by A W Hartoin
“Come back here so I can kill you!” I yelled over the roof of the car.
Stevie looked at me totally bewildered. “I didn’t do nothing.”
“I will get a gun and shoot you if you say that again!”
There was a loud slap on the hood of the car and we looked over to see the guard standing there with her hands on her hips. Even in my fury, I could see she’d expected this and was ready. “I can’t have that kinda talk now.”
“Have you seen that?” I was still yelling. I couldn’t stop.
She nodded. “I’ve seen it.”
“What?” Stevie asked, still bewildered.
“You have a swastika on your head!” I yelled.
“Huh?”
The guard shook her head slightly and sighed. “It takes all kinds.”
“Of idiots,” I yelled.
“Hey!” yelled Stevie. “Who you calling an idiot?”
“You’ve got a swastika tattooed on your head!”
Stevie’s forehead puckered into a frown. “A what?”
“A swastika. A Nazi Swastika. On your head.”
“Nah.” Then he chuckled. “I just got the club tat.”
“The club tat is a swastika.”
He looked up to the sky and thought about it. “Oh, yeah?”
“Yeah, Stevie,” I yelled. “You let someone put that obscenity on your head. Permanently.”
“I didn’t know.”
“It’s your job to know what some white supremacist douchebag is tattooing on your head!”
“Calm down. I’ll just grow out my hair.”
I gripped the top of the car for support. “When? Today? Before your Jewish parents see it?”
The guard whistled. “Stevie Stevie Stevie.”
“I didn’t mean nothing by it,” said Stevie.
“That’s the problem!” I yelled. “You never mean anything by anything, but you still do it. Your mother. What am I going to say to Olivia?”
“Mom won’t care.”
“Yes, she will and your father. This’ll kill your father. Are you trying to kill Big Steve?” I asked. “Maybe you want him to kill you. Is that it? Is that the plan?”
“It’s not that bad.” Stevie looked like it might just be dawning on him that he could be in trouble. He looked at the guard with raised eyebrows.
“You’ve got a huge problem,” she said. “Whatever this woman tells you to do you better do it.”
“Yeah?”
“Oh, yeah.”
I looked at that swastika and whipped the poofball hat right off my head. “Put this on.”
“It’s a girlie hat,” protested Stevie.
I marched around the car, grabbed him by the shoulders, and faced him toward the guard. She slapped the hood again and said, “What did I just say?”
Stevie pulled on my hat and I shoved him in the car with a boot to the butt for good measure. I slammed the door and stomped over to the driver’s side. Murder was on my mind and it must’ve shown.
“Miss Watts, you aren’t going to take him out and shoot him, are you?” she asked.
“Call me Mercy and probably not. I’m sorry. I didn’t ask your name.”
She smiled and pulled open her parka so I could see her name tag. “Officer James, but Stevie knows me as Noreen.”
“Thanks,” I said. “You may have saved his life.”
“I thought we’d be having a problem, but I admit I was glad to see you instead of his father or yours,” said Noreen.
“That would’ve been bad,” I said, taking a breath. “You’re very calm about this.”
“Same shit different day. It’s not unusual.”
“Stevie has got to be unusual.”
“Yeah, well, they usually know what’s on their own heads, but Stevie, he’s not typical in a lot of ways.” Noreen gestured to the prison. “There’s a lot of innocent men in there but not him. He owned it from day one.”
“Only ’cause he’s too stupid to deny it,” I said.
“That and he is who he is and he’s not ashamed.”
“He should be. I’m ashamed of him.”
“For what it’s worth, I don’t think he had any clue about that ink or the so-called gang that gave it to him.”
“That’s the problem,” I said. “He’s always been like that.”
A look of consternation passed over Noreen’s face.
“What?” I asked.
“Well, I’m not supposed to say this or even know it, but…”
“But…?” I asked.
“It’s confidential, you understand, and you didn’t hear anything from me.”
Ah, crap.
“What is it?”
“I think he’s got a diagnosis.”
“Diagnosis? For what? He’s sick?”
“From the therapist. We offer therapy and counseling to our inmates. We are trying to rehabilitate them and it helps.”
People always surprised me. Nasty seemed to come out of nowhere, but so did kindness.
“Do you think Stevie will tell me about it?” I asked.
“He seemed to like therapy and if he remembers, you’d be the one he’d tell,” said Noreen.
“Me?”
“He’s got great affection for you.”
I leaned over and looked through the windshield. Stevie grinned and waved at me. “I don’t understand that.”
“It is what it is,” said Noreen. “I’ve dealt with enough nasty bastards to appreciate the good-hearted idiots.”
“You’re not upset about the tattoo?”
“Mercy, I’ve seen it all in there five times over. Stevie Warnock’s idiot ink comes as no great surprise. He’s lucky they didn’t put it on his forehead.”
“You don’t get paid enough,” I said.
“Amen.” Noreen gave me a wave and strolled back to the prison. I was sorry to see her go.
I turned down a back alley in the Central West End of St. Louis and Stevie leaned forward squinting. “Where’s Macy’s?”
