Pretty In Ink

by Scott Hildreth

  “If she comes in or calls, have her call me, would you?” I asked.

  “Sure, same goes for you,” she said.

  “Thank you,” I said as I turned toward the door.

  As I pushed the door open, I paused and turned back toward the tattoo shop. “Does she have a favorite place that you know of? Or favorite things?” I asked.

  Riley shrugged her shoulders. “I just know what she hates.”

  I raised my arms in frustration, as if it might help.

  “Clowns, she hates clowns. And as far as fave places? I guess where ever you are.” she said. “Your house is her fave place.”

  I nodded my head and turned toward the door, frustrated. Now I knew not to check the circus. There was only one place I could go to get answers, but to obtain them would no doubt require violence of some sort.

  And at that particular moment, for me to resort to violence wouldn’t require any instigation.

  None whatsoever.

  STEVIE

  In a Red Bull induced rage, I had driven far enough for the tears to dry and my nerves to settle to a dull roar. The desert air seemed to help. With the sunroof opened, the stereo blaring, and sun setting in the western sky, I glanced in the rearview mirror. My eye makeup was smeared along my face and I looked like a raccoon on cocaine.

  I had traveled more than half the distance from Kansas to San Diego, and felt like hammered shit. I really needed to stop and get some sleep, but I felt if I stopped I would have to think about what had happened, and I knew if I thought about it, I would begin to cry again.

  And I was done crying about men and their predictable patterns of dicking me around.

  I continued for another hour and pulled to the side of the road and parked. As the semi’s and other late night travelers blew past on the interstate, I reclined my seat and counted the men I had been with who had fucked me over. Although it would have been much easier to just say “all of them”, I felt a need to actually count how many I had fucked me over, and hoped the reminder of each and every one of them would eventually thrust me into a desire to start a lesbian love affair that would last a lifetime.

  A knocking sound on the window brought me out of my sleep. After sitting up and glancing around the now cloudy sky, I realized I had been asleep for at least six or eight hours.

  “Ma’am, will you roll down the window?” the officer asked through the glass.

  Still quite confused, I turned on the car, reached for the window controls, and rolled down the passenger window.

  “Have a few too many last night?” he asked as he leaned down and talked through the partially opened window.

  “If you could only understand the irony in that question,” I responded.

  “You mind stepping from the car?” he asked as he stood.

  I opened my door and almost stepped out into the interstate. After stumbling around the car, I crossed my arms and stared at the officer. “Yes?” I asked.

  “So, how much did you have to drink?” he asked.

  I really wasn’t in the mood.

  “Six. Well, seven including the first. Yeah, seven,” I responded.

  “Mixed drinks? Beers?” he asked. “And what do you weigh?”

  “Red Bulls, and roughly one-oh-five. Maybe a couple more now, I need to pee like a fucking racehorse,” I said.

  “Red Bulls?” he asked.

  “Yeah. Had a bad day. My boyfriend fucked a whore, his cunt mom of all fucking people told me, and after thirteen other dudes fucked me over, and yeah it’s really thirteen, believe me, I counted, I decided to live it up and go back to San Diego, which is where I’m from…well, kind of…and live on the beach like a bum and try and become a lesbian. I doubt a bitch would fuck me over like a dude will, what do you think?” I blurted.

  He shook his head and stared. “You look like utter hell, Ma’am. Are you alright?”

  “Alright? Are you serious? Fuck no I’m not alright. Did you hear what I said?” I asked as I tossed my hands in the air.

  I cupped my hand sot the side of my mouth and spoke like I was yelling through a megaphone. “My boyfriend fucked a whore!”

  “Settle down, Ma’am. Other than that, are you alright? Are you injured?” he asked.

  “Injured? Yes. I sure as fuck am,” I said. “My fucking heart’s broken. Need to know anything else?”

  “Do you have a valid registration?” he asked.

  “For a broken fucking heart?” I shouted. “Seriously?”

  And I began to softly cry. Within a few seconds I was in a full blown tear-fest, blubbering and sobbing like a high school girl who’d lost her first love.

  “Get your car off the interstate, and have a nice day, Ma’am,” he said as he turned toward his police cruiser.

  And, just like every other man in my life, he walked away just when things started to get serious.

  WILSON

  My father may be different than most fathers, but many of his ways mirrored every father on earth. The tools he gathered in the garage were similar, I was certain, to every other man on this earth. There were none that he ever actually needed or used, but many that he had “just because.”

  And at the exact moment that I needed them the most, I was grateful.

  I pressed my hands to my hips, stared at the hood of her car and asked again. “What exactly did you say to her, Mother?”

  Standing on the steps leading into her garage, she stood and shook her head.

  “I apologized,” she said.

  “That’s not what I asked you,” I said as I reached for the sledgehammer.

  I raised the twenty pound hammer over my shoulder and held it there. “What exactly?”

  “Nothing more than an apology,” she responded.

  I swung the hammer down into the hood of her car. The hood collapsed in the center, and the edges sprung up as the hammer crushed the steel panel like a tin can.

  “Asher, not the Jag,” she cried.

