A Good and Useful Hurt (12 page)

Marcia Ruiz had been cooking for her three boys at night.
They came to her in her sleep, just as she began to make dinner. Renaldo, Jose, and Paulo, all dressed in their perfect Marine blue dress uniforms, just as they’d been when they had come to visit her after boot camp. The boys were all brass buttons, ribbons for valor and injury, blue coats, white hats they hung on the hooks by the door, and perfectly pressed blue pants with white and red striping on the side.

All three boys wore Purple Hearts, which, though terrible, was as it should be. Renaldo was the most decorated of the three, and he was deservedly proud of his posthumously earned Silver Star. All three boys wore medals for their skills on the firing range. All of the ribbons and medals meant so many different things, but Marcia was much more interested in the men wearing them than she was the plumage.

Her boys were always hungry, and Marcia would make feasts for them. Plates of empanadas, corn husk and pork tamales—her mother’s recipe—chicken in a thick mole sauce, beans, rice, tortillas made with lard, an endless meal, eaten while her boys told her stories they’d never had the chance to share in life.

Paulo told her about a boy in boot camp who said he was going to go straight to special forces, only it turned out that he couldn’t handle the stress of even practicing with a gun, nor the rigors of life so far from home in a bed so unfamiliar. Marcia heard a story like that and her heart felt fit to burst. None of her boys had been homesick enough to complain, nor had they ever found any task the Marines asked of them insurmountable. Even in death, her sons had been everything they said that they would be when they signed up.

As she passed Jose a plate piled high with strips of carne asada and peppers, she wondered if any mother had ever been quite so lucky to have three boys like her own.

Mike worked at coloring a small scarab on Doc’s underarm.
It was one of the first pieces Doc had Mike do for him, and its age was showing. Doc lay in the chair under him while he colored in the soft stretch of arm and marveled at his color selections from years prior.

Doc had spoken little since he’d sat in the chair. Mike had watched him smiling and talking to Becky and Deb in the lobby but could tell he wasn’t back to his old self yet. Mike wasn’t sure if he should ask after the niece, or even whether he should ask how Doc was holding up.

Doc didn’t look as rough as he had the day he’d come in to talk, but he didn’t look as young as he had before that, either. Some of the grief had stuck, permanently it seemed, and left Mike wondering if he had undergone the same kind of transformation after Sid. He knew that he’d avoided mirrors for a while after that, so maybe he had. He worked on Doc, wanting to continue one of the great conversations they’d had before, or to tell him about the museum or how things were going with Deb.

A part of him even wanted to tell Doc that he’d been seeing Sid again. He’d asked him briefly about that subject years ago, but he’d downplayed the reality of it, the smells of blood and gunpowder, and the weight the figure had forced into the bathroom. He just said that he felt like Sid was still around, and sometimes he could almost see her out of the corners of his eyes.

It was all normal according to Doc, just post-traumatic stress issues, and something that would surely pass. Mike had wondered at the time if Doc would have said the same thing if he’d been more truthful, had perhaps shouted, offered to show him that there was a dead girl in the bathroom still, and she might always be there.

Sid had returned two mornings after the museum talk. Mike stepped out of the shower, felt his foot slide in what he assumed was water, and then looked to see that the blood and bone and brain were back. He left a red footprint as he walked around the prone body, his heart thumping furiously in his chest. He brushed his teeth, desperate not to look at the floor, and then left to get dressed. When he came back to the kitchen he peered into the bathroom, and when he saw she was gone, he let out a hard sigh of relief before going downstairs to work.

What would Doc say if Mike told him about that? Or even about the first time he’d seen Sid, when he was on the precipice of hard drugs again, a precipice that the body on the floor scared him away from. That first time he’d burned himself on the stove to try and wake up from what wasn’t a dream, and he still had the scar on his arm to prove it. What would Doc say to that? What would anyone say?

Deb couldn’t see Sid, Mike was as sure of that as he was of anything, but he kept waiting to hear the shrieks on the day when she finally could. “Oh, that mess? Yeah, that’s Sidney. She comes back sometimes. Sorry you had to see her that way. Don’t worry though, she usually leaves pretty quickly.” Yeah, that had all the earmarks of a wonderful conversation. Would that talk be any better than the one he couldn’t have now because it would sound insane?

As desperate as he was to know why, it was perhaps better to have the burden than deal with an even worse burden, a life where your friends and loved ones could only trust you so far because sometimes you saw things that weren’t all the way there. Or weren’t there at all, for that matter. If Deb ever did see Sid it would be awful, but would it be worse to carry that burden alone or with company?

