Chapter 66
CHAPTER
BYRON’S brOTHER RUNS A BARBERSHOP. Taught him all he knows ’bout cuttin’ hair, right, Byron?” said Shock.
“Yep, but this here job won’t take much skill,” replied Jackson.
Nash was seated on a stool with a towel around his shoulders.
Shock and Jackson stood next to him, the latter with an electric shaver in hand.
Nash had grown the trim beard and goatee that Shock had requested.
And now, after his work was done for the day, Nash had been told that they had other changes to him that needed to be done.
“All of it?” said Nash.
“All of it,” replied Shock.
“Why not leave a little? I’ll still look different.”
“I need the canvas.”
“The what?” said Nash, startled.
“The canvas. You’ll see, Walter.”
“I’m not sure about this.”
“Do you trust me or not?”
Nash sighed and nodded at Jackson. Five minutes later all he had left was scalp.
Jackson said appreciatively, “Not a bad dome you got, Walter. I seen worse.”
Shock looked more closely. “That’s good, smoother the better.”
“You mentioned a canvas?” said Nash.
Shock went to a cabinet and pulled out a set of binders. He brought them back to a small table, and all three men sat around it. Shock opened the first binder and slid it across.
“Let me know when somethin’ tickles your fancy.”
“Wait, are these… tattoo designs?” said Nash, glancing sharply at him.
“Skin art, they call it. Amazin’ shit they can do these days. I’ve got some old tats from Nam. Man, they did not hold up all that well. Or maybe I didn’t. Your daddy had tats, too.”
“I know. I saw them. A knife on his right arm, an eagle on his back, and a spear on his left arm. But why tattoos for me?”
“They don’t change just your skin and appearance. They change how someone perceives you, I mean, below the skin. Mild-mannered businessman disappears when we get some of this shit on you.”
“Can’t it be fake? Or how about a tat sleeve?”
“Fake comes off. You need to be the real deal or nothin’, man.”
“So where on my body?”
Jackson snorted. “Might be easier to say where not on your body.”
Nash touched his hairless head. “Wait, this canvas!”
“Ain’t nobody gonna think you Walter Nash when you inked all over.”
“But won’t that take a long time?”
Shock shook his head. “Nope. Can do it all in one day.”
“How?”
“General anesthesia. Four ink artists, nine hours. Good to go.”
“General anesthesia! Am I going to a hospital?”
“I’ve got an anesthetist lined up. And a nurse. They’ll come here.”
“I’m a fugitive.”
“They got their own troubles.”
“Including the anesthetist?”
“Especially him. Now, you just got to pick out your designs. But we doin’ the back, legs, arms, chest, head.”
“Is this really necessary?”
“Naw, man, not less you wanna live. Your call. No lie.”
Nash looked woefully down at the binders and started to slowly turn the pages.
He’d wanted to choose the knife, eagle, and spear like his father’s, but Shock had, quite rightly, vetoed those choices.
“Don’t want to make it too easy for ’em, Walter.”
Thus he’d selected a roaring, fanged lion, his mane spread wide, for his back, and a dragon for his right arm and shoulder—the dragon’s head covered the delt and the rest of the creature slid down the arm all the way to the back of his hand.
For the chest and abdomen he’d chosen a huge scales of justice with the blindfolded Lady Justice holding them.
Another symbol. On each thigh was a shield, like that carried by an ancient warrior.
On each calf was one of a pair of dice. Every step he took Nash figured he was gambling whether he was going to live or die.
Finally, for the tat that would run from the top of one ear, over the crown of his head, and straight down to the top of his other ear, Nash had not picked from the binders.
After some deliberation, he had drawn out a length of thick, steel-blue chain edged in gold.
It had three kinks in it equidistantly spaced.
The kinks were roughly in the form of hearts.
He knew what they meant; that was enough.
Then came the day to be inked.
The artists had placed the chosen designs from the binders plus Nash’s rough sketch for his head onto iPad Pros.
They had then customized each design after back-and-forth discussions with Shock, who was acting as Nash’s intermediary.
After final approval, these designs were then printed out on transfer paper using a thermal printer that used heat to transfer the image, giving it crisp, clean lines and guaranteeing the integrity of the final images.
Nash learned that ink was not actually used in this process, but rather carbon-based paper that reacted to heat to create the stencil, actually burning the design onto the stencil paper; it had four layers, including a yellow sheet that held the original in place while it was in the copy machine.
Cosmetic grade dyes were used because they were safe for the skin and were also smudge-proof.
Nash had to make sure his skin was well hydrated and clean.
A mild soap had removed oil and dead skin cells.
He had applied Hibiclens all over his body twenty-four hours prior to the procedure.
It was the same product and process hospitals used before surgery.
