Reed Coleman - Empty ever after

“Leave me alone. Just leave me alone to think, okay?”

“Sure.”

In contrast to her name, Mira Mira was as exotic as whole wheat toast. Oh, she was pretty enough-Italian, early thirties, svelte and dark-but with a Brooklyn accent that made mine seem minted on the Thames. And if her loft in SoHo was indicative of how lucrative tattoo artistry was, I was going to tell Sarah-a gifted painter-to lose the brush and oils in favor of the ink and needle. You could have played full-court basketball in the place and have had room for bleachers and concession stands. The exposed brick walls were covered in enormous photographs of body art. Some were rather stunning and done in colors you were more apt to find in a Klimt than on a teenager’s bicep.

“So, you wanna to tawk about an original Mira Mira creation.”

“Not original, really,” I said, sliding my business card and the Polaroid across the table to her. “I believe you already spoke to my employee about it.”

“That Brian Doyle works for you, huh? A real freakin’ charma, that guy.”

“Charm is a funny thing. Depends on taste.”

“Yeah, well, just because some assholes who are drownin’ think they’re just slow swimmers, don’t make it so. You know what I mean?”

I didn’t, but I wasn’t here to argue with her. “Exactly. So what can you tell me about that tattoo?”

“Nothin’. I mean, nothin’ I didn’t already tell Prince Charmin’.”

“Amuse me, okay?”

“Sure. Whaddya wanna know?”

“Everything. Anything. How were you contacted? Who did you deal with? Did they leave a contact number or address? What was the kid like and the guy with him?”

“Nothin’ unusual in how he got in touch. Got a call from a guy sayin’ he’s seen my work and that he’s got a friend that he wants to get inked. I asked him if him or his friend wanna come in to tawk about what kinda design they’re lookin’ for, but he says they already got somethin’ specific in mind. I told him I didn’t do crap. No Christ heads or hearts or dragons, you know, that kinda crap and that I don’t negotiate price. He says that ain’t no problem and when can he come in.”

“So you spoke to the older man, the one with the eye patch.”

“Yeah, it was Cyclops I tawked to.”

“Do you have names, addresses, phone numbers?”

“Sure do, for what it’s worth. I mean, I don’t like check references or nothin’, but I make people sign all kinda fuckin’ releases before I put ink to skin. You have buyer’s remorse with a house, you can sell it. Body art, the way I do it, it’s kinda hard to give back.”

“Could I see the paperwork?”

“Nope.”

“Why not?”

“My studio got busted into in May. All the files got trashed.”

“Any other damage?” I asked.

“Some. Nothin’ that couldn’t get fixed.”

“You remember any names?”

“Nah. I don’t remember what they wrote on the release forms and when they tawked to each other, I don’t even think they used names. Cyclops called the kid Kid. I don’t remember the kid callin’ Cyclops anything, but his expression called him Asshole. I don’t guess that’s what you’re lookin’ for.”

It wasn’t, but I didn’t want to lose the momentum. “So they make an appointment and…”

“Yeah, at first when I see ’em I’m thinkin’ it’s the man-boy love thing and that sugar daddy is buyin’ his boy toy a little art as a token of his appreciation. It wouldn’t be the first time. But as things went on, I changed my mind. It was more like boss and employee kinda situation. In fact, the kid didn’t seem very into the whole tattoo thing at all. Kept whinin’ about not likin’ needles and shit like that. Cyclops told him to shut up and take it like a man.”

“Nice guy, huh?”

“A typical cop.”

I nearly swallowed my tongue. “What?”

“I’m pretty sure he was a cop. My dad, my uncles, my little brothers are all on the job. Just like you and Prince Charmin’.”

“Well, Mira, you wouldn’t have to be Kreskin to figure out that Brian and I were once cops.”

“I guess not, but Cyclops was once a cop. I’m tellin’ ya. And then when he pulls out that picture and shows me what he wants me to put on the kid, I almost threw them both out on their freakin’ asses.”

“The rose and Chinese characters?”

“Yeah,” she said, tapping her finger on the Polaroid. “It was an enlargement of an old photo, all grainy and shit, but clear enough so’s I could copy it.”

“The person in the photo, was he a-”

“Tell you the truth, I just looked at the tat. It was a man’s arm. That much I could tell.”

“Why’d you want to throw them out?”

“’Cause it was a bullshit job. Any hack coulda done the work and I didn’t wanna waste my time.”

“If it was a bullshit job, why come to you?”

“You’re askin’ the wrong party here,” she said. “I don’t know. Some people they think like expense equals quality. So for what I charged ’em, they got lotsa quality.”

“You mind me asking how much quality they received?”

“Three large cash.”

“He paid you three grand for-”

“That’s where my prices start, not where they finish. And he tipped me an extra few c-notes on top.”

“Nice work if you can get it.”

She pointed at an eight foot by ten foot photo on the wall behind me. It was a tattoo of a peacock, its tail feathers fanned across a woman’s upper thigh and right cheek. The colors were incredibly vivid, the iridescent blues and greens fairly jumped off the subject’s flesh, but it was the subtle shadings, the gold and beige, the darker browns and black that were the real trick of her art.

“You do that, you can charge what I charge,” she said. “Until then …”

“I see your point. You’re good.”

“Good. Pfffffff. Fuck that!” She made a face like she’d bitten into a bad nut. “I’m the best.”

“So what about the kid?” I asked. “I mean beside the fact that he was whining.”

“He was handsome enough if you like the type. Kinda a young Travolta without the charisma.”

Bingo! I thought back to when I first got involved with Patrick. The Maloney family had plastered the kid’s high school prom picture all over the city. I remembered thinking that he reminded me of Travolta. But that was before Patrick had colored his hair and gotten his ears pierced, before he had gotten his tattoo.

I stood to go. “Thanks for your time. Here’s my card if you think of anything else.”

“So what neighborhood you from?”

“Sheepshead Bay via Coney Island.”

“I went to Lafayette. You went to Lincoln, huh?”

“I did.”

“Well, screw that, I like you anyway,” she said.

“Oh, yeah, why’s that?”

“’Cause most people walk in here or my studio and within thirty seconds say ‘Mira Mira on the wall,’ or some stupid shit like that. Not you.”

I wished she hadn’t said that last part, because now I couldn’t get it out of my head. Mira Mira on the wall, who’s the fairest of them all? Mira Mira on the wall, who’s the fairest of them all? Mira Mira on the… At least when a song gets stuck in your head, there’s a melody to mitigate the annoyance. Like I didn’t already have enough crap to drive me nuts.

I had surely disappointed Sarah a thousand times over the years in ways both large and small. Nothing hurt more than seeing disappointment in my kid’s eyes, but letting your kid down is an inevitable and likely beneficial part of parenting. You can’t pick kids up every time they fall, you can’t and shouldn’t give them everything they want, nor is it in your power to come close to living up to their image of you. Yet, in spite of my myriad foibles, missteps, and mistakes with Sarah, there was one way in which I couldn’t recall letting her down. I had always kept my word to her. It was in my nature to keep my word even when it worked to my detriment. You need only survey the shambles I’d made of my marriage to know the truth of that.