Brand New Cherry Flavor

by Todd Grimson

  laughing, enjoying the thought of her pain. Well, she could stand it. It had to be done.

  The trouble was that the tattoo artists in Los Angeles with good reputations were all booked up months in advance. Some asshole in Venice might fuck it up or give her staph.

  She called Code. It was early enough in the day that he should still be in bed. He had said he had his own line. She got his machine.

  “Code, this is Lisa. It’s an emergency, I need your help. Call me back as soon as you can, please.”

  He came onto the line then, sounding sleepy, half awake. The word emergency had gotten his attention. She told him she needed a good tattooist; she needed the tattoos to be done today. Did he know someone? Did Lauren have any connections in this field?

  Code laughed, wickedly. “Maybe she does.”

  “Don’t fuck around with me, OK? I’m willing to pay double the going rate. More than that, if I have to. I need to know right away.”

  “I’ll call you back within a half hour, even if nothing’s happened yet,” he promised, and she knew he meant it, even if he’d probably actually be late.

  He called her back in an hour and said, “Do you remember, the other day you said that you wanted to see Bloody Murder, because little Mary Siddons is in the band? Well, why don’t we go see them and then drop by here to check out a party Lauren’s having for some friends of hers?”

  “What’s the punch line?”

  “The punch line is that a women-only tattooist named Siobhan has agreed, under pressure, to cancel the rest of today’s schedule and take you on, as a favor to Lauren. So get ready to be grateful. Siobhan’s doing you for free.”

  Elated, Lisa took down the Santa Monica address. She was ready to go. She asked Raelyn, on the way out, if she wanted to come and keep her company, hold her hand. Raelyn didn’t ask any questions, dressed in jeans and a man’s white shirt, though she looked a bit baffled. She just said sure. Lisa considered leaving a message for Selwyn, but then decided she could call later on.

  The studio was light and airy—Siobhan didn’t seem too happy about the imposition, then when she found out the extent of what Lisa wanted done, she at first refused.

  “You shouldn’t have more than one a day, anyway. You’ll have to come back.”

  “You don’t understand, ” Lisa said. “These were drawn on me by this Amazonian shaman, and they’re starting to fade—it’s crucial that they be situated exactly where they are right now. So they need to be done today.”

  Siobhan shook her head impatiently. “You won’t be able to take this much at one time. It’s not a good idea.”

  “Just fucking do it, OK? I understood from Lauren that this was all cool.”

  Siobhan didn’t like it. Even if she thought Lisa and Raelyn were lovers, her initial reaction to Lisa seemed negative. But she and her assistant prepared to go to work. Lisa took off her T-shirt and lay down on her stomach on the black leather table.

  The young, shaved-head lesbian assistant dabbed away the blood with cotton balls; the blood came constantly, beading like rubies, welling up … the more focused the color, the more intense the pain, because the needle goes over and over the same place.

  “Why these particular designs?” Raelyn asked, to which Lisa said, “I don’t know.”

  Siobhan’s mood had improved once she had Lisa under the needle. The scab forming was translucent, the same color as the tattoo beneath. At one point the assistant, kind of shyly, offered Lisa a pain pill; she declined. It would be many hours. Lisa suspected she needed to feel it, the initiation rite. Fuck.

  Occasionally she exhaled an “uh” or said “ow,” but she let herself go so limp, so relaxed that there was no question of her flinching or jerking … she couldn’t decide if it was better or worse to close her eyes. The pain was like paper cuts, like being given a shot by a nurse, like someone twisting a tiny razor in one’s skin. It eased when the needle stopped, but the needle didn’t stop much. Siobhan worked patiently on the designs. The assistant also did some work. After a while, when she needed more ink, Siobhan popped in a Bach CD. One thing that did help was being able to squeeze Raelyn’s hand.

  The jaguar. The burning cross. L-O-V-E. H-A-T-E. The heart stabbed with a knife. The circle of thorns.

