Tattoo Machine by Jeff Johnson

Author:Jeff Johnson [Johnson, Jeff]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 978-0-385-53065-1
Publisher: Random House Publishing Group
Published: 2009-01-27T16:00:00+00:00

ATTEMPTED ROBBERY IS only one of the possible outcomes of fucking the customers. Artists I have worked with have been stalked for years. Some of them had to sell their cars because they were afraid they were being followed, and at least half the time they probably were.

Some years ago, I worked with an artist I will refer to as G. He was a tall, muscular guy with wavy blond hair and big, white teeth. He was so charismatic that to stand next to him in the presence of women was to be invisible. In the two weeks we worked together, I literally never spoke to a woman in the tattoo shop.

He left with a different woman every night. On his last day with us, two women came in at the end of the night, took one look at him, and it was on. They were powerfully slutty looking, with cowboy hats, glittery makeup, and painted-on Levi’s shorts. G spoke with them for perhaps a minute and then approached me.

“OK if I split a little early, little buddy?” That’s what he called me, “little buddy.” I don’t think he ever committed my name to memory. He tossed his head at the two women, busy blowing bubbles with their gum and running their eyes up and down his body. “Want to get out before the bars close.” He winked. “Gotta catch last call.”

I shrugged, and he bolted out with a woman on each arm, a triumph even for him, I assume. This meant I would have to do all the end-of-shift cleaning and close up myself, but I was getting used to it.

G and I both had to work the next morning. The shop opened at noon, and he never showed. At first I was irritated, then worried. Don came in and, after questioning me at length, grew furious.

“That goddamned playboy dumb-ass!” he shouted.

By two o’clock the shop was full and the phone was ringing off the hook. I was navigating a bloodbath solo and was justifiably upset when the phone rang for the hundredth time. It was G.

“Don’t tell me,” I said. “You’re too fucking hung over to make it in.”

“No, little buddy. I’m in Idaho.”

G woke in the backseat of a car in a remote truck stop with a vicious, snakebite-style hangover. It was not his car. He had no shoes and no wallet. We wound up having to wire him money for a bus ticket. Don canned him when he got back.

That was fifteen years ago. If only I knew then what I know now.

I usually look the other way when I catch one of the guys sneaking off with some customer of theirs. It’s none of my business until some jilted lover throws a brick through the window. Occasionally, however, if we have someone new, someone who might need a little advice on the subject, someone I might be able to spare a little terror or discomfort, I just might tell them a helpful story.

“This was one fine-looking woman.

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