Grave Markings: 20th Anniversary Edition

by Arnzen, Michael A.

  All the stories dealt with him personally, of course, and he acted out the role of protagonist as he went through the tattoo artist’s script—dreams inside of dreams—in the end, learning the valuable lessons of life.

  But when the tattoo was complete, his body entirely covered with beautiful ink—from the reds and blues that pervaded his scalp to the wondrous emerald greens that swirled beneath his toenails—he was not satisfied. “I need more wisdom,” he said to the faceless tattoo maker.

  “There is only so much wisdom in the world, and one man has only so much skin.” The tattoo artist’s voice was indeed wise and all-knowing, omniscient in every nuance of pronunciation.

  “But there has to be more. Is that not one of the lessons you have taught me? See here, this part of the tattoo…” He pointed down at his chest, where a backward food chain line of expanding fish spread infinitely around his torso. “These fish represent wisdom and growth…it never ends. The small fish that begins the chain is eaten by the big, wise fish at the end. The cycle must continue.”

  The faceless one nodded his large, smooth head. “You are indeed very wise, Roy Roberts. You are as the big fish that eats the little one. You are bloated with knowledge, and must begin the chain again.”

  “Is that my next lesson?”

  “No, Roy Roberts, it is not. It is the first one in the next chain.”

  “I see.”

  “Yes, but what you do not see is what true wisdom is. For there is something you do not know!”

  In the dream, Roberts smiled up at the faceless artist, eager for more knowledge. “And what is that?”

  “That there are only seven cycles of knowledge, just as there are only seven layers of skin!”

  The faceless artist grabbed Roberts by the soft fleshy area of the neck, just below the Adam’s apple, and yanked the skin right off his body. Pain boiled every inch of his exterior as the sheath of flesh was peeled from his frame like a diver’s wet suit. In extreme, utter pain, he looked down at his exposed, hairless body: blood ran across his fresh secondary dermis like red oceans. Capillaries danced, torn and twisted, seaweed in the ocean of red.

  And like his tattooed flesh, Roberts was yanked from the realm of his dream. In the sweat-drenched bed, alone, he screamed out. His voice echoed in the empty room, rebounding off the yellow wallpaper and back again.

  It wasn’t the skinning of the dream that frightened him so much, though he could still feel the stinging removal across every pore of his body. What utterly terrified him was the last thing he saw before awakening.

  The faceless artist, putting on Roberts’ skin, wearing it loosely, like a cheap Halloween costume.

  CHAPTER FOUR

  I.

  Lockerman was not happy. Roberts could tell the second he stepped foot into John’s front door that things were not going well. Clothing was scattered all over the living room: crumpled uniforms—stiff, and holding their starched creases despite being bundled up—were piled in the corner beside the sofa; T-shirts with yellowed armpits were tucked under the coffee table, open-armed like corpses; linty blue socks peppered the carpet like land mines; and Roberts even noticed the same pair of blue satin jogging shorts Lockerman had worn at the barbecue a week ago taking up space on the couch like a visitor. Beer cans were stacked everywhere, some on their sides, others arranged in pyramids. The sink was full of dishes topped with time-hardened food. The place stank like an odd mix between a sleazy barroom and an all-night Laundromat. And considering the fact that John Lockerman was one of the most anal-retentive organization and cleanliness freaks he’d ever met, Roberts knew that things had to be going really bad. Terrible.

  Roberts pretended not to notice the disaster area while they drank iced tea on the sofa. The tea was warm, tap water warm, without ice since Lockerman had naturally not refilled the ice cube trays in weeks. Roberts went ahead and tactfully approached the subject that had been on his mind all night, knowing full well that the same thing was on Lockerman’s mind: “No clues yet, I gather.”

  Lockerman puffed his cheeks like Louis Armstrong and let the air out slowly. “Nada. We ain’t got shit. That Cheri Carvers woman—the one who reported Kuhlman’s body, remember?—she’s nowhere to be found. My money’s on her. I bet she orchestrated the whole thing and then dropped out of sight. There’s a statewide APB out on her, but I doubt it’ll turn her up. If I was her, I’d be out of the country by now. Especially with me after her.”

