Ink for the Beloved

by R C Barnes

  The reason Joanie can’t do anything Saturday mornings is she is going door to door as a Jehovah’s Witness.

  I pointed out. “You know you’re going to have to miss pioneer work to actually take the SAT’s.”

  “Yeah, I know. But that’s one day as opposed to many.” Joanie was worried about her father not letting her go away to college. She had been building a strategy to satisfy his concerns about her being away and still allow her to pursue a level of independence.

  “Are you taking any SAT workshops?” she asked.

  “Nope.”

  “Why not?”

  I shrugged my shoulders. “I don’t think I need it.”

  Rueben came up behind us. His last class was in the science building, so he had a farther walk across the campus. He had also stopped at his locker since there was a lunch bag in this hand. Rueben usually brings two lunches.

  Joanie looked over at him and asked the question. “Are you taking any SAT workshops?”

  Rueben pulled a sandwich out of his lunch bag. “Don’t need to.”

  “Just listen to us talk more, Joanie,” I said. “We use SAT words all the time.”

  Rueben nodded in agreement. “We’ll pontificate for you.”

  “I think you mean discourse,” I said.

  “Verbalize?” he asked.

  “Converse,” I fired back.

  “Jabber” was his response.

  “Oh,” I laughed and clapped my hands. “One of my favorites.”

  By now, Joanie was glaring at the two of us.

  “Oh no,” Rueben said with a bogus voice of sincerity. “We’re haranguing her.”

  I turned to Joanie. “Seriously, they changed the SAT vocabulary test, so they don’t have as many obscure words.”

  Joanie scrunched up her face. “But you see, I had to think a minute before I remembered what “obscure” means.” She sighed and shook her head.

  Rueben took a bite of his sandwich. “Read the Bible more. It’s filled with obscure words,” he said while chewing.

  “I hate you guys.”

  “Whoa.” Rueben stepped back, throwing his hands in the air with mock horror. “Can you even say that?”

  Joanie’s face flooded with anger. “Don’t make fun of my religious beliefs,” she snapped.

  I gestured for Rueben to back down. Joanie was not the fiery type. In fact, she usually ignored our ribbing.

  “Hey, what is it?” I asked.

  Tears flooded the rims of Joanie’s eyes, and she quickly turned her back away from us to wipe them away with the back of her hand. She glanced around to check if anyone was watching us, but as usual, we were being ignored by the rest of the Berkeley High student population.

  “You guys can joke and laugh all you want. But you know you are going to college when you leave here.” She pointed at Rueben. “You are pretty much guaranteed admission at an Ivy League school, which means you are going to be on the other side of the country.” She then pointed at me. “And you, once you figure out what the hell you want to do, will be accepted anywhere. Anywhere.”

  I stood there saying nothing because I was pretty shocked Joanie said the word “hell.” Rueben was shocked too. He had stopped eating. Joanie continued to berate me. (Berate is an SAT word. I know, I know, I’m an asshole)

  “We all know you’re not going to stay and go to Berkeley,” she continued. “So that means you will be leaving here as well. You’re both going to leave ME.”

  “I might go to Berkeley,” I sputtered out.

  Joanie waved her hand to dismiss the thought. “I doubt it. I sincerely doubt it. You can’t wait to put miles between yourself and your mom.”

  “What do you mean?”

  Joanie faced me, square on. “Do I have to spell it out? Bess, you complain about your mother and stuff at home all the time. You’d gladly trade in Ollie’s cooking for dorm food if it meant you could be rid of the craziness your mother makes you put up with. And with the grades you get, you’re going to get a full scholarship somewhere.” She looked over at Rueben to make sure he was listening. Rueben was standing there wisely keeping his mouth shut.

