Death, Dickinson, and the Demented Life of Frenchie Garcia

by Jenny Torres Sanchez

  “I forgot,” I mumble.

  “You come downtown without ID? Right. I’m buying that,” the girl says.

  “Well, I’ll let it go, but Laurie here is a bit of a bitch, so you better bring ID from now on, okay?”

  “Fuck off, Kaz,” Laurie says. “You can’t do that.”

  “Zip it, Laurie. I did her last one,” he says. “Come on now,” he says, gesturing for me to follow him.

  “It’s your ass,” Laurie calls to him.

  I sit down at his station, not sure if he actually believes I forgot my ID.

  “Well, then. So you’re getting one this time?” he asks.

  I nod. “Yeah, uh . . . thank you,” I say and look up at him.

  He leans down. “She really is a royal bitch,” he says. “So let’s just say I’ve seen your ID, okay? Where you got that ID, well that’s on you.”

  “Yeah, of course,” I say.

  “Let’s get on with it, then,” he says, “What are you getting?”

  “I want what Andy got. In the same place,” I tell him. He says he has a picture of it in his portfolio. He pulls out the picture from a huge drawer and says he just needs to stencil it real quick and he’ll be right back. He leaves and Colin and I are alone.

  “So . . . ,” Colin says. I know he wants to ask me who Andy is, but he doesn’t. “A tattoo,” he says. “Pretty permanent.”

  “Not really,” I say, “Nothing is permanent.”

  We get quiet for a while.

  “Would you get a tattoo?” I ask him suddenly. “If you knew you weren’t going to be in this life anymore, if you knew you weren’t even going to be in your body one more day?” I ask.

  He’s looking at me differently, concerned, like he’s figuring out bits and pieces of something.

  “No.” His voice trails off. “I don’t think so, anyway. But . . .” He shrugs.

  “What would be the point, right?”

  “I don’t know,” he says, but I can tell he’s thinking. “Maybe I would. Maybe for the experience? To know what it feels like?”

  I close my eyes and lean back in the chair. “Maybe.”

  The next voice I hear is Kaz telling me to take my arm out of my sleeve so he can get to my shoulder. I feel strange partially taking off my shirt in front of two guys, even though Kaz looks disinterested and Colin has enough sense to look away or at least pretend to. I hold my shirt over myself as Kaz rubs alcohol on the area where the tattoo will go. He sets the stencil in place and pulls away the paper.

  “Want to take a look?” he asks. “Make sure it’s all right?”

  “No,” I tell him, because I don’t want to look at it until it’s done, until there’s no turning back. “I’m sure it’s fine. Just do it.”

  “All right, suit yourself. No complaining, then.”

  I nod and wait for him to go on.

  “So,” he says once he’s settled and ready to start. “Where is this Andy fellow tonight?” I look at Kaz’s reflection in the mirror at his station. He raises his eyebrows and smiles mischievously. I think he’s having fun making what appears to him as an awkward situation even more awkward. I don’t know if it’s because he feels some kind of loyalty to Andy since he tattooed him that he brings him up. I look at Colin’s reflection, but he’s looking on as Kaz works so I can’t see his face well or read what he’s thinking. One of Kaz’s gloved hands rests on my shoulder as the other prepares to shoot the prickly hot sting of his tattoo gun.

  “Bet he’s kind of pissed now.” Kaz laughs. “But can’t say you didn’t warn the poor bastard.” I know exactly what Kaz is thinking. “He’ll probably come by and want me to turn it into something else. Ahhh, young love. Don’t trust it,” he says and points at me like he’s giving me some kind of lesson. Then he begins. I grit my teeth, both from the pain and Kaz’s comments.

  “He’s dead,” I say.

  The buzz of the gun stops for a minute. “Oh,” he says. The buzzing starts again and for a while we sit in silence as he concentrates on his work. “My apologies . . . ,” he says. He rubs at my shoulder with a paper towel. “That’s really terrible. What happened?”

  I close my eyes. “Drug overdose,” I say and I have no idea why I’m telling Kaz this when I don’t know him and Colin is here.

  “Oh man. Are you all right?” Kaz asks. I don’t know if he means because of Andy or the gun, but I nod regardless.

