Circle of Three

  “This one,” I said, pointing.

  The man drifted over. “No. This?” He sounded like he didn’t believe me. His eyes were beautiful when he opened them wide. He looked at me with a new kind of interest, as if this was the last tattoo in the world he thought I’d pick. Doubts and second thoughts hit me. Not this one? This was uncool?

  “Okay,” he said lightly. “I can fill it in with a color for seventy dollars.”

  “With a color?”

  “One color. If you like.” He had an accent; I could hear it now that he was speaking more than one word at a time. His voice was very musical.

  “Umm…red?”

  He shrugged.

  “I want it to really show up.”

  “Where do you want it?” he asked after a long pause.

  This I’d given a lot of thought to. I wanted it highly visible, I wanted it in your face. So not my ankle or my boob or my shoulder blade, none of those coy places, even my arm would be covered up with clothes most of the time. “Here, I want it right here.” I held up the top of my right hand and ran my finger along the joint. “Half on my hand and half on my wrist, like overlapping. Right next to the bone. And as big as you can make it.”

  He thought about that for a while before nodding slowly. “Okay,” he said. “Let’s go.”

  My stomach did another flip. I was doing it! I was following him through the door in back and moving down a corridor past rooms hidden by plastic shower curtains, and the voices and rap music and the humming tattoo machines that had been barely audible in the outer room were loud and busy-sounding and thrilling—this place was jumping! Other people were behind the curtains getting tattooed right now, which was a relief, it made me feel great, more excited and not as scared. The man stopped at the last door on the right, before the fire exit door in the very back, and stood aside so I could go in first, holding the tattered blue plastic shower curtain back for me. “Thank you,” I said, and went in.

  It was just a room. I was kind of disappointed. “Have a seat,” he said, and I sat down in one of the two regular chairs, just plain wooden chairs. I didn’t know what I’d expected—maybe like a barbershop chair, a dentist’s chair, something that reclined. I looked around, but there wasn’t much to see, drawings tacked on the walls of pretty gaudy tattoos, apparently this guy’s custom creations. Oh—his name was Julian; I knew because he’d signed some of the tattoos.

  He had his back to me, he was doing something at a table in the corner. He wore baggy corduroys and a bulky, no-color sweater, through which I could see his shoulder blades and his hips and the bony curve of his butt. He seemed very nice. I imagined him inviting me to go home with him after he did the tattoo. He’d live right over the shop. He would make me spicy food, curried rice or something, and serve it to me on his lumpy couch. Afterward, we’d become lovers, and it would be earthy and real because he was foreign and older. I’d learn a great deal from him. We would live over the store and take care of each other until it was time for me to move on. Which would be very sad and very sweet, but inevitable.

  He turned around, holding a bottle of alcohol and some cotton swabs. All of a sudden I was freezing; no wonder he wore a sweater, it was probably fifty degrees in here. He pulled up the other chair close to mine and lifted my right hand out of my lap. He started cleaning it with the alcohol and swabs, and I stared at the crown of his head, how the hair grew in neat lines, thick and woolly, out of his clean scalp. When we lived together I’d braid it for him. I’d stand behind him while he sat in a kitchen chair with a cat in his lap, sipping the herbal tea I’d made him.

  After he cleaned my hand once, he cleaned it all over again, really scrubbed it, and then he sprayed it with something from a can, probably an antiseptic. So that was good, this was a clean place. I thought of what the guy at Karma Chameleon had said about needles, but I didn’t know exactly what to say to Julian, how to ask. Oh, by the way, are your needles clean? How rude. Anyway, I trusted him, I’d already decided.

  He went back over to the table. I wished he would talk to me, try to set me at ease, like Dr. Lane did before he filled my teeth. There was the tattoo gun, I could see it, shiny silver and smaller than I’d expected. Julian was doing something with little wells, putting ink in them, red and black. I turned away, I couldn’t look.

