A Perfect Canvas

by Kevin Adkisson



  A Perfect Canvas

  Copyright 2010 Kevin Adkisson

  I owe my undying gratitude to Jennifer “Chase” Adkisson, Meredith Bernstein, Stephen Garrison, Erin Jasmer, and Sharon Sala. Your advice, suggestions, and hours of brainstorming with me made this a better book. Without your support, it wouldn’t even exist. I truly appreciate everything, especially for putting up with me for as long as you did.

  Also, special thanks to OKRWA and the UCO MFA program for their support as well as Amy Chase for the cover artwork. You did an amazing job.

  For no one.

  Chapter 1

  Steele stood at the base of a red rock cliff amidst a row of beautiful Bradford pear trees. It was two in the morning and there was just enough moonlight for him to see his surroundings. No wind. He wore a Jason style hockey mask and held a machete in his hand, waiting.

  Curiosity played behind Steele’s eyes as the stretch limo pulled up the drive. The car carried the newest rock sensation, the speed metal band Sinister. Widely rumored to be the most hedonistic band ever, Steele wondered if the rumors would hold.

  Cody Slade climbed out of the car wearing leather and chains and dragging a large chested bleached blonde by a leash. Drinking Jack Daniels straight from the bottle, he was shorter than Steele expected, but he was all sinew and taut muscle. Moonlight glistened off his jet-black hair, the tips of which had been dyed a dark red to match his famous red tinted eyes.

  Three band mates loudly piled out behind Cody: Austin Young, Ryan Hartmann, and Jared Chimes. Girls, one for each, piled out with them and Steele smelled the pot on them even though he stood up wind. He also smelled their fear. He had that effect on people.

  A tattooist, though not your typical tattooist, Steele was the best with a long list of clients dying to be inked by him. When Steele was young he inked a horned devil on the rock Prince of Darkness and it set his career on fire. After that, he inked multiple celebrities and rock stars, won innumerable tattoo awards, and gained a cult like following.

  He did work on Rob Zombie and Marilyn Manson. It was rumored Angelina Jolie bore ink from his gun. Same with Johnny Depp. The bands Wolfpack and Deadroad were reportedly on his waiting list.

  Cody Slade, the lead singer of Sinister, jumped to the front of Steele’s list by making a deal. Large amounts of cash only moved you so far up. To get to the very top you had to be willing to make sacrifices.

  Steele slid his hockey mask up and grinned at Cody. “You ready to give up your soul?”

  Cody struck a drunken rock pose with one hand on his hip and the other around his girl. “If you want a piece you’ll have to get in line.”

  Steele pursed his lips. Bitch boy. Cody had never struggled a single day in his life. He was the son of rocker royalty, and Sinister’s success was his expected inheritance. He had no concept of clawing your way to the top, earning respect.

  “Heard you were a huge slasher film fan,” Cody said.

  “What can I say? I like screams and blood.”

  Steele turned and pointed the machete at a steel door in the cliff face. Carved demons, skulls, and dragons peered back. The red rock made the carvings look as if they bled. The select few who had visited Steele’s private studio had quickly nicknamed it The Tomb. He preferred to think of it as home.

  “You ever watch Halloween or Nightmare on Elm Street while high on pot?” Cody asked. “That shit is funny as hell.”

  No. No, he hadn’t. Nor had he performed on stage while high. He respected the art of filmmaking just as he respected all the arts. He would not dilute his artistic expression with the use of drugs.

  Cody opened the door to the studio, and Steele watched the band and their women saunter through. The walls and floor were black on black and massive stainless steel pillars held up the unusually high ceiling. Around the studio loomed pieces of Steele’s collection of torture devices.

  One band member murmured, “Cool,” another, “What the fuck?” All stopped to take a look at their new surroundings. He watched them look.

  A rack commissioned for the torture of heretics in the sixteenth century stood across the room from a Judas Chair: a stool with a steel pyramid mounted on top. A chick with pink hair froze and backed away from the chair, her stoned eyes widened with shock and revulsion he could see from across the room despite her heavily made up face. The thought of her sitting on it made Steele smile.

  Jared Chimes, the bass player, made as if to lie down on the rack: a rectangular wooden frame with large rollers at each end used for pulling the joints of elbows and ankles, shoulders and knees apart.

  “How cool is this?” he said. “Could you imagine being pulled apart on one of these?”

