Why Is My Mother Getting a Tattoo?

by Jancee Dunn

  “Hi, is the Ink Shrink in, by chance?”

  “Who’s that?” said a voice. “We don’t have anyone by that name.”

  I began to sweat lightly. “Well, it says on your website that you do, and—”

  “Hold on.” I heard him holler to someone in another room. “Christopher? Do you call yourself the Ink Shrink?” Back to me. “Okay, yeah, he’s here. What do you want to talk to him about?”

  “My mother wants a tattoo,” I said miserably. “Can I just ask him a few quick questions?”

  Christopher got on the phone and I explained the situation, still sweating. “Do you work on old people?” I asked.

  “How old?”

  I told him.

  “Is she healthy?”

  “Yes.”

  “Shouldn’t be a problem then,” said Christopher. He seemed like an amiable guy. I asked him the protocol, and he told me that she should come in first for a consultation so he would know how long to book for the job.

  “Listen,” I said, “she wants to get a tattoo of a raven on her wrist. I was wondering if you could maybe steer her in the direction of her ankle during this consultation.”

  He thought for a moment. “Well, no, I don’t think so. The wrist is a popular spot now. If it’s done right, which is what I do, it will look beautiful.”

  “The thing is, I keep trying to tell her she should get it on her ankle. Then she can cover it up if she wants.”

  “Well, at this point, she doesn’t really have to listen to you, does she?”

  “I guess not.”

  He laughed. “She sounds like a cool lady. Tell her to come in.”

  In the meantime I received this email from a friend:

  That guy Shotsie was like, a tattoo legend in NJ (you probably know this). I remember all the NY hardcore bands apparently went to Shotsie back in the day (because I think tattooing was illegal in NYC for many years but was legal in NJ). So your mom is in the great company of NJ hardcore and death metal bands from that time. You should ask the people there about it.

  Well. That was some good news.

  And so my mother, after responsibly vetting Shotsie’s with the Better Business Bureau for any violations (none found), made a consultation appointment with the Ink Shrink for the following Saturday.

  “I suppose I’d be open to another area rather than the wrist,” she mused beforehand. “I want to talk to this Ink Shrink to find out the best place to put it. I don’t want the tattoo to droop.”

  Guess what, lady, I thought. It’s going to droop no matter where you put it. Where was this magical, perpetually firm spot on the wrist? Maybe she was thinking beyond, to her palms. Or another non-drooping area altogether, like the roof of her mouth or the top of her skull.

  “You know you can still back out, right?” I told her, adding that my pious Russian cleaning lady, Luba, was horrified when I told her the news. When Luba next visited to clean my apartment, she brought along her well-thumbed Bible and said she had something to show me. “Look,” she said, leafing through it until she arrived at Leviticus 20:28. She had me read the verse aloud: “You shall not make any cuttings in your flesh for the dead, nor print any marks upon you: I am the Lord.”

  Luba looked at me gravely. “Tell Mama God says not to do it.”

  I repeated this dictum from the world’s highest authority to my mother, but she just laughed.

  That Saturday afternoon, post-consultation, I received the inevitable joint phone call from the folks to report back. They called from the car as they pulled onto Route 23.

  “Everyone that worked there had studs in every orifice and tattoos on every piece of skin,” said my father. “It looked like Fright Night in the Village. Then there was us. Hell, we were the only two shocking people there. We felt like two narcs.”

  “You don’t say.”

  “It wasn’t intimidating,” said my mother. “We were just out of our element.” My stomach contracted as I pictured my mom in her spring-green jacket from Talbots and my dad with his friendly, open smile. Should that not have been a sign that she was doing the wrong thing? Why were they there?

  “The receptionist was even whiter than you,” my mother continued. As a white girl with Scottish roots and an aversion to sun, I had skin the bluish color of irradiated skim milk. “I mean her face was totally pale, no color whatsoever, and she had dyed black hair.” I wasn’t listening because I was still stuck on receptionist. Did tattoo parlors have receptionists?

  “I don’t think it was dyed,” said my father.

  “Yes it was.” While they argued about her precise hair color, I returned to the shoe website I had been perusing before they called. Finally they moved on to the Ink Shrink, a.k.a. Christopher DePinto, who was heavily tattooed but “extremely pleasant,” said my mother. “He said ‘awesome’ a lot.”

