Sarah Hall - The Electric Michelangelo

The first night of many that Cy carried Henry back to his own apartment, not yet knowing where the other lived, and put him on the floor to sleep off his stupor, he realized that his new friend was barely out of his teens. Henry was well banged-up, his cuts had begun to congeal and needed cleaning before an infection was sealed in. Cy took off the torn shirt that had grime on the collar and cuffs, removed his bloody vest and found underneath a small boyish chest, with only a few adolescent hairs on the breastbone. He had taken many more blows to the face than to his body in his life it seemed. So there was prolific damage and false years of ageing above the lines of his clothing. He put a blanket over him and a glass of water within reach. In the morning the blanket was folded neatly on a chair, the water glass was defiantly full, and Henry himself was gone.

A routine developed on Henry’s weekends off. There was one Saturday repetition like a nightmare that kept on recurring in which Henry flirted balefully with death and danger. Somebody would come to get Cy at the barbershop or at Coney, depending on the season, to tell him Henry Beausang was sick-drunk behind the train station again, or by a bench in the park. Tipped over into the dust and haemorrhaging from a beating he had just taken by men he had tried to swindle or resemble or call the bluff of or God knew what other transgression. Cy would leave his work, a bird half flying across a bicep, and he’d go down and get his friend, hauling him back to somewhere safe. He’d put his hands on the ribs that weren’t broken and place Henry into a part balance, part lean, then he’d throw the weaker, dislocated shoulder back into joint. At this Henry would wake up enough to laugh at the sensation, making his face beautiful, desperate, and foolish. And then he’d realize what the sudden jolt against his torso actually was, and pain would arrive. He would jump back livid so Cy would have to mind his feet quickly out of the way or Henry would be tripped down in the road again. But by then the drunk was awake and upright and could stay there to be helped home, singing and rejoicing like Riley never did.

Every Saturday that Henry did not have to work a graveyard shift it was like clockwork exploding. He was lighter than Eliot Riley, made of skin and bones only, and polite in his position of helplessness but that was all that could be said in favour of the situation. Cy would chide him, scold him, tend to him, and would end up finishing the second tattooed wing of the bird later for no cost to the annoyed, abandoned customer.

— But why does he do it, Den?

— Why does any drinker do it? He’s got devils in him that are too slippery to catch. Carrying around a lot of family disgrace in him too. He comes from a wealthy family, Baptists every last one. Now I know that ain’t in your understanding Cyril, but take it from me it ain’t good. Let them down bad. He was married once to the daughter of some rich cotton tycoon and did that lady a disservice so bad his mamma about threw him out of the state of Georgia. Him and his best school friend were found together embracing like husband and wife behind the bandstand at the reception. See, Henry married is like a chicken taking up with a hog. Half the time it ain’t a fight he’s looking for. No sir. Those men don’t beat him because they know what he can’t do to them, they beat him for what he’s willing to do. But I ain’t no-one to judge. We’ve all come to this city carrying suitcases full of history, and that’s the God-honest truth. That boy might have been born on third base but he sure as shit ain’t scored a triple.

Then it was back to Coney Island after the cold damp Brooklyn winters of working on men with wet flecks of fresh cut hair on their skin. In the summer he’d unboard the dusty booth, re-dress it and work along with the sounds of hurtling coasters and carnival barkers. Henry would come by and laugh at the shows and say the hospital had nothing on this place and he’d drink in the bars on the alleys with Cy, faithful and persistent and less likely to jar, or as if he just felt happier alongside the Coney crowd.

The artists tattooing around the parks and the avenues of Coney Island were mostly very talented, the good mechanics of their trade, inheritors of Chuck Wagner’s legacy, of bold-coloured, heavy-bordered symbols. Wagner himself came down for vacations to Coney and would stick his big plum-nose into the booths from time to time. The shyster copyists and dross merchants lasted only a season or less before fading out of the façade, before being kicked out, not being able to compete in such a skilled industry. The talented prospered; Arturas had not exaggerated the volume of work. There was something genuine about the artists amid the artificial stimulation, something older, timeless, a lasting appeal, like scrimshaw placed alongside the plastic novelties. They were at odds with the tricksters now lining the freak tents, who passed by Cy’s booth in costume at midday before the matinee shows, with glued-on ears or dyed skin, self-made freaks instead of those with genuine birth debility — the ichthyosis sufferers, the bearded women or armless children with teeth as strong as pliers who had in the past reigned supreme. The truly old-school terrible, like the Human Fountain, a man with water pipes forced under the skin of his arms, which led down to his finger-tips from where the spray would be ejected like plasmic geysers into the air, had become lost among the mass of counterfeit sensationalists. Freakery was now the means to a quick buck, where once it had had something bizarrely disciplined and formal if brutal about it — like the mad-dog children yanked from the woods of Idaho and pitied by civilization, or the Human Fountain himself, meticulously cleaning the pipes under his raw skin each evening to prevent infection — that was professionalism at its highest. Cy had once had a strange conversation with the Human Fountain about cleaning solution outside his booth, they were curious of each other’s equipment, and he had been left full of admiration for the man, who seemed at once so normal and yet so extraordinary.

— I used to just use salty water but if it’s not the right temperature the salt will clog up. I like less chemicals. Have you tried a tiny amount of ammonia or white spirits when you clean your gun? Vinegar may do as well, though. Obviously I don’t have the pleasure of steam or I’d cook like a wonton!

— I find bleach will work also but it needs to sit. There is so much movement to these new pieces that the ink gets everywhere. I like to dip my quill often, so to speak. Call me old fashioned.

— Oy. The days of old fashioned are no more, I fear. Some days I think I will have to take out my own spleen to get a cheer. Me, I have to bring fluid through my pipes every morning, regardless of a show, otherwise I’m asking for trouble, I’ll get made a mess of. An hour or more every time, and people say you have no skills, you are just a joke, you aren’t marketable! Now it’s just like eating or washing my face, I guess; I do it without thinking.

Tattooing was the one culture at Coney that had lasted over the years, and remained credible, arresting audiences in their tracks. It was something that could be done to the watching, yawning, masses that included them, a sensation actually felt by them. That was the very nucleus of its longevity — inclusion, involvement, connection. Where other shows now missed the mark, tattoo artists struck the bullseye time and again, allowing customers to self-customize, to tailor their own ride, and they brought them the physical sensation and the realm of suffering and beauty which was sought. Reputations were hard fought for in New York City but, once achieved, they seldom were demolished. The lone female tattoo artist on the Bowery, Minny Hendry, was as admired for her hand-poked work as she was ridiculed for her anomalous gender within the profession. Cy had not a bad word to say against her, he had seen her daintily executed designs, and he imagined Reeda clipping him round the ear for it anyway. There were still prickles between those in the industry at Coney, tongue-in-cheek rivalry, to goad the crowds, but trade was good enough to support all the booth artists. Sometimes Arturas would stop by Cy’s booth in the late afternoon or evening and shadow-spar with him.