Someone Else

Chapter 13 (Ben)

The Virgin Ink tattoo parlor had grimy walls with peeling paint and a floor that hadn't been scrubbed in years, maybe decades. Ben thought Karla might be able to whip the place into shape, but it would take a solid month of cleaning. Through the front window, he watched a cue top with a thick, gray-speckled beard, but strangely no mustache, work the needle on the shoulder of a biker chick whose haggard face had seen better days. Before the meth habit. Snaking out from beneath a stained wife beater, the tattoo artist's own arms proudly displayed a carnival of ink. Literally a carnival. At a glance, Ben could make out clowns, lions, elephants, and even a trapeze artist.

Menu boards of sample tattoos plastered the walls behind the bald inkslinger. Each design marked with a number, rendering the whole process more impersonal than permanently marking a body should be. I'll take a number fourteen and a twenty-three—a boilerplate skull coupled with a by-the-numbers butterfly. You know, I want to rebel against social norms, but I have no imagination.

A person walking by would think tattoos remained the sole domain of bikers and sailors. The shop even had an anchor as a design choice on the wall. No shit. A straight up anchor was design number nineteen. The place could be a museum, which, of course, was the point of the front room, though it felt out of place in the hood. But for appearance's sake, the Virgin Ink front room was for the walk-bys, the looky loos, the uninformed, the losers. A small door tucked in the back corner led to the real action.

Ben walked confidently to this door and, after receiving a nod of approval from Beardy McRingmaster, rapped his knuckles against heavy steel. He waited for a few seconds until he heard the electronic buzz and approaching footsteps. The door swung open to reveal Marcus, chomping furiously on a wad of gum, as usual. Normally gregarious with a quick smile and a "Whazz crackin', playa?," the charismatic bodyguard noted Ben's empty hands and remained ominously silent.

Ben stepped into the hallway and the door slammed behind him, the mechanized whoosh of the lock snapping shut punctuated the seriousness of the situation. Normally, Ben preferred to move down this hallway as quickly as possible to avoid the ornately framed photos of tattoos that lined the walls. The artwork displayed was far superior to anything available on the menu boards in the front room. These tattoos were intricately detailed, haunting, and even beautiful. But it wasn't the tattoos themselves that were so unnerving, it was the fact that the art had been needled onto virgin skin so pink and fresh and smooth—skin stretched tight as a birthday balloon, yet somehow soft and supple—that one would swear the tattoos were inked onto babies. The shots were cropped tight around the tattoos, so the truth remained nebulous, but the skin in each photo appeared too unblemished to be an adult.

The first time he examined the photos, he'd laughed at the ridiculousness of the thought until Marcus asked what was so funny. "It looks like these tattoos are on fuckin' babies," Ben had replied with a nervous chuckle. Marcus didn't answer. Instead he flashed a toothy grin and nodded his head cryptically in a way that could have signified agreement at the absurdity of the notion or possibly in amusement that Ben had figured out the truth so quickly.

At the end of the hallway of horrors, they arrived at another thick steel door. After the irritating buzzing sound blared above their heads, Marcus jerked the door open and pushed Ben into an entirely different world. No more scuzzy floors, tacky neon signs, and menu boards featuring cookie cutter tattoos. This room, the real Virgin Ink, had the vibe of a classy nightclub with soft lighting, tasteful artwork, and plush couches—albeit the kind of nightclub that blasted obnoxious rap music. Every time he visited, Ben half expected a hostess to appear and try to sell him on bottle service.

Today, the couches were occupied by three young women who couldn't be much older than seventeen. They were all wearing short skirts—one laying flat on her back with her head in the laps of the other two, her legs dangling over the armrest—all three fixated on their phones.