Trash Polka - 10. Chapter 10

After chain smoking on my apartment’s rooftop, I had attempted to sleep. No luck. Which meant that I had very little patience for…really anything today. I felt like garbage and I kept getting walk ins for simple tattoos I’d done a hundred times. If no one ever got another infinity symbol it would be too soon. I had a terrible headache and I was struggling to be friendly and accommodating to everyone who walked through our door. Cameron had the day off, so on top of it, Lukas and I had to take turns manning the front desk.

As much as I wasn’t enthused to copy and paste tattoos from Pinterest, it at least took my mind off things. When I sat at the counter, just waiting, the thoughts popped up and I had very little defense against them. Like right now. I yawned and rubbed my cheek, watching the traffic outside going by. It looked like it was going to rain. That’d be a nice break from the last 900 years of rain we’d weathered.

To busy myself, I pulled out the appointment book from underneath the counter. We didn’t have anything today. Which made sense. As far as I knew, Lukas was doing a full day session on a sick chest design. I could hear the gentle buzz of his machine coming from the back and my eyes just so happened to catch on the very bare skin on my ankle. I hummed to myself and flipped the protective cover off my tablet. As I opened the program I used to design, I eyed the area. It wasn’t a lot of room. I could easily knock something out in a good hour if I wasn’t interrupted. Should I stay at the counter instead? Yes. Did I care? Not right now. My brain was chaos and I needed something to quiet it. Nothing did that better than some pain. Having something to concentrate on would help too.

I messed around with ideas for at least a half hour before I grabbed a permanent marker and started to draw what would hopefully be a stylized eye on my ankle. It’d be small. Maybe twice the size of a postage stamp. For some reason, when I’d decided on the eye, I had also decided that it needed to be in the American Traditional tattoo style. Why? Couldn’t tell you. Brain said so. I followed orders. After I’d freehanded enough of the detail to start, I scuttled back to my room. Prepping was second nature to me and I rolled through it fast. Soon I was seated awkwardly, hunched over my ankle. The first scratch of the needle into my skin was always a unique feeling. I didn’t have words for it, but I knew it was soothing to me. The sound was too and soon I was finishing the outline, wiping slowly as I made sure the colors were what I wanted. Yellow, red, and black. Simple and classic.

“Hey, my client’s taking a breather. You want to order food?”

At this point I was too far gone to answer Lukas coherently. He’d catch on and either wait for me to finish or go about his business. My teeth bit down gently on my lower lip as I finished up the yellow sections and went back in to touch up the red. I was close to finishing.

“River?”

“Mm?”

“Have you eaten today? Also, have you had anything besides sugar coffee with ice cubes?”

“Mm.”

I grunted softly in answer as I gave it one last wipe. With a critical eye, I analyzed the work. My lines were clean. The color was packed in. It was exactly what I had wanted. Were there little areas where I could’ve done it a little neater? Of course, I could always find flaws, but I was happy with it.

“River.”

“Sorry, yes?” I asked. I looked Lukas’ direction briefly before I grabbed the plastic and tape to wrap it up quickly. I quietly thanked past River for remembering to put the things to wrap it where I could reach it easily.

“Have you had anything besides iced coffee today?” He asked.

“Oh.” I thought as I wrapped up, “Ya know, now that you mention it, nope. I’ve still got my coffee.”

“You’re such a bad fucking adult.” He laughed, “I’ll go grab the menus. How long have you been out of it? I hope no one came in.”

“I would’ve heard it.” I pouted.

I snapped a picture quick while I waited for Lukas to return with our stack of takeout menus. I sent to a few people without really thinking about it. It’d been a nice reprieve but now I found my thoughts returning to my conversation with my mother. Damn. I didn’t know what to think. I had to give her credit. Putting herself out there like that had to have been hard. Admitting that you were a bad parent couldn’t have been easy either. I rubbed my fists against my eyes and let out a sigh.

I’d told her we’d figure it out, but where did we go from here? I didn’t know how to rebuild a relationship. I’d never done it before. There was a small part of me that’d been feeding off the resentment for a long time. I’d done a lot of my best work out of spite. Success, to me, had always been the greatest revenge. In all fairness, I had seen a mother far worse than mine. Alec’s mother was easily one of the worst women I’d ever met. She was cruel and God knew she’d never tried to reconnect with Alec. I don’t think that, to this day, she thought she’d done anything wrong. When in reality, she’d almost crippled him as an adult.

Maybe I should be thankful my mother wasn’t the same? Was that enough? What did I think she needed to do to make amends? It wasn’t that I thought she had to jump through a whole bunch of hoops just for me to give her the time of day. The issue was, I didn’t even know what would appease the resentment and trauma. How did you heal from that? How did you heal with another person?

“Pizza, sushi, or Indian?” Lukas asked as he reentered the room.

I smiled at him. The man was like walking sunshine. Every time he entered the room, the mood brightened. His mint green cardigan was tied around his waist which left him in a goldenrod yellow shirt and dark wash jeans. Jeans were unusual for him, but the outfit worked in a weird way. He ran a hand over his curls and set the menus down on my workstation.