  The worst one, by far, was the one on the ass. The needle just went over and over, piercing with a sinister hum, this very tender flesh as Lisa lay naked on her stomach, chin resting on a pillow, unmoving, eyes not really seeing anything but staying open, feeling in kind of a trance. She was glad it was a woman tattooing her, she felt like they were all into it, sisterhood, and Lisa was like a young priestess, she was special. She thought she’d gotten used to the pain, but then the needle would hit an especially sensitive spot, and she’d feel the pain shoot all the way up into her mouth, her teeth, her tongue. But her head was fuzzy, maybe she was high on natural endorphins by now.

  Her ass wasn’t finished, but to give it a rest Siobhan worked on the ankle for a while. This hurt a lot too, close to the bone.

  “You know what I need?” Lisa said to Raelyn.

  “What?”

  “Some mirror earrings. Little round mirrors, maybe an inch or so in diameter, dangling from thin gold chains.”

  The unnamed assistant, dabbing blood now from Lisa’s buttock, told them where she thought such earrings might be found.

  Repetition. On and on. Pain. It was late. Finally Siobhan was satisfied.

  “Take it easy tonight,” she said gently. “Don’t go dancing or do anything else that really makes you sweat. Sweat has salt and uric acid, other toxins….”

  “OK,” Lisa said, standing up. She was shaky.

  The assistant gave Raelyn a printed sheet with instructions about keeping it clean and so forth.

  Siobhan smiled. “You wore me out.”

  Though she felt frail as a newborn kitten, Lisa returned the smile, taking the comment as high praise.

  Outside, as they walked slowly to the car, a German shepherd left in a parked Honda Accord commenced barking madly at Lisa, its muzzle sticking through the space where the window had been left open to give the dog air. Lisa looked at it, and the window suddenly went up swiftly, on its own, catching the dog’s head, pinning it, making the dog yelp in a high-pitched way. Then the window went back to its former position, as Raelyn looked around.

  TWENTY-SIX

  Lisa felt better now. She put on her blue swimsuit and went outside to recline by the pool, staying in the darkening shade. The Filipino maid, who seemed to like her, came out and smiled, asking her if she wanted a Coke. Yeah, she did. It was just what she needed to rouse her from what was left of the day’s trance. Lying on her side, the now

  permanently inked left buttock in the air, she took several sips of sustaining Coca-Cola, hoping for quick action from the sugar and caffeine, and called Christine on the cellular phone.

  Wanda answered after three rings.

  “Hi. She’s right here.”

  It still sounded like it was the real Christine. They exchanged pleasantries and mildly mentioned the fight and Miguel’s subsequent suicide. Christine mentioned that Ariel “and some of the guys” had gone by Lisa’s apartment and picked up the blood-spattered couch.

  “What does Boro do with the rest of his time?” Lisa asked. “Do you know?”

  “He’s got a room way upstairs … he spends a lot of time sleeping. By the way, we’re just going to eat in a minute.”

  “What are you eating?”

  “Barbecued chicken, salad, rice.”

  “Does Adrian know where you are?”

  “Sort of. You know, I’m learning some really interesting things. I’m alone now, by the way; Wanda left to start dishing up the food. I know you’re a little worried, but I’m OK.”

  “Tell me: What does Ariel get out of all this?”

  “I don’t know. I’m not sure. He spends a lot of time upstairs. Supposedly, before Ariel, there was another capitan … but he went to Peru. A lot of peopl
e come and go, I think.”

  “I want to come see you, Chris, OK? But I don’t especially want to see Boro this time.”

  “Then come early in the morning. Most of the action here is at night. I’m gonna go eat now. Do that, come visit, soon.”

  Selwyn was dropped off by a limo, tired from a long day of publicists and studio flacks. He joined Lisa, and she had another Coke, this time with Jack Daniel’s, while Popcorn took his Jack on the rocks. He didn’t ask what she’d done all day. Lisa was glad. She asked him if he wanted to meet her, tomorrow night, at Lauren Devoto’s.