  My mother showed him some of her favorite designs that he had instructed her to download and print out. Then he told her he’d make up a stencil, and vetoed her plan of swilling wine during the procedure, as alcohol thins your blood. My mother asked him if the process would hurt.

  I returned wearily to the shoe website because I knew exactly what my father was going to say next. And indeed: “I told Christopher, ‘She’s been through childbirth, for God’s sake,’” said my dad.

  I grew more dyspeptic as I pictured my parents making bright, chirpy conversation with hip, nocturnal Christopher. I went to my bathroom and rummaged in the cabinet for the antacids.

  “All in all, I think we provided a lot of conversation for the employees after we left,” said my father ruefully.

  “Well, Dad? How do you feel? Better? Worse? Reassured?”

  “Yes,” he said. “I think this is so unnecessary that I can’t stand it. But I’m through talking to her about the whole thing.” He was genuinely aggrieved that she was going through with it. I understood.

  And so a month later, on a drizzly gray day in December, I headed back to New Jersey to watch my mother get inked. I had begged Heather to come along, but that morning she had phoned me and said she couldn’t go.

  “I contracted some sort of eye infection yesterday,” she said miserably “I went to the doctor and he had no idea what it was. In fact, he was so amazed by it that he took pictures of me to show to other doctors. I was a big hit.”

  “That’s reassuring. Did he ask you if you had been swimming in any South American rivers?”

  She managed a weak laugh. “So now my eye is oozing. I’m also wearing an eye patch.”

  “That’s even better,” I said. “You’ll give our little group a much-needed edge. It will offset Mom’s Talbots sweater and my pregnancy waddling. I’m wearing an open puffer coat because I can’t close it over my belly. You’ll make us look hip. In fact, stop by Bird World on the way and get a parrot to put on your shoulder. It’ll boost the freak factor.”

  “I can’t. I’m so sorry. I’m really in pain.” I didn’t have the heart to push her.

  Dinah was working, so I headed off by myself. My parents had decided to make an occasion of it, so we met first at Hunan Taste, our favorite Chinese restaurant. Hunan Taste was gold and red and shaped like a huge pagoda, and it had a koi pond both outside and inside its entrance. I loved its mixture of glitz and grandeur. The waiters wore tuxes, and the restaurant was divided into two rooms separated by enormous saltwater fish tanks, so that as you ate your pork dumplings with spicy peanut sauce, you could watch the fish. Even the top of the bar was a Plexiglas fish tank, so goldfish swam placidly underneath your drink.

  As my mother dug into her dumplings, she told us about a dream she had had the night before, in which she was drawing various tattoo designs on her wrist. “And I remember trying out the idea of two eyes and thinking, Huh, that’s interesting.” She grinned at us. “Wouldn’t it be interesting to have two eyes on your wrist?”

  My father opened his mouth and then closed it, while I tried to keep my face composed. “It would be interesting,” I said mildly “He
re’s another idea: How about one eye on each wrist?” I sighed. “Wouldn’t you feel guilty every time you sprayed perfume on your wrist, right into those open eyes? Mom, could you please have mercy on us? We just got used to the raven.” I leaned in. “I still haven’t figured out why, exactly, you’re doing this. You said you were too old to rebel. So I’m thinking you’re doing it for attention.”

  She signaled the waiter for more rice. “No, I am not,” she said. “I don’t care if anyone else sees it. I don’t.”

  My father found his voice. “Then why are you putting it on your wrist?”

  “So I can see it! Why can’t you both believe that there’s no other reason than simply that I want it?”

  I looked at her. “Because there’s always a reason.”

  She rolled her eyes. “Why must there be some dark, hidden psychological explanation for every behavior? Jesus Christ! Your generation is so analytical. Honestly, y’all have had way too much therapy. I want to get it because it’s art. It’s art on my body. It’s like creating your own painting. That’s it.”

  Dad consulted his watch and did some silent calculations. “Twenty minutes. Let’s get the check. We don’t want to be late.”