  “Don’t move,” he says when I shift a little. “You know, I had a buddy. He went out like that,” Kaz says. “It wasn’t good. His roommate found him, drool and foam around his mouth. Says he probably was seizuring as the drugs took over. You never know how that shit’s going to go. Hope the poor bloke went out peacefully.”

  The gun buzzes on. He starts dragging the needle, rubbing it into my skin, filling in the outline. I blink back tears because I’ll be damned if I’m going to cry in front of Kaz and Colin.

  I close my eyes, and try to focus only on the buzz and the pain, but all I can see is Andy. Andy in his room, alone, swallowing pills, lying down and convulsing to death. Is that how it went? Did he maybe change his mind halfway through it, but it was too late? He couldn’t even get up to get help? Or was every agonizing second better than what he was leaving behind. I don’t understand how he could’ve hung out with me all night and I didn’t see it. I didn’t see whatever fucking clues he was giving. Or I did, but I didn’t know. . . . I didn’t even know they were clues. We were just on an adventure. A stupid, shitty adventure.

  I suck in my breath as Kaz rubs and scratches at my skin. I picture Andy here that night, the way I watched as my name formed on his shoulder. Was that why he did it? The experience? To feel a different kind of pain? A more bearable pain?

  I picture him at the cemetery, his stiff body six feet under, my name on his shoulder, under all that dirt.

  It scares me to think of his dead body. So I picture sitting next to Em’s grave. I picture being in my spot under the tree, talking to Em. And one of her poems that I’ve read over and over again floats into my brain.

  I like a look of Agony,

  Because I know it’s true—

  Men do not sham Convulsion,

  Nor simulate, a Throe—

  The Eyes glaze once—and that is Death—

  Impossible to feign

  The Beads upon the Forehead

  By homely Anguish strung.

  “Almost done, love,” Kaz says, and Emily’s words are quickly replaced by the bzzzzz of the gun. I feel each prick of the needle, each burn. As I listen to the monotony of the buzzing gun, it seems to be reciting the words going round and round my head. I like a look of agony bzzzzzzz because I know it’s true bzzzzzzz I like a look of agony bzzzzzzz because I know it’s true. . . .

  “Right, then. Have a look,” Kaz says while wiping my shoulder and then holding up a handheld mirror so I can see it.

  I’m afraid to look. I’m afraid that somehow my thoughts of Andy convulsing, seizing, foaming, lying stiff as a board at Greenwood have somehow morphed their way into the ink. What if I carry Andy with me that way forever?

  “Take a look,” Kaz says. I look up at the mirror.

  My name is perfectly engraved on my skin, in black fancy cursive writing. The skin around it is red.

  Just the way Andy’s looked.

  The more I stare at it, the less meaning it seems to hold. And I tell Kaz it’s great and I love it, even as I realize that it could have been any name that night. It just happened to be mine.

  “So he was your boyfriend,” Colin says after we walk out of the tattoo parlor.

  I shake my head. “No.” I should say more so maybe he’ll understand why I’m taking him to all these random places. “Just a guy I knew.”

  “Sounds like more than that.”

  I shrug because Andy was more, but he wasn’t, and I find it impossible to explain that to Colin. Thankfully he doesn’t push further.

  “Where next?” he asks.

  I touch the Saran Wrap
that covers the tattoo on my shoulder. My parents will be thrilled. And by thrilled I mean totally pissed that I just marked myself with my own name for the rest of my life. Like there’s some likelihood that I’ll forget who I am.

  The thought makes me stop. I know I have, but I haven’t. And the absurdity of that, of everything that is or isn’t, suddenly hits me.

  “Why am I even doing this?” I ask Colin. “I don’t even know what I’m doing.” I press down on my shoulder, even though it’s sore as hell. “Something is seriously wrong with me. I mean, I don’t know who Andy was, or who I am, or who I was, or what exactly I’m looking for, so why? Why the hell am I doing this?” I start laughing. “It’s crazy, right?”

  Colin looks at me. “It doesn’t matter.”

  “What doesn’t matter?” I say.

  “That it’s crazy or not crazy. Just do it.”

  “But . . . it’s stupid.”