  “There’s a party and it would be nice if you were there. To protect me, whatever.”

  Selwyn gave her a hard look that she liked, that she found sort of sexy, and in a few moments he told her, “I don’t think your friend Code has any fucking conception of how many pretty boys Lauren’s seen come and go. She’s different. She gives me the creeps.”

  Lisa liked Selwyn better for this. She told him a version of how she’d met Code, how fashion- and novelty-conscious he had been, how lively, how she’d liked his music and he’d liked her short student films.

  “I probably wouldn’t have had the ambition to make Girl, 10 without him. He really helped. Both Christine and I got very depressed, but Code would practically shove me out the door to look for backers … and finally it worked. It was also Code’s idea that we all come out here from New York.”

  She left out that if anyone could be said to have sexually awakened her or been present when she had sexually awakened, it was Code. She had undoubtedly had many more and harder orgasms with him than with anyone else in her life. For a while there, without any real kinkiness being involved, she’d pretty much been his sexual slave. She had needed to, in order to find something in herself. He was the first man who’d eaten her to orgasm—stuff like that. Ancient history. Code wasn’t the same person now; neither was she. It was amazing they could still be friends, that they didn’t get on each other’s nerves too much. Maybe Popcorn understood, in a way.

  It was seven-thirty. At seven-forty, when they were discussing the possibilities for dinner, the police arrived. The two plainclothes detectives came out to the pool. They apologized for intruding, but there was something they wanted to find out. They wanted to talk to Lisa, they said.

  Lisa felt a moment of pure panic, imagining that this was about Duane Moyer, the man she had killed. What else would she think? She took a sip of the water left in her glass by the melting ice, and this helped her regain her composure. If she played dumb … that was the only way to go. In her swimsuit, with her tattooed arms, they’d probably see her as some kind of punk bimbo whatever she did.

  “Yes?” she said. “What is it?”

  The black detective verified her name, her birth date, her mailing address. Then the other one, older, white, said, “I understand that last week you came into possession of a handgun.”

  Lisa thought. “I looked at some,” she said.

  “Tell us how this happened, please.”

  “I wanted to see some examples, because I’d never really had anything to do with guns, I wanted to see the differences … for the film. The Ripper sequel. I was still under the impression I’d be working on that.”

  “Did you take one of these handguns off studio property?”

  “What’s this all about?” Lisa asked. She felt more confident now that it didn’t seem to be about Moyer. She remembered the Brazilian police. These guys would need a search warrant to go into her room and check her purse. She didn’t see the point.

  The black detective said, “We’re trying to track the chain of evidence on a particular weapon, which might have been used last night in a death. The gun belonged to the studio, and the head of security there says he’s been leaving messages on your machine for several days. He accuses you of stealing the gun. A production aide claims that she saw you examine several weapons before putting this particular one, a thirty-two caliber revolver, in your purse before you left— one week ago today.”

  “Maybe you shouldn’t say anything until we talk to an attorney,” Popcorn said.

  “Last night,” the white detective said, smiling humorlessly, “yourself and Mr. Popcorn here—we’re assuming that’s right, the description fits—the two of you were in the Inglewood Forum as guests of one Miguel Innocente Casablanca, the boxer in the main event. Casablanca lost the fight, and afterward, down in the locker room, he suddenly produced a handgun and shot himself in the head, in front of seven eyewitnesses. We want to know where he got this gun. It appears to be the same gun that you, Ms. Nova, removed from the studio grounds last week, in violation of clearly posted and stated regulations. When the person brought over the sample guns, they said not to take any of them home.”

  “Are you going to charge me with something?” Lisa asked, a faint smile on her lips, almost daring them to try.

  The white detective shrugged. “Do you have any knowledge of how Miguel Casablanca came to possess this particular weapon?”

  “I don’t,” Lisa said.

  “You didn’t give it to him?” the black one asked.

  “No.”

  “Do you think he stole it from you?”

  She saw that she’d already said too much. She should have listened to Popcorn.