  Shotsie’s was a small, square building off of Route 23. As we walked through the door, “Sure Shot” from the Beastie Boys was blaring from the speakers. “I interviewed them,” I told my father. “They were a little difficult.” My father nodded politely.

  The tattooed young guy at reception told us that Christopher would be right out, so the three of us sat on the couch and flipped through a pile of tattoo books for some last-minute inspiration. A heart with UGLY & PROUD written across it, perhaps? Or—here’s one—an expanse of flesh slit open, forming a bloody gash stuffed with eyeballs?

  Then out came Christopher, who greeted us with a big smile and a wink for me. He led us to his workroom, a dark lair with a black glossy floor, steel walls, and what appeared to be a brain in a jar of formaldehyde. His arms were covered in tattoos. He had spiked hair, a spiked belt, and a spiked black backpack tossed near his chair.

  He and my mother plotted out the design, a raven with black lines and gray and white shading. My father lingered uncertainly in the doorway while I took a seat on Christopher’s leather couch and discreetly tucked away the magazine that poked out of my purse, the Martha Stewart Living Christmas cookie issue, with a page marked for the peanut-toffee-chip bars I planned to make.

  I willed myself not to tell him that I used to work at Rolling Stone. An inner voice warned me, Please, please don’t try to establish your street cred. First of all, Rolling Stone isn’t exactly hip anymore, and even if it was, you stopped working there years ago.

  “I used to work at Rolling Stone magazine,” I blurted. “I guess a lot of hard-core bands have come here, huh?”

  He nodded as he fitted a design prototype on my mother’s wrist. The raven was placed off-center, as if it were going to fly away.

  “I like the idea of it taking off,” said my mother.

  I asked Christopher, a former piercer who had graduated to tattoos, how many tats he had, and he said he had no idea. “After a while it just turns into one big one,” he said with a shrug. Then I wanted to know if he ever turned anyone down, and he nodded. “If I sense a certain kind of apprehension,” he said. “If there are questions about removal right away. Or if the design they want is crap, or a bad idea. You know, you can’t get The Last Supper as a toe ring.”

  My father nodded solemnly.

  Then Christopher asked my mother if she was ready. She looked so small as she sat in the treatment chair. She said she was as ready as she’d ever be, and Christopher pulled on a pair of purple rubber gloves. I looked over at my father and knew that his queasy, fretful expression matched my own. “Okey-dokey,” said Christopher.

  Then there was quiet except for the buzzing of the needle.

  My mother stayed admirably calm. “Well, it’s not pleasant, but I don’t feel like screaming,” she said after a moment.

  Dad gave me a tight smile. “Don’t take it personally, but we fought this tooth and nail,” he told Christopher. “She’s not the normal demographic.”

  Christopher shrugged. “You’d be surprised,” he said. “It’s all different now.”

  Then, with the knowledge that there was no turning back, my father relaxed a little and began to pepper Christopher with Retiree Dad questions: So, are you a subcontractor here or a salaried employee? Do you enter tattoo competitions? Have you ever been to Hunan Taste? Excellent Chinese food; very high-quality. Then, emboldened by Christopher’s chatty answers, my father drew from his lengthy street experience of watching The Wire and Oz and asked if he had ever seen tattoos made by prisoners.

  “Sure. The guys are very innovative. I’ve never seen a quality tattoo, but I’ve seen real artistry, given their limited equipment. The best was one that was made with nothing but a guitar string and melted checkers.”

  “You know, you should go to my daughter’s website,” said my father, now fully comfortable. “Lots of really cute stuff, and boy, is it funny. She has—”

  “Dad.” I silenced him with a warning look.

  After an hour, the tattoo was almost done. “I still don’t really have a reason why I chose a raven,” my mother said to Christopher.

  “Mm,” he said, applying the final bits of white to the wings. “Well, they collect meaning. You may say, ‘I just like it,’ but I’ll bet in five years you’ll have more insight.” He wiped her wrist. “There,” he said.

  He did a good job. The raven, about two and a half inches long, looked light and delicate, almost feminine. I supposed that like everything else, I would get used to it. My mother turned her wrist back and forth, admiring the design. “I love it,” she said. “I absolutely love it.” And that was that. My mother didn’t like a lot of fanfare. Then she announced that she had to use the ladies’ room.

