Next to a sizzling barbecue on a rooftop in Granada, Spain, I worried about losing my life. I was here because an acquaintance had promised free food. Now, I cursed myself for not seeing the set-up. My hosts looked like they’d thrown people off buildings before. At the very least, I’d walk out robbed. Andrés, from Chile, had the build of a dark ages blacksmith and a smile as big as a banana. Juanito, small and intense, eyes hidden beneath a Boston Celtics cap, focused on salting phonebook-sized slabs of beef.
Reaching to shake Juanito’s hand, I stepped on his dog’s tail. The dog yelped and ran inside. On cue, a painted ball of muscles, sweating oil, took the dog’s place beside me. In his ears, around his neck, on his fingers and wrists: Gold. The man could have anchored a battleship.
“Where you from?” he said, eyes rolling in different directions.
“New York.”
“Turkey,” he said, pointing to his muscular neck with a muscular finger. I imagined what people would say about how I died. Thrown off a sixth floor balcony. Anything less than ten floors is an embarrassment. No matter. Instead of grabbing the back of my collar, the Turk offered me a piece of meat. The big softie. And as it seemed, he wasn’t that tough, either.
I went inside with Andrés for beer and saw the photo. A topless woman tattooed from sternum to spine, save the nipple. Andrés caught me peeping and claimed it was his girlfriend. Nervous again, I apologized.
“No,” he said, “My girlfriend did it. If you want, she can do one for you.” Damn rusty Spanish creating awkward moments with tattoo salesmen. “Right here.” Make that unlicensed, in-house tattoo salesmen.
Andrés slapped a padded table and I noticed everything I’d missed. The mirror lined with tattoo photos and stencilled designs. A rack of crusty inkbottles. A plastic practice leg wedged in a most uncomfortable position. A saxophone case?
“Needles,” Andrés said, freeing it from beneath crumpled napkins and clothes. My beef chunk dripped grease. The dog licked it up to the beat of Cypress Hill. Hash smoke blew in from the terrace. This is how tattooing is supposed to be done.
A week later, I showed up at the apartment. Joining Juanito and his girlfriend Katia on the couch, I asked when the next tattoo session would be. Juanito rolled up his sleeve. “Tonight,” he said. “I’m putting colour in this one.” This one was a Polynesian sun god stretched across his right tricep. He said it was Tangaroa, but nobody in this hemisphere can be sure.
Soon after, Andrés and Candice arrived. Ski instructors at the Sierra Nevada, they have the money and the recklessness needed to fuel a cornucopia of counterculture pursuits. Candice wore a spiral of ebony in her left ear, plugged through a penny-sized hole. She sat down with Juanito and began sketching on a grocery receipt. After brief negotiations, Juanito didn’t want colours anymore. “It looks metrosexual,” he said, opting for black stripes and shadow on the sun god’s points.
Within twenty minutes, the chaos of before disappeared. Fluorescent light flooded the makeshift studio. Candice even opened a new box of latex gloves and a new roll of paper towels. A wheeled table held the instruments—new needles in teal shrink-wrap, towels, swabs and other white and shiny bits. From medieval leather pouches, Candice removed two tattoo guns and tuned their buzz to the same pitch. She gave Andrés a kiss and clapped.
“Juanito!”
Juanito, shirtless, tripped slightly as he took The Seat. Candice slapped his arm, swabbed it up, made some final adjustments and promptly received a phone call. She answered, gloves on, instructing the caller to buy two bottles of rum, two bottles of Jack Daniel’s and a block of hash. Meanwhile, Juanito popped stomach zits. Order complete, Candice said goodbye in four different ways and got down to business. The gun buzzed and fell. Juanito’s eyes rolled to the sky as a drop of sweat slid from his pit.
Luckily for Juanito, Candice became a model of total focus. Juanito entered a trance as well, captivated at last by the mural of exploding bubbles covering the wall. Katia watched from behind. They formed a trinity of faces at peace—Candice, maskless, moving her chin and hand in synch; Juanito, staring a few thousand miles east; Katia, centred above, head of dreadlocks, wide-eyed behind crossed arms.
I wouldn’t let Candice tattoo me. She stifled half of her sneezes and tallied one mid-painting cough. She let my boots within five feet of the needles. She’s visited Brazil. When her friend dropped by, Candice stopped working for the obligatory two kisses. Yes, she has an autoclave and a five-year-old diploma on the wall, but the scar slashing diagonally across her forehead reeks of unsatisfied customer. That or a moped accident, but both stem from a lack of control.
More importantly, there were too many mysteries. What else have the leather pouches held? Where’s the sax? Who was the golden Turk? Earlier, while making room on the couch, Katia pulled a small, red safe from behind the cushions and placed it on the coffee table. An unexplained safe never helped me feel safe. Within it, the reasons why I wouldn’t get inked. The business here is more than skin deep.
