Like Son

by Felicia Luna Lemus

  Nathalie had whispered those words in my ear on countless occasions. Often when I fucked her. Sometimes as we fell asleep. Other times as we walked through the city. And then, always, cannibalistic little monster, she’d specify her love threat. With mint jelly, she’d say and lick her chops.

  “Nat?”

  “Hmm?”

  “Are you coming with me?”

  “Where?”

  “I want the tattoo,” I said.

  She leaned back and stared at me.

  “You mean like right now?”

  “Yes.”

  “Well, alright then,” she said and stood. “Let’s go.”

  Something shifted. I saw it happen. Nathalie smiled the most toothy and quivering sexy smile I’d ever seen. With mint jelly. Indeed.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO

  Idon’t mean to complain, but Nathalie took nearly an hour to get ready. As always, I appreciated the end result, but really, making me wait like that was all power trip. Wasn’t I already submitting plenty in that I was about to get a huge tat with her name on it? Regardless, it was well past ten by the time we’d walked south of Houston to the tattoo parlor on Ludlow that every downtown hipster with ink swore by. The sign on the door said the shop was open until eleven.

  When I explained exactly what I wanted to the only tattoo artist not already busy with a client, she said, “Sorry, dude, we close soon. You’ll have to come back tomorrow.”

  “I totally understand,” I said as respectfully as possible, “but we’re going to the protest tomorrow.”

  She so wasn’t impressed.

  “We’re open Sunday,” she offered with a tired but polite smile.

  “It’s just, I’m out of town Sunday and—”

  “You are?” Nathalie interrupted.

  “Estate auction. D.C. I booked the trip a month ago … ?”

  “Right,” she said and shook her head, embarrassed to have forgotten.

  “You can still cover the store Sunday, right?” I asked Nathalie.

  “Of course, sweetie.”

  Ms. Tattoo looked at Nathalie and me as if listening to us sort out our schedule was causing her physical discomfort.

  “Look,” she said, probably just to shut us up, “I can outline and shade tonight, but you’ll have to come back for color.”

  “I’d really love if I could get it now? All of it?”

  Why the fuck was everything coming out of my mouth a question?

  “Ribs hurt. You need two sessions.”

  “Please?”

  “Sit,” she said, clearly exasperated, and pointed to a bench near the door.

  I wasn’t sure if she had just agreed to do the tattoo or not, but I could practically hear her mentally adding an extra hundred to my bill for her inconvenience. And still, I was willing to pay. The shop was the best in the city. I was lucky for any abuse she wanted to dish out. So when she said to sit, I sat. She disappeared into a back room, and when she returned nearly half an hour later she held two pieces of tracing paper.

  “My name’s Kim, by the way,” she said.

  “Oh, yeah, sorry—Frank,” I said by way of introduction. “And this is Nathalie.”

  “Figured as much,” Kim barely smiled. “Okay, so here’s what we’ve got.”

  She spread out the two pieces of paper on the counter between us. One was a black-and-white outline of the tattoo. The other was the stencil colored into a medical-textbookworthy life-size human heart with a banner wrapped around its middle, Nathalie emblazoned in old sailor lettering on the banner.

  “It’s perfect,” I said, beaming like the tattoo was already part of me, like I had a right to feel proud.

  Nathalie stood beside me, her arm wrapped around mine. She dug her fingernails into my hand as she stared at the sketch. I thought she had something to tell me, but she didn’t look up.

  “So, good to go?” Kim asked.

  I nodded and she led us past three barber chairs—each occupied by clients in various stages of pain and bravado— and to the back room, which consisted of a few locked supply cabinets, a drafting table, something that looked like a Xerox machine but that I didn’t think was, a rolling office chair, and a doctor’s examining table covered in white paper. All the walls in the shop were painted black and the back room’s overall effect wasn’t too unlike a dungeon, which I’m sure was meant to be part of the appeal, but considering the way the barber chairs in the front room sort of looked like dentist chairs, I kept flashing on that one scene in Marathon Man where the Nazi dentist tortures Dustin Hoffman by alternately drilling into healthy teeth without anesthetic and then rubbing on clove oil to kill the pain—I was a total wuss about going to the dentist. I was so fucking grateful I didn’t have to sit in a chair out in the front room with everyone else watching me squirm.