“We did pizza last time. Let’s do sushi.” I said and I grabbed that menu, looking it over.

The day had not picked up. I made it home early-around six pm and let out a loud yawn as I closed my apartment door behind me. I had a plan. Which entailed grabbing a brush and my small can of paint from my living room supplies before padding into my bedroom. I was going to fix the stars. It was a perfect task. I needed to concentrate on my lines and how much paint I used so I didn’t drip paint all over my bedding and belongings. The project wasn’t big enough for me to tarp off my room.

I lost myself in the painting. What felt like minutes in my one-track mind turned into hours and before I knew it, my back and neck were aching from holding them at weird angles. None of that mattered much, though, as I had finished. I hadn’t even made any messes, which was impressive to be honest. I flitted from room to room as I cleaned up then got ready for bed.

As soon as I curled up under the covers, sans contacts, my phone vibrated. I had forgotten the thing existed earlier and the only reason I knew where it was now was because I’d plugged it in to charge. I scooted up to grab it and smiled when I saw Kenji’s name on the notification line. I paused. Since when did seeing his name make me smile? I narrowed my eyes suspiciously as I stared off into space. That was something I would need to address.

[K: Is that on you?]

I stared at the message for a couple seconds while I tried to figure out what the hell he meant. I scrolled up and quickly found the answer. I’d sent him the picture I’d snapped of my spur of the moment ankle tattoo. Tilting my head to the side I thought about it. It might be weird for normal people that artists sometimes just tattooed themselves on slow days. It wasn’t something someone outside this industry would really have access to I suppose.

[R: It is. I got bored.]

It had taken me a long time to reply to him and I doubted I would hear back from him right away so I snuggled back down into my covers. To my surprise, my phone vibrated after only a couple minutes. I smiled again and covered it up with a scoff. I don’t know who I was hiding the smile from. I was in this room alone.

[K: The colors are nice. Traditional.]

[R: Oh? What do you know about traditional?Do you have ink Mr. Shinoda?]

[K: I dislike giving people my ID. Now you can use my name against me. Bothersome.]

[K: Yes, I do. A fair amount.]

[R: Really? In secret places?]

[K: Hm, I’m not sure that you need to be privy to that kind of information just yet.]

[R: How would one gain access to that information? Asking for a friend.]

[K: You’re off most weekends, yes?]

[R: I post pictures on Saturday around midday but after that yes. Why?]

There was a longer pause and I rolled over onto my other side to hide from the sleep that was quickly creeping up on me. I hoped this conversation was going in the direction I wanted it to. I had no explanation for how taken I was with this random guy. It was starting to become annoying. I wasn’t sure meeting him in person again was going to help with that necessarily, but I was willing to give it a try.

[K: Would you like to continue our earlier conversation in person?]

The smile that spread across my face was embarrassing. I sighed to myself. How should I play this? Hard to get? We both seemed to enjoy our conversations when they were more difficult. Why shake it up now?

[R: Hm, I don’t know. What if you’re some kind of serial killer?]

[K: Public place. Xi, if you’d like. Plenty of people to turn to if you feel unsafe.]

[R: Some of us ordinary civilians can’t just walk into Xi. The only reason I was there before was because of my friend.]

I stretched and yawned again. I was sure that Kenji would have a solution for this. He seemed like that kind of guy. Someone you would go to should you ever have a problem that needed to be solved. I smiled to myself, my eyes tracing over the stars on my ceiling.

[K: You won’t have problems.]

[R: How can you be so sure?]

[K: I own the club.]

I blinked once and then twice. Jesus. Who was this guy? It made sense now. Why he was in the biggest super VIP room. Maybe I was getting in over my head? This guy was obviously higher profile than anyone I’d met up with before. He’d said he wasn’t monogamous. He wasn’t looking for anything serious. I’d done the research. If we pursued the kind of relationship he wanted, we’d be together more than once or twice. Wasn’t that a baby step toward monogamy? What made it different? Maybe I should make a spreadsheet for my growing list of questions.

[R: Well aren’t you fancy.]

[R: When?]

[K: Friday or Saturday.]

[R: Friday.]

[K: Done. Now, shouldn’t you be sleeping?]

[R: Normally I would think of a clever way to tell you to fuck off, but I am tired so I’ll give you this one.]

“Just try taking some deep breaths, okay?” I coached softly as I took a break from the wings that I was slowly stretching across my client’s back. He’d been struggling from the jump and the more I thought about it, I think I’d done some work for him before and his pain tolerance wasn’t up to snuff then either.

I had to keep pulling the skin tighter or stopping all together to keep him from fucking up my lines. I had tried to give him breaks as often as I could, but he kept saying he was fine. I couldn’t make him more comfortable as I worked. He was already laying down. It was starting to make me anxious.

He’d booked the whole day and we were only a couple hours in. He’d be in for a rude awakening when I started shading and adding in white. I took a breath when he jerked again and rolled my eyes to the ceiling. Forcing myself through a couple deep breaths. He was going to mess up his own tattoo because he wanted to be stubborn. Tattoos hurt. Taking breaks was okay. I could not, for the life of me, figure out why he refused to acknowledge he was struggling and needed a moment. However relatable that may be for other parts of life.

