by Hines
“Some new ink. Never used it before; just checking it out.”
“What’s it called?”
Grace smiled. “Black Tar.”
Candy’s gum stopped popping for a few seconds. “Wicked cool.”
“Yeah.”
“You gonna use it?” Candy said, settling into the chair.
“No. Haven’t worked with it yet. Going with the Midnight Black—good stuff. Relax. Thousands of people walking around with it in their skin.”
Candy settled into the chair, shifting around. “You think I want the stuff everyone else has? Gimme the Tar.”
Grace was surprised to feel her throat constricting a bit with excitement. She had to admit, she did want to use the new Black Tar ink. But she couldn’t, not without knowing more about it. She shook her head. “Can’t. I’m not gonna stick you with anything I haven’t tested.”
Candy rolled her eyes, looking closer to fifteen than her true age of twenty-two. “Thousands of people walking around out on the streets with ink from the office store in them, and they’re fine.”
“Most of them.”
“Yeah, well, is it specifically tat ink?”
Grace paused. “Yes.”
“So it’s sterile. That’s half of it. You get it from a place you trust?”
Another pause. “Yeah.” She got all of her items from a single supplier, and she’d never, ever had a problem with the safety of anything she’d ordered.
Candy raised her eyebrows. “So let’s live a little. Gimme the Tar.”
Grace felt anticipation coiling inside her, not quite believing she was even considering it. But after a few seconds of thought, she nodded. “Okay,” she said. “We’ll take a look. If I like the feel, we’ll try it.”
“Too cool.”
For a moment, Grace thought Candy was going to kick her heels together and say “Goody goody gumballs.”
Grace turned away, donned sterile gloves, went to her worktable. She pulled out some plastic wrap and circled it around the new bottle of Black Tar, creating a moisture barrier, then put it on the back of the table with the other wrapped bottles and instruments. From a metal tray next to the worktable, she carefully selected packages of single-use needles and tubes. Other shops still went with autoclaves, but Grace was extra careful; everything in her shop was single-use.
She stripped the packaging off the needles and the tube, then turned them over and slipped them onto the sterile surface of her worktable. Finally she pulled off the gloves, threw them on the metal tray’s pad, wrapped it all together, and threw the whole package into the waste container to be incinerated later.
She rubbed her hands with alcohol cleanser, slipped on a fresh pair of gloves, and looked at Candy. Candy smiled, popping her gum again.
At her worktable, Grace chose a jar of petroleum jelly and used a tongue depressor to slather a bit on the front part of the paper. She pulled a cap out of the dispenser, put it in the jelly where it wouldn’t slide or fall off the work area. Then she assembled her gun, slipping the needle into the armature and positioning the tube and reservoir over the needle.
Finally she was ready for the ink. The Black Tar. She selected the bottle, now encased in plastic, poured a few drops of it into the cap. It was the darkest black she’d ever seen, a slightly thicker consistency than anything she’d ever used. Interesting.
“Okay,” she said, turning to Candy. “Let’s see your hip.”
Candy wanted a biohazard symbol, about two inches across, just above her right hip. Black was the only color she’d need to use.
Grace rubbed the whole area above Candy’s hip with a sterile alcohol pad, then looked up at Candy. “You ready?” she asked.
“Do it to it,” Candy said.
Grace turned back to her worktable, picked up her gun, drew up some ink, and brought the gun over Candy’s hip.
There were lots of stencils and flash art for tattoos out there, and many artists used them whenever they could. Grace was the opposite. She was a freehander whenever possible, and only sketched out the most intricate designs ahead of time. Freehanding, she thought, helped her individualize each project. Kept it more interesting.
She put the needle on Candy’s flesh and triggered the gun, outlining a circle. The gun moved easily, smoothly, and the ink put down a strong, solid line. Grace barely had to wipe away any excess. “Wow,” she said under her breath.
Up above, Candy lifted her head for a look. “Good stuff?” she asked.
Grace looked at the tip of the gun, at the circle she’d just tattooed into Candy’s skin, and simply nodded. Smiling, she triggered the gun again.
27.