  Kim taped the color sketch up on the wall, fed the black-and-white sketch into the faker Xerox machine, and made a transfer.

  “Take off your shirt,” she said.

  She said it bluntly, just like that—like it wasn’t one of the scariest things she could tell me to do. I had to remind myself it was just matter-of-fact business … for her, anyway. Still, reflex reaction, I must have turned forty million shades of red. Stripping down to my bare chest in front of a stranger was not a pleasant prospect, but I took a deep breath and braced myself.

  “Sure,” I said, trying to play it cool.

  Nathalie looked at me, her brow furrowed with protective concern.

  “Really, it’s okay,” I said, and leaned over to give Nathalie the gentlest kiss ever.

  Kim waited impatiently as I then removed layers of winter clothes and hunched my shoulders to peel the extra-tight white binder up off my chest, to my shoulders, and over my head. Technically, all anyone would have seen if they’d looked was slightly padded skin marked with red lines from where elasticized material had compressed just a few seconds before.

  Entirely unfazed by the sight, Kim simply told me to lie down on the examining table. White butcher paper crinkling under my weight as I futilely attempted to get comfortable, I watched Kim cover a small rolling metal table in saran wrap, smear streaks of various ointments on it, fill little cups with ink, pull on a pair of latex gloves, and get her gun ready. I tried to push that Johnny Cash lyric, Don’t take your gun to town, son, out of my brain. I wasn’t going to end up dead on a saloon floor. Oh fuck, what was I doing?

  Kim wiped my chest with a thick wad of surgical cotton soaked in cold rubbing alcohol and shaved what little chest hair I had with a white and orange plastic disposable razor. The razor reminded me of those vanilla and orange half-andhalf popsicles that were so popular when I was a kid. I used to love them. And I’d chew on the popsicle sticks for hours after the ice cream was gone. Every now and then, the stick would splinter and there was something very particular about the taste of the wood when it did—it was like sucking on cotton, and the resulting sensation was always slightly nauseating to me. Kim threw the used razor in the trash, and I felt that weird popsicle-stick feeling on my tongue. She mistook my sour face for pure nerves.

  “Breathe,” she said as she cleaned my skin again.

  I breathed in the strong scent of rubbing alcohol. She pressed the transfer of the sketch on my chest, slightly left of center, and handed me a mirror.

  “Check if it’s how you want it. Last chance.”

  I sat up. Nathalie was holding my hand. There was a wild spark in her eyes. She mouthed, I love you.

  “It is exactly how I want it,” I said and lay back down.

  Kim rubbed one of the two ointments from the tray onto my chest over the tattoo outline. My skin tingling already, she came at me with a buzzing needle dipped in black ink.

  Okay, look, I’m not going to bullshit you. Getting the tattoo hurt. It really fucking goddamned hurt. I must have drained Nathalie’s hand of all its blood for how hard I clenched it with my own. For over three hours, that evil little tattoo gun’s needles dug deep into me, first outlining in bl
ack, then shading with what felt like tiny slicing X-Acto blades, finally adding color. Gripping Nathalie’s hand, I closed my eyes and focused on breathing, almost nodding off from the constant endorphin overload. The pain eventually became meditative, almost pleasurable in some fucked-up wonderful way.

  At some point, I felt Kim wipe my chest and rub on more thick ointment. “Done,” she said, and patted my shoulder.

  I opened my eyes and saw the shining raised brilliance of my tattoo. I swore the heart pulsed, and the banner with Nathalie’s name flapped in the breeze. Incredible. Absolutely incredible. Nathalie kissed my sweat-slicked forehead. A tear rolled down her cheek. The expression on her face confused me. Was she sad? Happy? Overwhelmed?

  “Sweets?”

  “Love you,” was all she said.

  Meanwhile, a sadistic glow warmed Kim’s face. Smiling for real this time, she bandaged the tattoo and instructed me on follow-up care. Gauze and surgical tape for a binder (I folded up and stashed my usual binder in my coat pocket), I got dressed, thanked Kim, and paid. Damn, how I paid. A hefty fee and tip—totally earned and deserved, but shocking nonetheless—having made a sizable dent in my credit card, Nathalie and I walked home.