  “What exactly?” I demanded.

  She stood at the steps and cried.

  I swung the hammer through the windshield with such force that the glass fell from the frame and landed inside the car along with the hammer. Like a mad man, I turned toward the remainder of the tools lining the far wall. After choosing a pick-axe, I raised it over my shoulder.

  My mother had her beloved Jaguar since I was a child. An irreplaceable XJ convertible, finding parts to repair it would be impossible if she allowed me to continue mush longer.

  “I’m going to swing this into each panel of the car, mother. What did you say?” I asked.

  She held her hand to her mouth and sobbed.

  I swung the axe into the passenger side fender, burying it ten inches deep, and creating a hole in the steel six inches around. After a long struggle of removing the axe, I it raised over my shoulder again.

  I walked around the front of the car and hovered over the driver’s side fender. As I raised the axe over my shoulder, she finally spoke the truth.

  “Stop, Asher, please. I told her you were with often with prostitutes on Tuesdays, and I hired a girl to go to your house and act like a prostitute while you were meeting with the attorney,” she said in a fairly calm manner.

  I swung the axe into the fender and left it in place, buried deep in the structure of the car’s fender.

  “You did what?” I fumed.

  “I wanted her to leave you alone, so I just…” she paused and began to cry.

  There was no doubt in my mind she was crying about the car, and not what she had done.

  I crossed my arms in front of my chest and stared. My head was spinning, my blood pressure was elevated, and my heart was broken. Her tears meant nothing to me.

  “Exactly what did you do?” I asked. “Give me every detail.”

  After containing her emotions, she raised her chin slightly and continued.

  “I hired a girl from an escort service and gave her $2,500. I told her to wait until her car came down the driveway, sur
e the tattooed girl would show up sooner or later…” she paused and wiped her eyes.

  “And she did. She beat the hell out of the escort, just so you know. Cost your father and I another $20,000 to keep her quiet,” she said.

  “Does father know about this?” I asked.

  She shook her head.

  “Go on,” I said.

  “That’s it. She though the girl was a prostitute, and she beat the hell out of her and left,” she said.

  After a few second long stare, I shook my head and lowered my arms to my side.

  “You are a self-centered, selfish, and controlling bitch,” I said. “And don’t think for one moment that I won’t tell father everything you did,” I said as I turned away.

  As I walked out the garage door and to my car, I knew it didn’t matter to me what the expense, or if I needed to hire the United States fucking Marines, I was going to find her before she did something foolish.

  STEVIE

  I sat on the beach and stared out into the ocean where I had spent so many days unwinding from another beating, fight, or argument. The beach was one place where I could always go to escape the reality of life. This particular beach, at least to me, was magic, and always would be. In the past, it was able to wash away even my darkest moods, but today it did nothing but remind me of Wilson.

  Everything reminded me of Wilson.

  I felt guilty for walking away from the shop, leaving my only friends, and driving to the other side of the nation, but I was far too embarrassed to tell anyone what had happened. Admitting I had made yet another foolish choice in men was just too much to confess, and far too crushing to discuss with anyone.

  Wilson had me fooled. I truly believed he was the man of my dreams, and although I never would have guessed in a million years that he was fucking whores, it all made sense now.

  His mother’s reaction the day we met was genuine concern over her son’s decision to continue sleeping with nasty-assed whores, not a reaction to my having been tattooed. As I stared out at the breakers, Wilson became the bad guy and his mother evolved into my savior.

  Funny how the truth changes things.

  I realized I needed to go to work sooner or later, but returning to my old shop in San Diego would just raise eyebrows, and potentially allow me to run into Bart again. After much consideration, I decided if I was going to live the life of a lesbian, I may as well go to where they all hung out.

  San Francisco would be my new home.

  Maybe there I could find a woman who would be my bestie, lick my twat, and treat me right.

  The thought of it made me sick.

  I decided I would just live my life single, angry, and hating men. Not so much different than any other woman on earth, just a little more cautious of men and their willingness to tell lies. So cautious I would avoid them like the fucking plague.

  There was no doubt being single would suck major dick, but having my heart torn from my chest again just might kill me and I knew it. I seriously doubted I had another heartbreak left in me.

  I gazed once again out at the ocean, sad about everything, but incapable of shedding another tear. I was emotionally exhausted and my heart hurt. In the time Wilson and I had been together, I had developed a little dream. I seriously believed one day he and would be able to come to the very beach where I was sitting, and I could share with him the place that I had held for so long as sacred.

  When I came to the beach, I came to surf, to think, and to separate myself from the masses of the earth, but I never shared my beach with a man. My dream was to do so with Wilson, because, he, just like the beach, was special, wholesome, and deserving of my deepest feelings.

  Yet I sat on and stared out at the waves alone, scared to proceed with life, and so emotionally damaged I was incapable of even shedding a tear. In time I was sure that I would return to normal, but this time I would recover slowly, and it was quite possible I would never fully heal. This time, for the first time, my love was real, and my pain was genuine.

  The black eyes I had lived a lifetime hiding were nothing compared to hiding the emotional damage I was left with from being truly heartbroken.