  “Your mom is awesome,” Christopher said to me as she left the room. I told him he was pretty awesome himself. I could have kissed him for the way he was so kind and solicitous to my folks.

  After I paid the tab, the day’s least hip moment occurred—certainly no mean feat—when my father pulled out his camera. “How about a picture?” he said jovially. He led Christopher outside to the front of the store and stuck him between my mom and me.

  “Okay, gang!” my dad said cheerily, as if we were at Hershey-park. “Big smile!”

  And then, just to sand off any remaining edge that I might have once possessed, we all headed over to the nearby JC Penney store where my father had been manager; he wanted to see how the Christmas merchandise was moving. He gave me a playful shove. “And maybe you can check out the maternity fashions! Right, kid?”

  As my mother happily waved good-bye to everyone at Shotsie’s, it became obvious that it had been I who was incredibly uncomfortable, not my mother. She never tried to be anything other than exactly who she was. I was the aging hipster who was queasy about my expandable maternity pants and sensible flat shoes and preference for classical music. It was a poignant trip for me, not her, because back in the day, I had probably interviewed a good number of the metal and punk bands who had gotten inked at Shotsie’s. As I said my own good-byes to the gaggle of twenty-something Shotsie’s employees, it seemed that I was surrounded by the fish-belly-pale, sylph-like, black-clad ghosts of my younger self. Just as I bid adieu to my own youth, my mother took hers up. Go figure.

  I heaved my pumpkin-shaped body into the backseat of my parents’ car and stared out the window as we drove toward JC Penney I let my thoughts drift. Today, I stood by helplessly as someone I love did something that I thought was reckless and foolish, and when I tried to talk her out of it, she didn’t listen to me for one second, even though I was certain I knew best. It seemed that my mother had given me a handy preview of parenthood.

  The next morning, safely back in my Brooklyn apartment, I heard the phone ring in my bedroom while I was in the shower. I
checked the message and it was my mother:

  Hi, Jancee. Thank you so much for helping me get that tattoo yesterday. I was lookin’ at it this morning, and I have to say, it makes me so happy. Listen, I really think you should get one, too. Just a little one, like maybe—”

  I put my head in my hands. “I can’t believe what I’m hearing!” I shouted to the machine, as my two cats pattered into the bedroom and stared at me, concerned.

  She was still talking. —another thing I’ve been thinking about is that I really feel like you should consider having two children.

  “The first one isn’t even out of the oven yet!” I hollered. “Give it a rest, lady.”

  —just that you kids have brought me so much joy, and I want you to have the same thing, and— (strangled voice) Each of you girls is my favorite child. Oh, hell, now I’m getting choked up. But really, think it over. Okay, I’m gonna go now. Talk to you soon.

  I sat down on my bed and sighed heavily.

  “Please tell me I’m not as crazy as she is,” I said to the cats.

  ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

  I must first thank my sisters, Dinah and Heather, without whom this book would not have been written. I phoned them both hundreds of times, and they were always kind and helpful, even when I called them during dinner and they were frantically trying to feed the kids. I am so lucky to have them.

  My heartfelt gratitude to my husband, Tom, on whom I still have a schoolgirl crush after eight years of marriage.

  I will always be grateful to the lovely Julie Klam, who makes me laugh every single day; to Jill Schwartzman, my beloved editor, whose keen intelligence and enthusiasm have inspired me once again; and to David McCormick, my agent for life.

  At Random House/Villard, I’d also like to thank Jane von Mehren, Kim Hovey, Lisa Barnes, Sanyu Dillon, Brian McClendon, Bruce Tracy, Benjamin Dreyer, Beth Pearson, and Lea Beresford.

  Most of all I must thank my parents, who have acquiesced with remarkable good cheer to having their every move documented in a book. I am often asked if they put up a fight when I take notes on their behavior. Sometimes they do, at which point I say that I need their cooperation, as I will likely be the one who foots the bill when they grow feeble. Then I calmly list their options. There is the Elder Care Platinum Package (a round-the-clock personal nurse installed comfortably in their own home), the Gold Package (free lodging in a senior-friendly cottage situated on the property of the country house I hope to buy one day), or the Silver Package (a top-of-the-line assisted-living facility).