Finally Doc said, “My sister’s doing OK, better than I expected.”

“That’s good to hear.”

“Her husband’s a mess. He’s not good at all. They put him up for a week at my suggestion—should have been longer, and I told her as much. He’ll probably lose his job soon, if he hasn’t already.”

“That’s awful.”

“It’s like still water. You throw a stone in, you get ripples. Throw a bigger stone, bigger ripples. People are the same way. Those of us closest to her death just feel those big waves differently. I was sorry you couldn’t come to the funeral.”

“I didn’t feel like it would be appropriate.”

“That’s why you’re a good friend and I’m an awful one. For years I hid my sexuality from my family, even went on all the awkward dates my mom and sister would push me into, just to avoid rocking the boat. Same thing now with the tattoos. You’re the only person that I don’t hide anything from. It’s shameful behavior, never being myself in public. There was a part of me that desperately needed you at her funeral, and there was an awful, louder part that was praying you wouldn’t come.”

“It’s your job, Doc. It’s not you.”

“But if I let my job dictate my personal relations, doesn’t that fall on me?”

“I don’t know, Doc, I’m just sorry about your niece, and I don’t feel like you should beat yourself up over this. You know how they’d look at you if they knew about this stuff.”

“I don’t think they’d look for too long. My eccentricities have been an issue before, and I think regardless of my professional history that sort of revelation could be the final straw.”

“It’s a shame.”

“It is that, but whose fault is it but our own? You’ve stigmatized your art in this wretched but beloved medium, and even though you are more artistically gifted than anyone I’ve ever met, you garner no more respect than a whore. Save from those who hire your services, of course.”

“That’s part of the deal.”

“I suppose it is.” He sighed. “My poor sister. What a mess for her. A dead daughter and a husband as close to the brink of a full commitment as I’d think possible.”

“Was she cremated?”

“Yes, thankfully. Why we should covet space both alive and dead is something I’ll never understand.”

Mike, who’d never thought much on that subject, just nodded and went to work on the carapace of the scarab, using the spread needles of the magnum needle to shove ink under Doc’s skin.

Doc went on. “It’s a special kind of attitude, don’t you think? The need for gravestones, flowers, and all of the pageantry. The biggest shame for my niece was all the press they gave the bastard who killed her. He’ll be the one to live in memories. No gravestone or marker will ever earn her space in the public eye rivaling that given to the boogeyman who took her from us. It’s always that way. No one save for someone who’d studied extensively on the subject could tell you the names of the victims of Gacy, or Bundy, or Dahmer. Sharon Tate is probably the only truly well remembered victim of a serial killer, and she was a celebrity already. It’s a sad world that offers such idolatry for the murderer, but lets the victims fall away as footnotes. Far better to be cremated—no stone, no marker, forgotten finally when those who you loved fall themselves. You know this yourself; you’ve had your hurts.”

“I’m a better man because of them.”

Doc smiled. “Things are well then?”

“Yeah, better than they’ve ever been, honestly. I love her, I think. It’s been a long time since I felt that way for anything besides art.”

“Any thoughts of matrimony?”

“You first, Doc.”

“The shackles of our fair state would prevent such a union, even if I did have a young gentleman caller in mind.”

“Like I said, you first.”

“Fair enough, but don’t you let past mistakes cloud a possible union. If I hadn’t forced your hand to take the young lady out in the first place, you wouldn’t have the happiness you do now. Perhaps a further commitment would usher in even more happiness.”

“You know, Doc, I’m not sure she’d even say yes. I’ve never met a woman so eccentric, or independent. I think she might like the compliment of a proposal, but I also think that might be the extent of it. Do you want me to redo the light blue? It held up pretty well.”

“You may as well just redo it. You’re all around it in any case.”

“Alright.”

“You know, I missed this more than I thought I would.”

“For what it’s worth, Doc, we missed you quite a bit too. We got too used to you being around. You know Lamar’s got a new chick, too?”

“Certainly, I had the pleasure of meeting her a few weeks ago.”

Mike lifted his foot from the tattoo machine’s pedal and looked at him. “You’ve got to be shitting me. Who is she?”

“She’s a nice young thing. They seem quite happy together.”

“Why did they come see you?”

“For counseling, Mike. You know I can’t say more than that.”

“Unbelievable. You met her before I did. You do realize I know nothing about this girl, right?”

“I believe Lamar mentioned that.”

“Unbelievable.”

“You’ll meet her soon enough I’m sure.”

“What’s wrong with her?”

