Memoirs Of An Antihero

by Drew Blank

  “Really? Good luck with that.” At that exact moment it had occurred to me the hood from the sweatshirt had fallen down at some point while wrestling the gun from Mouse’s hand. Sweat had forced my characteristically spiky hair down to my forehead, which made me optimistic that between that, the night sky and the enormous shades, I was unrecognizable.

  “You fucked with the wrong guy, you fucking freak!” I couldn’t be upset with that insult. Wearing Jackie O style sunglasses and huge black snow boots, I suppose freak was quite fitting.

  “I wish you wouldn’t swear. You’re better than that,” I channeled Mema as I tormented him. Most of the items I found on Mouse made their way into the hoody’s front pockets. The big brick of cocaine, however, I had no use for. My disgust for drugs and those who use them gave me only one option. I stepped over to the shrubs Randy’s Acura had been backed up to, sliced the plastic with Mouse’s pocketknife and shook out its contents. A gentle autumn breeze caught the majority of the falling powder and carried it into the street, allowing it to dance like snow in the florescent shine of the nights’ neon buzz. Knowing I had what seemed to be a few thousand dollars in my pocket felt good, but knowing I had just destroyed a few thousand dollars worth of life wasting narcotics felt even better. It was then I realized the Audi had to be chock full of drugs.

  Grabbing at the door handle, I discovered Mouse had left it unlocked. Letting myself in, I heard Mouse screaming profanity-laden threats from the ground. The inside of the Audi was even darker than the outside. Window tinting allowed no exterior light to creep its way in. Surprisingly, the wagon was kept immaculately clean. Aside from a pen and a pad of paper in the door holster and a few business cards in the center console, the front seat was empty. Checking the glove box revealed nothing but an owner’s manual and a few oil change receipts. Peeking into the back seat proved equally fruitless. Spinning myself back around in the driver’s seat, I proceeded to get out when Mouse, slumped but upright, lunged towards me. He had evidently gotten himself to his feet and was going to make one last effort to salvage his money and maybe his dignity. Pushing him aside, I forced my way out of the Audi. As I brushed past Mouse, I felt something cold immediately bite my chest. Stumbling towards the Acura, I looked down to discover Mouse was now brandishing the beer bottle that had split his head open as a weapon and had very effectively sliced through my sweatshirt and undershirt. The cut was deep, but my adrenaline was pumping hard enough to numb any pain that may be trying to register to my brain. As Mouse leaned against the Audi laughing, I realized this was the only attack he had in him and he was about done.

  “That’ll teach you…freak…” Blood spittle ran down Mouse’s lip as he tried to claim a small victory. He was now using his car as a crutch, his right arm holding him up with the driver’s door and his left barely reaching the roof. With little effort, I grabbed the door he had propped himself up with and slammed it shut. It was hard to decipher from the cracking sounds whether it was his legs or his arms crushing under the power of the fine German engineered door, maybe both, but from his resulting howls, I made the safe assumption he would no longer be a threat.

  My intention had been to search the back of the wagon for any further drugs, but with Mouse’s screams escalating, I decided to cut my losses and end the night in victory.

  CHAPTER NINE

  Shockingly, when I got back to Oxford Pines, my bike was still chained to the pole, right where I had left it. The ride out of the neighborhood was a difficult one, as the wound from my chest had gone beyond an uncomfortable sting. Blood loss was not a concern because the laceration was not that deep, but it did require treatment. Going to the hospital was out of the question. If anyone came snooping around, my injury would be a rather telltale one. There was only one place I could go to get fixed up where no questions would be asked. Tattoo Tom was due a visit anyway, and I was sure he would appreciate the 9mm I’d add to his collection.

  Tom’s shop was normally a fifteen minute bike ride from Tully’s, but under the circumstances I was not pedaling at my typical pace. Wind mercilessly attacked the gash sliced across my chest as I careened down the empty streets. Halfway to my destination, I slid the cell phone from my front pocket and flipped it open. In its silence I had missed two calls. I speed dialed my voicemail and continued toward Tom’s with the phone wedged in the crook of my right shoulder. The first call was from Twisty.