  Did I really complain that much? I tried not to. I really didn’t want to complain about things around Joanie because I wanted her to feel it was okay for her to come to my house. I didn’t want to endlessly talk about the weird artists who came by and the smell of stale beer, marijuana, and patchouli. If Joanie heard about those things, or if her father heard about those things, it would be a big NO to go to the Wynter’s house. But perhaps in not complaining about the weirdos that frequented my home, I was focusing my complaints about my mother. Doesn’t everyone complain about their mother? Then I remembered Joanie didn’t have hers.

  “You’re forgetting something,” I said.

  “What?” she demanded.

  “Echo. I can’t leave because of Echo. Especially now this creep Todd is in the picture. Do you think I can trust Echo to be safe with all the people flying in and out of the house?”

  Joanie sighed and closed her eyes. “I’m sorry. I did forget.” Tears pooled back into her eyes as the anger drained from her body. We were still standing in the central courtyard of the high school, but I steered her over to a section of benches that were clear of the student traffic exiting the school. Rueben silently followed us. He had finished off his sandwich and was working on a bag of cookies.

  Joanie took a seat on the bench and pulled a tissue from the front pocket of her back bag. She dabbed at her eyes and then blew her nose. “I’m being so silly,” she said.

  I knew that wasn’t true because she had said “hell” earlier and had not copped to it yet. Joanie may not have any tattoos for me to read, but I do understand her.

  “What’s going on?” I asked.

  “I’m doing terrible in my history class, and we’ve got this paper coming up, and I have to do well if I’m going to be able to go to college.”

  That wasn’t it, but I didn’t say anything. Luckily, Rueben was following my lead and keeping quiet, except for the sounds he was making while chomping on his cookies. I waited for Joanie to continue.

  “You guys are going to leave. I know you are.” She looked in my eyes. “Even if you stick around for Echo, you’re not going to have time for me. You’ll be off doing whatever it is you decide to do, and I’ll be stuck here with no friends and no opportunity to make new ones if I don’t get out of here.”

  This sounded like the crux of it. Joanie’s father kept a short leash on her, and it wasn’t just because of the Jehovah’s Witness stuff. It was mainly because he had tragically lost his wife, and he wanted to keep his daughter close by. Mr. Whittier was scared. We all could see that. Rueben and I were Joanie’s escape. We were the only friends she had not connected to the Kingdom Hall.

  The cheerleading had been an opportunity for Joanie to build a stronger connection with the school and the community. She had used this argument to win her father over. Mr. Whittier had consented because the uniform covered her properly, and there weren’t any conflicts with the football or basketball games and the pioneering work she does as a Witness. But she didn’t really like it, and she wasn’t that great. Joanie looked cute, messing up on the field because her expressions were priceless. But the shtick was getting old, and I knew she wouldn’t be continuing with it her senior year. Joanie hadn’t made friends with any of the other girls who were cheerleaders. But they hadn’t wanted her friendship to begin with. They had wanted the cheerleading squad to look like a complete set of pretty chocolate girls.

  There was one other girl who was a Witness at Berkeley High. Joanie had pointed her out to me. I remembered her name was Candace since that was the name of the little sister I was supposed to have before Echo. Candace was a short girl with pale skin and crazy bushy hair. She wore cardigans a lot. She seemed to have one in every color. Joanie said Candace was clingy and talked too much. In fact, Joanie had sought me out as a friend early on in ninth grade to escape from Candace. J
oanie said I had a reputation for being strange. (I laughed when she said that and didn’t question it further - perhaps I should have) Joanie knew Candace would stay away if she saw Joanie hanging with me.

  It worked.

  There was a learning curve to being Joanie’s friend and understanding she was a Jehovah’s Witness. I thought for sure Joanie had chosen Rueben and me to be her personal project, and she would try to convert us. Initially, I challenged her and said crazy things about the Bible to try to provoke her. She never took the bait. She’d reply, “if you are really curious, I can look up the answer for you. I’d be happy to”.

