I’m still not sure what a philosophical approach means in this context—philosophical approach to the whole thing? The artistic process? Pain management? I really have no idea. I don’t know why it’s appealing, or even why I would want this. But I do. So I take the mango griller’s recommendation and call and make an appointment, and now here I am, parked on the street in front of a window with imposing designs, afraid to get out of the car.
What I’m doing at a tattoo parlor is a little unclear even to me, even to someone determined enough to ask for a recommendation from a stranger. Since the octopus blinded Lily with ink, I’ve harbored a growing obsession with getting marked by ink myself, creating a concord between us. Call it sympathy, unanimity, or the desire to mastermind a fraternity with only Lily and me as members, denying the octopus the opportunity to pledge. I’ve flirted with the idea of a tattoo before, but felt I lacked the occasion. This time is different. I feel much more like a soldier getting tattooed in wartime, with an almost ritualistic desire for body modification to mark solidarity to outfit and country. It feels like the rite of passage I need, except I’m not fighting for country and I have no outfit—only one comrade—in this war. I thought of getting Lily’s birth date as my tattoo, perhaps coupled with the day we met—the day I fell in love—but a run of numbers on my arm seemed too evocative of another kind of war tattoo—the markings of war prisoners. One day it could become something to wear with pride, the hallmark of a survivor, but this war is too far from over to take that chance. Still, as I wait here for my appointment, my sitting with the artist named Kal with a philosophical approach, I’m almost giddy to enter this fraternity with Lily, even excited for the pain of the needle.
Excited to wear the mark of a real man.
With a few deep breaths, I gather the nerve to get out of my car and enter Kal’s shop. The lobby is painted a stormy ocean green, and it’s decorated with worn black leather furniture that still gives off an intoxicating animal smell. On the walls are photos of tattoos, I suppose ones with their origins here. There’s no wall of suggested designs. It makes me feel like I’ve found the right place, like I’m not going to be modified in some cookie-cutter way that makes my attempt to stand apart backfire, making me even more identifiable as a part of the proletariat. A receptionist who looks like a younger, less angry Janeane Garofalo directs me to another room behind a velvet curtain. I have an appointment with the wizard. I hope he doesn’t think me greedy when I ask for brains and heart and courage. I hope he is more than a fortune-teller scamming me and this tiny emerald city.
Kal is perhaps more tattooed than not and I find it immediately disarming, the amount of ink his body is able to absorb and, instead of looking marked, radiate empowerment back. He’s handsome and slightly older and gray at the temples. Native American, maybe? But more like Native Canadian. Inuit or Eskimo. He cuts through my awkward attempt at a handshake with an encompassing hug.
“There is no real word for hello in Inuktitut,” he says, “So we shake hands or hug.”
“Hugging is good.” At least it is when it’s explained to me what the hug means.
Kal motions for me to sit on a stool. It’s a slow day, and we talk for a while about life, about nature, about relationships—the ones that are fleeting and the ones that are not. I ask him about the tattoos of his that I find most interesting and he tells me the stories behind them. He can tell that I’m stalling, but he doesn’t seem to mind.
“What’s your favorite thing about tattoos?” It’s such an amateur question, something a third-grader might ask while interviewing him for some school project, although I don’t know what school would assign a project on tattoo artists. Maybe a charter school, or a Montessori.
“Their permanence,” Kal says.
“But now there’s laser removal.”
Kal shrugs. “It still leaves a scar. Like a ghost.” He looks deeper into me than anyone has in a long time.
“But eventually we die, and the flesh rots away.”
Kal smiles at me with unwavering eye contact. It’s unnerving, or at least I am unnerved.
“Let me guess, people leave ghosts, too.”
“You’re scared. That’s normal for first-timers.”
I don’t recall mentioning that this is my first time, and I’m fully clothed, and so he can’t possibly see that I am unmarked, but he knows. “I’m scared. But not about the needles or the pain or regret.”
“About what, then?”
“About memorializing someone who isn’t gone. That I’m giving up the battle. That I’m surrendering in war.” I can hear Jenny tell me to say what I really mean. I carry my thesis further. “Afraid of death, I guess. And, maybe for the first time, of my own mortality.”
“Death is a unique opponent, in that death always wins.”Kal offers a small hiccup of a shrug, as if this is of little significance. “There’s no shame in surrender when it’s time to stop fighting.”