Tattoo Who?

Jack Deatherage, Jr.

(7/2018) I's standing in the tattoo shop watching Don, pillar of the community pricking black ink into the skin of a young woman's upper arm. She grimaces as the pins strike a nerve. A vulgar word or two is uttered, followed by a laugh which I join in. I ask if the design is one of hers as I recall her sketching something similar a week or so before she's seated in "the chair". (Don says the woman has crazy art skills and she'd make a good tattooer if she turns her mind to the medium.)

"No. It's from The Game of Thrones." She tells me as the tattoo machine buzzes and some heavy metal- Oops. Don says it's just "metal" music (I take Don at his word that metal is music) is nearly drowning out our exchange. "Almost all of my tattoos are based on the house emblems in that show."

I'm not a fan of the series so I promptly forgot which house she referred to, though my forgetting could have easily been the onslaught of senility. (I've been swallowing maidenhair tree tablets three times a day to help with memory, but so far I only seem to remember when it's time to swallow the pills.)

"Do you have any tattoos?" She asks after another grimace.

I allow I don't.

"Are you going to get one?" She's seen me in the shop so often that she and her friends know my name, though I rarely recall any of their names. (Evidently people not sporting tattoos seldom hang out in tattoo shops and are noted as oddities when they do turn up.)

"Probably not." Comes slipping out of my mouth before I can stop it.

The tattoo machine immediately stops humming. The conversation elsewhere in the room halts as well. Heads turn toward me. Tattoo Don glances up from his work and a slight smirk curves his lips.

"We're wearing him down. Every other time he's said, 'Hell No!'"

Laughter erupts. I'm left thinking, where did "probably" come from? Musta been one of those Freudian slips, though that would require a functioning brain wouldn't it?

Don has told me, repeatedly, not to waste time trying to understand why anyone gets a tattoo. Evidently the whole process tends toward individuality even as it's become an "in-thing" to have done to oneself. I have to admit I've seen more people with tattoos these last 20 years than I can recall in the first 43 years of my life. And I still ponder the why of what they are having done to themselves.

"Ink therapy" "I need an ink fix" "Pain therapy" people tell me with smiles on their faces. Others are solemn as they explain to Don they want to commemorate a loved one's passing- be it a human or a pet. Some sport their children's birth stone colors. Some proudly wear their military patches forever in their skin. Many start out on a dare, or come in with their besties, or favorite sibling, or partners in various shared adventures wanting to share yet another experience in their lives. Others wonder what they'll do when every inch of available skin is covered in ink- cover-up tattoos of course!

I relax as I eventually ponder my way to being too short on disposable income to get even the simplest of tattoos. Don's shop minimum is $50 - a sum better spent on a bottle of bourbon, maybe seven pounds of smoked bacon, or a couple of books I've been wanting to acquire. Gods, what a relief to have escaped that dilemma!

Then I recall one of Marty's nephews saying he could sell tickets to people wanting to see me in "the chair" being pricked by Don! And following that memory came stomping someone else saying "We'll record a video of Jack being tattooed and put it on YouTube!" It was even suggested they could raise enough spectator dollars to pay for an entire back-piece- those things run into thousands of dollars! I'm thinking I need a new place to hang out, but then I'd miss all the great conversations that randomly crop up among those enduring the pricking.

But another thought crowds out everything else. Oklahoma Homesteader Diane declared me a bobble-head some years ago. Saved again! Thank you Diane! I'm free to skim through thousands of pages of tattoo flash and tens of thousands more of illustrations that could be turned into tattoos without fear of ever finding one I might want to carry to the manure pit! My likes (as far as art is concerned) change direction as frequently as a flutterby's meandering course! I'd never make up my mind about a tattoo for longer than it would take Don to give me a price quote!

"When Jack dies, we're going to cover him in tattoos." Don says to Middle Brother who was visiting from the Deep South in early May and now wears one of Emmitsburg Tattoo Company's tattoos- carefully applied by Tattooer Jamie. "Democrat slogans, Obama's face," The room fills with laughter.

"And we're filling his coffin with cell phones - all of them turned on so we can call him every day until the batteries die."

The DW's and I's offspring was told the same thing after he'd gotten inked by Don sometime around mid-May.

"Two more to go." Don added grinning at me and the DW.

I laugh along with everyone else. I don't care what's done with the carcass I vacate when it's time of move along "the wheel". If someone wants to waste money on a coffin, cell phones, tattoo time, effort and ink that would be their thing. I'd prefer the manure pit and eventually a scattering across a crop field, but having moved on, it ain't like I'll be around to object to whatever happens to the meat and bone sack left behind.

And then another bobble. The Japanese have a collection of tattooed skins they've preserved for centuries. Other countries have also begun to skin and tan some of their tattooed corpses to preserve the art. I get to thinking again.

If I follow the Deatherage male tradition of dropping dead before my first grandchild is born, the offspring could bring the kid(s) north to view my tanned hide as it hangs in some corner of Don's shop- testament to Don's art, both of tattooing and persuasion.

The rest of the corpse could still slide into the manure pit and eventually end up on some crop field and the eternal recycling would continue, as the gods set it up to do.

Did I just talk myself into a tattoo? Probably not. I'm back to that lack of disposable income thing. Now all those who hoped to watch me cry like a baby as Don pricked me will have to settle for just laughing at my being an indecisive sissy.