Nine Days, Nine Chapters

I love writing.

I love storytelling.

What I really love is writing that one perfect chapter that makes me feel like the whole world makes sense. Tonight, I wrote that chapter, the ninth in my chapter a day challenge.

Here's the first draft:

“I love the smell of tattoo shops, man!” The guy in the waiting area exclaims while flipping through the poster displays of flash art. He hops from one foot to the other and his excitement grows every time he runs across a piece of art that appeals to him. “I’ve been dying for this man, I’ve been dying for some more ink for weeks.”

The artist behind the counter smiles at his customer’s enthusiasm but says nothing as his gun buzzes away on the calf of a young woman clutching at the arm of the chair. Somewhere, deep within the shop, hyperactive rockabilly music twangs away while the singer tells a story about finding drugs on his farm. “So, Abbott.” The artist finally says. “You figure out what you’re getting today?”

“Not really Dan, I was thinking I’d jump in the saddle and we’d  just jam a little bit, you know?” He flips the poster display once more, not noticing the tattoo artist grit his teeth and shake his head at the girl in his chair.

Dan holds his gun up high to get a good echo so he can whisper to the blond staring up at him, “I hate it when they don’t know what they want before coming in. Just hate it!” He brings the gun back down to skin and shouts over the metallic rattle, “Right on, man. We’ll just cover what we can in four hours.”

“Yes.” Abbott declares before moving up to the counter and flipping open the other artist’s portfolio. “Where’s James today?”

“Oh, you know how it is man. The life a tattoo artist, we can schedule our own days off.”

“Cool. Cool. So, you got another appointment after me, man? Just in case we run long.”

Dan rolls his eyes, thankful his back is to the impatient customer. “Yeah, man. I got a butterfly after this and a faerie on a mushroom after that.” He puts his inking tool down and sprays a paper towel with a soapy solution and wipes the girl’s leg clean. “Alright, Bethany. All done.” Dan pats the skin dry and further treats the fresh meat, finally wrapping it in plastic film. He runs down the list of things she should and should not do to help the healing process and she hands him a handful of cash, which he discreetly pockets.

After the girl eventually leaves the shop and Dan’s had time to sterilize up his work area, he invites Abbott behind the counter and into the seat. “Man. He says as he sits, “I thought she’d never leave.” He wiggles into the seat and smiles, “Still warm.”

Dan does his best to avoid comments or expressions as he lays out a new set of ink cups and a new barrel. “So, where are we gonna start? What are we doing?”

Abbott rips off his shirt and starts tracing old tattoos. He excitedly describes a waterfall with some additions and awkward descriptions. Then rambles on about other things on other parts of his body. While he’s still describing his illustrated desires, Dan dips his gun and presses needles to skin. The band in the back fade out and ramp back up with another prerecorded track. A few minutes into the line work, Abbott relaxes his jaw enough to ask, “Who do ya got on the radio?”

“This?” He thumbs at the back door of his shop with his inking gun, “That’s the Reverend.”

“Reverend?”

“Horton Heat. One of the greatest psychobilly artists alive.” He smiles and runs the needles along the other man’s chest, leaving a trail of dark blue.

“I dig it, man. Not quite the country I’d normally listen to but it’s kinda raw. Sleazy.” He winces at the needles creeping up the skin under his nipple.

The session rolls through the first hour. Small talk is initiated on both sides of the gun and Dan frequently wipes the working area with a damn towel, sometimes to see the overall picture but usually, just to get some clarity on the canvas. The second hour moves a bit slower and within it, Dan switches the CDs in his stereo, provides Abbott with a couple breaks, and answers three phone calls.

By the time the third hour crawls up, a large amount of line work is crafted all across Abbott’s chest and belly in various shades of blue and gray. “God, I love tattoos.” Abbott confesses through clamped teeth while Dan begins to lay ground for the massive amounts of coloring to be done. “I hope you don’t mind but I have a friend bringing me some vodka. You know, to help dull the pain.”

Dan’s head rolls and his exasperation hisses from his mouth, “Come on Abbott. You know I don’t allow that shit in my shop.” Just as he finishes his statement, the metal bell above the front door dings and a sweaty ball of meat lumbers into the shop.

