Mat Johnson - Loving Day

Spider lays a stencil on her skin, presses it down, and I know that soon he will take a needle and pour ink into her bleeding flesh. There’s giggling from Tal as she’s branded with the preliminary etching. I don’t find it funny, because soon it will be permanent. To Spider she talks, even smiles, when he holds up her temporary design, the swirl outline with the Star of David on the inside.

“I was hoping you’d at least throw a little Gaelic twist in there, for your old man.” I try to play along.

“Do you want that, sweetie?” Spider asks Tal directly.

“No,” Tal says, so I know she can hear me.

After the design is pressed on wet paper to her skin, Tal looks at it in the mirror like it’s a good thing it will soon be made to last the rest of her life. Spider has the needles. Spider has the true ink. Permanence comes with pain, as always.

“Okay, now here’s the big question,” Spider says to her. He’s holding up what looks like an airbrush gun in one hand, and a ruler-sized wooden rod in the other. “Do you want to do this modern style, or do you want me to go the traditional hand-tattoo route?”

“Spider, you are not needling my daughter with a stick.”

“It looks primitive but actually hurts a little less. A little.”

“Honey, listen to me. This thing, it’s forever. Are you sure you really want this on your body forever? Are these people that important to you? This Mélange thing, I know you love it, but it’s only going to be a couple months in a long life. You’re off to college, then you have your whole—”

“Poke me with the stain stick,” Tal tells Spider.

“Is that okay, dad?” Spider asks me, and takes my shrug.

Tal flinches at the initial piercing. I go to her before I even think of doing it. Kneeling on the floor, I pat Tal’s head, transitioning from my hand to a towel when I feel the sweat beading on her brow.

“Pops? You have no idea how bad this stings,” Tal says finally. I don’t know. I am the last untattooed man on earth. I am He Who Has No Ink. Everyone else has made their decision, has chosen their totems. The lack of paint on my skin at this age — where it seems like even babies are written upon in the maternity ward — has made me the last of my own clan. We, the undecided.

“You could go next, dude. It’s been a long year. Join us! It’s not a Mélange thing; it’s a mixed thing. You’ve earned it.”

“Yeah, no thanks. My plan is to finish this life unscarred.”

I can’t actually see what’s happening. Or I can’t actually bring myself to see. I look at Tal’s face. I force myself to stop flinching when she does. There’s her pain. And here I am, finally. I missed her flu shots, her first fall from a bicycle, even her ear piercings, but for this I am present. Tal’s first tattoo. The moment she is forever marked. The moment even her body loses its pretense to being a blank state. We have stories. Now you can just see one of her chapters.

It’s taking too long. “Can I do something for you, honey?” I ask Tal. “What can I do for you right now. For the pain?”

“Bring me vodka.”

“No.”

“Then bring me Sun,” Tal tells me, adding a yelp when I seem reluctant to carry out the order.

—

I knock so lightly on Sun’s door. I’m so polite. Just cute little taps, evenly spread out, I’m very controlled and considerate.

“Sunita? Please. Open up. I need to talk to you.”

When that doesn’t work, I hit a little harder, and a little more so every few beats. “Sun. Please. It’s not for me. It’s for Tal.” My voice is low, but it doesn’t need to be. There’s no one else outside to hear me. I have no idea where everyone is, but they aren’t walking the grass alleys of Halfie Heights. There must be a party. A party to which I wasn’t invited. Two parties, most likely, one for the Oreos, one for the sunflowers. You would think the sunflowers’ party would be rocking more bass, but Little Halfrica is silent.

When I sit down on the stoop, I say it again. “It’s for Tal.” Because it all is for Tal. These steps, they’re metal and narrow and hurt my ass but I don’t care because it’s for Tal. Also, it’s pathetic. I want Sun to see me being pathetic. I want her to see my regret. I want—

The light goes on beside the trailer. Just appears, no sound. Bright light. I look to Sun’s windows. Curtains still drawn. Space behind them now dark inside. It was the outdoor motion detector. I haven’t moved.

I go upright silently. I don’t move any more than that. I don’t breathe. I hold my breath and listen. I hear nothing. Not cars. Not radios. Not humans. Not crickets. And then I’m scared, because I don’t hear crickets. There is always the sound of crickets, at night, in Germantown, in May. There are no crickets. There is nothing.

There is the white woman.

There is the sound of footfalls, running.

She is there and then she isn’t there and she’s running away. Goddamn half-naked white woman running through Germantown. That’s all it takes to ruin everything.

I run after her.

I run before I realize I can barely walk. I bang into the trailer next to Sun’s, hear some Oreo scream in the shaky inside, keep running. I’m going to catch her. I’m going to end the hoodoo nonsense. I am going to rid the land of all crackheads forever. She glides beyond me. I will push her to the ground, hold her there and scream, sit on her till the police come and Tal too, with half a tattoo but who cares because now she’ll know the lie of this place.

Bare pale white feet, black on the bottom. Ghosts don’t have dirty feet.

“Ghosts don’t have dirty feet!” I yell when she cuts through another line of trailers.

“What the fuck?” comes back, but not from her, from another trailer I slide into because the dewy grass is slippery and my balance even more unreliable.

A white shirt. Long. Like a gown. A dirty white gown. Maybe a hospital gown. But it’s her. The woman from the house. The burglar. I know her. I have seen her. Not like the others claim, not in some mystical revelation. I have seen this crackhead asshole and I know her and I don’t even know where from besides my dreams but I know her. It’s her. I am running. Stopping. Spying her through the maze of mobile homes. Running again.

“This is private property!” I yell like I own the place. I own the place. Or now Tal owns the place, but I would know if there were any white people living here. There are no white people here. There are tons of half-Europeans, but no whole ones.

Darting to the end of the trailers, she heads toward the last one, turns out of sight at its corner. I chase after the shadowed blur of her pale body. She runs from me like she’s guilty and she is and I will capture her and reveal her to the world.

“I see you!” I yell at her. “Everybody wake up! I see her! Come see her!”

It will be like Scooby-Doo! I do it for my Velma. Everyone will surround us while I whip off the ghoul’s mask.

I turn the corner and she’s gone.

She hasn’t gone farther. The grass is empty beyond. No one is that fast. She did not vanish into thin air. Only ghosts vanish into thin air. Ducking down, I look under the Victorian trailer, see nothing. I look up at the door. It’s Roslyn’s door.

It’s Roslyn’s door.

It’s Roslyn. It’s always been Roslyn. I am drunk and I am tired and I am breathing really heavy now too, but I know, it’s Roslyn. Behind it all.

Roslyn, who answers the door after only two knocks, because she’s awake. Of course she is.

“Where is she!”

“Warren? It’s very late. What’s wrong? Why are you doing this?” The expression; she plays it perfectly.

“I know she’s in there.”