“We’re not going to Macy’s yet,” I said, squeezing my mother’s car between a dumpster and recycling cans. “This is first.”
“How come we’re parking back here?”
“We’re near Hawthorne Avenue and I’m not taking any chances.”
Stevie frowned and asked, “Chances of what?”
“Somebody seeing my mother’s car at a tattoo shop. Nobody is going to know about this. Nobody.”
“Who’s getting a tattoo?”
“You.”
He did a fist pump. “Yes. I’ve been thinking about getting a sleeve. What do you think about my mom’s favorite flower?”
I put my forehead on the steering wheel. “A tattoo to cover up that abomination on the back of your head.”
“Oh. That’s not as much fun,” said Stevie. “And the first one hurt bad.”
“Good,” I said.
“You’re mean to me.”
“I’m saving you from certain death or would you like me to drive to my parent’s house and let them get a load of your latest bad decision?” I asked.
“Mercy?” Stevie’s voice was soft and a little pleading.
“Yeah?”
“I don’t have any money.”
“Don’t worry about it.” I got out and Stevie obediently followed me to the front of Black Heart Ink. I’d texted the owner, Charming Velázquez, before we left the prison parking lot. If anyone could be understanding of Stevie, it was her.
I’d known Charming forever. We went to school together. She was the only daughter of a pair of nice but uptight radiologists. She was supposed to go to medical school and make up the fourth generation of Velázquez doctors along with her brothers. Charming went a different way and I heard her mom was still taking anti-depressants over it. Being the family outlier gave Charming a soft spot for those of us that didn’t quite fit and Stevie certainly qualified. Plus, she wasn’t easily spooked. She did penis piercing, for crying out loud. I did catheters in my norma
l life as a nurse, but piercing was beyond the pale for me.
The door dinged when I opened it and Charming’s small but snazzy studio appeared empty, but I could hear chatting from behind the black and chrome partition.
“Be right out!” called Charming from somewhere in the depths of her studio. It was a great location and Charming was doing well for herself, but that wasn’t helping her with her mother.
I went over to look at the books. Something to cover up a swastika wasn’t going to be easy. Flowers? Something geometric? I found a cool tribal pattern that might work and said, “What do you think of this?”
No answer.
I turned around to see Stevie hovering by the door, still wearing my poofball hat and wringing his hands.
“What are you doing?” I asked.
“Nothin’.”
“Come over here and look at this.”
“Do you know them?” he asked.
“Who?”
“The shop people.”
“I do. I texted her about your situation. I told you that.”
He looked confused. “Did you?”
“I did.”
“What’d she say?”
I shrugged. “Come over.”
“Was she mad, too?” he asked, and my frozen solid heart melted just a tad.
“She’s not mad at you, Stevie. She doesn’t know you,” I said.
He was unconvinced and stayed by the door. Charming popped out from the back about three minutes later with a customer who was gingerly putting on a jacket. She greeted me, rang up the customer’s enormous bill, and chatted happily about his next section, which I gathered was quite ornate. When he turned to go, he got a load of Stevie in his prison togs, Chuck’s huge jacket, and my pink poofball and to his credit, he hesitated but then just nodded at me and then Stevie before leaving.
Charming came out from behind the counter and hugged me. We’d never been friends in high school but since then we’d formed a casual friendship. We had disappointing parents in common.
“How’s the arm?” she asked.
“Better, thanks.”
She took a look at my face. “Rash is better, too. That was wicked. Are you sure you don’t want me to do some eyeliner? I could totally give you the Marilyn cat eye.”
“’Cause that’s what I need,” I said with a laugh.
“It would look great.”
“I know, but I’m trying to blend not stand out more.”
“Girl, you’re the spitting image of Marilyn Monroe. When are you going to embrace it?” Charming asked.
“Never.”
“I give up.”
“Finally.”
We laughed and then turned to Stevie who was now pressed against the plate glass window.
“So, who do we have here?” Charming asked and she was as her name implied, charming, but Stevie looked absolutely terrified.
I waited to see what he’d do until it became clear that nothing was the answer.
“This is Stevie Warnock. He just got released this morning.”
“Don’t tell her that,” he said and then clamped his hand over his mouth.
“What is up with you?” I asked.
“Nothin’,” he said behind his hand.
Charming waved him over. “Come on. I don’t bite and I don’t give a damn about your previous incarcerations, either.”
Stevie didn’t budge and Charming shrugged. “We’ve got to get a move on. I’ve got a sleeve coming in and he’s a wrastler.”
“A what?”
“Never mind. I’ve got the time right now,” said Charming. “Just barely.”
“Give us a minute,” I said. “I’ll get him squared away.”
Charming smiled. “A minute. I’m counting.”
She went into the back and started chatting with someone. I pointed at Stevie. “What is your deal? We’ve got to fix that thing.”
“I don’t want her to see it,” said Stevie.
“She has to see it.”
“You think it’s bad and—”
“It is bad and it’s awful. How can you even question that?”
He shrugged. “I don’t know.”