  Oh, God. I couldn’t even stand getting a shot, and this was going to be like a million shots. What if I fainted? I wasn’t that great with pain. Chill, I told myself, people do this all the time. It’s like sex, you can’t believe so many people could have it, but look at the evidence, the world has six billion people or something so somebody must be doing it. Same with tattoos, look at all those basketball players, look at Dennis Rodman, look at Madonna, look at the Red Hot Chili Peppers. They weren’t babies and neither was I, I could do it if they could, and anyway Raven said it was more like vibration than a pain, he said it was practically nothing, you got used to it and then it was almost pleasant, it was like a drug high or—

  “I’ll start.” Julian wheeled over a little padded platform and put my forearm on top of it. He looked up when he saw my hand trembling. “Are you afraid?”

  I tried to smile, but my lips were too stiff. “No. Not really. Does it hurt?” I gave a high, childish laugh, and blushed. I could have bolted then, jumped up, grabbed my purse, and run. I had a feeling I might throw up. I was so scared, my whole body was shaking with every heartbeat.

  Julian said softly, “It won’t be bad,” and I tried to believe him. “I’m working here, not over bone.” He pointed with his index finger at my wrist bone, but didn’t touch it. “Bone is the worst. I won’t be there.”

  “Okay.” I inhaled and licked my lips. “Okay, then. Let’s go. Hit me.”

  He started the machine. The whine went right into me, into the back of my mouth where my teeth were clenched. Out of the side of my eye I saw him dip needles into ink. “I’m going to start a line now,” he said in his lilting voice. I shut my eyes tight.

  Yeeeee-ow. It really really hurt. It really hurt! Owww! I wasn’t going to be able to stand it. “Don’t forget to breathe,” Julian said, but he didn’t stop drilling. I showed him my teeth and turned my face away. Breathe. La la la la la, I sang in my head. Okay, it wasn’t as bad. But it was still bad. But I could do this. As soon as I knew I could do it, the pain got better. A little. La la la la la.

  I wished Julian would talk. I could talk to him, but I didn’t want to distract him, make him go outside the line or something. I glanced down at my arm. Oh wow, he’d done the circle part on my hand, which was bleeding a little, not too much. I got a queasy feeling and had to look away.

  “Easy,” he said, “not so good here,” and I could feel him coming closer to the bone for the crosspiece. I wasn’t prepared for this deep, biting pain. Tears got deeper and deeper in my eyes. I blinked fast to get rid of them, squeezing and relaxing my left fist for a diversion. I thought of all the movies where the guy gets shot and somebody has to dig the bullet out while he bites down on a piece of wood or something that always breaks, crack, right before the fadeout. If I had a stick in my mouth it would break right…about…now.

  “Better now,” Julian said, and started down my arm.

  It was better. This was doable. I decided to talk. “Are you the actual Rude Boy?” No, it was better not to talk. What a jerk I was whenever I opened my mouth. Julian shook his head without looking up.

  I crossed my legs. I wasn’t cold anymore. Where he was drilling felt warm, and the warmth was seeping all through me, my whole body. “Have you always been a tattooer?” Okay, that was it. He shook his head again, exactly as before, and I closed my mouth. Two people, a man and a woman, started talking in the hall. Their voices trailed away quickly—they must’ve gone out in the lobby. I wished I could’ve seen them. The rap coming from somewhere changed to steel drums and horns, sort of third world music. Julian didn’t even have a radio in his room. He liked to work in silence.

  It got bad again when
he started on the other crosspiece, which was close to the other bone in my wrist. I was expecting it this time, though, so it wasn’t as shocking.

  “Okay. Just filling in now. Bad part’s over.”

  Yes. This was what Raven must’ve been talking about, not pain so much as an electrical heat, a buzz. Plus it was a really pretty red Julian was using, it had pink in it, a definite color but also soft. Strong but feminine. I loved it.

  By the time he finished I was in love with him, too. I fantasized that he was doing this to me naked. His hands were so clean and slender. I wanted to touch his braided beard, pull on it. Pull his mouth to mine and kiss him. I was feeling a little drunk. High on endorphins.

  “Done.” He turned off the machine and stood up, went over to his table. “Do you like it?”

  My arm floated up, weightless. “It’s lovely. Thank you so much.” Little pinpricks of blood seeped out of the veins on the surface of my hand. Nothing hurt. It was a beautiful tattoo. “You’re a true artist.”