  Where are you? You have me worried, buttface. I will not allow you to wallow in all this self pity without me. Do you know what makes people happy? Freakin’ pannycakes, ya jackass! Call me back if you are awake. Quit playing the tough guy. I hope you’re all right. Oh, Randy told me to tell you hello after he humped my brains out. It was awesome and now we are in love. I hate your guts. Call me ya big fat jerk. Click!

  Twisty always ended her voicemails by saying ‘click’. I loved that. Even riding a bike in the chilly pre-winter air with a gaping wound reaching from nipple to nipple, saturating my clothes in blood, I was able to manage a smile. The irony of Randy being mentioned in her voicemail did not escape me, however. Reaching my hand up to the phone I thumbed the seven key and deleted her message to go on to the next. That was from Phil and Jim.

  Phil Kendall and Jim Gustafson were the first friends I had ever made outside Donnelly’s walls. I suppose that means they were my first friends period, considering I had never made any friends inside Donnelly’s walls. The two were regulars at Mama Mema’s during my time as an employee there. They would spend the afternoon hours drinking extra sweet vanilla lattes and devouring Mema’s homemade muffins, all the while engaging in a role-playing game that seemed to consume most of their time - inside and out of the restaurant. A third or fourth party would occasionally join them, but none of the gamers were nearly as regular as Phil and Jim.

  Having no experience with children my own age outside of the group home environment, I was enthralled with their activities. My interest in their gaming had been made apparent every time I would go to their table and linger longer than necessary just to try and figure out the fascinating game they were so passionate about. Eventually we began talking beyond the server/customer confines and they welcomed me into their fold. After many enjoyable, yet frustrating, afternoons, it became apparent role-playing games were not for me. However, I enjoyed watching and chiming in as comic relief, while they found me to be a fresh change from the gamers they were accustomed to. In my limited experience with teenagers, these were the coolest kids I knew. It wasn’t until later that it was made abundantly clear to me that my two friends were dorks. By that time, it didn’t matter. We have remained good friends ever since.

  It was Phil on my voicemail, but the fact that he and Jim shared an apartment and the two rarely went out, it was a safe bet Jim was there as well.

  Drew. It is imperative you call us as soon as you get out of work. Good bye.

  From his tone, I could tell his use of the word imperative was a tad overstated. I had grown accustomed to phone calls from my two friends, looking for a moderator on such heated debates as Invisibility vs. Flight as the more effective super power or Dr. Pepper vs. Mountain Dew as the more desirable beverage on a deserted island. None of the topics ever had any real interest to me, but watching those two battle it out was truly entertaining. While Phil was very sarcastic and dry, Jim was almost always serious and would never realize Phil deliberately disagreed with anything he would say just to spark a debate. One particular Saturday I was called over to referee a scholastic battle royale when Phil refused to admit to Jim that the human body had any need for water. While Phil knew his argument was fruitless, watching Jim boil over in frustration was enough for him to keep up his side. I had no doubt this, or something very similar, was the nature of their call. It would have to wait. Phil and Jim required very little sleep, so I am sure their heated discussion would still be going on after I got patched up at Tom’s. I again pressed the key to delete the message, turned my ringer to vibrate and closed the phone.

&n
bsp; Riding my bike over the curb in front of Tom’s building, I heard music and laughter from inside. There was no storefront to Tattoo Tom’s. His business was by appointment only. Tom liked to run things this way, to keep drunken morons from stumbling in at all hours of the night wanting a tattoo on an impulse. I never heard Tom complaining about money and I rarely saw the shop empty, so I assumed his underground safe-house style of business was effective for him. He owned the building he worked out of and rented the front shop with a street side window out to a couple of old women who ran a hair salon for even older women. During the daylight hours it was always fun to see the old ladies all lined up under the hairdryers, reading year old copies of Reader’s Digest or Redbook. To the left of Tom’s two-story structure was a narrow alley, blocked off by a menacing chain link fence threateningly topped with barbed wire and a not-so-welcoming BEWARE OF DOG sign. Beside the gate’s latch was a clunky intercom box, very obviously worn and dated, but still effective. I pushed the big yellow button on the intercom and waited.

  Two attempts later the box finally crackled back with a deep, raspy voice yelling through the system.

  Who is it?

  “Orphan!” I hollered back into the cracked plastic grill of the speaker. Tom was always fascinated with my history growing up in a modern day orphanage. The nickname Orphan was certainly not the most flattering term of endearment, but I had grown used to it. The magnetic latch clicked, allowing the gate to swing open. I entered the dark alley, surrounded on both sides by brick, as I closed the gate firmly behind me and walked to the door at the back of the building.

