The Mad Tatter

by J. M. Darhower

  That voice is vaguely familiar. I look back that way, surveying the girls, my eyes falling on the blonde. The blonde... I know her. It takes me a moment to remember from where.

  Bridgette.

  I don't know the other two girls, but Bridgette is recognizable, her tattoo partly visible on her chest above her low cut shirt. Without even pausing, I head back toward Kevin's room, where Ellie still lurks in the doorway. "Ellie, what's the walk-in's name?"

  "Uh..." Ellie surveys the appointment book. "Michelle. She's the pale blonde that looks kind of like a stern librarian."

  "Sounds hot," Kevin chimes in.

  "See," Ellie says, punching me in the arm after closing the appointment book. "I knew you guys dug those nerdy chicks."

  I glance across the lobby at them, seeing the petite blonde with her hair in a tight bun. Librarian? Nah. Dancer? Most definitely.

  I turn back to Ellie briefly before looking past her, into Kevin's room. "You mind if I take the walk-in, after all?"

  "Be my guest," Kevin says. "It'll give me time to grab something to eat."

  Go with the flow.

  I love that about Kevin.

  Ellie eyes me suspiciously but I ignore her, slipping on my shirt before strolling through the lobby toward the three waiting girls. "Ladies."

  They all glance up at the same time, their whispers and giggles silencing as they cast me equally sheepish looks. Bridgette steps forward, clearly the bold one of their group. "Hey! Remember me?"

  "Sure do," I say. "Johnny's girl."

  Her expression lights up. "You do remember me! I feel special."

  Don't, I think. I only remember you because of Avery. "So which of you lovely ladies would be Michelle?"

  "Me!" the blonde with the bun declares.

  "And what can I do for you?"

  "I want a small anchor," she says. "With the words 'never sink' written around it."

  Nothing off the wall. Thank God. But I'm not much impressed with her choice of tattoo. "You know that's actually what anchors do, right? Sink?"

  She giggles. "Of course. It's a metaphor."

  I don't press the matter. She isn't the first one to ask for something like that, and she won't be the last. It's beginning to be a fad tattoo, like Chinese characters and tribal bands and infinity symbols. To each their own. "Have a seat and I'll draw it up for you."

  It takes me less than ten minutes. I stroll out into the lobby, spotting the three squeezed together on the couch, flipping through the outdated shop magazines. I show Michelle the drawing, and set off to make a stencil when she murmurs her approval.

  Afterward I lead them back to my room, pulling up an extra chair to the doorway for their other friend to sit.

  "Pick your music," I tell Michelle.

  She picks something out of Lexie's repertoire, some obnoxiously cheery pop star addicted to auto-tune.

  Michelle settles on the table and places her arm on the armrest, since she wants it on her wrist. I place the design, once more asking her approval, before flipping on the machine to set to work.

  "So what do you do?" I ask casually, a question I often ask clients to distract them, but this time I have ulterior motives.

  When the fuck did I become a gossipy high school chick?

  "I'm a dancer," Michelle says. "Mandy is, too."

  I meet her eyes briefly, brow furrowing. "Who?"

  "Mandy," she repeats, motioning toward their other friend—the quiet girl in the doorway.

  "Ah." I focus back on the tattoo. "You a dancer, too, Johnny's girl?"

  Bridgette giggles. "No, I'm in theater."

  "Huh, that's great."

  "Yeah," she says. "You'll see my name in lights someday. Just as soon as I graduate, I'm heading straight for Broadway."

  "Juilliard, right?"

  "Yes," she says, sounding stunned. "How'd you know?"

  I shrug a shoulder. "Where else do actors and dancers hang together?"

  Probably a hundred other places in this city. How the hell would I know? But it's clear to me, from her response alone, that she has no idea about me and Avery, or she'd know how I know where she goes to school.

  "We've been friends since first year," Michelle chimes in. "Hard to believe we're almost at the end."

  "And what about Johnny?" I ask. "What does he do?"

  "He's in a band."

  "Huh, what instrument does he play? Piano? Oboe? Trumpet?"

  Bridgette laughs. "Guitar."