  Steele closed the door behind them, be careful what you wish for Jared, and led the group to the stainless steel table mounted in the middle of the room where he put down his machete and took off his mask. Nearby he kept a display of various other torture devices: a replica of a Spanish boot made for him by a client, thumbscrews, a Scold’s bridle. He motioned Cody towards a barber-style chair, and the singer sat down and took off his shirt. Steele pumped a pedal at the base of the chair, raising it. Hundreds of lit candles lined an eye level shelf encircling the room.

  “I only work by candle light,” Steele explained. “Did you get much sleep?”

  “Sleep? What the hell is that?”

  “You did eat something?”

  “Does this count?” Cody asked, lifting up the bottle of Jack.

  What a smart ass. He’d need his buddy Jack today. That was for sure.

  Steele rolled a small cart next to Cody and wiped down his neck. Then he cleaned it with an antiseptic soap. Next, he tore open a packet of autoclave tubing, removed the needles and tube. Fastening the tube into the machine, he pressed the foot pedal and adjusted the rheostat to get the correct speed.

  The deal Cody made to move to the front of the line was a simple one. He’d agreed to allow Steele to do whatever design he wanted, wherever he wanted. The design Steele had prepared for Cody was of a sinister Succubus demon with long fangs, enormous tits, and ethereal robes. He would ink one on each side of Cody’s neck and throat. Twins. Mirrored images sucking at his neck, sucking on his soul. He’d warned Cody that inking on certain parts of the body could be painful, that the tattoos he’d designed could take as many as eight hours to complete. Cody had laughed him off.

  He shouldn’t have laughed him off.

  “Are you ready?” Steele asked.

  “Hell, yes,” Cody said, his tone smug, but Steele saw the uncertainness in his eyes.

  He liked seeing the shimmering fear. The way his eyes opened ever so slightly farther than normal. The tiny twitch in his cheek.

  Cody took another swig from the bottle of Jack. The bleached blonde on the leash got down on all fours at his feet, like a dog. Band members stumbled around the studio stopping here and there to look at one of the hundreds of photos and dozens of pieces of artwork hanging on the walls. No one asked about the photos. No one asked about the long staircase appearing to lead straight up some twenty feet or so into the ceiling.

  Steele smeared petroleum jelly along the area and stretched his skin taut. He dipped the gun into a tiny cup of black ink. The second the needles touched Cody’s skin, the singer’s arms clamped to the chair.

  Steele worked quickly. He could instantly tell Cody was not going to be the kind of client who could sit still for very long, that he was all show and no courage.

  “Stay still,” Steele said, grabbing him by the top of the head and digging the needles in a little deeper to emphasize his point.

  Cody froze, the needles holding his full attention, and Steele slowly began to feel a
rhythm coming on. It didn’t take long for the rhythm to lull him into a zone. Like any other artist creating a masterpiece, the world fell away from him leaving nothing but the work, the materials, skin and ink. Art.

  Cody squirmed and moaned quietly. The movement and sound threatened to break Steele’s artistic veil.

  He glanced up at Cody, saw the tears streaming down his face, saw the pleading in his eyes. He was working hard, deep breathing, gritting his teeth, white knuckling the arms of the chair. He didn’t want his fellow band members to hear or see his difficulty with the pain. It was clear he didn’t want them to think of him as weak.

  “Want to take a break?” Steele asked.

  “No. I’m cool.”

  Steele eased the needles off long enough to give Cody a glimmer of hope that things were going to get easier, less painful, then he dug the needles in deep again.

  “We could use a topical anesthetic,” Steele said, loud enough for the other band members to hear. Soon they were all standing around the chair looking at Cody and making fun of him for being such a pussy.

  “I broke my arm in two places, compound fracture,” Cody spit, trying to defend himself. “And it didn’t feel nothing like this.”

  Austin, the lead guitarist, laughed. “Pain’s part of the point, man. You can’t very well brag to the chicks if it doesn’t hurt.”

  “Yeah, it’s like getting shot and being able to show off the wound,” Ryan, the drummer, said. “It wouldn’t mean a damn if it didn’t hurt.”

  Full tattoo sleeves ran the length of both of Ryan’s arms. To Steele, the work looked flat and unoriginal. A bad imitation of Paul Booth’s living dead work.