  Joanie didn’t care we weren’t Witnesses, and she rarely brought her religious beliefs up. Joanie is goofy and kind and has a loud laugh pinpointing her location if she is on the other side of the room. When Joanie hooked up with Rueben and me, she wanted to talk about music and television shows and the things going on in the world; the regular stuff. It is easy to make fun of Jehovah’s Witnesses and the door to door thing. I think every comedy show I’ve seen has taken a crack at them. Now that I know Joanie, I cringe when I hear those jokes.

  Listening to her concerns, I think Joanie was deathly afraid we would leave Berkeley, and she would be stuck with Candace and her rainbow cardigan collection.

  “Why would you think I wouldn’t have time for you?” I asked. “We’re friends. I’ll always have time for you.”

  Joanie sniffed and dabbed her eyes again. Rueben silently stood there, slowly munching on his cookies, listening.

  “You’re smarter than me, and I’m just the dumb person you keep around to make you look good.”

  “Joanie, how could you say that? How could you think that? I have the most screwed up family life.”

  “No, you don’t,” Rueben interrupted.

  “What?” I looked at Rueben, confused. “Of course, I do.”

  “I think I might beat you with that one,” Rueben countered

  “How so?”

  “I’m the runt in a family that only values muscles. I can’t even do a proper push-up. I’m ridiculed all the time by my brothers. They don’t think the schoolwork I do is important, and they accuse me of trying to be better than them. And the fact is I AM trying to be better than them. I have no desire to bag produce in my uncle’s grocery store or be a waiter in my aunt’s restaurant. My cousins and brothers are flocking to those jobs. Timothy is becoming a plumber like our dad, but I can’t, I refuse to work with my hands. I’m the only one in my family that even desires to go to a university. I want to go to Carnegie Mellon, and no one in my family can even spell it. They don’t even know where it is.”

  Both Joanie and I were staring at Rueben, who rarely delivered tirades on this level.

  “You’re right,” I said. “That sucks. But I don’t know if it beats a crazy tattoo lady.”

  “Or a father that watches over you like a hawk and constantly sends text messages asking you where you are…”

  “At least you have a father…”

  “At least you have a mother…”

  “Ladies, ladies, are we fighting over the last brownie? Is this a pity party? We all have crappy home lives, okay?”

  “You have both of your parents,” I pointed out.

  Rueben snorted. “And I would gladly trade both of them for Ollie’s lasagna.”

  That made me laugh. He was sincere. The emotion had dissolved, and Joanie was giggling as well.

  Rueben crumbled up his now empty lunch sack and tossed it into the nearby trash bag. “I gotta hit the library,” he said. He looked over at me. “You coming?”

  “Yeah, for about an hour,” I responded.

  “I’ll see you there. 5th floor.” Rueben moved on as I collected my bike to meet him at the Central library branch.

  Joanie retrieved her book bag from the ground and leaned in to whisper. “Where is Carnegie Mellon?” she asked.

  “I have no idea,” I responded. “Someplace where it snows.”

  “Can you spell it?”

  “Hell no,” I said. But I was lying. Of course, I know where Carnegie Mellon is, and of course, I can spell it.

  SUGAR CITY

  Annika became a thing. She actually became a big thing. The idea to have a soloist for certain Ink ceremonies blew the lid off the enterprise. It got to the point where people in high school were approaching me about it and asking questions like “Is Annika Kane really performing at your house?” The questions were dumb and never on target, and I had to continually explain we weren’t giving free Sugar City concerts at my home, and no, you can’t come over.

  The tone of the Beloved Ceremonies changed from being an intimate private presentation to a full out church level memorial. There were now multiple tiers of pricing for the Ink of the Beloved Ceremonies. There was the basic level which involved the price of the tattoo and the storytelling. But now we had all these add-ons.

  There was a performance cost of Annika. There was an additional cost if Annika had to learn a song that was not on the approved song list. There was the cost of adding another musician if they wanted to perform along with Annika. We got to charge a lot for that because of the rehearsal time needed. Sometimes there were catering costs, and we got Ollie in on the action. Then some people wanted the ceremony to be more public with witnesses, so I had to start asking how many guests would be attending the event. I was becoming an event coordinator for Cosmic Hearts. It was insane.

