Surreal nostalgic strains of calliope music weave a faded tapestry of images in the aging tattoo man’s mind as he reads… An old amusement park… Tattooed bikers, sailors and drifters loiter on the boardwalk in front of a dingy tattoo parlor smoking cigarettes, drinking beer from cans… A kid peers into the tattoo shop window… he can make out dusty shapes… haunting images frozen in timeā¦ rows of faded black and white carnival photos of sideshow freaks, heavily tattooed men and women staring out from their rusty cages of memory… an endless loop of yellowed walls crammed from floor to ceiling with colorful little tattoo designs… pin-up girls, skulls and daggers, dragons and shooting stars… crosses and saints and crudely drawn primitive icons and anchors and panthers and goofy looking old cartoon ducks… a strangely familiar high-masted Sailing ship stands out in the vision with its flowing banner and the unforgettable words… HOMEWARD BOUND.
“For me,” he reads, “seeing tattoos for the first time that day was like hearing some kind of weird jungle drums. It was like a sudden powerful religious experience. I can remember peering through that grimy tattoo shop window into a world I seemed to remember from somewhere else;somewhere far away; a long time ago. There was a dusty ship in a bottle, I remember, and a stuffed weasel wrestling with a snake on the window ledge inside with an old-time statue of a blue and white sailor standing at attention. Beyond that, I could make out a million colorful little pictures covering those yellowed nicotine-stained walls from floor to ceiling. I strained to see in. There were sailing ships and naked ladies and skulls and daggers and tigers and dragons. I was suddenly completely lost in a crazy colorful fantasy world I’d always known about deep down in a lost forgotten primal part in me, but had never actually seen before.
“So much stuff on those walls! Anchors and horseshoes and naked ladies and mermaids and devils and cartoon characters. There wasn’t an inch of space that wasn’t covered with the busy little drawings. Like fascinating little comic book panels, they called to me from that smoky other world inside as I stood there straining on my tiptoes, peering in. I could smell the soot on the window ledge as my ears pounded with noisy excitement. I could see some men moving around inside there. Sailors. They were all crowded around in the corner, I noticed, where one skinny old man with bare arms covered in blue-green hieroglyphics was sitting hunched over another man. There was a steady muffled buzzing sound coming from inside and I knew right away exactly what was going on in there! Nobody had ever told me about tattoos before. I can’t recall even having ever even seen one before then. But looking in that tattoo shop window that day, I just knew. I knew this was what it was all about. And I wanted to get one. The little bunch of shirtless sailors all stood around in there. They were laughing and drinking from a little bottle. And they all had tattoos. One of them had a big eagle sitting above a big dark battleship, I remember. It covered his whole chest. Suddenly I wanted to grow up real fast so I could go inside and hang out in that place with those guys. I just wanted to disappear inside there and never come back. And I knew that I wanted to take off and go far away to wherever those sailors sailed to, sailing off forever on a ship of dreams; sailing far, far away over a painted pastel watercolor horizon as far as my spirit could fly on a pair of fuzzy tattooed wings.”
Young Jonathan’s breath fogs the dirty window, adding a misty texture to Cigano’s memory. Suddenly a huge hairy hand grabs the boy’s skinny arm in a vice-like grip. His heart freezes as a booming voice of doom attached to the hand speaks, the red-faced stocky man with a crew-cut yelling loudly in his captured ear.
“I SAW YA, YA LITTLE TURD!”
The tattooed bikers and sailors loitering around on the boardwalk lazily take notice of the little drama unfolding as Jonathan’s friend Tony runs off. A tall biker with a long white nicotine-stained beard stomps over. “Hey, man, leave the kid alone!”
“I saw ya swipe them comics, ya little bastid!” The angry shopkeeper says to Jonathan, ignoring the biker and squeezing his arm painfully.
Jonathan struggles. As he breaks loose from the big man’s beefy grip, a dozen comic books slide out from under his shirt and flutter down to the sidewalk. As he tries to run after his friend, the tall biker extends a casual foot and the boy trips over a huge motorcycle boot. He falls to the ground. The biker turns and walks away laughing as the huge hairy hand of Guilt plucks him up like a cat snatching a baby rat.
Copyright Jonathan Shaw 2011
Yes…Finally the confessions… series is coming out…!
Nice piece Jonathon. Captures the allure of tattoos for a young man – I remember looking at similar places as a kid, wondering about them, wondering about the tough guys in my little town that had them. That whole thing about a kid peering on a man’s world and wanting to be there.
Best,
t.