And soon after that, only the sound of Paul’s labored breathing and the sound of blood dripping over the hole’s edge into chilled water.
Some Things Don’t Wash Off
I’ve seen a lot of things here. A lot of things you don’t necessarily see anywhere else.
Name’s Nate. I run the tattoo parlor here at the Slaughterville Roadhouse. Been doing tattoos for well onto fifteen years now. Started here three years ago when Jim came into my shop in Hayesville and I gave him a tattoo of Crazy Horse across his left shoulder blade. Guess he liked how it turned out, cause he asked me to come work here.
You can pick a design off the wall or bring in your own. Don’t matter to me. I’ve got a good eye and a steady hand. The only rule is, if you’re drunk, come back later when you ain’t drunk. Then we can talk tattoos. Last thing I want is some scrappy bitch come in asking me why the hell I inked the name of her husband’s old girlfriend across the cheek of his ass.
I suppose there’s been a few times I bent the rule. Every now and then a college kid comes in all shit-faced, showing no respect for my parlor, no respect for me, acting all belligerent. So I tell ’em, ’Sure, sit on down here’ and I motion them over to my chair. Maybe I misspell their name. Maybe my needles slip.
But that’s few and far between.
Mostly I’ve gotten a lot of compliments, a lot of referrals. Like I said, I’ve got a good eye and a steady hand. I’ve got a good reputation.
But it wasn’t too long ago that my reputation had me on the verge of seeking another line of work.
I was already packing my needles away when I heard his hard black boots stomping slowly, deliberately on the wooden floor.
I didn’t even look up. “Closed,” I said.
I heard him stop, felt his shadow on me. Felt his eyes on me.
“You’re a black man.” He had a German accent.
“I guess you win the prize.” I still didn’t look up. “Black as they come.”
The floor creaked with his weight. “I hear you’re good.”
“I do alright by the folks here.”
Finally I looked at him. Bald, thin, muscular and his body covered with tattoos. I mean everywhere. On his face. His ears. All up and down the front of his back. He wore jeans and suspenders. No shirt. Just suspenders.
I caught myself staring at his teeth.
“Scrimshaw,” he said, widening his smile to expose more detail. “An art practiced for centuries by sailors.”
Each tooth was etched with a picture of a man hanging from a tree. The etchings disappeared into his throat.
“I’m familiar with the term,” I said. “Never seen it on human teeth, though.”
He circled the room, his hands behind his back as he examined my Polaroids of past customers. There was a large SS tattooed on his back over a red and black swastika. He flexed his shoulders.
“Any part of you not tattooed?”
He paused. Turned to look at me as if he’d been waiting for me to ask. “Why, yes.” He nodded. Turned his attention back to the walls. Hands behind his back. An eagle covered his chest. Its talons clutched an iron cross. He continued to circle the room.
I knew Jim was out at the bar, a quick shout away. I also had a hunting knife strapped to my calf. But I’ve never been one to start trouble.
“I’m getting ready to call it a night here. Why don’t you come on back tomorrow.”
He pulled a wad of cash from his jeans. Peeled off three one hundred dollar bills.
“It’s late,” I said.
On his right bicep was a tattoo of Adolph Hitler. On his other arm was a figure in a white sheet illuminated by a burning cross.
“Do you want me to call Jim in here to show you the door?”
It’s usually a reaction they’re after. An excuse to blow up in your face with verbal or physical violence.
“I’m going to count to two,” I said. “And then I’m gonna call on Jim.”
He held up his hands. One hand said NIGGER in flaming letters. The other said DIE JEW. “I’ll be back later. When you’re not so — “ He sighed. Then smiled. “ — tired.” He nodded. Turned swiftly on his hard leather boots, so shiny they reflected the room like a collage of photo negatives.
As he left, I saw another image on his back just below the left hook of the swastika. An image of Martin Luther King, a bullet slamming into his chest, blood spurting out and dripping from his outstretched hands, his face. The phrase ‘DIE NIGGERS’ was scrawled below it.
You might wonder why I said nothing about his tattoos. Why I didn’t tell him they were offensive, why they caused my fists to clench and my jaw to tighten. Why, you might ask, didn’t I tell him to get the fuck out of my place and stick his white dick up his daddy’s Aryan ass.
I could tell you that I believe it’s best to turn the other cheek, best to let him waste away in his own ignorance. That God’s glory shines upon me and the pits of hell await his kind. I could tell you that, but I’d be lying.
Truth is I was just tired. And I wanted him to go away and leave me alone. Simple as that.
There are anomalies in this world and always will be.
Simple as that, too.
I thought of staying home the next day.
While I lay in bed that night, I told Rhona about him. Told her I felt like taking a day or two off. “I don’t need that shit,” I said.
She kissed me on the bridge of my nose. Her breath smelled like white Zinfandel. “You think he don’t want exactly that?”
“Don’t care what he wants.”
I rolled away from her. Rolled away from her eyes, the moisture in them shiny and serious. I didn’t want to smell her wine-coated breath, didn’t want to feel the righteousness ooze from every pore of her naked body. I pretended to sleep. A married man gets to be good at pretending sleep after fifteen years.
She rubbed the small of my back. “Baby,” she whispered in the loving way only a wife knows how.
In the morning, I fixed myself a plate of scrambled eggs. I went out back of our small brown house and split wood for the fireplace. I guess that’s when the rage really came out. Started out just hacking at big old logs, splitting ’em half-heartedly, then all of a sudden I couldn’t swing hard or fast enough. And when I was done splitting logs, I kept hacking at the goddamn tree stump where I done the splitting, kept hacking big chunks of it off, splinters of wood flying at my sweaty face, into my tear filled eyes until I heard Rhona screaming at me from the door jamb.
I stopped. Wiped the sweat away. Looked at the work I’d done to the stump and let the axe drop to the ground, the long wooden handle bouncing off my work boots. I walked past her into the house. I couldn’t look at her. Not then. I didn’t like it when she saw me like that. Losing control like that. I didn’t like it.
I showered, changed into clean clothes, and drove to the Slaughterville Roadhouse.
I’d just finished a plate of egg rolls straight out of the bar’s deep fryer when I heard his jackboots echo on the wooden floor. His shadow disappeared into my dark skin as he waited in the doorway.
“Are you awake tonight?” he asked. “Do you have time for a scumbag like me?”