“That rocks!”
It was Candy’s voice, coming from somewhere distant. Grace shook her head a moment, noticing that she was cleaning the tattoo with antibacterial soap. She paused, looked at the clock. An hour had passed, and she barely even remembered doing the tattoo. That wasn’t good.
She looked at Candy. “That went pretty quick.”
Candy nodded eagerly. “Tell you the truth,” she said, “I kinda dozed off. It felt . . . relaxing.”
Clients had various reactions to tattoos, but no one ever called it relaxing. And no one ever dozed. Grace looked at the tattoo in earnest for the first time and had to agree with Candy’s assessment. It rocked. The color was dark, almost shined with an oily brilliance, and the whole thing seemed to shimmer, as if she were looking at it through a kaleidoscope.
(Bulimia)
The letters formed inside the tattoo, as if part of some intricate pattern, but as obvious as neon to her eyes—
(Bulimia)
—followed by an image of Candy, crumpled and crying beside a toilet.
“What is it?” Candy said, sensing something.
Grace shook her head. “Nothing,” she said. “Just need something to eat, I guess.”
Or maybe she was jonesing for some smack extra early today. She didn’t feel her blood boiling, but that strange image in her mind had to be the drugs talking.
“That’s the last thing I need,” Candy said, snapping her gum again.
Grace looked at the bony hip jutting from Candy’s skin, then back to her face, but said nothing as she applied a bandage to the tattoo.
28.
After Candy left, Grace put away the Black Tar. She had two other appointments that day, and Vaughn had an appointment to work on a simple barbed wire design she supervised. He did nice work; he was more careful, more patient than Zoey. A couple years from now, she knew, they’d both be good artists, probably move on and start their own shops. Maybe even sooner.
But even as she worked on the butterfly tattoo on Rae’s foot, even as she watched Vaughn outlining the barbed wire on his client’s arm, she found her eyes, her mind, wandering back to the bottle of Black Tar sitting on her worktable. Something about it was . . . intoxicating.
And the more she thought about the bottle, the more she thought about Candy. About bulimia. That image of Candy, a collapsed heap, refused to leave her mind. Where had that come from? The tattoo world was full of New Age mumbo jumbo, to be sure, people who looked at the whole thing as some kind of spiritual journey. More power to them, but she’d never been one of them. It was art, yes. But nothing more.
Certainly not clairvoyance.
She left the shop at four o’clock, but not before retrieving Candy’s phone number and address from her database.
And then, without really planning to go, she was standing at the door to Candy’s apartment.
Why? This wasn’t her issue at all, and she had more than enough issues to go around. How was she going to be any help to this girl when she couldn’t even help herself? Junkie Woman, the Superhero.
She closed her eyes, paused, knocked. From somewhere behind the door she heard shuffling footsteps, a muffled “Who is it?”
“Candy, it’s Grace. From the tattoo shop. Just dropping by to make sure everything is okay.”
She heard more shuffling, a toile
t flush. Finally, after several more seconds, Candy opened the door, wiping at her mouth with the back of her hand.
Grace offered a smile, tried not to read too much into that. “Did I catch you at a bad time?”
“Hmmm? No, no, not at all. Just—just about to brush my teeth. Come on in.”
“I’m sorry I didn’t call first,” Grace said. “I figured, you know, first time with that ink and all, I wanted to check, make sure everything’s looking good.”
Candy led her into a small efficiency apartment, showed her to a threadbare couch.
“Yeah,” Candy said, uncomfortably standing while Grace sat on the couch. “I was kinda surprised to see you.”
“Better safe than sorry,” Grace said.
“Sure, sure. Actually, to tell you the truth, the tat is great.”
As if to illustrate, Candy lifted her shirt, showing the area. The bandage covered the fresh tattoo, but Grace could see the swelling was minimal, if any.
“I’ve . . . uh . . . peeled it off a few times just to look at it,” Candy admitted.
“That’s no problem, as long as you’re keeping it clean, keeping it bandaged for the first week. Just soap—no alcohol.”
Candy smiled. “Yeah, I’ve heard your lecture before.”
