ONE #2
Vegas Ink was a small, cramped hole-in-the-wall.
The bright red paint and black-and-white checkered floor only made it feel smaller.
My place would be different. Darker colors, older furniture, and art on the walls from funky, fringe artists like Edward Gorey and Ann Harper. A living room in a haunted house.
My place…
Jonah gave me the money to open a shop, and I was taking business classes to make sure I didn’t fuck it up.
Even so, the thought of actually pulling the trigger and buying a place made me sick to my stomach.
If I failed, I’d have nothing left of Jonah.
He sold his glass so I could have my dream, but what if it went under?
What if no one showed up? I’d already lost Kacey.
One broken promise. I couldn’t take another fucking failure.
Edgar, a huge, hulking guy with a Tool concert shirt stretched over his bulk, looked up from his client and gave me a nod. “Hey, T. What’s shakin’, man?”
“Same old, same old,” I said, preparing my gun and rags from the second drawer in the armoire. When my first client told me what she wanted, I’d set up the ink and choose the needles.
“You want to hang tonight? Me and some friends are going to see Killroy at the Pony Club.”
I flinched, covered it up with a cough. “Nah, I’m busy.”
“Hot date?” Edgar wagged his brow at me as his client used a hand mirror to inspect the new dragon curling around his calf.
“Yep,” I said. Out the corner of my eye, I saw Zelda glance my way, then bend over her work again.
Edgar chuckled. “Don’t tell me. It’s the redhead you had in here last week. Rose and dagger, right ankle?”
“Maybe.”
Edgar let out a whoop. “You’re a whore, Fletcher. Don’t ever change.”
The two women from the waiting area approached my station. The blonde took a seat in the chair, her friend beside her to hold her hand. They were both hot, both flirted with me as if their lives depended on it. I did my best to reciprocate because Edgar was watching.
Twenty minutes later, the blonde got up from my chair with Stay true to yourself delicately scrawled across the inside of her wrist. She and her friend invited me to a party.
“Yeah, maybe I’ll stop by,” I said and waited with mounting irritation as they giggled and insisted I get out my phone to take down their number and address. I pretended to punch the girl’s number into a new contact with my thumb, then slipped my phone back into the back pocket of my jeans.
“Hope you can make it,” the blonde tossed over her shoulder as the two left.
When they were gone, Edgar laughed and shook his head. “I thought you had a date tonight?”
I shrugged. “I’ll take her with me to the party.”
He laughed a great bellowing laugh. “You’re my hero, T.”
No, I’m a lying asshole.
Ages ago, I would’ve dialed that phone number the minute I got out of work, and probably gotten little sleep that night.
Now, a smoking hot blonde and her friend were no more interesting than a weather report.
But letting everyone think I went out with a different woman every night was better than the truth.
That since I heard Kacey sing around a campfire all those months ago, I was a lost cause.
I finished out the day, and as we cleaned up our workspaces, Edgar jerked his chin at me.
“Enjoy your date with the redhead,” he said. “Or the blonde. Or the redhead and the blonde. I want a full report tomorrow.”
“You’ll get it,” I said, shrugging into my leather jacket. “If they don’t wear me out.”
Edgar laughed and Zelda flinched. I smiled at her with a small shake of my head, trying to signal this was all bullshit.
I’d heard she had a crush on me since she started working here a year ago.
It didn’t suck to look at her, but I didn’t date coworkers.
Too messy if things go sour, and with me and women, they always did.
“Have a good night, Z,” I said.
“You too, T,” she replied. She looked up then, flashed me dry smile. “Slut.”
Edgar and I laughed, and the second my back was turned, the smile started teetering on the edge of my face. When I stepped outside the tattoo shop, it dropped like a mask and shattered on the sidewalk.
At the Lee Business School at UNLV, I listened to the professor go on about payroll tax and employer ID numbers. I wasn’t lost. I got it. The data made sense to me, and I almost felt sort of proud. Like I was getting something done.