  Roberts knew Lockerman had been a bit obsessed about the whole thing, but now he was beginning to sound like a corny television detective. Could he be that out of it? “Don’t let it get you down, John. It’s been bugging me, too. Been having nightmares and shit.”

  “You, too?”

  “Yeah. Real sheet-sweaters.”

  “Actually, that’s pretty good to hear.” Lockerman chuckled gruffly. “Nothing personal. I just thought I was the only one in the city who gave a damn.”

  “I really should report it, ya know.”

  John turned angry. “No, I don’t know. You remember what happened last time? The Ski-Slope Strangler, city going haywire, wasting my time following a copycat killer? All because of your damned network bullshit…”

  Roberts held his hands up, as if under arrest. “I know, I know. It’s just that, I dunno, reporting the story would get it all off my chest, ya know? I almost feel like a criminal not reporting it, keeping it all bundled up inside like an accessory or something.”

  He calmed, grinning at his friend. “I know.” His eyes glowed. “But I’ll get the bastard, don’t you worry. Then you can tell the world if you have to. Just be patient a little longer. I know these psychotic types. Begging for attention. They all crawl out of the woodwork, sooner or later.”

  “Sooner, I hope.” Roberts lifted up the blue shorts beside him. “So you can get back to reality and clean this friggin’ pig sty.”

  They laughed. Finished their teas. Lockerman turned on the tube for background (the afternoon news was on), and he kept his eyes glued to the screen, as if embarrassed, or hiding something. Roberts wondered what secrets John was holding back…had there been a break in the case?

  Lockerman: “So tell me about your nightmares.”

  “I don’t remember much, except for the ending…”

  The phone rang loudly, like a giant technological cricket. Both of them jumped.

  Lockerman jogged to the kitchen, as if happy to escape the conversation. Roberts heard him purposely whispering low into the phone. It felt like a mosquito buzzing around his journalistic ear, and he couldn’t make out a word of it.

  Alone, he stared at the tube and winced. The weekend anchors were screwing up as usual, stumbling over any word longer than three syllables and weakly covering them up. Judy and Rick, the weekday anchors, were much better. They made a good pair. Roberts wondered if the station manager, Buckman, had planted these foolish weekenders on the screen purposely—it seemed to give Rick and Judy more polish by contrast.

  Roberts turned his attention away from the screen, feeling like he was backstabbing Schoenmacher with his thoughts. Instead, he thought about last night’s bad dream as he looked around the living room at Lockerman’s dirty laundry.

  He tried to pull out the details of the dream—he was usually pretty good at remembering dreams, because he was a true believer in their power. Dreams were more truthful, more expressive, more real than everyday life for Roberts; it was the only realm where he truly felt free. No nine-to-five routines, no anesthetizing commuting, no drab lifestyles—every night’s dream was different, unique, and exciting. A lot better than real life.

  Except the nightmare last night was no good, no good at all. His skin tingled just thinking about being skinned by that featureless man. Why did he put himself through that? Why did he think that some abstract and mystic tattoo artist would be some wise
man worth going to?

  He remembered Schoenmacher’s pseudo war story about some dumb kid named O’Brien who killed himself because he didn’t feel complete. Stupid, stupid. Who ever was complete? Life is change. It’s not some puzzle that magically comes together at the end. And why tattoos? Couldn’t he have found some better way to define himself? Hadn’t he ever heard of religion or philosophy? Or, hell, even a girlfriend?

  The connection hit Roberts in the chest like a mallet. He himself had none of these things. His life was not changing, his job was a joke that was killing him inside, he didn’t have a religion, he didn’t have a girlfriend. What he had was absolutely nothing, except for a few obviously neurotic friends. He, himself, was incomplete.

  Roberts wondered how far he was from jumping off of a roof. He didn’t feel suicidal, but hell, he didn’t feel anything at all. What would it take?

