Mat Johnson - Loving Day

“You gotta see it,” Tal tells me again, like this is not enough, then pulls me even closer, into the can with them, where the air reeks of burnt sage and rubbing alcohol.

“It’s okay. I don’t mind,” comes from the lady getting her back split open. She’s a heavy woman, and her exposed flesh looks as soft as a marshmallow. If you laid your head on that meat, you would be asleep before you sunk all your weight down.

“Check it, this is the biggest Sesa I’ve done yet. And I will be braggadocios: the dopest as well,” the arachnid tells me.

“It better be because it hurts, Spider!” she yells back at him, letting the words and the pain out in mock whimpers.

“Tell her,” Spider says to me, lifting a hand to beckon me even closer. “Tell her how amazing it looks. How original.”

“Tons of people in the camp have this tattoo. It’s like a biracial tramp stamp,” Tal says to me. The lady getting written on just laughs harder, so hard Spider has to lift his needle up and nod at our good-natured appreciation of the spectacle of the fat on this lady’s back rippling.

“Actually, it’s the badge of mulatto pride. And everyone’s is different. Look at this one, lovely right?”

I look at this lady’s back. There is a big Star of David that goes from the tip of one shoulder blade to the other. Around it is a circle. If he drew it free hand he’s a genius, because it looks like a perfect 360. Past the line of the circle, what looks like drops of water spin off of the shape.

“See? See how I incorporated her freckles into the rivets? None of them are covered up, instead they make it look as if the image is splashing off into her organic fiber. Really, you have to listen to the flesh for the art to work like this.”

“You sound pretentious,” the lady says, and she stops laughing. Her back stills.

“What is it?” I ask him. He’s got a jeweler’s visor on with a light attached and when he looks right at me all I can see above his nose is the glow.

“My greatest creation. First, I took the West African Adinkra symbol Sesa Wo Suban , which basically means ‘Transform your character.’ ”

“Sounds like a diss.” The guy’s got no shirt on. The only thing covering his torso is nipple rings. Silver hoops, and a blue arachnid body painted right on the center of his chest like Spider-Man.

“Sure, it can be used as an insult, okay, but the meaning I like is that you have to change to become who you are. Perfect, right? So then, to further mulatto-tize it, I changed the classic Akan star to the star that corresponds with the wearer’s European ethnic heritage, thereby bonding together their ethnic nature. In Doris’s case, the Star of David. Which despite what it says about tattooing in the Torah, has been very popular around here.”

“Leviticus 19:28 is very contentious,” says Doris, and starts laughing again. She’s high. There’s no way she’s not high.

“That’s the one I’d get, Pops,” Tal says, leaning in closer to get a better look at it.

“Not until you’re eighteen. As your father I feel very strongly about Leviticus 19:28,” I tell Tal. And I do, suddenly, though I’m not sure what Leviticus 19:28 says.

“Listen to your old man,” Spider tells my daughter, then looks at me. “But Pops, you got to see them. Sixty-three different versions of this design walking around here. Linking us, you know? Spiritually. I once inked the entire Leaves of Grass on over a thousand people at Burning Man. One verse written on each person. That was dope. But the Sesa? It’s, like, on another plane of consciousness. We’re creating a people, man.”

There’s silence. There’s no one talking because he was speaking to me, and I have nothing to say in response. Because I’m actually listening to him, and he terrifies me. The very idea, of creating a tribe where I would fully belong, of changing my definition to fit me instead of the other way around, terrifies me. It scares me because it’s not crazy. It’s attractive, logical even. It’s just priced at abandoning my existing identity and entire worldview.

“G-d, you’re pretentious,” Doris breaks the pause, laughing.

THERE’S A FRIDAY NIGHT powwow the last workday before school starts, and all the grown mixies show up. They have a full bonfire burning and the faculty and staff stand around like a god might arise from the flames. Fresh tattoos shine on the oiled skin of the newly branded: I see six-pointed druid stars, Soviet-style red ones, two-dimensional Nordic sailor stars that look like shuriken, all encased by the Sesa’s black swirls. There’s even a Sesa with the star from Star Trek —presumably worn by Captain Kirk’s lovechild. I recognize the intricately knotted Celtic pattern in several of the stars, and know if I got one, that would be it. And I also know I won’t, though I think it does look good. I think things like: they are all connected, these people. I think these sorts of thoughts because I’m drunk. There are about seventy people here, and they’re all shades from pink to dark ebony. Fat, thin, whatever. But they’re all connected. Spider knew. How to draw a symbolic line between them, from calves to arms to shoulders to the meat on Doris’s back. She walks by me and she’s wearing a tank top and the skin back there is still red and painful but she looks so happy, as if the pain has been sensualized. And the fat of her midriff hangs out on the sides and again I am drunk and so don’t deny its beauty. Doris knows. She knows that meat is her and she loves it and she loves everyone else here enough that she is willing to let them see all of who she is in this moment. I find that easy to envy. I want to live in a fantasy world too.

I get another drink, because they’re free and my mouth has nothing else to do. I stand staring at the fire, wait for some sort of formal ceremony to begin, but it doesn’t come. This is a school that doesn’t feel like one even in the daytime, but as it gets dark its true nature unspools. It’s less a school than a family reunion. I don’t know these people, but I do, because they’re like me. They don’t look like me, they don’t sound like me, but they know what it’s like to be me. To be in the group while intangibly excluded from it. I know they know by how relieved they appear to be together. To be completely at home. Without question of identity or membership. I belong here, I catch myself thinking, and I’m too drunk to question or squash that joy. Spider comes over and, from my elation, my new admiration for his work pours.

“That’s my thing. I haul my camper to all the festivals, tattoo conventions, you know, make my money. North April to July, south and out west till fall, hole up in Santa Fe the off months. Dude, I came to Mélange thinking I’d stay two weeks. And here I am, still. First time I’ve been still for a lunar cycle since 9/11. No lie.”

“So you’re one of the people who were here from the beginning?” I like Spider. He’s a little guy, in height and weight, and I like little guys that don’t immediately point out that I am a big guy. If he never mentions this, I could grow to love him. Surely I could.

“Yup. You know Marie Bella? The folk slash fusion singer? She’s got a song that goes—” Spider sings a few bars I’ve never heard but I nod to get him to stop. “Well anyway, that’s one of Roslyn’s exes, she got bank; she funded it to start. A lot of her friends gave money. You wouldn’t believe how many biracial cats get rich in the entertainment industry. It’s like the family business for zebras.”

“Yeah, but why squat in a park, in Philly?”

“We were already here.” Spider shrugs. “Mutts take what we can get. I mean, it’s a little crazy, right? This whole mulatto thing. But I say, enjoy it while it lasts, and keep a full tank of gas just in case.”