Ink (10 page)

Jason kissed the top of her head. She’d switched back to the coconut shampoo. An older couple walked by holding hands, and the woman looked over with a smile.

“It’s the cancer part that makes it so tough, though. Adam’s mom smoked two packs a day, so it’s not a big surprise that she has lung cancer, but my brother died of cancer,” Mitch said.

“I’m sorry.”

She remained silent for several minutes, then her words came out in a rush. “Zack was only twenty-two. He had an aggressive form of lymphoma and at first the chemo seemed to work, but after a while…” She shook her head. “It was horrible. He was so sick from all the medicine in the beginning, then when they stopped the treatments because they realized they weren’t working, he was in so much pain.

“I thought I’d forgotten about all of that, but when I talked to Adam today it all came rushing back—the way Zack looked, the way he smelled, like chemicals and rot, the way he used to smile in spite of it all, in spite of everything. I almost cancelled our date, then I remembered something he told me near the end. He said he had the easy part of it. Dying, he meant. It would be harder for us, but he made me promise I wouldn’t let his death take over my life.” Mitch took one of the paper napkins and twisted it in her hands. “And then he was just gone.”

She crumpled the napkin in one fist and shifted on the bench so she faced him, her eyes shimmering with unshed tears. She opened her mouth to speak, then shook her head, leaned into his arms and kissed him. When the kiss broke, she smiled. “Thank you.”

“For what?”

“For being here. For listening. I know it isn’t exactly great date conversation.”

He linked his fingers with hers. “I don’t mind at all. I’m sorry your brother died, but I’m not sorry you told me about him.”

She ran the fingers of her free hand through his hair. “Zack would have liked you. And he would’ve loved your tattoo. He had a thing for griffins. That’s why I got my tattoo. Remember the painting in my living room? Zack painted it when he was eighteen.”

“Eighteen?”

“Eighteen. He was an amazing artist. Gifted, really. I think he would’ve been famous.” She smiled, but tears glistened in her eyes again. “Come on, enough of my doom and gloom. Let’s eat the fries and go ride the carousel.”

13

The carousel was either very old or a very good replica. The horses were all brightly colored, and the underside of the canopy looked like the night sky in a fairy tale. Painted stars formed imaginary constellations, and the moon had craters shaded in the suggestion of eyes and a smile.

Jason and Mitch waited in line behind a large group of noisy children. The kids tossed kindergarten insults back and forth—“poopy breath,” ”stinky” and ”no, you’re the fart-mouth.” Mitch hid a smile behind her hand, but they both laughed out loud when one little girl with pigtails and serious eyes said, ”Boys are stinkier than girls because they have penises in their pants.”

The man operating the ride pulled back a chain and let them enter, glaring at the children as they rushed past him in a whirl of sticky hands and open mouths. When Mitch stepped through, the glare vanished, and his gaze moved up and down and back again until he caught them both watching, then he shrugged one shoulder and grinned, revealing chipped, yellow teeth.

Tinny music, sad, yet vaguely eerie, played from unseen speakers. The tune reminded him of a song he heard…somewhere. Jason thought it a rule—all amusement rides, even one as innocuous as a carousel, had to be a little frightening. Something to make the kids squirm and shriek.

He doubted any of the kids would notice the horses’ eyes. At first glance they were happy, smiling,
safe
eyes, but a closer look revealed a sort of abject terror, as if they knew they could run and run and run but, caught in an endless prison of up and down and around and around, they would never truly be free.

Jason and Mitch linked hands as the carousel began to spin, and the children’s laughter rose and fell like the horses. Mitch smiled and held his hand tight, the light in her eyes warm and childlike. Parents stood on the grass beyond the ride, clapping their hands, waving and taking pictures.

Then Jason’s eyes met familiar green. Sailor stood, with a straw hat tipped back on his head, at the edge of the crowd, a few feet away from everyone else. Jason raised a hand in greeting, but the carousel moved and Sailor fell out of view. The tinny music played on, the same mournful notes over and over.

On the next pass, Sailor had moved closer to the carousel yet still removed from the crowd. One little girl stared up at him, and a sneer appeared on Sailor’s face when he looked down. The little girl’s mother whipped her head around and stared at Sailor without saying a word, then took the child’s hand and drew her several feet away.

Jason leaned over and whispered in Mitch’s ear, but she shook her head as the music, the children’s laughter, and the squeak of the machinery swallowed up his words. He raised his voice higher. “Do you see the guy out there with the hat?”

The carousel made another pass, and for a moment, Jason thought Sailor had left, then he spotted the hat. Sailor had moved again, back another foot or so. The carousel continued around, and she leaned in closer.

“No, I don't. Who is it?”

“He’s standing to the right of everyone else. That’s the guy that did my tattoo.”

They circled around again, and Sailor tipped his head in a slow nod.

“I don’t see him,” Mitch said. “I thought I saw a hat, but I’m not sure.”

Jason’s left arm grew warm and his fingertips tingled. The music echoed off the platform and the canopy, with one note slightly off-key, barely noticeable unless you really listened, but once Jason heard it, he couldn’t
not
hear it. It conjured up images of abandoned buildings with dust in the corners, damp basements, spider webs and old boxes. The heat in his arm pulled in, pushed out, then vanished. The carousel took one more spin, and Jason shook his fingers; the tingle drifted away like the voices in the crowd.

“I think I saw him,” Mitch said after they circled around again.

“When the ride stops, I’ll introduce you. Wait until you hear his voice.”

Mitch laughed. “Okay.”

The carousel started to slow its pace, and all the children groaned in protest. Sailor turned his back to the carousel and stepped farther away from the crowd; his odd gait made the hat bob like a buoy in the ocean.

