easy targets. Anyhow, the bite scarred me, was easy to see what happened to me. Rough types, they got to thinking it was an invite to abuse me some more. Easy mark. I could’ve had the thing removed, but I couldn’t see losing skin like that. And even then, the new scar would’ve reminded me of the old, like it was never gone at all.
“But this—” I twisted my arm, watched the flat flower glisten in the murky bar light (the girl stared at it, mesmerized) “—it hides the whole scar. Guy who did it suggested a ’mum, said the petals followed the same configuration of the scar, the teeth, you know. And he said even if the tattoo did fade, the scar would still look like some of the petals.” I ran my finger over the flower; lubricated with sweat, the outlines of the scar were easy to feel, impossible to see. But I always knew they were there, those two almost-connected half-moon ridges on my flesh.
“—a good job,” the girl was saying; somehow, she’d asked for and gotten a fresh glass of cola, without my noticing. The fresh but sweating cubes tinkled brashly as she slid the glass around on the bar top, before asking, “But does it...uhm, does it make you feel strong? Inside, y’know, like the bite really isn’t there?”
“I’m sorry, I don’t follow—”
The green raincoat crinkled as she shifted on her stool to completely face me, her knees almost touching my jeans-covered hip. Brushing her pale, stubby fingers (her nails were short, with no white tips remaining) through her hair, she said softly, urgently, “Does it give you strength? So no one thinks you’re an easy mark anymore, in the ER? Or anywhere? Do people...fear it?”
I ground my butt into a mash of filter before replying carefully, mindful of her abrupt intensity, “The little kids who come in are fascinated by it. Some guys have asked me where I had it done. Only complaint I ever got was from an old woman—and she had a head and feet on her fox stole, so I didn’t take her too seriously—”
The girl smiled, slightly, perfunctorily, before going on, “Yeah...I suppose a flower wouldn’t do that to people.... But they must think you’re strong, right, to go through with it?”
“Well...yes, the children I see sometimes ask if it hurts, but that’s about it. I guess that’s what you mean, isn’t it?”
The girl nodded vigorously, her right hand wrapped around the weeping glass of cola. Suddenly the gritty sidewalks and the panhandlers in the subway didn’t look so bad, nor did the air seem too coarse. Sliding some bills across the bar, toward the distant bartender, I shifted in my seat saying, “It’s been nice, Miss, but I have to be—”
“I’m sorry, y’know?” the girl said quickly, before turning to stare at the sputtering sign, where the “B” was on the verge of winking out.
My head wasn’t swimming then; it pounded in time with the blood-roar in my ears.
I’m sorry, y’know?
With her face turned to the bar, and her eyes focused away from me, I finally recognized the girl. From the ER. Clothing made a big difference; when someone is nude, your eyes instinctively go to the parts you can’t see otherwise, the parts you shouldn’t really stare at, but do anyhow. And being a doctor, I was supposed to look there. Her face wasn’t a primary concern, until her teeth were sunk in my skin.
Were still sunk in my skin.
“I don’t know how many of them there were...just a blur of dicks and faces, crowding in on me...looking. That was the worst, y’know? Their bodies wouldn’t remember me, but their eyes would. I was so...exposed. Like I was transparent, and they could see all of me. What I was, inside. What made me me. Nothing hidden, nothing I could hold dear to me, nothing I could choose to reveal anymore. Everything was naked about me. And for a long, long time there weren’t enough clothes in the world I could wear. All at once. It was like the clothes weren’t enough to cover me, make me not naked anymore.” She made the word “naked” sound hideous, filthy.
“You went to get help,” I asked rhetorically, my voice not rising at all at the end of my sentence, and I was mildly surprised when she nodded, took a gulp of cola, and replied, “Oh yes, I did get help...it took a long time, but...I think it’s okay now. At least...I...at least—” She chewed flaky skin off her bottom lip, then went on quickly, her voice a gentle, yet triumphant whisper, “—at least I don’t have to worry about being naked again. That’s why I asked you, but maybe it isn’t the same for you—”
“What ‘isn’t the same’?” I fumbled another cigarette out of my pack, and patted my chest, feeling for my lighter, all the while not taking my eyes off the girl, as she casually, innocently loosened her raincoat, undoing the belt just enough to let the top gape. With her dark sweater coming down to her wrists and up to her neck, the gesture was somehow unsexual, unprovocative. I smelled a strong tang of sweat, and in the dim glow of the globe candles near her elbow, I finally saw—
That she was naked...naked, but covered. Completely.
The tattoo ran from just below the hollow of her throat down to her raincoat-belted waist, then down, down, into a mass of darkness, until her indigo blue legs met with her crumpled cotton socks. The pattern of the tattoo was dense, fabric-complete; and when I leaned a couple of inches closer, I saw why her “sweater” bore a pattern of brown dots. Two of the dots were her nipples. And when she pushed up her plastic sleeves, I realized that she’d removed the hair from her forearms, had most likely removed the hair elsewhere on her body—permanently, no doubt. There were even pocket lines and seams on her lower limbs. I could just make them out under the green folds of her raincoat. One look, even two, and you’d see clothes, clothes so sexless you wouldn’t bother to look a third time.
And she acted as if she were covered with them, layer on top of layer, never to be naked again. And she wouldn’t be, never, never again. Not if she took care of them, kept them from the sun.
I hadn’t had my scar removed because I couldn’t get rid of the memory of it, the ugly sights and sounds of that evening in the ER. I’d covered it, made it something pretty, something whimsical for a doctor, something to charm frightened young patients. But I still had the scar. I wasn’t strong enough to make it go away.
But she’d made herself strong...made herself clothed, forever. Never to be truly naked again—it was a heady thought, a powerful concept.
Does it give you strength? So no one thinks you’re an easy mark anymore.... Do people...fear it?
I wanted to tell her that it was a toss-up: yes for the strength, but no for the fear—unless a person was easily frightened by an ultimate show of discipline, of wanting to be whole again in such a desperate way, such a beautiful way. Never again would a bruise ruin her, show her to be weak. Never again would she be quite so exposed.
I wanted to tell her how beautiful she was, comment on how strong she must have been, to endure her nakedness for one last time, while the person who did her tattoo worked...and worked on her (it took a “long time,” she’d said—but how long, how very long?). But she got up before I could speak, placed some money on the bar, and was gone, out the door and onto the dark, sour-smelling streets.
As I was watching her, the lights went dim, dimmer, then remained brownish-yellow. Through the distant window, I saw the whole city darken, guttering like a dying candle. But I didn’t watch where she went. She was clothed, and she was strong. I went back to my beer.
It was that kind of night, y’know?
AFTERWORD TO “TATTOO”
Of all the