Grace returned the smile, peeled back the girl’s bandage, stared deep into the dark recesses of the round propeller-like biohazard symbol. It seemed to glow in the low light of Candy’s apartment.
“I feel like I could just wear it now,” Candy said. “Doesn’t really hurt at all—nothing like my other tats, to tell you the truth.”
“That’s good,” Grace said, feeling a bit of regret as she had to cover the tattoo with the bandage once more.
Candy dropped her shirt, finally seeming comfortable, and sat next to her on the couch. “You want a drink or something?” she asked, obviously warming to the idea of company.
“Sure. Whatever you have.”
“Diet Mountain Dew and . . . um, Diet Mountain Dew. Sorry. Lots of caffeine; jump-starts the metabolism.”
A high metabolism. Sounded like an eating disorder talking, Grace had to admit. But she didn’t have any evidence, any real evidence, yet. Just a flushing toilet and Mountain Dew, innocuous things she’d find in the apartments of many young girls.
“Sounds good.” She paused. “Can I, uh—” She pointed toward the bathroom door. “Can I use your bathroom?”
She saw a flash of panic in Candy’s eyes—just a brief flash as she glanced toward the bathroom—and then Candy nodded her head a little too vigorously.
“Yeah. Sure.”
Inside the bathroom, Grace pressed the button in the middle of the knob to lock the door, but she was pretty sure it didn’t truly lock; the door scraped a bit against the frame and didn’t seem to fully latch. Most doors in her life, it seemed, never fully closed. Or never fully opened.
She went to the toilet and sat on its lid for a few moments. This was why she was here, wasn’t it? To see . . . whatever it was she had to see.
She glanced in the garbage can. Several wads of tissue, an empty tube of toothpaste. Nothing too interesting. She stood, lifted the lid of the toilet, peered into the bowl. As if that would tell her anything. At least Candy seemed to keep it well scrubbed.
Grace moved to her right, stood in front of the medicine cabinet mirror, stared at her reflection for a few seconds. Was she going to do this? Was she going to thrust herself into the midst of this situation that didn’t involve her, try to change the world?
She thought briefly, again, of Russian Guy’s heart attack so many years ago, and realized her one tenuous thread in all of this—the napkin with the number written on it—was also tied to this current predicament.
A thread, indeed, stitching together her poor decisions.
It would be easier, so much easier, to just walk out of this bathroom, walk out of Candy’s apartment, walk out of Candy’s life, and head home to the comfort of her pipe and her white smoke. Chase the dragon, and let it chase her. A perfect, symbiotic relationship. This thing here, inside Candy’s bathroom, was an entirely different kind of dragon.
She stepped back to the toilet, pushed the handle to flush it, counted to five, and turned on the faucet. With a last look in the mirror, she drew in a breath, held it, and opened the medicine cabinet door, swinging it slowly.
Inside, she saw things you might see in the medicine cabinet of any house. A bottle of ibuprofen, cotton swabs, a bottle of perfume, some bandages. These items lined the top three shelves of the cabinet.
But the bottom shelf held four bright-blue bottles she recognized instantly. Milk of magnesia. A laxative. Next to the blue bottles were half a dozen small brown vials of some kind. Carefully, the sound of the water in the faucet masking any sounds she might be making, she retrieved one of the vials. Ipecac Syrup USP, the plain white label said. She stared for a few seconds before replacing the vial. She recognized the name instantly, because she’d kept a bottle of ipecac syrup in her own medicine cabinet when she was a mother.
Ipecac syrup was used for poisoning emergencies.
It induced vomiting.
Grace closed the medicine cabinet and turned off the faucet. Yes, she was chasing the wrong kind of dragon. She unlocked the door, opened it, went back into the living room, wearing a well-practiced smile. She sat on the worn couch beside Candy, took the glass of green liquid over ice, sipped at it.
“Everything okay?” Candy asked. “You look a little . . . I don’t know . . . pale or something.”
“Just need a little caffeine, I think. Long day. So this really hits the spot. Thanks.”