“Abbott!” The mahogany skinned man bellows. “I got yer fix my man, and the booze.”

Abbott nods and waves, as though his thick friend wouldn’t see him otherwise. “Right on dude. Check out this sick shit Dan’s slappin’ on me.”

The media circus begins. “Dan quietly gets back to work, humming through swirling pools and waves. After a moment of bantering from the macho machines, Dan looks up from his work, takes his foot off the pedal, and inquires, “What did he mean by that?”

“What?” Abbott looks at his artist. “Don’t you know nothin’ about trucks?”

“No, not that part.” Dan waits a moment while Abbott takes a swig of the clear depressant. He watches Abbott wipe his chin and clarifies, “He said he’s got your fix…and your booze.”

“Oh that.” Abbott drains more fluid from the bottle. “No worries dude.”

Dan sneaks a glance at the chunk of humanity flipping through his portfolio and gets back to work, wiping ink and blood from the man’s bare chest. The third hour squeezes slowly through the clock and through it, Dan feels pinned to a slab of cork board while these two friends yammer about trucks and having sex with each other’s mother. By the end of the third hour and the first bottle, Abbott’s pain threshold wavers, sending slips of profanity at his artist. The fourth hour rests more heavily on Dan’s frontal lobe as the alcohol has completely diminished Abbott’s sense of civility.

“Alright, man.” Dan stands, setting the gun on his toolbox. “I think we’re done for the day.”

“No we ain’t.” Abbott contests. He looks down at his raw belly and declares, “You don’t have it all colored in. We might as well finish.”

“I’d love to bud.” Dan lies, “But I have another appointment in a few minutes and I need to get ready for that. Besides, I think your skin has taken enough damage for the day.”

Abbott’s friend cracks open another bottle and wraps his molesting lips around it. The bell dings and a young girl walks in, chirping to the artist. “Hi Dan!”

“Hey Patricia, I’ll be right with you, let me just finish up with my buddy Abbott, here.”

The friend hands Abbott a brown paper sack and waddles past the girl and rests against the frame of the shop’s entrance. Abbott slaps his bleeding chest and nods at Dan, “Come on, I’ve been waiting for a long time for this so let’s get it done.”

Dan points at Patricia and apologizes, “Abbott, buddy. I’m sorry dude but my next appointment is here. I gotta get her started.”

Abbott responds to Dan’s statement by raising the bag at the girl. A flash of light and thunder clap shreds the bag, sending Dan into the air and dropping the girl to the ground with a spongy pinkish gray matter spilling out the top of her opened skull. “Looks like your schedule just opened up, Now get to work before you join her.”

The artist freezes, staring at the girl that was going to get her first tattoo today, the incredibly unique girl with a fascination with butterflies. Unique just like every other naïve, young girl that walked into his shop over the years. “Dan.” Abbott barks. “Sit yer ass down and let’s get ‘er done.”

The shop owner complies. He reaches for his gun, quivering in fear and dipping the tip of the barrel into a burnt orange. He taps on the foot pedal and the gun comes to life in his hands but the reverberation startles the artist and he drops the tool into his lap, marking a dot through his jeans and forever into his leg. “Shit. Shit. Sorry.” He scrambles for the inking machine.

“You better steady yer hand, dude. I don’t want no squiggly lines.” Abbott eases back into the barber chair and crosses his legs, careful not to drop the barrel of his pistol from his target. Dan gets back to work, his machine humming away against the human canvas, continuously mingling paint and plasma. The seven stinging needles cross raw skin under the man’s tit, scraping angrily against nerves, causing Abbott to holler and rub his trigger hand against his temple. “Mother fucker!”

Dan shrugs fearfully, “Sorry man, I can stop.”

“Don’t you fucking dare!” Abbott shoves the pistol’s business end against Dan’s thin head, biting his temple. The artist pulls away from the barrel and raises his free hand. His foot squishes the pedal, kick starting the inking tool. The buzz of the little gun relaxes the intensity of the bigger gun and the bleeding mass of a man eases up on the trigger. “Now, put a bad ass tree right there with a monster or some shit coming out from behind it.” His finger slides through the stream of multicolored fluid along his belly.