  He was beginning to be uncomfortable with his thoughts. He was asking himself too many unanswerable questions. He shook his head like a wet dog and looked over toward the kitchen. Lockerman was still on the phone, one finger plugged into his free ear, straining to hear. Roberts vaguely thought that it looked like John was trying to both hear and not hear what was being said over the line at once.

  Roy wanted a cigarette. He looked for Lockerman’s ashtray, the one he kept around just for Roberts.

  And then he saw it: the white-bordered corner of a glossy print, poking out from beneath one of the police uniforms in the corner of the room. A slender naked foot was on the photo, its painted nails directed at him like eyes.

  Roberts leaned over and withdrew the picture from its hiding place. It was a photograph of Tina Gonzales, her legs spread and inviting like something taken out of a girlie magazine. Only in this case, it was probably stolen from a police file, a photograph taken at the scene of the crime.

  Her body was covered with swirling tattoos, but he momentarily ignored them, looking at the woman’s attractive face: her brown hair was trimmed short and sassy, a bobby cut that encircled her cheeks perfectly. She wore long-stringed golden earrings with crimson gems dangling from the ends, brushing the soft gleam of her shoulder. The red of the jewelry reflected in her open (dead) eyes, which pierced out seductively (glassy, dead) into the camera. Inviting, bedroom eyes (she’s dead, Roy, fucking DEAD)….

  Feeling his ears reddening, Roberts concentrated on the tattoos; her forehead was a beautiful butterfly with myriad patterns that coalesced and seemingly moved, tugging his eyes toward the teardrop center. He pulled his vision away from the butterfly, peeking instead at the large, winged beast painted on her chest. He knew what these things were, that they were sexual organs, but they were much more, detailed in such complexity that they seemed to move and pulse within the photograph, drawing attention to the beauty of Gonzales’ body, the elegance beneath the shell of grotesquerie…the damned sexy quality that this dead woman had….

  Lockerman hung up the phone with a sharp slam. Roberts quickly shoved the photograph back beneath the dirty uniform. He knew he was blushing, his ears were hot, his groin was tickling.

  John didn’t notice. He had a smile on his face that lit up the dark living room. “Roy! We got a lead!”

  Roberts stood, absorbing Lockerman’s joy. “Right on! What is it? Carvers?”

  “No, better. That was the coroner—he’s been working overtime, and putting in weekend hours to get the full autopsies done. They’re not quite finished with Tina yet, but…” Lockerman paused for effect. Did he glance over at the photo in the corner?

  “But what, John?”

  “But they found some very interesting things on the first body.”

  Roberts stared at him. “So? Tell me!”

  “You’re not gonna believe this. The stupid bastard signed his work, like a painter or something. He put a title and his initials on Kuhlman—tattooed in tiny letters beside the heart of that machine thing he drew. Just like a goddamn painter would put his John Henry on the bottom of his painting.” Lockerman smiled, and nodded knowingly. “I’ve got the shithead now, man.”

  “No way! What did he write down?”

  “The sick bastard gave Kuhlman a title. Called him ‘Machine of Mankind’ or something stupid like that. Like he was Picasso or something. And then beneath that were the intials MKI.”

  “M-K-I? Geez, I bet you could find out who this guy is just by looking in the phone book!” Roberts ran over to where the phone was, pulled out the half white, half yellow book and riffled the pages. The blur of names, words and numbers was comforting, erasing the unsettling image of Tina that had been burned into his mind.

  II.

  There were only so many M.I.’s. Marty Ingalls and Melanie Illouise, Misty Ironsky, and Mike Iaccoca. Lockerman did a few test calls. More inconclusive evidence. Nothing to go on at all. Half the people didn’t answer the phones, and those who did did not sound like psychos. Lockerman went back to the station in his civvies, throwing his weekend to the wind in order to look up priors on the computer for anyone with those intials: MKI.

  Before leaving, Roberts excitedly suggested he check tax records, utility companies, and other open information in case the mysterious MKI had an unlisted phone number, if he had one at all. Lockerman politely suggested Roy not tell him how to do his job.