  "Juilliard has guitar lessons?"

  "No. He's in a band, not the band. He plays bass guitar for the Black Derringers."

  I have no idea who that is, and honestly couldn't care less. I'm just trying to make conversation. So I smile and nod when she declares she's going to find a way to get me their latest single on tape, just waiting for the first chance to change the subject again.

  "So where's your other friend?" I ask.

  "Who?"

  "The one that came with you last time."

  "Oh, you mean A!"

  Michelle laughs, interrupting. "A? Whoa, you brought Avery with you?"

  "Yes," Bridgette says. "Can you believe it? She actually came along."

  I glance up, my senses tingling, the hair at the nape of my neck stirring from a combination of defensiveness and sheer curiosity on what the fuck that means. "What's wrong with Avery?"

  Yep, I need to check and make sure my balls are still attached after this…

  "Nothing… I'm just surprised she'd come here." Michelle's eyes dart to me. "No offense or anything, but Avery, well... this isn't really her kind of thing. Her father would have a coronary just knowing she stepped foot in here."

  Those words aren't spiteful, but they still manage to sting as they sink in.

  "Oh, God, could you imagine him coming here?" Bridgette asks, laughing. "The great Laurence Moore slumming it in the Lower Eastside."

  "He'd use an entire bottle of hand sanitizer before he even made it through the door." Michelle turns to me once more. "Not saying it's germy here or anything…"

  "He's just a bit of a tight-ass," the third girl chimes in. Monica? Mary? I can't remember her name already. "Real snob. Serious germaphobe."

  "Seriously," Bridgette says. "But anyway, yeah… I don't know where Avery is."

  "She's at Trouvaille," Michelle says. "She's practicing with some others. I was supposed to be there, but… well, here I am."

  "I haven't seen much of her lately," Bridgette says. "I think it's because Mr. Moore doesn't want her hanging around me. I'm on his shit list, apparently."

  "I'm about to be, too," Michelle says. "When he sees this tattoo, he's probably going to ban me from the studio."

  "Not a fan of body art?" I ask.

  "Not at all," Michelle says. "He takes any kind of modification seriously, like we're violating our bodies. He wouldn't even let Avery get her ears pierced, said if God wanted her to have more holes, He would've given them to her."

  I unconsciously flick my tongue out, running it along the piercing at the corner of my lip.

  I say nothing else, grateful when they change the subject. My attention focuses on my work, only vaguely listening to their conversation, nodding and humming, chiming in only when one of them speaks to me directly. When the session is up, I flip the machine off and push my stool back. "What do you think?"

  "It's perfect!" She lets out an excited squeal as she stares at it. "Thank you!"

  She tips me well, the girls once more giggling and chatting as they pay and depart the shop. I sit on my stool for a moment, the music still playing, but I hardly hear it, too lost in my thoughts.

  I strike the lighter, igniting the flame, and light the cigarette between my lips as I step out the front door of Wonderland. It's nearing dark, and I just finished up, ducking out before Ellie could try to give me any more walk-ins.

  It's the warmest night we've had in a while, the air humid. I shove the sleeves of my hoodie up to my elbows as I stroll along. People rush past me but I'm in
no hurry to get anywhere, considering I have nowhere to be.

  I reach the end of the block and pause on the corner, glancing around. The sun is starting to set, casting dark shadows along the streets.

  I inhale deeply, my chest burning as I welcome the smoke into my lungs. My eyes drift across the street, to the construction site. It still looks as if they've done nothing to it, and curiosity gets the best of me, curiosity that I've tried to ignore since the first tarp went up on the side of the place weeks ago.

  I wonder…

  Turning, I cross the street, right toward the place, walking slowly as I assess it closer. A chain-link fence surrounds it, but it's easy to slip right through, some of the chains broken and peeled away, like I wasn't the first person to have this idea.

  The wooden front door of the building is needlessly locked, the glass covering the top of it shattered and missing. I reach inside, angling my arm around, and shift the lock out of place, nudging the door open with my shoulder.

  I slip inside, making sure to shut the door again behind me.