“Nothing! Don’t be a clod. Lamar is simply making the sort of good decision you taught him to make. He sees you as a father figure in a lot of ways, you know.”

“Don’t change the subject on me. You really met her? Throw me a bone, Doc, c’mon!”

“I’m afraid that there is nothing I can tell you aside from the fact that she is a sweet young lady who our mutual friend is quite taken with. I’m sure you’ll meet her in time. Lamar just wants things to be right before he introduces any major changes to his lifestyle.”

“Doc, one thing, and you have to be honest. Is she gonna make him quit his job?”

“No, I’d say quite the opposite. There are other issues afoot. Now if you wouldn’t mind, I do have other things to do today.”

Doc was pompous as he lay in the chair, and Mike wanted to hate him for it. Instead, he looked at his friend and was just happy he was doing better. If Doc could be pompous, everything was getting around to being alright.

Deb’s days were different than the tattooists’.
She spent the early part of workday mornings scrubbing and sterilizing equipment beside Becky. It wasn’t a sexist thing, it was a control issue. Deb had worked in numerous shops, and such work always fell to piercers, counter help, and apprentices. It was accepted industry-wide that artists were too flaky for the most important part of the job. She’d told Becky of one studio she’d guested at in Ottawa that had its cleaning done by artists on their days off, and both of them giggled like schoolgirls at the idea. It was a fine plan for a street shop, but most days Mike and Lamar did only one or two pieces. To imagine one of them coming in to scrub four or five tubes, the handle that housed the needle for the machine and was easily cleaned, was ridiculous. Tattoo artists simply didn’t have it in them to do such a mundane task without making frequent errors.

Later, when the ultrasonic had done its job and the autoclave was running, she’d look over her appointment books. If there was a scar or burn, she would have already known of it and built the artwork. If there was a piercing, she would check stock in the morning to be prepared for whatever the client’s dimensions would require. It was an awful job to be caught flatfooted in, and for Deb, a big part of the joy of such work was in the prep. Just as an executive chef may like to prep scallops before the dinner rush, so Deb liked to get ahead and be at a running pace when her clients came in for work.

She’d found over the ten years she’d worked in body modification that clients and trends changed the same way clothing or popular music did. She still pierced a bevy of navels, but tongue piercings, once just as much a money-making part of the job, had all but dried up since the 1990s. Nostril piercings had taken off in its place. They were one of the few facial pieces that most women could pull off, and it was one of the few that some employers would tolerate. It was the bread-and-butter of these more socially accepted pieces that allowed for the greater deviances of underground society to be not only desired but celebrated.

Deb’s first foray into scarification had been with strike branding, the use of small pieces of heated metal to burn a design into a client. Unimpressed by the limitations and lack of desired raised scar tissue, she and the industry turned to electrocautery devices. These too were less effective than desired, so Deb taught herself to do scarification with a blade.

She was already comfortable with scalpels—she’d used them for years to correct scar tissue from torn expanded earlobes—and felt much more comfortable without the limitations of heat as a medium. The industry turned in that direction with her as more and more talented practitioners of the art form began to ply their trade on a new culture of clients wishing to be marked.

The hardcore work was anecdotal in some ways. If clients assumed you could do one thing, they’d assume you could do another, which was why even though she wasn’t a fan, Deb had set out to learn how to do small implants. None of these things were what paid the bills, but they did help to establish her reputation and portfolio. Even a customer looking for the most rote and simple work liked for their piercer to be well versed in other things, if for no reason other than to know that they were not the most “out there” of that person’s client base.

Deb had made a good name for herself. She took risks but none so high that they could send her crashing down, and those few small rules, like not engaging in amputation or penile nullification, were as endearing to her customers as the risks themselves. Few enough customers came after those first few weeks for the really gnarly stuff, but Deb was certainly busier in that regard than anyone Mike had ever seen. Her best clients would have followed her anywhere, and they were not the kind of people to balk at price.

With all of that, though, the work that still made Deb smile was anything that made a customer smile. As rewarding as it was to suffer through an ordeal with an old friend, it was just as rewarding, if not even more so, to pierce a terrified young girl only to see her happy when it was done. She’d once asked an older customer if her cartilage piercing had hurt, and the woman had said, “Not near as much as my husband hitting me.” Such revelations were commonplace at that crossroads of injury; customers bared their souls regularly about the most personal of issues. There was the young man who’d wanted his penis pierced as a way of reclaiming his sexuality from the uncle who’d molested him as a boy, or the woman getting her navel pierced after having a stillborn child. As much as the work could hurt, sometimes it could be a good or a useful hurt.

That was why Deb understood the ashes.