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smackenzie"Ok. Thanks." He hangs up and I go back to my client, who seems to have gotten a grip on himself. He's not quite as pale as he was. I touch his arm to calm him before washing my hands and putting on fresh gloves and getting back to work.
He doesn't pass out, much to my relief, but he clearly wasn't expecting it to hurt as much as it does. I have some sympathy - the inner arm is a painful place to get a tattoo, and this is his first one - but not much. It's supposed to hurt.
I give him the aftercare lecture when I'm done, tape gauze over his tattoo, take his money, and send him on his way.
"I'm going to get Kay," I tell Maya. "I'll be back in an hour."
"An hour?" she repeats.
"He's at the bus station in Winslow. Wish me luck finding it."
"Don't you have a map in your car?"
"I have three."
"Then you don't need luck."
Goldfish appear next to her head, swimming in circles before vanishing. I don't know if I want these weird little visions to last or not. They're much less disruptive than I would have thought, but maybe that's because they don't even last a minute.
"I'll need luck," I say. I suddenly remember what Kay said about something coming, that he could feel it in the back of his throat, that he didn't know if it was someone or something, that it was just a feeling but it made him worry. I don't want to tempt his fate but there's always the chance that there's some low-level trickster magic abroad, and it will get me hopelessly lost in Winslow.
It doesn't, and I find the bus station pretty quickly. Fortunately Winslow isn't a big town. Kay is waiting for me one of the plastic benches, reading a magazine. He looks up when I walk in, and seems almost painfully relieved to see me.
"Thank you," he says, before I can even open my mouth.
"I was just glad to hear from you," I answer. "I have to take you back to the studio, is that ok? Unless you want to give me directions to your house."
"I didn't tell anyone I was leaving. I just... went. I need to apologize - I bet they're pissed at me - but I can't yet. I need to, I don't know, I need to think of what to say."
"Two of your friends came to the studio to tell me you were missing. Alene and Ben. She was definitely pissed."
"Yeah, that sounds like Alene."
We walk out of the bus station and to my car, and I'm unlocking the door when Kay grabs my arm.
"Sparrow," he says, a strange urgency in his voice. "Thank you. I mean it." Then he hugs me tightly. He's stronger than he looks, or just more relieved. I can feel his hands clenching in my shirt, pulling the cotton. His breath is hot on my shoulder.
We just stand there in the tiny parking lot, holding on to each other, and finally I say "I'll take you back to the studio, and when I'm done for the day I'll take you to my house and you can tell me what happened."
"Ok," he mumbles into my shoulder. I feel a surge of affection for him, which lasts as long as it takes for me to drive back to Suzume Tattoos, with a quick pit stop for a fried chicken sandwich and a strawberry shake for Kay and a Coke for me, and install him in the waiting area at the front of the shop, and get back to work. My next client has shown up early but seems to be entertaining himself, so I leave him to it while I wipe down my station (I cleaned up before I went to get Kay, but you never know what might have happened in the meantime), set up my equipment, make a stencil, and arrange everything on the rolling table I use.
"I didn't realize I was so early," the client tells me apologetically, when I come up front to get him. "I don't know why I thought there'd be traffic."
"I had to run an errand," I say, "otherwise I would've been here and we could've gotten started sooner. Don't worry about it."
He wants a tattoo similar to Craig's, my technomancer client with the electronic diagrams and lines of code on his back, but smaller and with different meanings. This client's wife is a technomancer-in-training - he admits he doesn't think he has any magic, and until a couple of years ago she didn't think she did, either - and she wrote up the code he wants inked on his chest. He's a pretty hairy guy, so shaving the area where his tattoo is going takes a while. We're supposed to ask that particularly hairy clients, or clients who are getting large tattoos in generally hairy places, shave themselves before they come in, to save time, but Maya is the only one who ever remembers. I don't mind, but I also like having as much control as possible over the entire process of getting tattooed, including all the prep. Fortunately the client thinks it's funny that he's having his chest shaved.
"I've done technomancer tattoos for other people," I say as I ink. "What does yours mean?"
"It's supposed to protect me from clogged arteries and heart attacks," he explains. "That's what my wife told me. Most of the men in my family suffer from high cholesterol and heart problems. I take care of myself - eat right, exercise, the whole thing - but my wife worries." He tries to shrug, as much as he can while I've got a tattoo machine needling a design into the skin near his heart. "She's gotten to the point in her training where she can write protective code. I don't know if I trust that kind of thing - she's working on computers and car navigation systems and things, not people - so she had her instructors look at it to make sure she wasn't going to do something to me. It checked out, so here I am."