  I stood, tossed my phone into the ocean, and turned away.

  It was time to start a new life.

  WILSON

  I explained everything that had happened to my father, who didn’t seem at all shocked by my mother’s actions. Disappointed, yes, but shocked, not so much.

  “Almost word for word,” I said.

  “Son, all I can offer is an apology,” he said.

  I raised my hands to my face and covered my eyes. Within a few seconds, I was crying like a baby. My father rested his hand on my shoulder and attempted to comfort me.

  “You’ll get her back, and she’ll understand once she knows what really happened,” he said.

  “You don’t understand,” I said as I wiped my tears. “She’s different. She’s been hurt her entire life. Over and over. She doesn’t trust men.”

  “She trusts you, doesn’t she?” he asked.

  “She did,” I said.

  The thought of it all was crushing. To lose her, and especially to lose her in this manner, was incomprehensible. The pain inside my chest was at an all-time high, and I felt as if I was being choked from the inside out.

  “I’m quite certain time will heal this wound,” my father said. “Does she have anywhere special she goes? A favorite place?”

  I shrugged my shoulders. “I don’t know.”

  “Friends?” he asked.

  “I could go talk to the people she works with. I’ve been there once, but I left frantic,” I responded.

  “It may be worth a try. And I could certainly find you a top-notch Private Investigator if need be,” he said.

  “See what you can find out about hiring one, if you will,” I said. “And I’ll go to her shop.”

  “Good luck,” he said.

  I stood from my seat and wiped my face. I felt like a fool, but I was so madly in love with her it hurt me to even breathe.

  “I love you,” I said as I turned away.

  “I love you, Son,” he said. “I’ll lock up, don’t worry.”

  I stumbled to my car and drove to Blurred Lines. After a half hour of explaining every detail of what had happened to Riley and Blake, neither of them had much to offer, only a few kind words attempting to comfort me. Well, that and sheer shock.

  “Holy shit, that’s the craziest fucking story I’ve ever heard. Just fucking crazy,” Blake said. “Dude, I’m sorry. I wish there was something I could do to help.”

  “I’m sorry, too,” Riley said. “But I haven’t heard a single word from her, I mean nothing. If I do you’ll be the first to know.”

  I nodded my head. I hadn’t slept in 36 hours, and I looked like the wrath of God himself. Unshaven, unshowered, and wearing jeans with one of Stevie’s beloved wife beaters, I was scouring the city looking in each and every crack and crevice for even a hint of her.

  “I ain’t trying to hijack your conversation, but you’re talking about the little tattooed girl with the purple hair who works here, ain’t ya?” The new employee asked as he walked to where we were standing.

  “Yes, do you know where she might be?” I asked, hoping he could shed some light on the subject.

  He was a mountain of a man, standing roughly six foot two, and was covered in muscles and tattoos. His hair was short but messy, and he had a week long growth of beard, covering the majority of the small scars I could see on his face, but a few of them were still quite visible. As I stood and waited for him to respond, he slowly continued to wrap a piece of wire around an object he held, and upon completing his task, he responded.

  “I ain’t got a clue where she might be, but I know people. Name’s Lightning. Former Force Recon Marine, finding people is my specialty. I got some…let’s call them friends…in an undisclosed location in southern California who can find a pecker gnat in a herd of African elephants. You give me her phone number
, vehicle identification number, and Social Security number, and I’ll give you her location in about two hours,” he said.

  “You’re certain?” I asked.

  He nodded his head.

  “Certain?” I asked again.

  He calmly nodded his head.

  “If you can locate her in two hours, I’ll give you a hundred thousand dollars,” I said. “How’s that for incentive?”

  “Damn. Sure don’t sound legit. Listen, I don’t need paid for this. Sounds like she’s your girl, and there was a little misunderstandin’, right?” he asked.

  I nodded my head.

  “Yeah, if you can give me that information, I’ll find your girl,” he said calmly.

  “And you’re sure?” I asked excitedly.

  He nodded once. “Sure as a shark shits in the sea.”

  As far as I knew, a shark only shit in one place.

  “You sound pretty certain,” I said.

  “Get me that information and I’ll show you how we reconnaissance Marines do it,” he said.

  “Riley, get me a sheet of paper and a pen if you will,” I said as I turned toward the door.

  A few phone calls later, and with the help of Blake, we provided her checking account number, Social Security number, the VIN number from her car, and her cell phone number.

  Too excited to sleep, too heartbroken to eat, and much too hopeful to leave, I sat down on Blake’s chair and waited. Waiting two hours was nothing as far as I was concerned. My life, by all means and measures, had stopped upon her departure. Living without her was impossible, and although I never expected it would have come to living without her, her absence caused me to realize just how big of a part she played not only in my life, but in my being.

  “Busy?” I asked as I shifted my eyes toward Blake.

  “Not at all, what’s up?” he asked.

  “I want a tattoo,” I said.

  “You’re a virgin, aren’t you?” he asked.

  Although I wouldn’t have guessed I had a laugh left in me, I chuckled. “Pardon me?”