  “Whatever you want to call it. But do it. Stop looking for reasons or answers and just . . . let it be what it is. Something made you start this, whatever it is. Just finish it.” He pauses. “So where next?” he says.

  I don’t answer. “Where next?” he repeats quietly.

  “Lake Eola,” I say.

  “Let’s go.”

  Chapter 23

  THAT NIGHT

  Andy looks at me. “Well, then, Frenchie, I guess we only have tonight. So where should we go next?”

  I shrug. “Wherever,” I say, still in awe from seeing my name emblazoned on his shoulder. “I still can’t believe you did that,” I say again.

  “Why, don’t you like it?”

  “No. I mean, yes, I like it. It’s just . . .”

  “It’s weird,” he mumbles.

  “What’s weird?”

  “It’s just . . . I thought I would feel it more, you know? It actually didn’t hurt. It’s like I hardly felt it.”

  “That’s good,” I say.

  He shrugs. “Anyway, where should we hit next?” he asks.

  I look around. “Lake Eola?”

  He smiles. “To the swans.”

  Lake Eola is a park in downtown Orlando built around a big sinkhole that was filled with water and dubbed a lake. There’s a big fountain in the center and swans everywhere you look. See, Lake Eola’s “thing” is swans. There are live swans that hang around the park and big plastic swan boats that you can rent and pedal to the middle of the lake with someone as lame as you.

  “Hey, want to hijack a swan?” Andy says. At first I misunderstand him and think he wants us to kidnap one of the real swans, which is actually done quite often. Why anyone would want to kidnap a swan, I have no idea. But every few years, you hear about a swan-napping on the news.

  “Yeah, right,” I say.

  “Come on, it’ll be fun. Nobody’s even here.” He heads over to the huge, plastic swan boats.

  “Oh,” I say, realizing what he means.

  I see him go from swan to swan, all lined up in a row next to a small deck.

  I look around. Nobody’s really here, but I’m still worried about hijacking a swan.

  “They’re all locked up,” Andy says, pulling at the metal chains and locks to see if by chance any are not secure.

  “That sucks,” I say, although I’m secretly relieved.

  “Yeah,” Andy says as he sits down on the deck. He takes out his flask and takes another swig. Then he takes out a new pack of cigarettes and offers me one. I take it and we light up.

  I inhale deeply and let out a long plume of smoke. “I didn’t know you smoked,” I say.

  “I don’t,” he says, taking a long drag and then coughing. I laugh as he recovers. “I bought these tonight because I just wanted to try it out. There’s a certain appeal to the idea of smoking. I wish I could.”

  “What? Smoke?” I ask.

  He nods.

  “What’s so hard about it?” I ask taking another drag.

  “I don’t know, it just tastes so bad,” he says. “But I want to feel that way, you know? The way people look like they feel when they take a deep drag and it goes all through their body and suddenly they’re relaxed and . . .” He looks at me. “Do it,” he says.

  I look at him funny. “What? Take a deep drag?”

  “Yeah.” He looks at me expectantly. I can feel myself getting flushed as his gaze settles on my lips. I feel self-conscious, suddenly sure they’re chapped and peeling.

  “Oh, come on,” I say, rolling my eyes and turning away.

  “No, I’m serious.” He reaches out and touches my arm. “Come on,” he says, “take a nice long drag and tell me how it feels.” He keeps staring at me.

  “Fine,” I say, if only to get him to stop looking at me like this.

  I put the cigarette up to my parted lips and inhale.

  And I know this doesn’t make sense, because it is after all toxins and poisons and whatever, but sometimes a deep drag off a cigarette is so good. Sometimes, that smoke floats through your whole body, through your arms and to the tips of your fingers, and the sweet goodness of it soothes every frazzled nerve ending. And when you exhale, it’s like you’re letting everything go. Like the smoke scoops up all your worries and expels them from your body and they’re gone for that second.

  “See,” Andy says, “that looks good.”

  I open my eyes. “Yeah,” I say. “It is, but the reward of that feeling doesn’t come unless you put up with the total gross taste for a while.”

  “I know,” he says.