I wish I could remember Craig's last name - he's just "Craig the technomancer" to me - so I could ask this guy if his wife knows him. "Does she have any ink?" I ask instead.
"My wife? No. Her mother would hit the ceiling. Mom's not too happy I'm here."
"She doesn't like tattoos?"
"She doesn't like anything people do to their bodies. She just thinks god gave you one body and you should keep it in the same condition you got it. She only just relented on pierced ears, and that was because my wife and I pierced our daughter's ears and she looks beautiful. I'd show you a picture, but." He gestures to the tattoo machine with one hand.
"That's ok. I'll just have to imagine her." The client himself is dark-skinned, dark-haired, and good-looking - if I had to guess, I'd say Middle Eastern descent, maybe North African - and if his wife is attractive as he is, they no doubt made a very pretty baby. I don't generally love earrings on babies, but if the kid is cute enough, I try not to hold it against the parents. I've been told enough times by people with children that until I have them myself, I can't judge other people for the way they raise theirs.
When my sister says that, I just tell her that her kids seem to be pretty well-behaved and if I was going to judge anything, it would be the way she and her husband tend to have their lives all planned out for them already. "Just wait," I said to her the last time. "Neither one of them is going to do what you want. They'll rebel in high school or they'll wait until college, but they'll push back against your program."
"We can't all be you, Erin," was her response, and I sighed at her inability to call me the name I prefer to be called, rolled my eyes, and changed the subject.
I've been asking people to call me Sparrow since I was twelve. I've gone so far as to legally change my name, and my sister and mother categorically refuse to use it. Sometimes Grandma Dolly calls me Erin, but I let it slide because she's old and I know she's not doing it on purpose, and if she is, she's just trying to make a point. My Aunt Donnie, my mother's sister, picked up on it right away, but I always wondered if that was partly to spite my mother. There's a lot of sister spite rolling around in my family. At least my sister and I have gotten to the point where we almost actually like each other. We don't understand each other at all, and we can't be in the same place at the same time for longer than a day without metaphorically pulling each other's hair, but we get along better than a lot of the other sisters in the family. Most of it is concentrated on my mother's side, but my father does have three cousins, all sisters, who haven't spoken to each other for going on twenty years. No one knows why any more, they just know that they can invite all three to the same function, but that doesn't mean they'll all come.
"Do you just have one kid?" I ask my client.
"Yeah. We had her right about when my wife realized she had an aptitude for technomancy, and we've been waiting to have another until after she's finished more of her training. There's something about pregnancy hormones and the magic she's working with that makes her nervous. I don't know what she's worried about - if we have a boy, chances are he'll suffer from high cholesterol and heart issues like the rest of the men in my family, and there's not a lot we can do about that. But if she doesn't want another baby yet, we're not going to have another baby yet. I can wait."
"I bet she appreciates that."
"Yeah, she does. A lot. So I can get tattooed for her, because who knows what will happen. Maybe Aisha will be our only kid. I wouldn't be sorry."
I'm amazed at how easily I can read his love for his daughter on his face and in his voice. A sprinkling of little golden-red stars appears around his head, sparkles for ten seconds, and blinks out. I have to ask Kay about that later, but right now I can tell that all it means is that my client really, really loves his daughter, and really, really loves being a father.
Suzume Tattoos sees a fair number of clients who want memorial tattoos or what I think of as personal-devotional (rather than faith-based devotional) tattoos, the kind people get to show their love and affection for partners or children or parents or siblings or grandparents. The "HI" behind my ear stands for "Harbin Ingraham", my grandpa Harb, because I personally don't want people's faces on my skin, but I wanted to honor him in some way. When Grandma Dolly goes, I'll probably add "DI" next to it, for her. But a lot of folks do want portrait ink, and I'm more than happy to help someone memorialize a loved one or permanently declare their feelings. My favorite of those clients are the tough-looking men who turn to mush when they get tattoos for their children, although in my experience some of the biggest marshmallows going are big, tough, biker-looking dudes, the kind of men who can stop an altercation just by glaring, because they look like they could snap your neck without thinking twice, and starting something with them would only end in your pain.
