Boyleston Street at noon was brilliant: the sun was shining hard against an impossibly blue sky, people were out on their lunch hours in shorts and halters, laughing, sharing lunch. I had a schedule and a purpose, and I’d spent the morning working out harder than normal and splashing about in the pool because I wouldn’t be able to for weeks.
That was when my phone went off.
“Kevin?”
“May I ask who is calling, please?” Using my gruff phone voice that sounds kind of like a gruff version of my regular voice. It’s the same one I use when I call Shawn or Tracey at work and get someone I don’t want to talk to.
“Um. This is Chameleon Tattoo,” the voice on the line said. My gruff voice – as well as the worry-lines seaming my forehead – melted. “We wanted to know if you could come in any earlier.”
Immediately: “Um, yeah. Why?”
She actually said this: “Kelly’s bored and he misses you.”
First design concept from the aborted session in February.
The original plan was to do this whole photoshoot with Mark being there and documenting the whole process, but because (1) I’d changed up the time, and (2) people still believe it’s okay to shut their phones off when they’re not at the movies and stuff, I got to Chameleon alone and stayed that way.
There were changes to Shawn’s original design, because it’s Kelly and he needs to put his signature on it. “I thought we’d braid the rope a little,” he said. “That way it looks more like rope and less like tubes.”
Normally, I hesitate more at Kelly’s changes, needing time to process them, but this looked awesome. “Dude, that looks awesome.”
“Fantastic. I’ll set up and then come up to the studio.”
I gave Shawn a quick call to let him know about the change, but again. People feel that turning cell phones off is a viable option. Which, I mean, I guess? But still. OMG. Totes.
Shawn's design, with the 13 being very evident.
I sprawled out on Kelly’s adjustable chair and he placed the design tracework on my leg, mirroring the interobang on the other leg. I’m all about symmetry. I had a moment to think, Jesus, that low on my leg, this thing is going to hurt like a mother. “Look good?” Kelly asked.
“Looks terrific,” I told him, and crawled back up. A moment later, the ink-gun screamed to life. A moment after that, fire ants invaded my flesh and were gnawing poisonously from the inside out.
“You know,” I said, trying to breathe, “normally I pay big guys to hurt me, they go a little bit higher on my body.”
Kelly didn’t hesitate. “I mean, I could put on some assless chaps, but it’ll cost you a lot more per hour.” I love Kelly.
Normally, he’s blasting psychobilly rock so loud that it’s hard to hear the screaming of my own pain, which has its own debatable merits. Today, he’d discovered his soul music and put the whole thing on shuffle.
You guys, I can’t explain why this made as much difference as it did. Here I was getting a traditional tattoo, listening to The Supremes and Motown and classic soul music, laid out flat and floating as the pain ebbed and flowed and put me in equal parts agony and ecstasy. The purpose of the anchor burbled to the fore: for a few bright, shining moments, I felt connected to the act of tattooing in a way I don’t often attain.
The finished piece.
Because it’s not just the pain and the pleasure and Kelly all in black and that weirdly sweet smell of disinfectant: it’s art, plain and simple. It’s art and tradition and ritual, and I have been a part of it thirteen times. This is something that has been going on for a long, long time, and for these brief moments, I have been a part of the canvas on which this branch of history has been drawn. Look, I know that sounds grandiose, and it probably is, but part of the reason I got this tattoo was to further connect myself to larger pictures. For the most part, we are all alone … but that aloneness doesn’t have to define us. Sometimes we snag ourselves on history and society in ways that save us from drifting. I’m just happy to have gotten my anchor.
Kev
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