Thirty Eight

 2019

I am back in the office after my McDonald’s meeting with LoMack.  I nod my head thinking of how he stole Tim’s registration.  I wish I’d had the foresight to do the same while driving with Mike. The scribbled information on the phone book might be enough. 

LoMack wasn’t sure if he could find Tim’s registration at home. He said that he’d lugged boxes of mementos down to his sister’s basement when he moved into her home. He considered the registration a memento and knew he had seen it, off and on, when coming across old items in the past. We exchanged contact information and he told me he would let me know if he could find it.  There was another way he told me we might be able to get Tim’s coordinates.  If we had to, we’d try that.

In my office, I play back our encounter with Tim once more.  I shake my head when I think of him reversing down the highway and then asking us to rob a gas station. And then I think about my next day meeting with Mike.  The last thing he said to me keeps surfacing.  “Lucky for you, you don’t have a twat and a tattoo.”  With that knife in the air.    

In 1974 a person with a tattoo was an aberration.  The few people who had them did not travel in my circles.   There might be a tough in high school who perpetually had a cigarette behind his ear awaiting the time when class would let out so he could bolt and go to the bathroom and smoke up. In September that kid would return from summer vacation with a skull and crossbones tattoo on his arm and make sure to wear a short-sleeved shirt.  Wild, precocious, and admired by his tough guy peers. Then sometime when he was thirty the same fellow would wish he did not have the ink anymore and begin to wear long sleeves in the summer.    

That is hardly the case now.  There’s no stigma at all to having a tattoo.  In fact, if you don’t have one and you’re under 40, that may indicate you are out of the loop. In 1974 you could identify a Charlie by saying, “Charlie is the guy with the tattoo.”  Say that now and you might as well say “Charlie is the guy with the neck.” 

Tattoos are something I don't get. If you put a button on your hat that reads "I am The Greatest" when you are 20, you might want to take it off when you are 40, or even 21. Why would you write something on your body that cannot be altered? I approached a student last summer who, like most students during the hot months, wore shorts and a tee shirt to class. Because there was no ink on her, I confided my puzzlement about the appeal of tattoos. She was an excellent student and the kind of clean looking bright eyed smiley kid who was in the national honor society throughout her high school years. "Why do so many students have tattoos?" I asked assuming she, like I, had none.  She shrugged and surprised me. "It could be art. It could be you’re making a statement about who you are. For me it is a little of both.  ‘This is me’ I’m saying with mine.  I'm going to get my third around Christmas." Where her ink was, was a matter for conjecture. 

“’This is me’ I’m saying with mine.”

Mike was furious because his sister had a Pedro tattoo.  Probably the Pedro part infuriated him more than the tattoo part, but just having a tattoo irritated him.  

She was making a statement. ‘This is me.’ She loved Pedro and wanted all to know it.  Could be a problem for her if Pedro started messing around and the sister wanted to jettison both Pedro and the tattoo. But that is what motivated her to get the tattoo.  ‘This is me.’ Maybe she also wanted to tell her brother what he could do with his behavior.  So, she stuck it to her older brother. “Hey, check it out you suffocating monster. Looka here on my arm. My boyfriend, Pedro.” 

Mike couldn’t see how he, himself, was marked. We all are. 

I rode with Mike for half a day and by the time he dumped me in Tucumcari I could see Mike’s tattoos as if they were inked all over his body. Aggrieved and bereft on each arm. Empty over his heart, Vindictive on his forehead. He couldn’t see them, but I could and probably so could anyone else with whom he came into contact.  ‘This is me’ his tattoos boomed.

What about these tattoos that we rarely allow ourselves to see but are flashing like Las Vegas neon to anyone in our orbit?  How often do we take a peek at them? Do we consider their provenance?  The child who is berated by insecure parents.  The teen whose heart is suddenly broken by a sweetheart. The girl who goes to the dance all duded up but no one asks her to dance.  The kid who gets picked last every time sides are chosen up.  The parent who retrospectively identifies a litany of irresponsible behaviors while knocking back her after dinner bottle of wine. 

Are the marks left by our histories impossible to eradicate?  Are they even more painful to purge than an actual tattoo? I think we can remove them if we work at it, but most of the time, like the high school kid with the skull and crossbones tattooed on his arm, we--down the road--consciously or otherwise choose to cover them up.

How visible is the tattoo I wear?  I knew a person could be a killer and did not preempt the murder. For forty years I ignored the mark.  How has covering up that tattoo been reflected in what I do, how I behave, my ability to love and be loved? 

'This is me.' 

I hope not.