  “And it comes with a price, you know. I mean, I’ll probably die a slow horrible death gasping for my last breaths through a pinhole-sized airway into my lungs that barely inflate.” I stop and think about that for a minute. “God, that sounds awful,” I say as I take another drag. “I should really quit. Besides, it’s only the first drag that feels that good. The rest of this,” I say, holding the cigarette up, “it’s just not the same.”

  Andy takes out his flask and takes a sip.

  “I think that tastes worse than the cigarettes,” I say, motioning to his flask.

  He shrugs. “Maybe. I barely notice anymore.” His voice trails off. After a while, he says, “You know, it’s not fair that they keep all these swans here. I mean, why? For our amusement and entertainment? Doesn’t that seem kind of fucked up?”

  I shrug. “I guess,” I say. “But it’s not like they’re in cages or anything. I mean, they have a nice place, and the city takes care of them, and . . . it’s not like they’re in a fishbowl or anything. There’s lots of room here and they wander around wherever they want.”

  “But it is a fishbowl,” Andy says. “They don’t have a choice.”

  I look at the swans on the lake. “They look happy enough, though. They don’t even realize they’re stuck.”

  “That’s even worse,” he says. I laugh, but Andy doesn’t. In fact, he seems agitated by the swans’ ignorance.

  “But Andy,” I say, “aren’t we all being held captive in some way, shape, or form?” I follow it up with another long drag, half close my eyes and nod my head as if I’ve just said the most enlightening thing ever uttered. I expect Andy to laugh because I’m totally trying to lighten the mood, but instead he nods his head.

  “Exactly,” he says.

  “I was joking,” I say. “I mean, kind of.”

  “Hey, you know what these swans remind me of?” Andy asks.

  “Hmm?” I say, flicking my cigarette butt into the water.

  “The ducks in Central Park. You know, Holden Caulfield.”

  “Oh, shit, yes!” I say, and I didn’t think it was possible, but I fall for Andy a little more in that precise moment.

  “When he’s all obsessed with where they go in the winter,” Andy says. “Because the lake is frozen over.”

  I slap my hand down on the deck. “Yes! Yes! You’re so right. Now that’s a fucking good book.”

  “Yeah, it is,” Andy says. He sighs and looks at the swans again. “But you know, at least those ducks
go.”

  “What?”

  “They go. They escape,” he says. “Maybe Holden doesn’t know where, but they do get to go. But these poor bastards, they’re just fucking stuck here.”

  I look at the swans. “I guess . . .”

  We watch them for a minute and I think he’s going to suggest we kidnap all of them and save them. But instead he says, “If I were one of these swans, I’d run out into traffic instead of waddling around here the way everyone wants me to.”

  I laugh, but he just pulls out another cigarette and lights up. After the first drag, he shakes his head and throws it into the lake. “Damn,” he says and looks up at the buildings around us. “This place is getting old.”

  “Yeah,” I say, sensing that the night is over. That in a few minutes, we’ll both go home and on Monday, we’ll pass in the halls and maybe he’ll forget tonight even happened. “I guess we should probably get going.” I get up on my feet.

  “Wait,” Andy says, reaching up and holding on to my wrist. “Like going, going?”

  I shrug, even though the thrill of more time with Andy awakens every cigarette-soothed nerve. “What else are we going to do?” The question strikes me as somewhat suggestive even though I didn’t mean it to be.

  “You ever been to the beach at night?” Andy says.

  “Uh, no, but . . .” I look at my watch, realizing how late it is and a ride out to the beach won’t be a short trip. “It’s getting kind of late.” It’s past midnight already, and Cocoa is at least a thirty-or forty-minute drive. Plus hanging out there and then driving back will add on more time.

  “Oh, come on. It’s a Saturday. You have a curfew or something?”

  “Well, sort of,” I answer, feeling kind of stupid. Here I thought my parents were pretty all right for letting me stay out for shows even though it means I am obligated to repeatedly text them and I have to be home by one thirty.

  “Come on, Frenchie. I’m going to die tomorrow, remember? You wouldn’t want to deny me my last request. Besides, we’re supposed to be on an adventure. It’s our night of adventure!” He jumps up to his feet and takes another sip from his flask. His eyes are still glassy from the alcohol, but his excitement is catching.