This client looks more like a white-collar office worker who sees the inside of a gym maybe twice a week than a tough guy, but all the same, the expression on his face when he talks about his daughter makes me smile. All kids should be so lucky as to have that kind of parent.
words: 2011
total words: 28,951
He doesn't pass out, much to my relief, but he clearly wasn't expecting it to hurt as much as it does. I have some sympathy - the inner arm is a painful place to get a tattoo, and this is his first one - but not much. It's supposed to hurt.
I give him the aftercare lecture when I'm done, tape gauze over his tattoo, take his money, and send him on his way.
"I'm going to get Kay," I tell Maya. "I'll be back in an hour."
"An hour?" she repeats.
"He's at the bus station in Winslow. Wish me luck finding it."
"Don't you have a map in your car?"
"I have three."
"Then you don't need luck."
Goldfish appear next to her head, swimming in circles before vanishing. I don't know if I want these weird little visions to last or not. They're much less disruptive than I would have thought, but maybe that's because they don't even last a minute.
"I'll need luck," I say. I suddenly remember what Kay said about something coming, that he could feel it in the back of his throat, that he didn't know if it was someone or something, that it was just a feeling but it made him worry. I don't want to tempt his fate but there's always the chance that there's some low-level trickster magic abroad, and it will get me hopelessly lost in Winslow.
It doesn't, and I find the bus station pretty quickly. Fortunately Winslow isn't a big town. Kay is waiting for me one of the plastic benches, reading a magazine. He looks up when I walk in, and seems almost painfully relieved to see me.
"Thank you," he says, before I can even open my mouth.
"I was just glad to hear from you," I answer. "I have to take you back to the studio, is that ok? Unless you want to give me directions to your house."
"I didn't tell anyone I was leaving. I just... went. I need to apologize - I bet they're pissed at me - but I can't yet. I need to, I don't know, I need to think of what to say."
"Two of your friends came to the studio to tell me you were missing. Alene and Ben. She was definitely pissed."
"Yeah, that sounds like Alene."
We walk out of the bus station and to my car, and I'm unlocking the door when Kay grabs my arm.
"Sparrow," he says, a strange urgency in his voice. "Thank you. I mean it." Then he hugs me tightly. He's stronger than he looks, or just more relieved. I can feel his hands clenching in my shirt, pulling the cotton. His breath is hot on my shoulder.
We just stand there in the tiny parking lot, holding on to each other, and finally I say "I'll take you back to the studio, and when I'm done for the day I'll take you to my house and you can tell me what happened."
"Ok," he mumbles into my shoulder. I feel a surge of affection for him, which lasts as long as it takes for me to drive back to Suzume Tattoos, with a quick pit stop for a fried chicken sandwich and a strawberry shake for Kay and a Coke for me, and install him in the waiting area at the front of the shop, and get back to work. My next client has shown up early but seems to be entertaining himself, so I leave him to it while I wipe down my station (I cleaned up before I went to get Kay, but you never know what might have happened in the meantime), set up my equipment, make a stencil, and arrange everything on the rolling table I use.
"I didn't realize I was so early," the client tells me apologetically, when I come up front to get him. "I don't know why I thought there'd be traffic."
"I had to run an errand," I say, "otherwise I would've been here and we could've gotten started sooner. Don't worry about it."
He wants a tattoo similar to Craig's, my technomancer client with the electronic diagrams and lines of code on his back, but smaller and with different meanings. This client's wife is a technomancer-in-training - he admits he doesn't think he has any magic, and until a couple of years ago she didn't think she did, either - and she wrote up the code he wants inked on his chest. He's a pretty hairy guy, so shaving the area where his tattoo is going takes a while. We're supposed to ask that particularly hairy clients, or clients who are getting large tattoos in generally hairy places, shave themselves before they come in, to save time, but Maya is the only one who ever remembers. I don't mind, but I also like having as much control as possible over the entire process of getting tattooed, including all the prep. Fortunately the client thinks it's funny that he's having his chest shaved.
"I've done technomancer tattoos for other people," I say as I ink. "What does yours mean?"
"It's supposed to protect me from clogged arteries and heart attacks," he explains. "That's what my wife told me. Most of the men in my family suffer from high cholesterol and heart problems. I take care of myself - eat right, exercise, the whole thing - but my wife worries." He tries to shrug, as much as he can while I've got a tattoo machine needling a design into the skin near his heart. "She's gotten to the point in her training where she can write protective code. I don't know if I trust that kind of thing - she's working on computers and car navigation systems and things, not people - so she had her instructors look at it to make sure she wasn't going to do something to me. It checked out, so here I am."