  Roberts walked back to his house next door, feeling like a deputy on the case. He was feeling better about the whole affair—he was actually helping John catch a crook, he was not sending out bad news to the public and inciting the criminal, he was actually doing something more exciting than sitting behind a desk all day and wrestling with words.

  Back at home, the silence of his house was like a large black blanket, reflecting his lonely emptiness. His head buzzed, busy with excitement. He wanted to get out.

  He wanted to go back to John’s house and look at that picture again.

  Roy cursed. He was acting like Schoenmacher, getting horny over the craziest things. Exploiting the horrid picture, getting off on the victim of a crime, just like watching the news.

  But she was beautiful, attractive. Before that sicko out there killed her.

  Roberts felt guilty…but what was Lockerman doing with the picture? He remembered the way he acted at the barbecue. He must have had a relationship with the girl, he must have.

  He thought about her tattoos. They really were pretty good, in their own way. The psycho out there was a nutcase, no doubt about that, but he was a damned good artist.

  Roberts went to the bathroom and looked at himself in the mirror. Color was still blushing his cheeks, but his face was pale and thin. The flesh around his eyes was almost green, scaly like fish skin. It was the job, the go-nowhere, do nothing job that was making him look so beat. He wished he could polish away his face and get a new one.

  He imagined that he looked sorta like that O’Brien guy just before he jumped off of a roof.

  The silence of his empty house was shouting into his ears, roaring like foamy red oceans.

  He got in his car and drove.

  III.

  Roberts couldn’t believe he was actually going through with it, even when he was sitting in the barber’s style leather chair with his shirt off, the nervous sweat apparent on his pallid, exposed chest.

  All he knew was that those red-veined eyes in the “O’s” of the sign outside of Corky’s Tattoos had somehow warmed under the crisp Colorado sun, no longer menacing but inviting in their challenge. He thought they even winked at him when he stepped inside.

  Corky was a nice-enough-looking fellow, which eased Roberts’ paranoia considerably. He expected the tattoo artist to be some monster-looking Hell’s Angel, uglier than the faceless artist of his nightmare. But, of course, he wasn’t: he was a biker, obviously, by the Harley-Davidson parked out front and the various paraphernalia that decked the walls. Corky was middle-aged, with grayi
ng hair and a near-white lengthy beard, looking somewhat like Santa Claus decked out in leather. The artwork on his large, muscular arms showed a history: there were obvious references to Vietnam in the dates and crossed M-16’s on his biceps; there were oriental letters and foreign dragons on one of his forearms; the inside of his other arm was lined with the legs of a woman, sultry and erotic as if taken directly from the cover of Vogue; there were also highly-detailed skulls and crossbones, a corked bottle of liquor with his name on it being slurped by wet, feminine tongues, and on and on. A cornucopia of art, all of which evidently reflected his past and present, a living scrapbook.

  To Roberts, he looked the epitome of wisdom in his gray beard and piercing blue eyes…more wise-looking than he expected. Wise, experienced, and a little bit dangerous.

  The shop was small, no other customers. One chair, no waiting. It would look like a barber’s shop if not for the Iron Horse and Easyrider and Outlaw Biker magazines on the cigarette-burned vinyl couch and the little snippets of hand-drawn art—his “flash pictures”—that were erratically tacked on the brown and crumbly corkboard walls.

  But with that long graying hair tied up in a pony tail down his back, Corky obviously was no barber. And what he was about to do was going to be painful compared to a haircut.

  Roberts swallowed bitter bile. “I gotta admit, this is my first tattoo.”

  “Nooo-ooh!” Corky replied, rubbing alcohol into the soft, virgin flesh of Roberts’ right shoulder blade.

  Roberts nervously chuckled. “Yeah, it is. I’ve always been curious about these sort of things.” It was a lie, of course: he hadn’t always been curious, just obsessed with the damned things lately.

  Corky stopped prepping. “Curious? Hey, man, if you’re just curious about tattoos, I don’t suggest getting one. These things are permanent, ya know?”