A cheery entrance bell ring over my head visibly startled my boyfriend as we walked into the crowded parlor, so I shot him a taunting grin. Drake's “Take Care” blasted overhead as we examined the shop’s many posters of psychedelic-filtered Rolex watches, Lil Wayne beaming with two strippers perched on his lap, and the shop owner shaking hands with Detroit’s own Eminem. Shuffling workers with tattoos covering their arms, legs, necks, and even eyelids, were working the counters and greeting customers.
While we waited for our turn, my boyfriend watched the other customers pick out their designs and piercings and I took a seat on the leather couch, which exhaled a heavy breath with the parlor’s infamous smell of marijuana. My knee tapped against the leather, tap tap tap tap tap.
I wasn’t nervous about the pain, despite how much I endured the first time. In fact, I was aching to add this new phase of my life, like adding lines of ink would transition me from my past of an eating disorder into a future of solemn womanhood, free of hardship. I knew adding to these tiny couldn’t take away my prior suffering or the pain I put my friends through, all of the nights I mom stayed up until dawn in fear for my safety, the days I made my sister watch my frail legs buckling from beneath me, or the years of medical bills I made my father grow old from working over. Enduring another round of needles would simply prove that I’ve grown, since I’ve “promised” to recover time and time again.
Maybe things will be different this time.
As I walked up to the counter, I examined the various jewelry surrounding the walls of the shop. Like the Nordstrom of body modifications, there were separate sections for nose rings, nipple rings, ear gauges, and cartilage studs.
Most of the customers that day had come in to get one of these piercings, so they were all busy picking out their stud, hoop, bar, or gauge. Piercings are much less of a commitment than tattoos, which is why I put twelve holes in my ears before I chose my first round of ink. They’re stuck with you as you are with them, like chewed gum on the street with an old man’s gym shoe.
It’s a relationship like any other, that will last years and will test the development of emotions and maturity as life changes. My recovery tattoo, we had a marriage to a healthy future, and I was an adulterous fool.
The woman behind the desk called my name, so we followed her from the waiting room to the back of the store. Heavy metal blasted in Ronnie’s room, and he was tattooing a man’s forearm who was playing brick breaker with his other hand. He played his game aimlessly as the artist dabbed blood from his skin and apologized for hitting painful spots, but the man was seemingly unaware of the needles thrusting under his skin. My boyfriend directed my shoulders forward, to remind me to keep watching and to stop me from looking at the mess any further.
Seriously? Brickbreaker?
We turned the corner of the back of the tattoo parlor, dodging trays of needles, clamps, and various liquid solutions. The artists hustled through the maze of moving bodies with ease, and they took turns using the large sketch pad on the back counter for drafting ideas, checking out customers, or printing the stencils that would eventually be traced into tattoos. They had figured out the motions of a successful tattoo parlor, and watching the action behind the counter always encapsulated me.
The woman who led us to room 1 was not who I’d expect to work at Tattoo 13; she was no older than my age, and she hadn’t a single piercing or tattoo that I could see. Quiet and focused, she didn’t say more than, “This way.”
I probably look like I have every issue in the book compared to this girl. That’s why she’s been so quiet. Is it too late to change my mind?
Sitting on the leather couch with my boyfriend, I watched him take in the room’s features. Every inch of the wall was covered in certificates of excellence or pictures of various artists smoking a joint. Travis Scott blasted on the speakers, filling the room with the energy familiar to a college pregame. A Keurig sat on the desk next to a clear jar of clementines, directly in front of the artist’s photos of his girlfriend. There it was again, tap tap tap tap tap.
Andrew placed a hand on my knee to calm the rattling, which instead just bounced along with my jittering limb. My hand grazed the left side of my ribs, where I’d soon be letting KJ, my favorite artist, prod into naked flesh and insert another round of ink under the layers of my skin.
Last time was fine; It’ll be fine again. It’ll be fine again. I didn’t follow through last time. I’ll be fine again.
After KJ arrived and greeted us both, he began to prepare for the procedure. The stenciled rose emerged from the printer within seconds, and he waved it through the air to dry the ink on the page. It took seconds to firm onto the paper, printed out so easily and painlessly.
“If only that’s how it worked on you, right?”, he chuckled as he bumped along to his playlist, checking to make sure the stencil’s lines weren’t blurred. We always bantered when I came in for a new ear piercing, but I couldn’t stop focusing on the temperature of the back of my neck. My curly hair started to soak up some of my sweat, gathering along the line of my scalp.
Minutes before a needle goes inside of you is not the time for jokes, KJ.
KJ instructed me to remove my shirt. I was eager to do so, after realizing how unbearably warm room 1 had become. I removed my jacket and threw it on the couch, which then fell onto the tile floors, before taking off my oversized sweater. Desperate to escape the imprisonment of my last layer, I whipped off my shirt in an instance, revealing my bra to both men in the room.
Ah, the humiliation of eagerly exposing myself in a sweaty, nervous state. My poor boyfriend.
Doing so, I revealed the tattoo KJ had given me two years prior. The lines remained bold and strong, but since then I’d become so frail and weak, yet again. My promise to myself, of safety and wellness, was still held in the ink, but I dishonored my pledge only months after swearing it. Cheating on a promise made to oneself is the utmost form of betrayal, held in disappointment and grief that only future decisions can mend.
KJ took the stenciled rose and placed it atop my first tattoo. The blue pen ink looked foreign and unwelcome next to my first tattoo, creating a union of two periods of my life that had never collided so literally. My familiar path of deprivation and self-reprehension would soon collide with a future hopeful of nurture and self-expression, quite literally marking this new phase in my life.
Get through the needles and you’re free.
As the machine turned on, my stomach dropped at the familiar buzzing noise. I looked to Andrew, who was laughing with KJ over a joke he made. I hadn’t heard anything. “Keep your eyes over on the wall and stay very still. It’ll be easier than last time.”
Easier said than done, and you don’t know what’s happened since last time. Plus, you’re face-to-face with my boobs next to my boyfriend and are sticking needles into my ribs. Are you fucking kidding me- stay still?
Andrew knew how important the rose I added to my tattoo was for my recovery. He wiped some of my sweat from my hairline, and he held my chin to my left so I was looking solely to the door. He wouldn’t let my gaze leave his as the needle’s tip kissed my fragile ribs, familiarizing itself with my skin yet again. The pain surged through the left side of my body, reminding me how it feels to be both unable to move and so eager to run.
Do not move a single fucking muscle. This is ink. You can move during any other time in your life. You can NOT move right now. Don’t be a fucking baby. You did this before. Stop crying, stay still, damnit!
KJ worked through the lines of the rose as fast as he could. Any strength I’d mustered before the procedure dissipated quickly, as the rose was clearly more painful than the first tattoo. Elephant tears flowing down my face, Andrew assisted in holding down my arms when needed as I jerked through the tattooing process.
I cried for the needles under my skin, piercing my ribs that stuck out of my skin. I cried for the family lunches I skipped to workout. I cried for the dozens of therapists I’d met with and cut dry when I didn’t like what they had to say about my disorder. I cried for my untouched birthday cakes and for the hours before high school spent on the treadmill, for all of the times I’ve broken down in my car and for every time I’d failed to follow my doctor’s orders. I cried for my missed soccer games when I wasn’t allowed to play anymore and had to watch from the stands, for the senior spring break trip I missed from being too sick.
I cried for all of it.