  The air is stuffy, and musty, and rank. It smells like rat shit, and I can hear the critters scurrying around in the darkness, but it doesn't bother me, not like it should. I guess I expect it in this place. It's always been a pit. I carefully walk through the building in the darkness as I puff on my cigarette, letting the nicotine soothe my nerves.

  When I reach the back of the building, I take one last, long drag, before tossing the cigarette down and tramping it out, just leaving it there.

  Reaching into my pocket, I pull out my lighter again, igniting it, illuminating a bit of the darkness around me. I hold the flame out toward the wall, letting the light wash over the crumbling cement, bathing part of it in a soft glow.

  I stare at it as I hold my breath, feeling a burn in my chest that runs deeper than cigarettes have ever scorched me. It attacks my very soul, splintering a part of me that I worry will never again be whole.

  It's still there.

  It's worse for wear, but it's there.

  It's fucking there.

  Five-year old graffiti covers the wall, an elaborate mass of peeling color and fading images, the black mass dead center the easiest to make out: a silhouette of a figure in a top hat.

  A moniker.

  My moniker.

  Reaching out with my free hand, I run my fingers lightly across it, the wall crumbling beneath my fingertips, some of the color flaking off on my skin. I look down at my hand as I let go of the lighter, the flame extinguishing. Even in the darkness, I can see the black flakes of paint on my palm.

  My chest tightens even more.

  I feel like I'm suffocating, but at the same time, it feels almost like I'm just now remembering what it's like to breathe. Despite the stench, as I inhale, I can almost sense the aroma of the spray paint, and I know it's just my imagination, but I welcome it anyway.

  I was a different person back then, the kind that made the fucked up choices that turned me into the man I am today. The world had been streaked with vibrant color everywhere I looked, until the day I turned around and it all caught up to me.

  The color crashed together, swirling and mixing, until all I was left with was utter blackness, blacker than the paint that covered my hands that day. This blackness was a void, a trap I fell into, one that seemed bottomless with no way of escape.

  Five years ago, I tagged over a hundred buildings. Two hundred, maybe. I never bothered to keep count. I vandalized and trespassed and left buildings in ruins, all in the name of art. The police spent months trying to unmask the mysterious street artist, and this right here?

  This is the last of my graffiti.

  It's all that's left of the notorious Hatter.

  It was the only one they never found, the only one they didn't remove.

  Extensive probation, hundreds of hours of community service, and tens of thousands of dollars in fines and restitution has a way of breaking a man, but nothing hurt me more than the final punishment delivered to me in court that fateful day:

  Defendant is not to own or possess any graffiti tools during the duration of probation.

  They took my art away, my real art, the one that called to me most.

  For five years, I've struggled to try to recapture that feeling, to find that thrill again, and a few times I've gotten close. But nothing has ever matched the high of this right here. The thrill of turning a mundane city, lost in the hustle of nine-to-five, into a massive work of art.

  Sure, not everyone appreciated it.

  Some were downright furious.

  But every now and then, I'd find someone who understood, and for me, that always made it worth it in the end.

  I give the old mural one last look, barely able to make it out in the growing darkness, before I turn around and leave. I head back out of the building, shutting the door behind me, and slip out through the broken fence.

  Nobody notices.

  Nobody looks at me.

  It's like I'm invisible to all of them.

  I blend in here.

  I should go home, but instead I take the subway to the last place I feel like I belong: the Upper Westside. Shoving my hands in my pockets, I stroll through the neighborhood, toward the brick dance studio not far from Broadway.

  I can't see inside, can't see through the mirrored glass that wraps around the building, but I know Avery's here, inside somewhere, doing what it is she does, what it is she loves, and that's enough to placate me for the moment.

  Leaning against the building across the street, I pull out the cigarettes and light the last one. After crumbling up the pack, I toss it in the nearby trash, watching as it bounces around on the lid before falling right in. I smoke it in silence, my eyes drifting along the neighborhood. People rush past, casting me peculiar looks, probably wondering what I'm doing prowling around this place. I'm not invisible here. Here I stick out like a sore thumb.