  He smiled, not with humility or gratitude, but as if that amused him. I felt a little insulted.

  “How much do I owe?” I leaned over to get my purse.

  “Seventy.”

  I got out three twenties, a ten, and five ones. Tipping was encouraged. That left me a five-dollar bill and some change to get home on, but that should be plenty. I had a full tank of gas.

  Before I could give him the money, he put my arm on the little platform again and started taping a gauze bandage over the tattoo. “Only leave this on for about two hours,” he instructed. “Then wash with cool water and soap. Rinse. Dry. For three days, spray very lightly with Neosporin, every five hours.”

  “Okay.”

  “No direct sunlight, not for two weeks.”

  “Really? How come?”

  “Because it will fade. In five minutes in sun it will start to fade.”

  “No kidding.”

  “It may itch. Don’t scratch it, slap it.”

  “Slap it?”

  “If it becomes infected, put Listerine.”

  “Listerine?”

  “Three times a day.”

  “Okay.”

  “That’s it.”

  I stood up. I wasn’t dizzy or anything, in fact I felt fantastic. “Thanks a lot. I really like it.”

  “Good.” He held the shower curtain for me, and after I passed through, he came out, too. I was surprised when he walked with me out into the bright front room. At the door, he looked down at his filthy, unlaced sneakers and said softly, “I wouldn’t ever have guessed that you were gay.”

  I laughed.

  He looked up, smiling. “Usually I know. But with you.” He smiled, shrugged. “I wouldn’t have guessed. Anyway, doesn’t matter. Take care.”

  He waited for me to leave. I stood still, staring at him with my mouth open. When I didn’t move, he stepped back. “Okay,” he said, and went back to the hallway. He ducked into one of the other cubicles, not his. A humming tattoo machine stopped; I heard men’s low, casual voices. A laugh.

  My skin felt prickly hot on the inside and icy cold on the outside. I got the door open. Warm, humid air smacked against me, tugged everything in me down. My systems started working again. The shock wore off.

  If only I could die. Right now. God. Oh God, I really wanted to die.

  Nobody hassled me in the three blocks to the car. The last place I wanted to go was home. But maybe I’d get lucky and have an accident on the way and be killed. I could drive off a bridge or a cliff, drive into a stone wall. The car would burst into flames and I’d be incinerated, and no one would ever know about my tattoo except Julian.

  The car wouldn’t start.

  Well, now everything was perfect. A perfect day from beginning to end. How could I commit suicide in Washington, D.C.? I could run out into the middle of Georgia Avenue and get hit by a car. But with my luck, I’d only be maimed. I could wait on a corner to get mugged and hope it was fatal, not just a wounding. I didn’t want to be raped, though. I’d always hoped if I was going to get raped it would be after I lost my virginity.

  I remembered a White Tower two blocks down on the corner. Unbelievable, but I was hungry. I went in and sat at the counter in the only seat left, between a fat man and a thin man, both black. Practically everybody in here was black. I ordered a toasted cheese sandwich and a small Sprite, thinking I was never, in Clayborne, the only white person. They must be scared around us, always being in the minority. I was scared, but I wasn’t showing it, because for one thing it would be rude.

  I saw myself in the murky mirror behind the counter. My skin was gray, my hair was dirty, I looked awful. I looked like a raccoon, dark hollows under my eyes. My hand hurt—good, maybe it was infected. I didn’t look eighteen. No way, I looked about fourteen. I hoped Rude Boy’s got busted and Julian went to jail.

  I was such a tool. What a stupid idiot moron. Retarded people knew the difference between the ankh and the female symbol. But—Julian had rushed me by staring at me and not talking. He’d made me so nervous. “That one,” I’d said, and he’d opened his beautiful eyes in surprise. Oh, if only I could die.

  The sandwich just made me hungrier. I asked for the check before I had to watch the fat man eat his dessert, a piece of cherry pie with vanilla ice cream. If I left a 15 percent tip, I’d have exactly two dollars and ninety cents left. Which still should be plenty. I put a quarter and a nickel next to my plate, thanked the waitress, and left.