  By the time we got in bed it was almost 4 a.m., and I was totally wiped out, but in the most pleasant way, like after an awesome day of work and a long night of excellent fucking. Still, I felt like I could sleep for days. I just about wanted to die when Nathalie asked me to set the alarm for 7:00 so we could get to the protest meeting place on time, but whatever, I set the alarm. Lights turned out, the clock glowed on the nightstand next to the retablo of Nahui. The tattoo making it too painful to hold my girl, I fell asleep with Nat’s hand in mine.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE

  Alarm blasting,I woke still holding Nathalie’s hand. “Morning,” she mumbled as I turned off the alarm. “Don’t get up. I’ll go get you a coffee, okay?” “Love you,” she said, stretching and taking over my half of the bed.

  In the bathroom, I washed my hands super carefully and removed the bandage from my chest. I slathered A&D ointment over the tattoo exactly as Kim had instructed. The petroleum and weeping ink and forming scabs promised to be an oozing nightmare. My softest undershirt was transformed into a greasy, smeared mess as soon as I put it on. Resolved not to let such minor inconveniences ruin my good mood, I finished getting dressed and pulled the front door closed gently behind me. As I walked down the stairs, a revolting stench hit me at the second-floor landing. Overly tired, my mouth filled with sour spit, I pinched my nose and kept walking.

  At the corner bodega I got Nat her coffee, sweet and light with soy milk, along with a dozen purple dahlias wrapped in a brown paper cone. I looked forward to a hug that would make my tattooed chest ache. As tired as I was, life wasn’t going to get any better than it felt at that very moment.

  I entered the apartment and saw a shimmer. Large and gold, a wrapped box sat on the bed where Nathalie should have been.

  “Nat?” I called out and closed the door behind me.

  There was no answer. The bathroom door was open. No Nathalie. Where was she? Gruesome Hansel and Gretel flash, I wondered if Nathalie might be tucked in the oven. I skipped checking that space, but did pull back the shower curtain and look on the top shelves in the closet for kicks. No luck. Instead, I found a note on my pillow next to the gold box:

  Frank,

  I’ll call very soon. I promise. Love you,

  Nathalie

  I was convinced it had to be a joke. I mean, I’d been gone for all of fifteen minutes and she’d still been in bed when I left. She sure hadn’t had much time to dress, pack, and bail again for real. Yes, it had to be a joke. A really lame and twisted one, but a joke nonetheless. I figured she had to be hiding somewhere; she just wanted to see a look of surprise on my face when I found the gift, right? Maybe she was on the stoop … ? I checked. Empty. Fuck. If she’d gone to the basement, she better come back soon because we really did have to get going if we were going to make it to the protest on time.

  I slammed the bodega cup down on the nightstand, and a little coffee splashed on the framed retablo of Nahui. I dropped the bodega flowers and keys to the floor. Coat shrugged off, feet wiggled out of shoes, scarf and hat peeled and left where they landed, I slumped down on the bed and waited. Five minutes. Fifteen minutes. An hour. Nothing. God-fuckingdamnit. My tattoo itched like all hell. The tattoo. So not cool, Nat. I couldn’t understand it—how had she let me get the tattoo? What about the baby she’d said she wanted barely two days ago? It made no sense, but there was no doubting it. She was gone, really gone. Again.

  I read Nathalie’s note over and over. I’ll call very soon. I promise. Love you. I’ll call very soon, I promise. Love you. I’ll call very. Soon, I promise, love you. I couldn’t wait any longer; I needed to know what Nathalie had left me.

  The gift box’s wrapping paper was textured like gold leaf, and the bow was starched raw silk. You had to give it to her—for all of Nat’s internal conflict, the girl knew how to make surfaces look good. I fucking hated Nathalie’s wrapping precisely because it was so elegant and classy. To make things even worse, the paper and bow somehow reminded me of the stuff my father had used to wrap Nahui’s book and retablo when he gave them to me. But more to the point, it made me insane to think that Nathalie had folded and tucked and taped so perfectly when she must have known she was leaving again. Didn’t her hands tremble? Where were the watermark stains from her tears? I mean, sure, maybe she’d been planning to give me the gift for days, since long before she’d known she was going to take off, and then, totally unrelated, she decided to leave last minute. But, no matter, by the time I found the gift, it was both a bribe and a reminder that I didn’t know where Nathalie had gone, when she’d be back, if she’d return at all. Wanting to hurt the gift just a little, I ripped off its silk bow, dropped the shimmering length of fabric to the ground, and tore through the remaining wrapping.

