The New American Dream

Part Four: Amsterdam | Chapter Twenty-Six

Two tattoo artists were standing at the reception and greeted us when we stepped inside. Luckily they spoke English, like most people here as I had noticed so far. I was too nervous to get out a single word so I let the other's handle the talking.

The two artists confirmed that they took walk-ins and upon checking they said they were free for the rest of the afternoon. Depending on what we wanted to get they might be able to fit all of us in.

"So what do you guys want to get?" one of the artists asked.

All heads turned to me, I had the design with me.

"Well, this one we all want to get and a few of us want some more," I explained as I took the design out of the purse I was carrying with me. It was an illustration of a bass guitar I had done, just in all black but with the same design that Mark's bass guitar had had. I felt honored that they all trusted my artistic abilities enough to design something for them that they would have on their skin for the rest of their lives.

"Did you do that?" one of the men asked me with a smile.

I nodded shyly. "Yes."

"That a guitar?" the other one asked.

"A bass guitar. For our friend who passed away a year ago, he played." I explained, my voice small.

"Oh, sorry to hear. Well, how about that: Since you all want to get the same one we could do that today and depending on how much time the other tattoos you want to get take up we can do them today and if the time's not enough tomorrow morning, so far we have no appointments until noon. How does that sound?"

We could all agree on that. Three tattoo artists were free at the moment and started their work on us. We had to fill out forms with our contact data, which also included our age. I just made myself a year older and like Kendall had assured me, no one asked for any I.D. which at least made some of my nervousness fade.

Cassie and I teamed up, she went first, then I would follow. Our tattoo artist was a friendly woman with a heavy Spanish or Portuguese accent, I couldn't quite place it.

By now my nerves were through the roof again. Cassie got her tattoo on her shoulder and her face didn't seem very happy about that decision, faithfully I held her hand through the entire procedure and thought Cassie would break it any moment. I kept holding on anyway.

"Alright, where do you want to have it?" the tattoo artists, whose name was Cristina as we found out by now.

I showed her the place on the outside of my left wrist. Old scars that were starting to fade could be seen but I didn't care in that moment.

"Okay, don't pull back, I'll start now," she informed me after she had prepared the area and applied the stencil.

I nodded quickly and then there was a needle in my arm. To be fair, it wasn't nearly as bad as I had anticipated it, which definitely consoled me. Either way I squeezed Cassie's hand until it was over. Cristina covered my wrist with clear wrap and then it was done.

"Holy shit, " I said to Cassie as I looked at my wrist, almost in disbelief that we had really done this. It got me a laugh from our artist.

"It seems like your friends are almost done, as well. Do you want to continue with the other tattoos?" she asked with a friendly smile.

I looked at my phone and saw that it was almost five. "I think we still have some time, right?" I asked Cassie who nodded.

"Do you want to go first or can I? I'd like to get this over with."

Cassie agreed.

I ended up with two more tattoos that I had carefully picked out when we had decided we would get tattoos here. One was a small cross that all Homesick Soldier members had on their hands. I basically got the same, on my left hand. The other one was the Homesick Soldiers logo. I didn't want it too be too big and I got it on my right forearm, right below the inside of my elbow.