  Waiting at the door was a girl that looked like a skeleton in a Ramones T shirt. Though her body told me she was barely twenty, her haggard face gave her the appearance of a fifty year old woman. Propping open the door with considerable force, as I am sure the large wooden plank doubled her weight, she glared at me through black, haphazardly cut bangs, cigarette dangling from her lips. Tom had a very strict no smoking policy in the shop. Anyone looking for a nicotine fix was forced to go outside. They were also warned not to let the door close behind them or they would not be able to open it back up from the alley and no one would hear you knocking inside.

  “Who’re you?” the girl murmured suspiciously. It was at that moment I realized what I must have looked like. Even under the dim light bulb trying to illuminate the dingy alley way, I am sure I was a sight. Besides the tattered and tight hoody, I was still wearing the snow boots and I wouldn’t have been surprised if there was blood on my face or my hands.

  “Friend of Tom’s,” I shot back quickly, as if letting her know I had more right to be there than she. The girl continued to eyeball me as I slumped past her.

  The entry hallway to Tom’s shop was beyond poorly lit. It was forebodingly dark. After a few paces, one could take a right and find a locked door leading to the backroom of the old lady hair salon or one could follow the sounds of 70’s classic rock mixed in with laughter and trash talk and go left into Tattoo Tom’s parlor.

  The waiting room was an explosive contrast from the cave-like entryway. A visual barrage of the strange and unusual, all encased in wood paneled walls, immediately welcomed guests. Visiting Tom’s was like a trip to a demented circus. A wall of glass aquariums, stacked one atop another, initially greeted you. This wall was home to pets like snakes, iguanas, rats and even a couple animals I could never identify, but surmised from their exotic appearance they may not have been in the country legally. The bottom row of glass houses was filled with little white mice, all appropriately named either Breakfast, Lunch or Dinner.

  To the right of the glass wall was a full size upright Donkey Kong Jr. arcade game, used primarily by Tom when he needed to take a break from needling customers. Finishing off the first room were a few very old, and very uncomfortable, leather couches, warding off any unwelcome loiterers.

  Towards the back of the waiting room was an arched doorway leading into the studio. That night, as with most nights, the waiting room was dead. All the action had migrated to the hub of Tattoo Tom’s establishment. With the radio blasting Creedence Clearwater Revival or some similar 70’s rock, everybody was forced to speak in a near yell. A secret I was privy to, but most did not know, was that this was intentional. Tom, due both to his advancing years and decades worth of exposure to loud gunfire, had begun to lose his hearing. Violently opposed to showing his age, Tom kept the music loud enough that if he had to ask somebody to repeat themselves, it would be excused by the music and nobody would suspect he had developed any sort of handicap.

  From the waiting room I heard Tom’s booming voice above everything else. Tom had a very demanding presence, both physically and vocally. While he always displayed a tough, crass demeanor, there was no denying his intelligence and wit when he spoke. His speech exuded a burly eloquence that I had never heard from anyone before.

  As I approached the arch, I could tell Tom was on a roll. Although he was both a tattoo artist and gun dealer by trade, I always saw Tom more as an entertainer. With a room full of customers, he would captivate his audience with stories of Vietnam, bar room brawls, conspiracy theories, run-ins with the law or any other tale from his multi-faceted life. I had heard them all. Sometimes, when I would just be hanging out, I’d even join in and be the Abbot to his Costello, setting him up for his next punch line.

  “Orphan, where the fuck are you?” Tom bellowed from the adjoining room. My slow pace did not escape Tom’s attention as he had been eagerly awaiting my arrival.

  “Patience, old man. Some of us have plenty of time ahead of us,” I taunted Tom as I entered the studio.

  “Keep up that ‘old man’ shit and see how much time you have left.” Although Tom had at least three guns on him at all times, not to mention the one duct taped under his desk pointed at the door, I knew this was an empty threat. Tom may have been crazy, but above all else he was loyal. Definitely the kind of crazy you wanted on your side in a fight.