I wish I could remember Craig's last name - he's just "Craig the technomancer" to me - so I could ask this guy if his wife knows him. "Does she have any ink?" I ask instead.
"My wife? No. Her mother would hit the ceiling. Mom's not too happy I'm here."
"She doesn't like tattoos?"
"She doesn't like anything people do to their bodies. She just thinks god gave you one body and you should keep it in the same condition you got it. She only just relented on pierced ears, and that was because my wife and I pierced our daughter's ears and she looks beautiful. I'd show you a picture, but." He gestures to the tattoo machine with one hand.
"That's ok. I'll just have to imagine her." The client himself is dark-skinned, dark-haired, and good-looking - if I had to guess, I'd say Middle Eastern descent, maybe North African - and if his wife is attractive as he is, they no doubt made a very pretty baby. I don't generally love earrings on babies, but if the kid is cute enough, I try not to hold it against the parents. I've been told enough times by people with children that until I have them myself, I can't judge other people for the way they raise theirs.
When my sister says that, I just tell her that her kids seem to be pretty well-behaved and if I was going to judge anything, it would be the way she and her husband tend to have their lives all planned out for them already. "Just wait," I said to her the last time. "Neither one of them is going to do what you want. They'll rebel in high school or they'll wait until college, but they'll push back against your program."
"We can't all be you, Erin," was her response, and I sighed at her inability to call me the name I prefer to be called, rolled my eyes, and changed the subject.
I've been asking people to call me Sparrow since I was twelve. I've gone so far as to legally change my name, and my sister and mother categorically refuse to use it. Sometimes Grandma Dolly calls me Erin, but I let it slide because she's old and I know she's not doing it on purpose, and if she is, she's just trying to make a point. My Aunt Donnie, my mother's sister, picked up on it right away, but I always wondered if that was partly to spite my mother. There's a lot of sister spite rolling around in my family. At least my sister and I have gotten to the point where we almost actually like each other. We don't understand each other at all, and we can't be in the same place at the same time for longer than a day without metaphorically pulling each other's hair, but we get along better than a lot of the other sisters in the family. Most of it is concentrated on my mother's side, but my father does have three cousins, all sisters, who haven't spoken to each other for going on twenty years. No one knows why any more, they just know that they can invite all three to the same function, but that doesn't mean they'll all come.
"Do you just have one kid?" I ask my client.
"Yeah. We had her right about when my wife realized she had an aptitude for technomancy, and we've been waiting to have another until after she's finished more of her training. There's something about pregnancy hormones and the magic she's working with that makes her nervous. I don't know what she's worried about - if we have a boy, chances are he'll suffer from high cholesterol and heart issues like the rest of the men in my family, and there's not a lot we can do about that. But if she doesn't want another baby yet, we're not going to have another baby yet. I can wait."
"I bet she appreciates that."
"Yeah, she does. A lot. So I can get tattooed for her, because who knows what will happen. Maybe Aisha will be our only kid. I wouldn't be sorry."
I'm amazed at how easily I can read his love for his daughter on his face and in his voice. A sprinkling of little golden-red stars appears around his head, sparkles for ten seconds, and blinks out. I have to ask Kay about that later, but right now I can tell that all it means is that my client really, really loves his daughter, and really, really loves being a father.
Suzume Tattoos sees a fair number of clients who want memorial tattoos or what I think of as personal-devotional (rather than faith-based devotional) tattoos, the kind people get to show their love and affection for partners or children or parents or siblings or grandparents. The "HI" behind my ear stands for "Harbin Ingraham", my grandpa Harb, because I personally don't want people's faces on my skin, but I wanted to honor him in some way. When Grandma Dolly goes, I'll probably add "DI" next to it, for her. But a lot of folks do want portrait ink, and I'm more than happy to help someone memorialize a loved one or permanently declare their feelings. My favorite of those clients are the tough-looking men who turn to mush when they get tattoos for their children, although in my experience some of the biggest marshmallows going are big, tough, biker-looking dudes, the kind of men who can stop an altercation just by glaring, because they look like they could snap your neck without thinking twice, and starting something with them would only end in your pain.
This client looks more like a white-collar office worker who sees the inside of a gym maybe twice a week than a tough guy, but all the same, the expression on his face when he talks about his daughter makes me smile. All kids should be so lucky as to have that kind of parent.
words: 2011
total words: 28,951
