The Tattooed Heart

The Tattooed Heart By J.M. Snyder To my own tattoo artist at Lucky 13 When Lee enters Tattoo 804, Chris is just finishing up with a client. Though it’s less than thirty minutes to closing time, April’s behind the counter and knows Lee’s a friend, so she waves him back to Chris’s booth. “Hey, man,” Chris says, glancing up from the ornate Celtic knot armband he’s been coloring in for a while now. The client, a pretty woman in her late twenties, grins at Lee with gritted teeth. Chris motions to a nearby chair. “Have a seat. I’m almost through.” Lee’s two years older than Chris but they go way back. The first day after winter break when Chris had been in the fourth grade, to be exact; Lee had been a burly sixth grader, scary as s**t, patrolling the playground at their elementary school with the other tough boys in his class. Chris, always on the small side, often fell prey to the bullies. When Lee came over to pick on him that cold January afternoon, Chris was sitting on the frozen ground, one pant leg pulled up to expose an intricate pattern he’d been drawing on himself with a ballpoint pen. He expected to be laughed at, jeered, maybe even punched if he couldn’t dodge fast enough. The last thing he’d been ready for was to find the older boy hunkering down beside him as Lee pulled up the leg of his own jeans. “Great tat. Think you can do one on me?” Funny how life turns out. At thirty, Chris rents a booth at Tattoo 804, an up-and-coming tattoo parlor in Richmond located less than a mile from the schoolyard where he first met Lee. Most of his clients aren’t looking for anything custom, not yet—they want hearts on their wrists or paw prints on their ankles, or someone’s name scribbled somewhere on their bodies. His own art is hidden away in portfolios he never shows anyone but Lee. They’ve been friends forever, and when Chris has a new design he’d like to etch into someone, who else would he call? Lee sinks onto a stool near the mirror by Chris’s booth. He leans down to look at the armband, careful to stay out of the light. “That’s tight, man. Real sharp. You oughta do one for me.” “I got plans for you,” Chris promises. He wipes away excess ink and a trace amount of blood, studies his handiwork, then dives back in. From the corner of his eye, he sees Lee in the mirror—it’s June and already hot out, so Lee wears one of those faded tank tops called a wifebeater that shows off the ink on his arms. Chris did every single tattoo on Lee’s body, each a custom design, a tribute to his art. He’s not the only one looking; the woman in his chair turns her head and checks Lee out. Dark, mussed hair that looks like he just got out of bed. Warm eyes that crinkle into half-moons when he laughs. Heart-shaped lips most women would kill to have. They’d look girly if he wasn’t so damn built. Lee works construction, and Chris is never sure if he wears those dirty jeans and clunky boots for looks or function. Noticing his newest tattoo, a colorful maze Chris did a month ago spiraled around Lee’s left elbow, the woman says, “Nice tats. Where’d you get them done?” “Here.” Lee gives her a wink that makes her blush. “You’re in the hands of the best, babe. Nobody inks me but Chris.” When the armband’s finally done, Chris wraps it in cellophane and tells the woman to keep it clean. “I know what to do,” she promises, slipping him a neatly folded ten when he helps her out of the chair. “You aren’t my first. I really like your touch, and those designs on your friend are killer. I’ll definitely be back.” Lee waits until she reaches the front desk before he takes her place in the chair in front of Chris. “What’s up?” he asks, watching as Chris cleans his station. “I ain’t heard from you in a while. Keeping busy?” A slow smile spreads across Chris’s face. “You could say that. I got a man now, Lee. I have to be home nights.” Lee claps his hands and whoops, a little too loudly. “All right!” Chris ducks his head, embarrassed, but there aren’t many people in the parlor this late. “Keep it down,” he says, even though he can’t stop grinning. “It’s not all that.” “Not yet,” Lee points out. “But you want it to be?” Chris laughs. “I think so, yeah. I think he’s the one.” As he clears away the small cups of ink and water from his table, his mind drifts to Barry. The dude is everything Chris wants in a lover, there’s no denying it. Tall, slim, sexy, even if he doesn’t have any tattoos yet. That’ll change. Chris has offered to ink Barry himself for free and Barry said maybe, yeah. Another couple months and Chris thinks that “maybe, yeah” will turn into “please.” “Where’d you meet him?” Lee’s voice is quieter now, subdued. “Is he hot?” The look Chris gives his friend says it all. “Shyeah. Hot as s**t. He plays guitar in April’s brother’s band and we met after his set one night at the Code downtown. Just hooked up and hit it off. I am officially in love.” When Chris glances at his friend, Lee’s grin slides into place, but when he turns, he sees it slip away in the mirror. There’s something unsettling about how Lee stares at him, something that says wheels are turning inside that bushy head of his. “I know what you’re thinking,” Chris says. That earns him an amused grunt. “What’s that?” “It’s too early to tell.” Chris laughs and shakes his head. “Man, whatever. He’s all into me, that’s all I’m saying. Finally, you know? A guy who wants to be with me twenty-four seven, who likes my art, who wants me to draw something special for his first tattoo and put the image on him myself. Where else am I ever gonna find someone like that?” In the mirror, Lee’s heart-shaped mouth twists into a strangled knot. “Hell if I know.” When Chris turns toward him, that sour pucker has smoothed out and he thinks maybe he imagined it. “What ‘cha got for me tonight?” Lee asks, clapping his hands together. “Are they cool with you staying late for a client?” “A client? No.” Chris reaches for his portfolio, tucked into the space between his table and the wall. “But man, you’re a friend. This ain’t a sale. Let me show you what I’ve been doing. How’s your own love life going?” Lee takes the offered portfolio and flips to the back without being asked, where he knows Chris’s newer work is kept. “Pssh,” he says, dismissive. “My problem is the guys I like never like me back. These sketches are good. More mazes?” “They’re not really.” Chris rolls his stool around so he’s beside Lee’s chair and leans against his friend’s arm as he traces one of his more elaborate drawings. “It’s one continuous line, see? They just bend sharply and fold back behind the first line, sort of like that old Windows screensaver, I guess. You know, the one with the pipes? I can leave ‘em hollow or color them in, any color you want. I’m thinking they’d look damn cool on your shoulder and flowing over down your arm, you know? I can do as much or as little as you like.” Lee’s arm burns through Chris’s shirt. “Whatever you want,” he murmurs. “It’s up to you.” Chris looks up to find his friend staring at him openly and he grins to alleviate the sudden tension between them. “Great! Let’s get started. Take off your shirt for me, will you?”