The more we talked, the more I found I liked and understood him. It struck me hard that, after years of tattooing in near silence, I’d been missing out on so many stories from my clients. The different walks of life, the varying circumstances that’d brought them to my chair. It was a shameful moment, to realize all of those wasted opportunities, and I made a split decision to change. Again.
Audrey texted me that they were there, and I announced apologetically that it was time for a momentary break. Chad insisted it was cool and took the moment to grab his phone and text his wife.
I unlocked the backdoor and Audrey, Jake, and Freddy walked inside.
“Hey,” she greeted me, standing on her toes to press a kiss to my jaw.
“Hey, guys. I can’t talk for long.”
“Did you hear your brother, Jake? We can’t be here long,” Audrey spoke to him with a kind firmness. “Remember, Mickey is in the car. He’s waiting. Okay?”
“We won’t be here long. Not long.” Jake nodded and glanced through the breakroom to the open workstation. Right in his line of sight was Chad and Jake pointed. “He’s blue like Blake.”
With that mention, I thought about the piece I was working on, the moon and stars. I remembered the idea Shane had pitched the night before and in a trance, I moved through the breakroom and stood above Chad’s shoulder, assessing and working out the details in my mind. I visualized a splashy watercolor background, a muted blue mixed with grey, to highlight the grit with something beautiful.
Nodding slowly, I asked, “Hey, Chad, you mind if I add some color to this?”
He glanced over his shoulder at me and shook his head. “You’re the artist, dude. I’m your canvas. Do whatever you wanna do to me.”
“Awesome.” I grinned, finding a new excitement in my work, and turned to find Jake standing in the breakroom doorway. He was eyeballing the shop full of strange men, Devin specifically.
“He’s purple,” he announced, pointing. “Bright, bright, bright purple.”
“Oh, yeah?” I asked, remembering that purple auras typically belong to spiritual, creative types.
Devin lifted his head from the tablet he was using and smiled at Jake. “Well, now there’s two of ‘em,” he said, making the typical twin comment. Then, he looked to me and asked, “What’s with the color thing?”
“Jake sees auras,” I told him.
Devin nodded. “So, my aura is purple?”
Sebastian laughed. “He matches his wife’s hair! How fucking cute.”
“That’s actually kinda crazy,” Devin said, still nodding thoughtfully. “Add some purple to mine. That’d be cool.”
And so, Jake went around the room announcing their colors to me. Tyler was green, Sebastian was orange, and Jon, the quiet tattoo virgin, was pink. Every one of them treated Jake with gratitude and kindness and all shook his hand. Audrey stood back with her hands gripping Freddy’s shoulders, keeping him from interfering as the two of us inadvertently worked with Devin and his band.
When we’d been around the entire room, I brought Jake once again to the back exit. Audrey asked if he still needed to tell me something, and he thought about it intently for a moment, before shaking his head.
“That was all,” he said with an affirmative nod.
“So, you knew you had to come here to do this?” I asked, crossing my arms and trying so hard to figure this shit out.
He nodded again. “Yes. That’s why Audrey drove Mickey and me and Freddy here.”
“I see.”
“You do now,” he stated with sage and wisdom, and I didn’t bother to fight it as I replied, “I do now.”
Reaching out with both arms, Jake pulled me in for a big, encompassing hug that caught the breath in my lungs and tripped the heart in my chest. Overwhelmed by an emotion caught between contentedness and concern, I hugged him back, touching my nose to his shoulder and patting his back.
“Love you, buddy,” I whispered, bringing my hand to touch the back of his head.
“I love you, Blake.” He rocked from side to side, an act leaning toward playful. Then, he said, “It’s going to be okay. Don’t be sad. Don’t be worried. It will be okay.”
My heart stopped with the eerie tone in his voice. “What?”
“Don’t be sad. Don’t be worried. It—”
“No, I heard you,” I pushed away and gripped his shoulders in my hands, “but what are you talking about?”
Jake smiled and mimicked me, pressing his palms to my arms. “Don’t be sad. Don’t—”
“What’s gonna happen, buddy?”
Then, just as quickly as the smile appeared, it vanished. There was nothing left of his happiness, and all that was left was the disturbing look of clarity as he replied, “When I go away again.”
***
I finished the band’s tattoos with the difficult distraction of Jake’s words hanging heavily over my head. I managed to chat through the guilt and anger corroding my veins and smiled through the constant reminder that he knew. He knew our parents were sending him away and that they were putting him in a facility. He knew. And, he’d spoken as though he had accepted it with such a simple ease, like that was the only option we had, and maybe it was. Maybe I needed to accept it myself, move on with my life, and settle into a new normal. But I didn’t have the faith he had, in somehow knowing everything would be okay. Because in the deepest pit of my gut, I knew it wouldn’t be.
Audrey had come back to the shop and kept herself busy by chatting with the guys as they waited to get tattooed or for the others to be finished. She unabashedly gushed over Devin’s talent and the piece I had done on his calf, a sketchy black daisy on a backdrop of purple-grey watercolor. She giggled relentlessly as the day went on, filling the air with something other than Gus’s music picks and the warnings spiraling through my head. And when the day was over, she asked if anybody was hungry with an offer to grab some food if we were interested.
Devin shook his head apologetically. “We have dinner in the bus but thank you. It’s been a real pleasure hanging out with you guys today.” Then, he handed me a card with his personal number. “Let me know if you ever wanna come to a show, man. We got you covered.”
“And don’t you worry,” Sebastian chimed in. “We’ll be back for more ink. I still got some space … somewhere.”
They left and Gus slinked from his office. He exhaled exhaustedly like he’d been the one doing back-to-back tattoos for the past twelve hours. When he clapped his hand against my back, he said, “You did good today, kid. You handled yourself way better than I could. You should be proud.”
I was surprised to find myself nodding, because dammit, I was proud. I had done some of my best work yet on those guys, they’d all had a positive experience, and I’d made in them repeat customers. There wasn’t much more I could ask for than that.
Audrey wrapped herself tightly around my arm and asked if I was ready to head home. I didn’t know if she meant her place or mine, but it also didn’t matter. They both felt comfortable, both felt like home, so I nodded.
“Yeah,” I said, leading her toward the door. “Let’s go.”