She took another drink, a long draw, lingering on the sensation of carbonation burning her throat. The same sensation ipecac syrup might create, for example. She set the glass down on the makeshift coffee table, pulled around her purse.
“Listen,” she said. “I know I’m being a bit over-the-top with all this, but I want you to see a doctor about that tattoo.” She pulled out a pen and wrote a name and number on the back of one of her business cards.
Candy took the card and looked at it. “Dr. Foss?” she said. “But . . . the tattoo doesn’t even hurt. It’s fine.”
“I know, I know. But Dr. Foss is a good guy; I know him from . . . a few years back. He owes me. And, you know, like I said, I just want to be extra careful with this—using that Black Tar for the first time. I’ll pick up the bill for it.” She tried a smile. “That’s what you get for being the guinea pig. I’ll call him and schedule something for tomorrow.”
Candy seemed unsure for a few seconds, but then shrugged. “Okay,” she said.
Grace stood. “Thanks for the drink; I’d better get going. Just wanted to make sure you were okay.”
Candy stood with her, uncomfortable, awkward, thin; and abruptly, without meaning to, Grace hugged her.
“Okay,” Candy said, following her to the front door. “Thanks for dropping by. And thanks for the tat. I love it.”
“I’m glad,” Grace said, opening the front door and stepping through. She stopped, turned back to Candy. “Take care of yourself.”
Candy smiled. “No prob,” she said, and closed the door gently.
Grace turned and walked quickly away, getting totally out of the building before she felt the tears running down her cheeks. She did know Dr. Foss well; that much was true. He’d treated her at the clinic after she’d got hold of some poorly cut smack and kept in touch with her since, calling every couple of months and asking if she’d thought about his offer to get her into rehab. She’d call him, explain Candy’s situation, and he’d know what to do. Bulimia was treatable.
Just like heroin addiction.
As she walked down the street in the dusk, thinking about Dr. Foss, an odd thought struck her. Here it was, early evening, and her blood wasn’t itching. Usually, by this time, her veins were thirsty for more Harry Jones.
But tonight, the hunger stayed quiet.
29.
La
te that night, in her bed, Grace awoke from a nightmare she couldn’t remember. Something that floated just on the edge of her consciousness, teasing her with its proximity before jetting away each time she seemed about to grasp it.
The blood itch was there, inside, and it was bad.
Except.
Except, it wasn’t in her arms.
It was in her whole upper chest.
Okay, so this was the start of the withdrawals she’d been expecting. She hadn’t hit the pipe since this morning, just before heading to the shop. Since her session with Candy, nothing.
Soon—maybe in a few minutes, maybe in a few hours—she’d start tremoring, and then her stomach would kick into reverse, and then she would get the chills as the shakes increased. That’s what happened when you tried to stop.
Best to just head it off now. Go light up, take off the edge. Help her get over the nightmare.
Still lying in bed, she scratched at the itch in her chest and felt a peculiar wetness there.
Whoa. She was bleeding.
She threw back the covers and made her way to the bathroom, flicking on the overhead light. She stared at herself in the mirror a few moments, took a breath, and pulled the collar of her sleeping shirt down so she could see her chest.
It was ink. Black ink. (Black tar)
Just to the left of her sternum, right above her heart.
She touched the ink, feeling the wetness before drawing away her finger again. No residue on the finger. The ink felt wet to the touch, but it was, like any other tattoo ink, beneath the skin.
Still, when she touched it she felt a mild electrical charge inside her bones, unlike anything she’d ever felt before.
No, that wasn’t quite true. She’d felt something very much like it when she touched that man’s hand in Russian Guy’s hotel room years ago. She’d never forgotten the sensation, and now it had returned to her.
Was that bad? Was that good?
She didn’t know.
It was just the start of a tattoo, this mark on her chest. She could tell that. An upside-down U, with a couple lines dropping from it like harp strings.
She touched the ink again, felt the charge, realized this wasn’t withdrawal. Quite the opposite. At this moment the thought of heroin—smoked or smacked—made her feel sick to her stomach. All she wanted to do was touch the beginning of this tattoo, be comforted by the low electrical hum.