  I'm not sure how much time passes until I see people coming out of the dance studio. Glancing over toward the door, I watch as a few women stream out, chatting animatedly, Avery dead center of the pack. She's smiling, talking, but I can't hear her the whole way over here.

  She doesn't see me. She doesn't have a chance. I duck my head and walk away before she can notice I'm even around.

  Passing a trashcan, I toss my lighter in, finally getting rid of the thing. I'm done. That's it.

  "Daddy… hey, daddy!"

  It's late afternoon on Friday. I cancelled my appointments at the last minute when Rebecca called, asking if I wanted Lexie for the weekend. I need the money, yeah, and I know I shouldn't have done it, but I couldn't pass up the chance to spend time with my girl.

  I glance down at her as we stroll away from her mother's house, pink backpack on her back and hair chaotic, like it hasn't been brushed all day. "Yeah?"

  "Can we get fro-yo?"

  "Fro-yo?" I reach out and take her hand. "Is that like yolo?"

  "I have a yolo!" she exclaims. "I can do walks my dog with it and go 'round the world!"

  Brow furrowing, I stare at her. "What?"

  "My yolo," she says. "I got it for Christmas."

  I laugh when it dawns on me what she's saying. "That's a yo-yo, not a yolo."

  "What's a yolo?"

  "Uh, it's a saying… you only live once."

  "What's that mean?"

  "It means you only live once," I say, shrugging. "So you want to stop by the store and grab a Popsicle or something?"

  "I want fro-yo!" she says, tugging my hand and motioning across the street. "Can we go to the place Mommy takes me sometimes? The place with the pink berries?"

  Pinkberry. I sigh, shrugging. What the hell? "Sure, why not?"

  There's one right on Broadway, just about a block away. We make the trip there, and I open the door, motioning for Lexie to go ahead. She slips around me, excitedly running inside and joining the line. I wait right behind her, my hands shoved in my pockets, my long sleeves covering my tattoos for the most
part.

  It only takes a few minutes for the line to move along and our turn to come. Lexie waltzes straight up to the counter and stares in the man's eyes, waiting for acknowledgement. The worker glances between her and me, contemplating, before ultimately settling on Lexie.

  Good choice.

  "What can I get for you, sweetheart?"

  "Yolo," she says, giggling before correcting herself. "Fro-yo!"

  "What flavor?"

  "White."

  I chime in when the worker casts me a questioning look for clarification. "Just the regular kind… a small."

  "Large," Lexie says.

  "Large," I correct myself.

  "With toppings!" Lexie says.

  "One original," the worker says, nodding. "Anything else?"

  "Nope, that's it," I say.

  I pay, shoving my change back in my wallet, and grasp Lexie's shoulder to pull her along to the side. The second worker gets to us quickly, the woman smiling down at Lexie. "What toppings do you want?"

  Her eyes greedily scan the various compartments. "I want the gummy bears and Captain Crunch and chocolate candies and—"

  "And I think that's enough," I say, cutting her off.

  "And the pink berries!" Lexie turns to me, grasping my shirt and tugging on it. "I want the pink berries, too, Daddy!"

  I concede, motioning toward the worker. "Raspberries."

  Lexie hugs my waist, grinning, knowing she got her way yet again. I'm such a sucker for her. I ruffle her hair, shaking my head as she pulls away. She steps around me, to pause behind me, a loud gasp escaping her that echoes through the place like a squeal. "Avery!"

  The sound of that name sends a chill through me, followed by another when I hear the voice to match. I haven't seen Avery all week long. Lexie races away, dodging around people. I quickly grab her frozen yogurt, not wanting to hold up the line, and turn around to go after my daughter.

  After taking a few steps, I freeze. Avery stands there, waiting in line, her eyes wide with alarm. Her gaze darts between Lexie and me, my stomach dropping at the look on her face.

  It's the deer in headlights, 'oh fuck, I'm screwed' expression.

  I notice them then, the others… the man and woman standing with her, middle-aged and stern and looking downright fucking confused. I've never met them before, but enough of Avery resides in their features for me to take a guess that they are her parents. They regard my daughter with apprehension as Lexie wraps her arms around Avery, no hesitation.