“So what’s up with his voice?”

“He sounds like a heavy smoker. It’s all gravelly and rough, but he talks like a teacher and he’s got a weird walk, too. You’ll see. I nicknamed him Sailor the first time I met him.”

When the carousel slid to a shuddering halt, their horses faced away from the crowd. Jason tried to look over his shoulder, but the edge of the crowd fell beyond his line of sight. It took a few minutes to dodge the children and leave the carousel. The music with the single odd note played on, and Jason wanted to be away from the noise.

Mitch grabbed his hand in surprise when a young boy with a smear of dirt on his forehead ran in front of them, almost knocking them over. They walked hand in hand toward the grassy patch. This far away, the music sounded even more unpleasant, and the disembodied notes hung in the night air like stale perfume.

Sailor’s hat bobbed behind the crowd and Jason frowned. “Damn.” He tried to walk faster, but a group of kids ran circles in front of them, halting their progress. Jason looked over the crowd but didn’t see the hat anywhere. Impossible. Sailor couldn’t have gotten that far away, not the way he walked. Jason looked again, farther out just in case. A tiny flash of pale, maybe a straw hat, maybe someone’s hair, but too far away to be Sailor.

“What’s wrong?” Mitch asked.

“I think he left. I know he saw me on the carousel. He stood there the whole time. I don’t know why he didn’t wait,” he said, and pressed a light kiss on her lips.

When they walked far enough away from the carousel to leave the music behind, she laughed.

“What?”

“You’re still looking for him, aren’t you?”

“Maybe a little.”

Why wouldn’t he wait? He watched us on the carousel. He could have waited a few more minutes. Didn’t he want to see how the tattoo looked?

“Maybe he didn’t want to disturb our date or maybe he had someplace else to go. If you really want to see him again, you can just go to his shop, right?” She squeezed his hand. “Is it really that important?”

“No, not really.”

And it wasn’t. It wasn’t important at all.

14

John S. Iblis walked along the harbor’s edge, humming under his breath. The crowds had dispersed, but he did not mind the solitude. In the water, a few fish swam in erratic circles, then disappeared like ghosts into the murky gloom.

He walked away with a smile on his face, tapping the paper tucked inside his pocket. For safekeeping, of course.

15

By Tuesday evening, the skin on Jason’s arm stopped peeling.

Chapter Four

A Storm’s a-Brewin’

1

Jason hired a lawyer and found out that Shelley’s infidelity made it possible for their divorce to be finalized in months instead of the usual year’s wait. No children, the house in Jason’s name, and Shelley’s income, higher than Jason’s by a significant amount, made it an easy divorce according to Michael K. Dillon, Esquire. Easy translated to not too expensive in Jason’s mind, and he swore he saw a flash of disappointment in the lawyer’s eyes.

His mother still refused to talk about it, but her angry silence told him communication with Shelley was either nonexistent or discouraging.

The job had the same ebb and flow as always. Some days he walked into the office to panicked phone calls from users who dropped and broke their cell phones or left them behind in a taxi on a business trip, and on others, the hours passed without a crisis in sight.

Mitch left to visit her ex-boyfriend’s mother on a rainy Thursday afternoon. That same day, he received a letter from his lawyer that stated that Shelley’s lawyer agreed to all the terms, and they’d have a court date soon.

His freedom was well worth every penny the lawyer asked for. A piece of paper may have bound them together, but a new piece of paper would render that null and void. A little bit of ink, like a tattoo.

It only hurts for a little while.

It didn’t hurt, though. In fact, just the thought of that paper made him grin like an unmedicated asylum lunatic. No more Mr. & Mrs. Jason Harford.

When that piece of paper arrived in the mail, he planned to take his wedding band and flush it down the toilet, the perfect farewell to the disaster he’d signed up for, then he might frame the divorce decree and hang it on the wall where the wedding photo used to be.

His father’s words echoed in his head when he folded the letter back up.

It is what it is.

And it was all good.

2

On Saturday morning, halfway through his second cup of coffee, Jason heard a knock at the front door. When he opened the door, one of the neighbor’s kids looked up at him with very wide, very dark eyes, a girl somewhere between elementary and middle-school age who he recognized, but not well enough to remember her name.

“Hi, have you seen a gray cat?”

Her words were low and polite, but she shook hair out of her eyes with a gesture that spoke of the insolence right around the corner. Give her a few years, and she’d have a nose ring and a bad attitude and wouldn’t be caught dead knocking on her neighbor’s door. Jason stayed on friendly terms with most of his neighbors but didn’t consider any of them friends. Sure, he’d wave while he mowed the lawn or took out the trash, but Shelley had never been interested in hanging out with any of them. If they’d lived in a high-rise penthouse surrounded by money and class, it would have been a different story.

“I’m sorry, I haven’t seen your cat.”

No reason to tell her he just woke up and hadn’t been outside yet; she was still a few years away from sleeping until noon on the weekends. He thought he knew the cat she asked about, a big, gray tomcat who preferred one of two things—sleeping or hissing. The cat liked to curl up in their backyard near the birdbath Shelley picked out last summer and lay in wait for unsuspecting birds. Twice, Jason found traces of the cat’s spoils near the end of the yard.

“Okay, our cat, Shiny, didn’t come home today. So if you see him, could you call my dad? We live three doors down, in the brick house.” She handed Jason a phone number scrawled on small scrap of paper.

“If I see him, I’ll be sure to call.”

“Thanks, Mister.”

She walked away and joined up with a younger boy whose hopeful expression she dashed away with a shake of her head. Jason shut the door. Shiny? What a name for a cat. Maybe good old Shiny ran away in search of owners with a better imagination or a yard with a bigger birdbath and more victims.