  “What was the nature of your relationship with Casablanca?”

  “I’m not going to answer anything more,” she said, taking her index finger away from her lips.

  “Unlawful possession of a firearm,” the white one said as they left. “That’s one,” he said, as though there were several more. Like this was a game.

  “He was just trying to scare you,” Popcorn said when they were gone. He added, as they went inside, Lisa shivering for a moment, that Larry Planet’s brother was a lawyer. He probably didn’t do criminal, but he’d know someone who did and was good.

  “You’re bleeding,” Popcorn said with alarm.

  The jaguar tattoo.

  TWENTY-SEVEN

  The dark circles under her eyes were too plainly visible, Lisa had to do something about them—she dabbed on matte concealer until she was satisfied with the effect. That looked better, she thought, studying herself dispassionately in the mirror.

  She remembered learning somewhere along the way, perhaps in reference to the work of some abstract expressionist, the concept of looking at a picture and getting into it beyond the image, beyond the brush strokes, beyond the color, beyond the paint—and she could understand this, how the canvas could affect you irrespective of anything retinal, you looked at it and it passed through you, you retained its essence, beyond anything that was merely there before you … and she had thought that women could look at men this way, experience them without fixating on the mere surface, one might say its “flatness” … but when men tried to see women, invariably the surface qualities served as a barrier to full apprehension, it was very rare when this was not in effect. And so, as a woman, one had to be prepared for this, realistic, one was presented as a more desirable or less desirable commodity in this world, if you pretended not to be aware of this you were simply presenting yourself in yet another, well-traveled way … Baudelaire or somebody’s first rule of dandyism, and thus fashion, was that the look had failed if it appeared overly premeditated … it should seem unselfconscious, uncalculated, thrown together … there was no way to begin to untangle all the strands of irony present in any sort of postmodern pose, however one looked or whatever one wore.

  One thing about the tattoos was that they were undeniable, they brought the situation to a kind of constant crisis, reborn with everyone she met. Were they for her, because she liked them on her body for themselves, or were they for others to view, to shock them, make

  them angry or provocatively turned on? This was also scary but this problem existed with them, it was not really altered because she had her own private reasons for needing them, the presentation of her body continued nevertheless.

  Today the tattoo sites felt much
better, though still tender. Lisa, prepared for a long evening, dressed herself in a zip-front black patent-vinyl underwire bra minidress, bare arms and bare legs … Code had said on the phone this afternoon that he wanted to take her to the clubs on his new motorcycle. Pleading cowardice, she told him no, she’d drive.

  The visit from the police had unnerved her, partly because she saw in it Boro’s hand. She had the impression that there was no way Casablanca could have taken the revolver from her purse (and how could he have known of its existence?) when he had visited her to drop off the videocassette of his fight … and, furthermore, she had had the gun with her when she and Christine had delivered Moyer’s body Wednesday, she couldn’t be absolutely positive because there had been a lot going on, a lot of details demanding her attention, but she knew that at the time she had certainly thought she had it. She might have put down her purse in the big room with all the plants when they had first arrived. So if it had been taken from her then, it might have been given subsequently to Casablanca, by Boro or Ariel, in order to involve her … and though this version did presuppose that Boro had anticipated Casablanca’s shooting himself after his loss, this was hardly beyond belief… and it would serve as one more little thread, if Boro meant to sacrifice her in a hotel room, in a flamboyant unsolved murder with a lot of clues and connections impossible to get to the bottom of once she was dead.

  But he might be just teasing her, knowing she might think this, or—and here it started getting ominous again—not caring if she did think this or not. How many suspects would there be if she was killed? How many different men would have their photos in the best-selling book pseudoexamining the hideous crime?

  Early this afternoon, while Lisa was putting Neosporin on the tattoos, Raelyn had come into her room, bouncy and confident, showing her some mirror earrings like Lisa had asked for, seductive and playful, asking Lisa, “What will you do for these? How badly do you want them?”