There was a moment in time when I thought I wanted a tattoo, so I started sketching out some ideas of things I wanted but always made a promise to myself to put the sketch in a box and open it six months later to see if I still liked what I drew. It saved me from a lot of awful tattoos being applied to my skin.
One of the things I did take away from a sketch I had done was this principal of a human timeline. Basically, if something happened in my life that was of critical importance, I would make note of it on me. The thought was akin to a hieroglyphic record, which I would wear and would connect from one piece to the next. So if some archaeologists arrived in the future and dug me up, they could make some sense of the story of my life.
When my mother died, I had designed a tattoo that both David and I agreed to get to honor her life. It was not one of those exciting moments in your life, which I am guessing anybody who has gotten a tattoo before experiences. It was tragedy. It was a HUGE tragedy, and the size of the tattoo represents how much of a loss I had just endured.
For those of you who don’t know, I have the same tattoo on my back from shoulder to shoulder that David had on his forearm. It was my mother’s signature, which was really a work of art in penmanship, surrounded on each end by two woodcut flowers, which was her passion. Below, I put her birth date and the day she died. It wasn’t complex by any means, but I thought it represented the facts of her existence and the things she took pride in: her signature, her flowers, and her two sons.
I did a ton of research and called my friend Denis, who is literally covered in tattoos. He started to help me through the process of selecting the artist who had both the skill and the location that would allow for me to feel comfortable with putting such a large piece on my body. I made some calls, and there was a wait-list to see a couple of the people who made the shortlist.
I called David and was in the process of telling him what I had found. We had agreed that the same artist would do both of our tattoos so that we had the same style and rendition of the sketch I had made up. But then there was an awkward silence at the end of my explaining all the research I had done:
“David? …did you hear what I said?” I asked. “Yeah, ummmm… that’s all good, dude, but…” he replied. “Ummm, BUT what, David?” I already knew at this point that Mr. Impatience was about to dictate the terms of the agreement we had made in a manner inconsistent with what was discussed.
“I already got mine done,” he mumbled. “You what?” I replied. I could feel myself getting stressed out since my brother was not what you describe as detail-oriented person. Jason had a nickname for David when it came to stuff like this: “Davey Details,” I think is what he used to say.
He cleared his throat. This was a dead giveaway—his “tell” that immediately signaled his agreement was just to shut me up, and he was going to do whatever he wanted to. Sluggishly, he says, “I said I got mine done already.” I remember this feeling of disbelief like, “You gotta’ be fahkin kidding me.”
“Ooooookay?” I breathed. At this point, I had a thumb drive with a layered file of the design in various sizes and was prepared to bring this to the artist with some points set up to factor muscle composition so that the tattoo did not look awkward if you were moving your arms. I was more than prepared to make sure everything would be as prepared as it could be.
“Soooo… the guy you went to had an autoclave and a sterile work environment?” I probed. “Autowhat? Dude I got the tattoo done, the place is fine.” he said dismissively. In my mind, I am running through all the blood-born diseases and conditions, all the pictures I had seen where tattoos went wrong. He clearly didn’t know the first thing about the downside of shoving permanent ink under the subcutaneous layer of your epidermis. Why was I not surprised?
“Ray took me,” he stated. “Ray” being Ray Romero, a mutual friend of ours who had a enough ink on him to at least put me at some ease, but I was still less than thrilled at what I was hearing.
I went on for about ten minutes about my annoyance that he just got up and did what he did but I guess better to ask forgiveness than permission, applied to this particular event.
So I called Ray and was like, “Well, I guess the wheels are set in motion.” May as well get it done. We set up an appointment for the next day, which coincidentally means either Ray had some pull or this guy’s calendar was less than full, the latter being a sure sign that I wasn’t going to be on Miami Ink or any celebrity tattoo artists chair in my near future.
Ray picked me up, and we drove into Queens or the Bronx, I don’t recall. I asked Ray to stop at the corner store so I could get a 40. I figured that I may as well get as cliche as I can and get a swig of the ol‘ malt liquor into the system. We pull up a few minutes later in front a Gold’s Gym. Ray parks the car and turns the ignition off. I look around: Gym, check… little closed storefronts, check… tattoo parlor…… no check.