“I’ll remind you again,” Professor Hadden said from behind her lectern. “This midterm exam is worth forty-five percent of your final grade. You cannot—and will not—pass this class if you miss it or fail it. Arrange to consult with me if you feel either of those scenarios is a possibility.”
My pace to the parking lot was a small victory lap. I wasn’t going to miss or fail. No chance.
My phone chimed with a text from Oscar.
Want to meet up tonight? I don’t miss you but Dena does.
I chuckled at the backhanded offer. It had been a long time since I’d hung out with my friends.
They were Jonah’s friends first and foremost—his best friends—and hanging out with them had the same quality as having dinner at my parents’ place.
Ghosts of other times hovered everywhere like shadows in the periphery.
I tapped back, Can’t. Have a date.
Should’ve guessed, Oscar replied. Try for next week?
Sure.
How easy it’d become to lie. Lie to my coworkers, lie to my friends. It hardly bothered me anymore.
We’d all drifted apart after Jonah. He was the center of our goddamn universe and without him, we were starting to lose whatever pull it was that kept us in the same orbit.
Oscar and Dena tried. My mom tried. But I couldn’t muster the energy to smile and laugh and bullshit my way through small talk.
It took too much effort to keep the grief in check. Grief of losing Jonah, then Kacey.
I drove my truck out of the university parking lot, down side streets running parallel to the Strip. Taking back roads to the Wynn Hotel and Casino. I parked and knocked on the service entrance door.
All the security guards knew me. Wilson was on duty tonight.
“Evening, Theo,” he said, waving me in.
“Hey, Wilson.”
I traversed the back passages and innards of the hotel, down a corridor of cement and bright fluorescent light. Eyes in the sky watched me, but their gaze was benevolent. Nobody would question me. Eme Takamura, the gallery curator, had seen to that.
Three right turns, one left, and I pushed open a heavy door, emerging near the elevators on the first floor. I slipped down the hallway across from the clanging casino that never closed.
Paulie was standing guard over the locked doors of the Galleria. He’d shooed away the last visitors hours ago.
“How’s it going, T?” he asked, punching in a key code. The red light flashed to green.
“Can’t complain,” I said. “Thanks, man.”
He smiled, his smooth dark skin and white mustache rising in a small, sad smile. He pushed open the door and held it for me. “Have a good night.”
I nodded and stepped into the gallery.
After the funeral, I came here every night religiously. Then every other night. Lately I’d been holding steady at three or four times a week. When I had a shitty day, or when I missed Jonah too damn much, I came here.
Jonah’s individual glass pieces were long gone, all sold and now living in a hundred different people’s houses.
The long end of the L-shaped gallery was now lined with sculptures, the work of some local up-and-coming.
I didn’t spare them a glance. I rounded the corner to the short leg of the L.
Here Jonah’s installation, a permanent fixture, rose up like a tidal wave on the far wall.
The sun, always shining and vivid, beat down on waves and sea life that seemed ready to move at any moment.
I took my usual seat on the bench opposite and leaned back against the wall.
I crossed my arms over my chest and took in Jonah’s glass.
The installation was perfect. Flawless. Like Jonah had been in my mind’s eye—the idol big brother who could do no wrong to his little brother who’d worshipped the ground he’d walked on.
I squeezed my eyes shut against the perfection. I knew if Jonah were here, he’d tell me it wasn’t my fault. He’d say Kacey was an adult who could make her own decisions.
Sometimes I believed him. Sometimes the gallery was my sanctuary, the cathedral of glass where I found peace. The same serenity Kacey discovered in Jonah’s glass paperweights.
Sometimes.
Tonight, there was no peace. I’d made my brother a promise and failed to keep it.
I forced myself to open my eyes and look at Jonah’s masterpiece.
The brilliant colors blurred in my unblinking gaze.
The blue of the sea poured down from ceiling to spill over the floor.
I could smell the salt, feel the cold water against my skin and the sting of salt water in my eyes like tears. An ocean of never-ending tears.