  Cody chewed his lip and fought back the tears as best he could, and it wasn’t long before his band mates and their groupies became bored with jeering him. They looked around the studio for places to crash. They sprawled on the floor. Drank their booze. Necked.

  Having outlined the Succubus and its twin, Steele rose and told Cody it was time for him to take a break. Cody immediately lit a cigarette.

  “There’s no smoking in here,” Steele said. “Strong smells have a negative impact on my work.”

  Cody nodded and shuffled to the door of the studio leaving the leashed bleached blonde behind.

  The singer’s hands shook when he brought the cigarette up to his lips for a puff. He took short drags smoking the cigarette slowly and occasionally looking back nervously at the chair where Steele stood waiting for him. He stared out the door into the night his eyes searching.

  He was trying to formulate what kind of excuse would allow him to leave, come back and finish the tattoo later, without his friends. He was trying to calculate how much face he might lose with them by wimping out and suggesting coming back later.

  Cody raised his hand to his neck, pink with the abrasive aggravation of the tattoo gun’s needles, but didn’t touch it.

  Steele watched Cody’s face turn from hope to hopelessness, his eyes moved from searching the night to staring at his shoes. He watched this with amusement. He knew there could be no coming back later without losing face long before Cody came to the same conclusion. He’d seen this scene play out a hundred times. Occasionally someone actually turned wuss, but the pressure was strong, too strong for even cowards to fight.

  Cody stomped out his cigarette and trudged back to the chair. He found his bottle of Jack, took several long, hard pulls off of it. Then he laughed with nervous fear and sat back in the chair. There was nowhere else to go.

  “Give it to me,” he said.

  Steele was happy to oblige.

  The buzz of the tattoo gun vibrating back to life caused Cody’s shoulders to stiffen.

  Steele tilted Cody’s head to one side and quickly began shading. Within minutes Cody’s tears fell freely.

  Loud snores rose from various spots in the studio. Steele preferred working without guests and without noise as they distracted him, pulled him out of his artistic zone, but he made an exception for rock stars. They were the kind of people who simply had to make noise, even while they slept.

  As Steele finished the last of the shading on the first Succubus and prepared to dress it, Cody suddenly stood up.

  “I’m going to be sick,” he said. Then he ran to the sink and vomited.

  Steele watched, waited, laughed inside.

  Cody splashed water on his face, wiped his mouth, and wobbled back to the chair. When he sat down, Steele handed him a mirror to look at the first tattoo. Seeing the completed work, Cody actually perked up, flashed Steele a thumbs up.

  Rock star strength outside. Epitome of weakness inside.

  Steele spread a thin layer of Vaseline over the fresh tattoo, covered it in plastic wrap, and taped it down. Then he turned to start shading the second.

  The singer was dotted with sweat. His teeth were clenched. His fists were clenched. Even his eyes were clenched. Knowing Cody wouldn’t be able to take much more, Steele worked quickly and completed the second Succubus in just over two hours. Then he signed the work.

  Cody let out an enormous sigh. Then he stumbled out of the chair and nearly fell before catching himself on the table.

  Steele lightly kicked each band member awake, told them it was morning, asked them to help Cody to the limo. Austin offered Cody a hand, but Cody shoved him away.

  “Get the fuck off me. I’m fine.”

  He yanked the leashed bleached blonde towards him, leaned on her for support.

  At the door to the Tomb, Cody looked back at Steele with humble eyes.

  “Thanks, man,” he said. “I really owe you for this. If you ever need anything just let me know.”

  Then he whispered to the leashed bleached blonde, and she turned away from Cody. She took a few ginger steps toward Steele. She pulled a small CD case and photo of the band, both autographed, from a pocket on her skirt and handed them to Steele.

  He smiled. He found it amusing Cody thought he liked their shitty music based solely on the knowledge he’d inked so many artists who performed it. Still, Steele took Cody’s offerings. The singer had earned that much respect.

  Cody Slade arrived a bragger. About his experiences. His toughness. A man who’d never suffered. Steele saw it in his red tinted eyes. It disgusted him. But rites of passage transform people. And as hard as it might have been for others to see it, Steele knew Cody had been transformed, strengthened. He saw it in his eyes. He’d suffered, was leaving a different person than the one who arrived.

  He would become far greater than what he was.

  Steele and his art had that effect on people. They transformed rock stars. They transformed real estate agents. They transformed everyone they touched.