  A girl was hanging up the receiver of the beat-up pay phone on the street just as I passed behind her. So it was like a sign.

  Between the cars going by and the kids who should’ve been in bed by now playing jump rope in the middle of the side street, I had to stick my finger in my ear to hear the operator. “I want to make a collect call,” I said, and gave her the number. “From Ruth. To whoever answers.”

  Mom answered.

  “Hello?”

  “Hi.”

  “Ru-uth?” Her voice broke in the middle. Something happened to my throat, too; I couldn’t talk for a second. Then Mom said, “Where the hell are you!”

  “I’m not telling. Anyway, what do you care?”

  “Jess is looking for you, Jess and Grampa, they drove up there togeth—”

  “Jess and Grampa?” Incredible.

  “Tell me where you are!”

  “Okay. I’m in D.C.”

  “I know that.”

  “How do you know?”

  “Your friend finally told us.”

  “Who, Krystal did?”

  “Are you anywhere near a police station? I want you to—”

  “No, I’m not near a police station. The car’s broken, so I’m sleeping on the street tonight. This is a really crummy neighborhood, Mom. Can you hear it? It’s raining again, though—maybe I’ll go home with somebody instead of sleeping on the sidewalk.”

  “Ruth—”

  “I could go with some derelict, they’re all over the place. A pedophile already tried to pick me up. He wanted me to get in his car, and I almost did. He wanted to take care of me.”

  “Listen, listen to me.”

  “I figured out afterward I should’ve gone with him. I could’ve been his little girl.” Mom gave this high wailing sound. “Maybe I’ll share a needle with some of the guys on this street. Maybe have sex with one of them and get AIDS and die.” I kept talking even though I was crying. “Why not? I mean, it turns out I’m gay anyway.”

  “Ruth, please, oh honey, for the love of God—”

  “What would you care? If I was dead you could have your lover all to yourself, you and Jess could live happily ever after.”

  “Ruth—!”

  I hung up. I was shaking, I felt hollow inside, I felt like a straw, nothing in me but air. I didn’t even know I was that angry. I scared myself.

  Stiff-legged, I marched back to the car. It almost started, but then I flooded it and it died.

  I crawled over the seat and lay down in the back. I put
my good arm over my eyes to block out the glare of the streetlight. The smell from the garbage Dumpster was stronger in the dark. I was sweating from the breathless heat, but I was afraid to roll down a window. My hand hurt. It was almost time to take off the bandage, but I didn’t want to look at my tattoo. I wanted my arm to get gangrene and fall off in the night.

  I listened to music and the hiss of car tires and the shouts of children and the dangerous, interesting sound of men and women laughing. I thought about how many minutes our phone conversation probably took off Mom’s life, and if it was more or less than the number I’d put on with good deeds when I was little. I thought about calling her back and telling her I was okay. A little after midnight, I fell asleep.

  26

  Floating the Ark

  THE POLICE LEFT the house a little after ten on Monday morning. They were beginning to look embarrassed, I thought as I ran water over their half-finished coffee cups, but still not worried. What did it take to make them worry? Body parts? Hanging over the sink on my elbows, I let my eyes go out of focus. My brain felt like the rings of water swirling above the drain, aimless, driven by nothing but physics. You couldn’t live with the worst fear you’d ever imagined, the one you’d been pushing to the back of your mind since the day your child was born—you couldn’t live with that hour by hour and stay clear in the head. I could feel my mind blurring, not from fatigue but for protection.

  What was I doing? Oh. This was happening more frequently, amnesiac episodes when I couldn’t remember what I had just said, or thought, why I was in a certain room, what a two-way conversation was about. Except for a sick, disorienting hour early this morning, I hadn’t slept in over two days. What was that, how many hours? I tried to count, but got lost in the numbers. What did it matter anyway.

  My mother came up behind me—I jumped when she put her hands on my shoulders. “Hard as rocks,” she said, digging in with her thumbs, Mama’s idea of a massage. “Listen, now, today’s the day. She’ll either come home by herself or they’ll find her. This is it, I’m positive.”