He doesn’t need money, I thought. He’d sooner chop off his hand than take any. Maybe a grand opening party? I could play…
It sounded arrogant, but I had to admit, the video for “The Lighthouse” didn’t suck and my songs were selling like mad on the digital sites. Maybe I’d have something of a name by the time he was ready to open his own place. A name with pull.
“What are you smiling about?” he asked.
“I was thinking about your future shop.” I nudged his elbow. “When did you know you wanted to become a tattoo artist, anyway?”
He shrugged. “I don’t know. Long time.”
“Come on, Teddy.”
Theo frowned. “I usually don’t talk about this stuff.”
“I want to know. For real.” We came to an old-fashioned bench in front of an antique store with a gramophone and Victorian-era dresses in the window. “Here, sit,” I said. “Tell me.”
He sat, glanced once at me sideways. “I got my first tattoo when I was sixteen. This one.”
He turned the inside of his wrist to me. A black and red scorpion perched on its tail.Helenwas inked below it in beautiful script, cleverly at an angle, so the name looked like the scorpion’s shadow.
“Helen the Scorpion?”
Theo gave me a strange smile. “I’ll get to that,” he said. “I thought a scorpion was badass at the time. I knew my dad would shit his pants—it’s illegal to get inked in Nevada when you’re under eighteen. But I knew a guy who knew a guy.”
I laughed. “I knew a guy who knew a guy too,” I said, showing him the stars on my middle finger.
“They’re out there, they work cheap, and they piss parents off. Anyway, it took four hours, and while I was there, another artist was working on a client. Middle–aged woman. She’d just lost her daughter in a car accident. She was getting a tattoo of an angel with the girl’s face and her birthdate.”
“Oh God, that’s so sad.”
“I couldn’t see it from where I sat but I heard the whole story. Sat and listened as the woman told her artist everything. I was a sixteen-year-old punk kid. I couldn’t get why some woman would pour out her most personal tragedy to a total stranger. But she talked about her daughter the entire time, sometimes crying, sometimes laughing. She even talked about the moment she learned her kid was gone. And the whole time I’m thinking,That poor guy inking her. He’s gotta be wishing he were anywhere else.”
I nodded but said nothing. Theo’s eyes were fixed on the street but in the past too. I didn’t want him to stop talking.
“The lady’s tattoo was done before mine. She checked it out in the mirror, crying. Her artist looked like Chester from the band Linkin Park, but he was hugging her, and she patted his cheek like he was her son. She told him he gave her the greatest gift: her daughter as she wants to remember her, any time she wants. She just has to look down on her arm, and there she is.”
He stared straight ahead, beyond the passersby and the streets and the sky. I thought he’d come to the end of the story, but then he leaned over, rested his forearms on his knees. His fingertips traced the lines of the scorpion on his arm.
“Her name was Helen. And I never forgot her. When it was time to start college, everyone was on my ass to become a graphic artist. Computers, tech, websites—that’s where the money is, T.If I had a dollar for every time my dad tried to steer me toward graphic design…” He shook his head. “I wanted todraw, not work on computers. I wanted the response between the art and the audience to be immediate. As visceral as it could be. Up close and personal. Except I’m not an up-close-and-personal guy. I’m not a big talker…” His eyes flicked toward me. “Except with you.”
I smiled. “Go on. Please.”
“I thought of that woman telling her tattoo artist about her daughter. How the artist listened like a priest or a bartender. All the while he’s using his talents to give her a piece of art everyone can see on her body, yet it’s for her alone at the same time. Art on display, but utterly personal. It became what I wanted to do. It is what I do. A client comes in and I listen. Not just to what kind of tattoo they want. I listen to their stories. I listen and do my best to render what they’ve envisioned.” He turned over his wrist, traced the name under the scorpion once more, then sat back on the bench and tucked his hands in his pockets. “So, there you go.”
I rested my cheek on Theo’s shoulder. “Have you ever had a Helen?”
“Some. I’ve had a couple of Iraq War vets. They come in for tattoos of important dates, like deployments. Or they want their company insignia, to honor the guys they served with. Friends who’ve fallen. They tell me their stories. Or I’ll get a young woman and she’ll be kind of nervous about getting a tattoo on her stomach or hip because she thinks she’s fat or whatever. At first, they joke around and say they’ll need to lose weight if they’re going to show it off. But after it’s done, they’re proud of the tattoo. They want to show it off, just as they are. Those are good ones.”
Theo was quiet for a minute then looked over at me, caught my rapt expression and shifted on the bench. “Okay, story time’s over. I’m ready for that drink now.”
We strolled along the street in search of a café. My eyes kept stealing glances at this man beside me. Realizing Theo wasn’t only there for Jonah during the worst moments of his life. He was there for a lot of other people too. Taking their pain, listening to it, deconstructing it. Turning it around and giving it back to them as a piece of art. Uniquely their own, just as pain is unique to the person who bears it.
“Have you ever told Helen’s story to your dad?” I asked.
Theo shook his head. “Why bother? He’s made up his mind.”
I linked my arm in his. “I can’t wait to get my tattoo from you. Now, more than ever.”
“You know what you want?”