  Bulky plastic casing with dark wood laminate accents and a flimsy extending silver antenna, the gizmo I held was a distant cousin of the first radio alarm clock I’d had as a kid. A weather radio. What the hell? A goddamned stupid weather radio? Nathalie had left me a weather radio and all I could wonder was why. Would it forecast her return? Would it warn of apocalyptic earthquake suns? I plugged it into an electrical socket at the far side of the bed and rolled a control knob on the side until the unit clicked on.

  A blizzard is expected. Central Park: fifteen to twenty inches of snow by nightfall tomorrow. It is advised to not travel if possible …

  Excellent. Just peachy.

  … If you must travel during this storm, avoid traveling alone. Let a family member or friend know your plans or route. Those venturing outdoors may become lost or disoriented …

  The radio weatherman cared. His robotic, digitally synthesized voice providing plain-speak wisdom, he was part Stephen Hawking, part Johnny Appleseed. The longer I listened, the clearer I saw his mustached face, his tin pot hat, thick flannel shirt, and heavy work jeans. His feet were bare. Big generous heart, he’d taken off his boots and given them to a poor shoeless young pioneer he’d met on the trail. And he always had a bunch of new ribbons in his pockets for the admiring little girls who ran out from lonely log cabins in the woods to meet him. The computer-voiced weatherman sat in a rustic office situated on top of Manhattan’s highest hill, mugs of cowboy gritty black coffee keeping him alert as he carefully monitored barometric and temperature gauges. He scoped the horizon for storms with a handheld telescope. He kept his listeners safe. His job was hard and thankless.

  Hypnotized by the steady cadence of his voice, I lay sprawled across the bed on my back and listened to the radio until sweat started dripping off my forehead and down onto the mattress. The super had turned the radiator up so high that I felt like I might faint. Prone, I stared at the ceiling. There, directly above the bed, two faint fissures in the plaster intersected. That pair of barely discernable lines quartered the roo
m into lopsided parts. Had the cracks been there before? I didn’t remember them. I was fairly certain they were new, but I couldn’t say for sure. I’d never spent much time staring at the ceiling above the bed. My vision blurred.

  … conditions will be downright dangerous …

  Downright dangerous? Had the robot weatherman actually said that? Downright dangerous? The guy was charming if you gave him half a chance.

  Under such intense observation, the ceiling seemed to vibrate. I planned to call the super.

  There are lines on the ceiling? he’d ask.

  Yes, I’d say.

  And?

  Yes, and? And what? What would I expect him to do? Fix it, of course. Patch up the fissures before they expanded and the universe collapsed. Paint them over so no trace of past damage would show. That’s what I wanted.

  Like clouds turning into faces and unicorns and hearts, the lines on the ceiling shifted and, strange magic, I remembered Nathalie knew I was taking a train to D.C. the next morning for the estate auction. What if I’d gotten worked up over nothing? Given all that Nathalie was capable of, it was possible that the note she left with the radio was just to throw me off her trail so I’d be totally surprised when she met me at Union Station as I disembarked. Maybe she was planning a little round of traveling-businessman-meets-pretty-single-girl-at-the-train-station. That could be nice. Especially if she wore her Burberry trench with a nice pair of two-tone vintage pumps … and nothing else. Okay, maybe some stockings. With a garter. It was freezing out, after all. A little square wicker suitcase at her side would be a nice touch. And if the fates were feeling particularly generous, snow would be melting in her hair when she met me. Nathalie’s skin glowed so pretty when drizzled with dewdrops.

  … stock emergency kits with high energy foods …

  I would pack two sandwiches, one for Nathalie and one for me. Two peanut butter and thinly sliced banana on wheat bread sandwiches, halved with the crusts cut off. I would even pack a Thermos of tomato soup for us to share.