  In the back left hand corner of the room, Tom sat majestically at his desk, propped on his wheeled leather stool. Being over six and a half feet tall and easily three hundred and fifty pounds, he always seemed to be three seconds from snapping that stool’s aluminum base, but it somehow managed to support his massive size without fail. Next to him was the classic black leather upholstered dentist’s chair where all the ink was injected. His desk housed all the immediate supplies needed for tattooing. Spray bottles marked ALCOHOL, GREEN SOAP and VODKA. The VODKA bottle was water. He would keep it handy for the customers that got a little woozy while under the gun. There were always ample tubs of petroleum jelly on the desk top, which, if I didn’t know better, I would swear were kept there simply to add emphasis to several of Tom’s less tasteful jokes. The back corner of the desk had boxes of extra supplies stacked high, such as rubber gloves, tissues and the thimble sized rubber cups Tom used to hold his inks as he worked.

  Although the shop had a crazed carnival feel to it, Tom’s equipment and supplies were always kept organized and neat, while the building consistently smelled like a doctor’s office. Maintaining a clean and sterile environment was top priority within the shop, as was evident by the lines of autoclaves and sterilization tools resting on the table adjacent to Tom’s work area. Half a dozen five tier file cabinets lined the opposite wall, all filled with books of tattoo art. Each cabinet was meticulously cataloged with green labels on the front of every drawer reading everything from NAVY, ARMY, MARINES and AIR FORCE to DRAGONS, WIZARDS, SPORTS TEAMS and LOONEY TUNES. As much as he hated doing them, Tom admitted Tasmanian Devil tattoos put his daughter through college.

  The only part of the studio to be in a constant state of disarray was the drafting table wedged in the far right corner. A light box was barely visible underneath the mound of papers with designs sketched and re-sketched upon them. I could not say for sure, but I was quite certain Tom had never thrown out an original design. A few days earlier, while sifting through the copies of tattoos past, I even found the origi
nal tracing for the tattoo that stretched across my back from shoulder to shoulder. The six-inch-high Old English-style lettering that simply said ORPHAN. That was the first free tattoo Tom had ever given me. It had been done under the stipulation that I never asked what he was tattooing and that I wouldn’t bitch like a little girl when I finally saw the end product. In all honesty, it turned out to be my favorite tattoo.

  The archway leading from waiting room to studio funneled customers towards a set of couches that sat below a framed sign reading IF YOU AREN’T GETTING INKED, SIT YOUR ASS HERE AND DON’T BOTHER THE ARTIST. Tom had no bigger pet peeve than when someone would disobey that simple rule and come hover over his shoulder to observe his handiwork. That insubordination would inevitably get a gawker banished to the waiting room until the tattoo was finished.

  That night was girls’ night in the shop. Three girls, all as sickly looking as the smoking bones out front, were lounging about on the couches while Tom regaled them with tales of his latest biker bar altercation. Though it was a newer story, I knew the ending. Tom very reluctantly got up from his bar stool, shoved his thumb in some guy’s eye and then sat back down to finish his scotch and water. The End. As were all his stories, that one was very entertaining. It was obviously the first time these girls had heard it, because they all listened with great interest.

  Two of the girls had bandages taped to their shoulders, with fresh ink and blood already seeping through. From the look of Tom’s tidied up desk, he had been finished for a while at that point. It was not uncommon for him to keep young ladies there as late as he could with his hypnotic storytelling capabilities. It was also not uncommon for one or two of them to spend the night. For a man in his sixties, Tom stayed very active when it came to the women. With a full head of thick jet-black hair and an equally dark, perfectly sculpted goatee, he was not a bad looking guy. As far as his bear like figure, I would not be shocked if the phrase “built like a brick shit house” was originally coined to describe Tom. With arms as thick as my waist, he had plenty of canvas for art and pictures of motorcycles, grim reapers, roses, wolves and leather clad biker ladies took up every inch. Lots of leather clad biker ladies. Two of them he brought particular attention to, as they were positioned opposite one another on the inner flesh of both forearms. Lefty and Righty, as he affectionately called them, were both bent over at the waist, exposing their bare asses and smiling over their shoulders. Tom would very proudly hold up both arms and flex each alternately, giving the illusion that Lefty and Righty could dance. This charming display was titled “Dueling Buttholes”. As many times as I had seen it, it never got old. Even more entertaining were the reactions it would get from “Dueling Buttholes” virgins.