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smackenzieI know he's not in school but I don't know where he works, if he works. But I do know that he's quiet and sweet and does whatever chores I ask of him.
Right now that chore is cleaning up the kitchen - Maya made a mess when she had lunch - and for me, taking care of another walk-in, a middle-aged man who needs a cover-up. He takes off his suit jacket and button-down to show me the badly-designed and badly-tattooed black and white Jesus on the cross on his upper arm.
"That's terrible," I say, before I can stop myself.
"I know," he sighs. "The perils of letting your half-trained friend get near you with a tattoo machine. I was young and religious and stupid."
"What do you want over it?"
"A dragon." He gets dressed again, still talking as he buttons up his shirt and pulls on his jacket. "A classical fantasy dragon. Green. Shaped like this." He makes a kind of teardrop shape with his hands. So he doesn't want an intimidating flying dragon, then.
"Breathing flame?" I ask. "Clutching a treasure chest?"
"A little flame would be good," he tells me. "I don't know about the treasure."
"I can draw up a couple of designs, with and without gold. I'm sorry, I need to see your arm again so I know what I'm working with."
He sheds his clothes a second time. I have to get a sheet of tracing paper from the office, so I can trace a vague outline of his current bad tattoo as a guide for the covering design. He puts his shirt back on, I ask for more details about the tattoo he wants, and we set up an appointment. By now Maya has started on one of the college girls, who picked a flash design out of one of the binders we keep for that very purpose. The guy with the bad Jesus tattoo has to leave, and I head back to Maya's station to see how she's doing.
The girl in her chair is very pointedly not watching Maya work. She and her friend have picked out a stylized sun design and apparently decided to get it on their inner arms, which is not one of the less painful places to get tattooed. The girl's friend is holding her other hand and talking to her about some band I've never heard of, how cute the boys in the band are, how good their music is, how much fun their concert is going to be.
"You're doing just fine," Maya says.
"Are you almost done?" the girl asks.
"Fifteen more minutes."
"It looks good," I tell her, walking behind Maya so I can casually touch the girl's shoulder. I never know when that will work, but I always try anyway. The girl's expression doesn't change, and neither does her breathing, so I have to assume I didn't do anything. Oh well. That happens.
I have a client soon, a technomancer with a large back piece involving spells written out in binary code and worked into the intricate lines and angles that make his back look like a giant electrical diagram. Technomancy is not something I know a lot about, and while I have to trust that the code he wants me to tattoo on him is accurate for what he wants it to do, I sometimes get a little nervous inking magic in a language I don't know.
But this will be his second appointment, and nothing has happened so far, so I can only assume I'm doing it right.
I take a quick peek in the kitchen, which is clean now, although Kay isn't in it. He could have gone out the back door, or he could be in the office or the bathroom or upstairs. But I don't think he'd leave without saying goodbye. If nothing else, he's generally a polite boy.
I fetch my technomancer client's design from the office, and there he is, sitting in my desk chair, scrolling through pictures of landscapes on my computer.
words: 648
total words: 4078
Right now that chore is cleaning up the kitchen - Maya made a mess when she had lunch - and for me, taking care of another walk-in, a middle-aged man who needs a cover-up. He takes off his suit jacket and button-down to show me the badly-designed and badly-tattooed black and white Jesus on the cross on his upper arm.
"That's terrible," I say, before I can stop myself.
"I know," he sighs. "The perils of letting your half-trained friend get near you with a tattoo machine. I was young and religious and stupid."
"What do you want over it?"
"A dragon." He gets dressed again, still talking as he buttons up his shirt and pulls on his jacket. "A classical fantasy dragon. Green. Shaped like this." He makes a kind of teardrop shape with his hands. So he doesn't want an intimidating flying dragon, then.
"Breathing flame?" I ask. "Clutching a treasure chest?"
"A little flame would be good," he tells me. "I don't know about the treasure."
"I can draw up a couple of designs, with and without gold. I'm sorry, I need to see your arm again so I know what I'm working with."
He sheds his clothes a second time. I have to get a sheet of tracing paper from the office, so I can trace a vague outline of his current bad tattoo as a guide for the covering design. He puts his shirt back on, I ask for more details about the tattoo he wants, and we set up an appointment. By now Maya has started on one of the college girls, who picked a flash design out of one of the binders we keep for that very purpose. The guy with the bad Jesus tattoo has to leave, and I head back to Maya's station to see how she's doing.
The girl in her chair is very pointedly not watching Maya work. She and her friend have picked out a stylized sun design and apparently decided to get it on their inner arms, which is not one of the less painful places to get tattooed. The girl's friend is holding her other hand and talking to her about some band I've never heard of, how cute the boys in the band are, how good their music is, how much fun their concert is going to be.
"You're doing just fine," Maya says.
"Are you almost done?" the girl asks.
"Fifteen more minutes."
"It looks good," I tell her, walking behind Maya so I can casually touch the girl's shoulder. I never know when that will work, but I always try anyway. The girl's expression doesn't change, and neither does her breathing, so I have to assume I didn't do anything. Oh well. That happens.
I have a client soon, a technomancer with a large back piece involving spells written out in binary code and worked into the intricate lines and angles that make his back look like a giant electrical diagram. Technomancy is not something I know a lot about, and while I have to trust that the code he wants me to tattoo on him is accurate for what he wants it to do, I sometimes get a little nervous inking magic in a language I don't know.
But this will be his second appointment, and nothing has happened so far, so I can only assume I'm doing it right.
I take a quick peek in the kitchen, which is clean now, although Kay isn't in it. He could have gone out the back door, or he could be in the office or the bathroom or upstairs. But I don't think he'd leave without saying goodbye. If nothing else, he's generally a polite boy.
I fetch my technomancer client's design from the office, and there he is, sitting in my desk chair, scrolling through pictures of landscapes on my computer.
words: 648
total words: 4078
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no subject
Date: 2015-11-04 10:53 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2015-11-05 01:36 am (UTC)