By Ann Yuan
Tattoo is an ancient art. It uses a needle to insert ink into the skin and leave a permanent mark on the body. It always hurts to get a tattoo but most people cope with the pain.
After Daniel’s father died in the war, he became the newspaper boy on the east side of town. His mother turned their house into a tailor shop. A black sewing machine replaced a couch. A clothes rack stood by the wall and rolls of fabrics piled in the corner of the living room.
His mother pedaled the iron treadle day and night. Her long fingers fed the clothes into the needle and a sun dress poured down from the table like a bright waterfall. Daniel imagined that the machine was a monstrous animal and the needle was its teeth. The clattering noise didn’t bother him at all. He liked to watch his mother working but she didn’t want him to come closer to the machine. “Go back to your room,” she said, not looking up from her sewing. “You’ll get stitched.”
Daniel was racking leaves in the yard when the man entered the house. He glanced in the window and saw the man raise his chin and spread his arms out like a cross. When Daniel’s mother bent down to tape measure him, he dropped one arm and sent his fat hand to the wrong place.
She jumped, screaming like a cat getting its paw stepped on.
Daniel stormed in and shoved the man toward the sewing machine. The man tumbled, hand sliding under the needle foot. The wheel started rolling and the needle clenched the target. Daniel kept rolling it as if he was a seamster determining to finish his work. An explosive howl blew out of the house. He didn’t get a chance to see if the thread stitch was straight.
Tattoo designs cover everything in life, plants, animals, names, quotes, or just symbols. The styles come in all varieties. Elegant or daunting, each design is a form of self-expression, as unique as the person who gets tattooed.
Daniel was a security guard at a nightclub. His old house had become a tattoo parlor. They used a gadget that looked like an old sewing machine. A pin penetrated the skin and vibrated with a low, piercing buzz. Enormous designs were hanging up around the walls.
Daniel told the tattooists that he was an artist too. They painted on living canvases, while he used his fists to leave marks, such as bruises or broken bones, on people’s bodies. Each time he finished a job he’d like to get a new design. A tiger crouched on his left shoulder, a blue serpent coiled on his belly, and a flaming dragon glared at people from his back. Every inch of his bare skin was decorated and it’s almost like he wore a splendid shirt.
Over the years he never used a knife or gun. A hole in the flesh would ruin the design. That would be a shame, he thought.
The ink in the skin is permanent. Lasers don’t completely remove a tattoo. Instead, they lighten it to make it less noticeable.
Five-year-old Julia perched on her father’s shoulders. She had a round nose and a cherry mouth. A Scorpio peeked out from behind her father’s open collar.
“What’s that?” She asked.
“Oh, that’s an old story.” Daniel pulled the shirt over.
“A story on Dad’s body.” Her tiny finger circled his chest. “Does it hurt?”
She gave him a great, sympathetic glance.
“No, it doesn’t.” A painful pleasure gushed into his heart and his chest ached.
The pigments that had been trapped under his skin for all these years came to life. The beasts stuck out tongues, hissing. He tucked in the shirt and kept them locked.
He scrutinized his little angel’s face. It was ivory, silky, impeccable, a blank paper waiting for the marks of life. There was a tiny mole on her forehead. He drew her closer, covering the mole with his lips.
Ann Yuan lives on Long Island, NY. Her work has appeared or is forthcoming in Flash Fiction Magazine, Gone Lawn, On the Run, Five on the Fifth, BULL, Pine Hills Review, and elsewhere. She has been included in the Overheard Anthology and the upcoming Iridescence Anthology.
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