His skin was then shaved, and a layer of stencil gel was applied to his body; it enabled the ink to adhere better to the skin.
The transfer papers holding the designs were precisely placed onto the skin and then peeled off, leaving the actual design in place on his body exactly where it would be inked for permanence.
Shock explained, “For large tats, like these, you can’t have no mistakes.
Get in there with your tattoo pen and go from memory, things can go sideways fast. With the designs planned out, printed out, and applied directly to the areas the tats will be goin’, makes it a whole lot easier and safer to bring out the pens then.
And my guys are good. They don’t just ink it on.
They mold it to your body. Fittin’ it not just to size and space but how your body moves with it there, muscles and all. ”
“So you’ve done this before? For your clients?”
“Oh yeah. For those that needed to disappear.”
“Why would law-abiding clients need to disappear?”
“All depends on how you define law-abidin’,” Shock had replied. “And right now, leastways in the eyes of the law, that definitely don’t include you.”
Nash was wheeled into a small room where the anesthetist and a nurse were waiting. They didn’t really look at him. They asked a few basic questions and that was it.
Shock said the artists were waiting in the other room and would begin their work once Nash was fully under.
He whispered to Nash, “They ain’t never gonna see your face, Walter, just the skin they be inking, so don’t worry.”
Nash had said to the anesthetist, “Do I count backward from ten to one?”
“If you want,” said the doctor indifferently.
At nine, Nash’s eyes closed and he was out for the count.
He never heard the artists come in, or felt the stencils being layered over his body, or anything else, really. When he woke up, just over nine hours had passed.
The nurse checked him out. The doctor checked him out. And then they both left with their fees paid, in cash.
The artists had also already left, with their fees also paid and no photos allowed of the work they’d just done. Shock had thrown in an extra twenty percent so there were no hard feelings, since the artists liked to put their work online to solicit other clients, Nash had been told.
It was now just Shock and Nash left in the room.
When Nash was sufficiently recovered from the anesthesia, Shock gingerly helped him up.
Nash groaned. “Damn, I feel like I was just run over by a truck.”
“Well, man, they done a number on your body packing all that into one day. You gonna be sore and hurting for a while. And your skin will feel like someone used a cheese grater on it.”
Nash winced and bent over for a few moments, clearly in pain. “You didn’t mention this part of it, Shock.”
“Well, you might not ’a done it if I had.”
Shock helped him over to a full-length mirror, then handed him a hand mirror so he could see his back. “Check yourself out, dude. Impressive.”
To Nash it was like he was staring at another person.
It obviously wasn’t simply the hardened muscle he’d acquired that made him look like an anatomical chart, but the tats had changed everything about him.
Even the chain with the kinks. While not large, they had done something to him, his…
presence. It was altered, markedly so. He touched his nose where Shock had broken it nearly a year before in the boxing ring and then manually reset it.
It had firmed up at a slightly different angle and slope and also changed much about his appearance.
He was sure that even Judith would not recognize him.
“Holy shit” was all he could think to say.
“Yeah, I hear you man,” said Shock. “Now you got to shower, but don’t let the water hit the tats too long.
You gonna use Saniderm, it’ll help you heal faster.
I’ll help bandage you up. Good for twenty-four hours and then another shower.
Then we’ll bandage you up again, and you wear ’em for five days.
Saniderm really reduces the scabbin’ and peelin’.
But it still gonna itch a little, Walter. But you cannot scratch. No lie.”
“What do I do then?”
“Just slap it, baby. That’s all. Just slap it.”
“How’d I do when I was under?”
“Okay. Only thing they was worried about was you goin’ into shock.”
“Into shock!”
“Tats that large are a major assault on the biggest organ in the body, your skin. But it was cool, no problems. Your vitals were perfect the whole time.”
“Why didn’t you tell me that might happen?”
“Hell, it might ’a made you so nervous you woulda gone into shock.”
Nash showered, and Shock helped him apply the Saniderm and bandages. Then he redid them twenty-four hours later. On the fifth day the bandages came off, and Nash was able to admire his tats once more.
When he flexed his arm, the head of the dragon seemed to move. The same with the lion on his back, which seemed to roar when he manipulated his traps, lats, and rhomboid muscles.
When he eyed the scales of justice on his chest and abdomen his mood grew somber.
Will I ever get justice? Will Maggie?
The shields on his thighs made his skin look metallic. The dice on his calves seemed to shimmy as he walked or flexed his muscles.
He dipped his head slightly and then turned it side to side to study the chain and kinks in the mirror.
They obviously represented him and his family, still tied together in love no matter what.
With this thought tears leaked down his cheeks.
He brushed them away, and went to do his work for the day.
He felt like a new man.
And damn if Walter Nash wasn’t.