic, and then there’s a snap of surgical gloves. More tearing plastic, and he’s pulling out gauze. He squirts rubbing alcohol on it. The smell tickles my nose. It momentarily drowns out the stench of old cigars and Chinese food from the restaurant next door.
“You want it here?” He presses one gloved finger just below my belly button, in the place we’ve already discussed.
I look down anyway, to verify. “Yep, that’s right.”
He rambles something in Spanish as he wipes the area with the wet gauze. It’s freezing, and my body automatically tenses before I allow myself to relax. It’s coming. The bracing, all consuming pain. Soon it’ll hurt. It’ll hurt so bad that after a while it’ll stop hurting, and I’ll be numb. I’ll be numb everywhere.
Hurry. Hurry. Hurry, my mind screams.
He nods, and his eyes rake over my other tattoos.
The first is a quote inked in calligraphy: I love because I am loved. It sits just below my bra on the left side of my torso. The second is in the same place under my right breast. More writing, this time in cursive, but the words are less sweet. I am nothing. The third is below it, on my ribcage. The kanji symbol for hate. I’m hoping he doesn’t know what the character means, but something tells me he does. The fourth tattoo starts at my left hip. My pants cover part of it. Five stars. The first is the largest. They get smaller as they go up, past my waist, the final star resting on a rib.
The tattoo Tony is doing today will be fully colored. The first tattoo I’m getting with color. It’ll be an iris flower—a symbol of faith—with thorn-covered vines curling on either side.
More plastic ripping and then he brings over a razor. “I’d walk you through what I’m doing, but it looks like you know the drill.” His words are filled with accusation. He doesn’t approve.
“I do.” I raise an eyebrow, waiting for him to spill his thoughts. He wants to, I can tell. He wants to ask me why someone so young would already have so many tattoos. Why I would subject myself to such permanence at such a young age?
Instead he grumbles words I don’t understand as he runs the disposable pink razor over my skin. When he’s finished, he tosses it in the trash and wipes the area clean with more icy cold gauze.
The alcohol dries quickly, disappears. I wish my pain could vanish that easily, but it can’t. It won’t.
Tony takes the paper transfer of the iris drawing he’s created on his computer and places it on my skin. Then, just like a press on tattoo, he rubs it on. When he pulls away the paper, I glance at the flower.
He looks at me. “Is that gonna work? Last chance.”
“It looks great,” I say and lean back, allowing my head to rest against the back of the chair. I could tell him to put it anywhere, as long as it’s on my body quickly. Because the truth is I don’t care about placement. For me, tattoos aren’t about art. Inking my body isn’t my form of expression. It’s about pain. They are my medication. When it’s over I’ll be able to breathe