“I gotta finish coloring…” The pistol returns, thumping against the ridge of Dan’s temple.

“What you gotta do is put a fucking tree right there!” He illustrates his point by jabbing his stomach with the pistol. “Earl! You got that other bottle dude? I’m bone dry over here!”

The slob at the door speaks through a belch, “No way bud, I just killed it.”

“Really?”

“Yeah dude.”

Abbott mutters a string of swear words before braying at his buddy, “Well, don’t just stand there wasting space, go get some more!”The slimy man across the shop flies some colorful hand gestures and walks out the door, threatening to return while the tattoo artist exchanges barrels on his gun.

Dan slaves on, burning through clear skin, scarring it with multiple hues. Each dragging line brings out some sort of agitation from the man in the seat. Still, Dan continues, climbing up the chest with gnarled branches of black paint. Through the diligence, his living panorama barks out, ‘not so hard’, ‘quit going over the same spot’, and other such garbage. Each time the complaints fall from his drunken face, the death dealing gun waves closer to Dan’s sweating forehead.

Hour five drills into Dan’s head, next to the growing number of pink circles from the tip of Abbott’s gun and as the time wears on his brain, the vibrations from the tattoo machine wear on his knuckles. Abbott has slowed a bit, partially from the rushing effects of the alcohol and partially from the excessive loss of blood. His anger, while still present, rolls from his mouth like water from a leaking hose, “Hey fucker…” He slurs, “When are you gonna wipe the ink with that shit in the bottle?”

Dan pauses a moment, deliberating on his answer. “Well, Abbott. You’ve gotten so much done now that I can’t really wipe with the soap without contaminating your blood stream.” He turns a knob on his gun and taps the pedal. The adjustment gets the set of needles roaring and he presses down on the blurry man.

“Fucking wipe it, dude.”

“I can’t.”

The pistol fires. The kick throws Abbott’s hand and shoves Dan’s leg into spasms. Blood pours from Dan’s leg as naturally as the scream does from his mouth and Abbott lies in the chair, smiling with satisfaction at his own gun work. “Oh Jesus!” Dan drops his tattoo gun and clamps his leg, shoving his thumbs into each side of the hole to stop the flow.

“Better wrap it up and get to work bud, or the next one’s going through your eye.” Abbott watches as his words collide against Dan’s consciousness and the twiggy artist begins shoving wads of paper towel into the perforation in his jeans. When the shop owner gets back to work, Abbott nods his head and grits his teeth at the familiar burn of the needles. A few brushes of the gun and Abbott’s lust drools out of his face, “You ever hit that?” He nods to Patricia.

“What?”

“That chick. You ever nail these bitches that come in to get tramp stamps and shit?”

“What? No!” He spits his disgust.

“I would.” Abbott licks his cracked lips, “Hell, I’d nail that piece right now, missing head and all.”

Dan struggles to focus on his work while fighting a well of nausea and tears. His working hand no longer follows the picture he’s spent hours etching onto Abbott and the needles frequently dip into mushy shreds of flesh, kicking up bits of living tissue. His body of work tries drinking from the empty bottle, then scratches at his temple with the end of the pistol and mumbles something about the pain before his eyes roll back into his head.

Dan drags his needle again and again in one small patch of purple flesh. He gets no response from Abbott and stands to run but his quivering leg gives way underneath him, pushing him back onto his small stool. The lack of lacerations brings Abbott wide eyed into the realm of awareness and he swings the gun onto his target, jerking on the trigger and launching another slug through the tattooist. “Finish!” He yells and lies back, muttering, “Love…tattoos.”

Dan grips the burning hole in his stomach and sputters pink froth. “Fuck.” He wheezes, grabbing his tattoo gun with his empty hand. He leans heavily on the pedal and collapses onto Abbott, his gun vibrating into the man’s neck, drilling open his vodka laced throat. Both men expel a lungful of life and sleep in Technicolor.