  But my mother loved it. She loved being the mother figure for all these young people coming through the door and seeking her out. She had always enjoyed being a mentor for ink artists, but now she was getting creative recognition from musicians, poets, actors, and film directors.

  Dusty’s bio-mech client, Glenn brought in somebody who wanted to film the ceremonies for a documentary. Glenn’s friend also had a bunch of biotech ink on his body, so I guess Glenn really was putting together this strange little club. Glenn’s buddy filming my mother meant there was something else I had to add to my booking questions. “Are you interested in having your event filmed as part of a documentary? If so, we have a release form we will need you to fill out.”

  In the past, I rarely sat in on Ink for the Beloved ceremonies because of the intimacy involved when it was just Terry, the client, and an audio player. There were times I would sit off in a corner with my head buried in a book, trying not to observe. It seemed as if the privacy of sorrow should be respected. But sometimes the stories were so emotional you couldn’t help but be swept up by the life being honored and the power of the words my mother was saying.

  But now things were completely different. It was a production, and everyone was required to pitch in to get ideas into action. Terry Wynters was the star even though the focus of the ceremony was somebody else. The client shared a co-starring role. They expressed their wishes, and then the team was off, making the magic happen. Dusty was like the props and costumes master, and I was the house manager. Annika oversaw sound and music. Her singing was not always requested, but she ran the audio decks and alerted me if an outside musician needed to be brought in.

  But Todd. Todd was everywhere. He was the director and the producer all rolled into one. If I wasn’t so busy with this and schoolwork, I might have complained about it more. It felt like when I left a room to get away from him, he’d appear in the next place before I arrived. It was like he had been cloned. I heard his voice everywhere, greeting people when they came in, shaking hands, and throwing out his movie-star grin.

  We were preparing for a big Beloved ceremony. This one was going to have Annika in costume. Glenn’s documentary friend had been filming my mother earlier in the week, noting the preparations she went through. For my mother, it wasn’t just about the design. She became an oral storyteller and compiled a script from the memories the client shared. The Beloved ceremonies were like a memorial gathering, but with only one person speaking about the dead. My mother shared the words as if they merged with the ink she was sinking into the person’s bo
dy. The stories became the design and the essence of the tattoo.

  The idea for the Beloved ceremony was birthed around the time my mother realized what I could do with tattoos. However, there are important distinctions. Tattoos are a window for me, and I glimpse a piece of someone’s soul, but my mother uses the story behind the artwork to make a statement. I shy away from touching tattoos because of the unapproved familiarity my ability offers, but since Terry receives consent, she revels in it. She makes the Beloved tattoos performance art.

  I had stopped by directly after school to help Dusty unpack the programs that had arrived. This client had wanted printed books for her guests attending the ceremony honoring her mother. The small books contained photos of the deceased woman throughout her life, along with excerpts of her favorite feminist poems. The woman being memorialized with a tattoo also loved the singer Cher, and Annika was dressing up as the star when she sang, “If I Could Turn Back Time” as a ballad. Dusty hired a woman who would create a gown that looked like a Bob Mackie original with feathers and sequins. She was picking up the dress in an hour which is why I was helping with the programs.

  After unpacking the boxes, we needed to visually scan all the pages and make sure the printing had been done correctly and there weren’t any ink splots.

  While we were working, Todd came up behind me, holding my backpack. “What’s this?” he asked.

  “What does it look like?” I responded.

  “You can’t leave this in the back room, lying around. People could trip over it.”

  This meant Todd just tripped over it.

  “Where am I supposed to put my backpack?” I asked.

  “How about you don’t bring it here at all? Leave it at the house.”

  Thankfully, Dusty jumped in before I shot back with a blistering response.

  “I asked her to come straight from school. We’ve got a lot to do here. So, if you don’t mind…”