“Alright, get up, walk around for a minute. Drink some water or something with sugar. We have a minifridge with orange juice.” I said, scooting my seat back.

“Ah, no man. I got this. Let’s go.”

“Not asking. You keep moving your arms and jerking around. Mandatory break time. My back hurts anyway. I’m going to stretch out while you chill.”

That worked. He seemed much more willing to accept that I was the one who needed a break. He got up awkwardly and started doing some slow, mini laps around my room. To placate him further, I did get up to stretch my back out. We weren’t far enough into the tattoo where I was feeling it yet, but stretching was never a bad thing. While I was at it…

I stepped to the door, “I’m going to grab water. Orange juice? Water?”

“Oh, I’ll take juice if you’re grabbing something anyway.” He said. Again, it had to be something for me before he’d agree. What a weird dude.

I left him to continue his laps as I meandered back to Lukas’ room. He had his glasses balanced precariously on the tip of his nose and was working on a hyper realistic portrait on a guy’s arm. After grabbing the drinks, I hovered as respectfully as I could. I shook my head. Lukas had some crazy talent. He’d put down a stencil of course, but he was using a family photo as reference and the face was slowly coming into existence on the man’s skin one pass at a time.

“That’s sick man.” I said quietly, not trying to break his concentration if he was in the zone.

“Thanks man.” He gave me a winning smile and his client beamed at me and then him.

Knowing I’d stalled enough to give my client enough time to relax, I made my way back to the room. I handed off the orange juice and frowned as I looked at him, “Man, you’re looking hella pale. Did you eat today?”

He shook his head and waved me off, “Never do! I always sit and grab a big meal afterward.”

“Cool, cool. So, that’s going to be the opposite of what we want. Now, I’m going to need you to eat before we continue. You look like you’re about to pass out.”

He started shaking his head halfway through my sentence, “Nah, man it’s chill.”

“It really isn’t. Hang on.” I left the room again, ignoring his complaints thrown at my back, “Lukas, protein bar?”

“Top drawer. You good man?” He asked as I went to the desk he used for business. Opening the top drawer, I snatched out the brightly wrapped bar. Peanut Butter Power don’t fail me now.

“Client just looks a little rough. He hasn’t eaten, so I’ve got to fix him up before we continue.”

“Your whole day session?”

“Yup.”

“The back piece?”

“That’s the one.”

Lukas paused, wiping at his client’s arm as he shot me a look across the room, “I’ll flag his name in the system.”

“Fair enough. We’ll have a come to Jesus meeting. Him and I.” I grinned at him before returning to my room and handing the guy the bar.

“Really this is unnecessary man.” He said, holding the bar like it might bite him.

“If you don’t start looking less green, I’m going to stop this appointment completely and you’ll need to reschedule.” I said in my friendliest customer service voice.

“This is bullshit man! Just tattoo!”

“Oh. No. Try that sentence again. Add a lot of respect and subtract the volume and swearing.”

“No! You’re trying to rip me off!”

He’d crossed the space between us. Now only about a foot separated us. I wasn’t a violent person. I knew I had a mouth on me and I’d back it up, if necessary. That said, I’d rather not get into a fight at my place of employment.

“Listen, you’re on thin ice. If you don’t want to leave here with just an outline, you better find your lane, swerve back into it, and stay there. Understand?”

He stepped closer again, chest to chest, “You think I’m afraid of you?”

He gave my outfit a pointed look and then his eyes returned to mine. I was wearing red leather pants and a billowy tunic that was made up entirely of lace. I’d even thrown on some simple eyeliner today. I took a breath and smiled at him, ignoring the fact that his nose was almost touching mine. One more try.

“Get out of my face and drop the attitude or I will assist you to the exit.”

“I’d like to see you try.”

"Oh, bless your heart. Honey, I promise you this is not going to go the way you think. Last chance."

He went to shove me and I dodged, catching one of his hands and gripping it as I forced it into an incredibly uncomfortable angle. His knees hit the ground and I sighed, “Now, you’re going to get up and walk to the front door. You’re not getting your deposit back and you’re not welcome back to the stop. Understood? Do you need me to say it slower?”

I loosened my grip and he yanked his hand away from me. I stepped back as he got to his feet. As soon as I thought he was going to listen, he tried throwing a punch. I caught his wrist again and yanked his arm behind him, hoisting it up at a sharp angle and using the pain he was in to frog march him out. When we reached the front of the shop, Cameron’s eyes widened and he hurried to open the door. I shoved the guy out and stared back as him as he glared at me from the ground.

“Who the fuck do you think you are?”

I glanced to the side, tapping my fingers where Lukas had elegantly lettered my name on the window. I leaned against the doorframe, crossing my arms, “Keep it up and I’ll get some friends involved. They have a fun club with uniforms and badges.”

“You think you’re hot shit? I’ll be back to show you what a bitch you are!”

I raised an eyebrow and gave him a look up and down, “Uh huh. I’m a bitch for sure, but I’ll kick your ass either way so begone scum.”

He scurried off after another dirty look and I felt my adrenaline crash as I trudged back to my room.