“What about your family?” I marched over, grabbed Stevie and dragged him in front of a mirror. Then I whipped him around and held up a hand mirror so he could see the back of his head. There it was in black and blue. Weird, I know, but some of it was blue. Maybe the scumbag ran out of black. It wasn’t a great tattoo and only about three-fourths finished, but it was definitely a swastika. No doubt about it.
Stevie frowned. “He didn’t finish. He told me he got it done.”
“That’s what you’re worried about?” I whacked him with the mirror. “What about your family? How could you do this to them after everything they went through. I just…I can’t even.” I was yelling again and Charming ran out, took one look at Stevie’s head, and her pretty face turned to thunder.
Stevie slapped a hand over the back of his head. “Don’t look.”
“Too late,” she said.
“That’s right. It’s too late!” I yelled. “I’m done. I tried. When Big Steve kills you, don’t come crying to me.”
“He’ll forgive me. He always does,” said Stevie backing away slowly.
“Not this time. She was his mother, Stevie. Do you think he’s just going to get over that? He’s not over it. He’ll never be over it. You’ve been nothing but trouble and now this. This! Of all things. It’s an insult to your grandparents, not to mention millions of other people.”
“My grandparents?”
“Yes.” I grabbed him by the tee shirt and twisted it. “The people who fought to survive and gave you your life.”
Stevie’s eyes were wide and for once not empty. “What are you talking about?”
I shoved him away from me and Charming ran over, wrapping her arms around me.
“You know!” I yelled. “You just don’t care enough to remember.”
“I don’t know. What about them?”
Charming held me back and it’s a good thing, too. I had a foot back. I was going to start kicking. No thought went into that. I was going to start kicking the stupid out of Stevie Warnock. As far as I knew, kicking hadn’t been tried yet, and I was willing to give it a go.
“He doesn’t know, Mercy,” said Charming.
“He does!”
“I don’t!” Stevie yelled. “I don’t know anything. Nobody tells me anything about anything!”
“Tell him,” said Charming.
“Your grandmother was in the resistance during the war. She was a child, but she ended up in a concentration camp where she nearly died. But she married your grandfather who was also in a camp and they had your dad. The strain of having a child was too much for her and she died. Constanza gave her life only to have her only grandchild get a swastika on his head!”
Stevie dropped his hands. “How do you know all that?”
I took a breath and then said, “I’ve been investigating your family, trying to find out what happened to Constanza.”
“Does my dad know?”
“Of course, he knows.”
“All of it?”
“He’s known about his parents for forever. I found out about the resistance part and I told him.”
“I didn’t…” Stevie wandered over to the books and began flipping through the sketches and pictures. Charming let go of me and sat down next to him. “If you have any ideas that aren’t in the books, let me know. We can work it out.”
A huge guy with every inch of him tattooed came out of the back. “Charming? You alright out here?”
“Sure, Darius. Can you call my eleven o’clock and cancel?”
“The wrastler?”
“Yeah.”
“No problem. That guy’s a nightmare,” said Darius. “What should I tell him?”
“Family emergency.”
Darius looked the three of us over, nodded, and went into the back.
“Sorry if you
’re losing a customer,” I said.
“He’s not going anywhere. He loves my work and nobody else will put up with him. He passes out and then tries to punch me. We’ve taken to strapping him to the chair, so in a way you’ve made my day easier.”
Stevie didn’t look up. He kept flipping through pages, but I had the feeling he wasn’t seeing any of the art. “Where were they?”
“Auschwitz. Your grandfather was in the main camp and your grandmother was in a satellite camp,” I said.
“Why? What did they do?”
“They were Jews, Stevie.”
“I know, I mean in the resistance, what did they do?” he asked quietly.
“He wasn’t in it that I know of and we’re still working on how Constanza was involved.”
“Dad never told me.” Stevie looked up and his eyes were sad and had a loneliness to them that I’d never seen before. “Why didn’t he tell me?”
“Maybe it was too hard to talk about,” said Charming.
“He told Mercy.”
I sat down on the other side of him. “Actually, he didn’t. I found out through some other stuff I was working on and he confirmed it.”
“He probably thought I was too stupid to understand,” he said. “I am too stupid.”
I took his hand and said, “You don’t have a good track record, but maybe you can tell me what the therapist said.”
“Huh?”
“In prison. You saw a therapist, didn’t you?”
“How’d you know?” he asked.
“Everybody does, don’t they?” I asked.
“Not everybody. Some guys think it’s bullshit, but I liked it. Misty was nice. We talked and I felt better. I got techniques.”
“For what?”
“Concentrating and thinking about stuff. I’m supposed to keep a notebook so I can remember stuff by writing it down.” Stevie closed the book and asked, “Do you do lilies and sunflowers?”
“Sure.” Charming got up and went behind the counter. “I’ve got a special book back here.”
She brought the book out with a sketch pad and two of them went through the book and designed the most beautiful tattoo I’d ever seen. Intertwined lilies and sunflowers with a dragon peeking through the leaves and stems.
While they worked, I asked questions. Stevie, as usual, didn’t remember exactly what Misty the therapist had said. He didn’t even remember what her last name was. He did know that she thought he needed pills and he was supposed to see a doctor who could give him the pills, but he got paroled before that happened.