Ray looks at me and says in the disarming way that only Ray knows how: “C’mon, bro.” Come on where? Where are we going. Why are we going into a gym? A Gold’s Gym. A gym that, upon opening the door, has that ohhh-so-familiar smell of sour sweat. It was more the “yard” of a maximum security prison than an NYSC or Equinox I had become accustomed to. A gym? This is a great sterile environment where human sweat is permeating the walls, and basically there are unknown bodily fluids permeating every surface. “Oh, this is just great,” I thought to myself.
We walk to the back of the gym, and there is a set of steps leading upstairs to a closed door. I follow Ray up the stairs, and, lo and behold, there is a shady room with a lovely ripped chair, papers strewn about, a printer from 1996, and a desk. Across from me is a tweaker-looking dude and a girl with some sort of half-shaved head, lines shaved into her eyebrows. I never cracked a 40 open quicker.
This is my tattoo artist. You expect your tattoo artist to be a bit of an eccentric—it’s the nature of the occupation. What I wasn’t expecting was two people who look like they just stepped off the set of Breaking Bad: the extras whose only identifier is “Methadone Clinic Girl” and “Bad Chemist.”
I handed over my thumb drive. The dude gave me this look. “What’s that?” he asked. Joy, jubilation… remind me to punch my brother as hard as I can in the nuts when I get through this. If I get through this. I had paper back-up of the artwork, of course… so I show him, and we get to discussing where and how I want the tattoo done. “You want me to shade it?” he asks. “NO!” I want you to put what I have on my back exactly as I have it printed out. “You want me to add any color or…?” “NO!” I want it exactly as I have printed it out. Creative liberty is not something I am interested in. Call me old-fashioned.
“I need to step out real quick,” I said and bee-lined to the door, down the steps past somebody who looked like they were a member of MS-13 just finishing up a set bench presses, through the front door and to the sidewalk. My phone has David on speed-dial. “Hey David… just here at the gym… errrrrr, tattoo parlor.” I open un-amused. “Yeah, so the place is a little sketchy,” he reaffirms. The understatement of the century. “But the guy is good… no, seriously bro, he is good.” Clearly my brother is the leading authority on contraction of HepC. “You don’t have to do it if you don’t want. You can go to somebody else,” he suggests. “Uhhh, no David, that’s not how it works. See, the agreement was you and I go to the same person, and you know we do this together?”
I hang up. I’m annoyed (“annoyed” is an understatement) and make my way back into the gym/tattoo parlor. “How are these two things even possible by health code standards?” I am thinking to myself.
I walk back up into the makeshift room and find Ray and my tattoo artist in the middle of some sort of MMA match on the floor. “Hey Ray? Is your buddy right-handed or left-handed?” I ask. “Right-handed” Ray responds. “Great, would you mind taking his right arm out of the lock you clearly have him in so that he can use it to apply a giant tattoo to my back?” I’m just thinking about the lactic acid build-up in this guy’s forearm that is going to be stabbing a high RPM needle into my back and wondering how important that right arm is to him.
We dick around for about a half an hour, trying to find the right placement. I am a 40-and-a-half into my night. The guy is like, “How about now? How about now?” and keeps trying to rush the placement on my back, not realizing my blood pressure is spiking, and I am a comment away from walking out the door to punch my brother in the face… twice.
We agree on the placement. I throw my headphones on and play a mix that reminds me of Mom while the “Bad Chemist” goes to work on me. A few hours later, we are done. And I am thoroughly, mentally exhausted. The smell of A&D permeating the cabin of the GTi as Ray brings me back. While the tattoo looks fine, I am only thinking about the HepC or ink infection that is festering in my back, my body rejecting the ink, and my back peeling off. All these great worst-case-scenarios running through my mind.
I meet up with David the next day and proceed to punch him as hard as I can in his shoulder and show him the tattoo. It all worked out in the end… as far as I know, lol. And David and I shared our memorial to Mom.
Tonight, I am going to sit down… in a place with an autoclave, not in a gym, with an artist I have thoroughly vetted since February. We have exchanged e-mails and sent sketches back and forth. Because my tattoo’s size and design represent the impact the event has had on me, this one is extremely important to me.
David was my heart, connected to my mother so tightly that Mom’s tattoo and David’s Tattoo will become one piece, coming over my shoulders to represent the burden I now bear upon my shoulders, and connecting over my heart that was torn from me for the second time in October of 2011.
I never wanted a tattoo: My first was a traumatic experience, exacerbated by David’s impatience. In a way, this tattoo will be much the same. David’s impatience will indelibly mark me for a second time.
