13. Noah
Noah
“Are you sure you want to finish this tattoo today?” Omen, my lead guitarist and my best friend, asks as black gloves dryly snap across his hands. “We are playing tonight.” He grabs the tattoo gun and shakes away strands of hair falling out of his messy man bun. “You’re seriously risking it.”
“Yep.” I lay back in the chair, inhaling the antiseptic lingering in the air. Ice-cold leather presses against my sweaty back as I stare up at the ceiling.
I’ve gotten tattoos along my rib cage, on my ankles – for Christ’s sake, I already have a full sleeve done by Omen himself.
I’m his canvas, and might as well let him tackle my neck.
The outline and mild shading have been healing for over three weeks, and the pain wasn’t too bad.
Or I’m just forgetting how terrible it was, but now it needs color.
Omen has his own little parlor in the house he rents.
There are pictures of tattoos he’s drawn displayed on the walls.
He even has a full binder of designs he’s still working on.
When we aren’t making music, he’s tattooing someone in this chair to pay bills.
He’s making good money. Me, I don’t pay him.
I’m just clickbait on his Instagram page.
“If you start bitching tonight, I’m not holding your hand.” Omen’s dark green eyes burn in my soul with those words. There’s a faint fear he’ll find a slipper and beat me with it if I attempt to cancel tonight’s gig.
“Right, I’ll be holding yours when you try and fail to get with another groupie,” I say as Omen adjusts the LED light, and buzzing fills my eardrums. I close my eyes as the needle pokes at my skin.
That indrawn hiss of pain escapes my mouth. I clench my teeth and endure it. It’s like someone was dragging barbed wire across my neck.
“Are you going to tell me why you’re avoiding the demo?” he asks, attentive to his work. “Tony and Vince were pissed you didn’t show the other day.”
“I had some things to deal with.” I fist my hands as the needle digs deeper into my neck.
“Like what?”
Like Gramps having the worst vertigo, and almost falling over the other day in the tub. I took him to the hospital. “I needed some air.”
“Air? Seriously?” Omen’s jaw tightens. The needle sears across my skin, and the aching pain radiates out of the tattoo, down my neck and into my shoulder.
“This demo could be our ticket to freedom. With you working your ass off and taking care of your grandpa, we don’t have a lot of time to practice. ”
“I know... I just got shit on my mind.” And that’s the main reason I want him to drill the pain into me so I can forget about the thoughts keeping me awake. I didn’t sleep much last night. Or at all this week.
“You’ve gotta talk to us.”
“I’m fine,” I lie.
Smoky Vinyl is about to go bankrupt, and death taunts Gramps.
It’s a ticking time bomb inside my skull.
The clock is going to reach zero, and if we get signed now and tour, consider us canceled the second I get the call he passed away.
Writing music should take my mind off reality, but my dream of screaming into a mic for the rest of my life seems further away than it was before.
“So, I invited a friend to come see us tonight.” The buzzing stops as Omens uses a cloth to wipe my neck of the excess ink and blood.
“A friend? Don’t tell me it’s some chick.”
“Yes, it’s a girl.”
“So, you’re done fucking Tony’s sister.”
“That shouldn’t have happened...”
“Look, we’ve been grinding for years, sacrificing everything, and you’re bringing some girl to fuck? Don’t you think Amy was enough drama.”
“I’m not part of Motley Crüe getting so shit-faced I throw televisions out of hotel windows and fuck every girl who throws herself at me. This one seems pretty cool,” I say, and the buzzing continues.
“Amy threw herself at you and we both know how that went.” He presses hard against my neck. I bite my bottom lip, waiting for my brain to tell every nerve in my neck to stop feeling and go numb. “You haven’t been here all week to work on the demo, and now you've got a new girl wanting your dick.”
If only getting my therapy session of ink didn’t require me to actually talk about my demons. I close my eyes and take a strained breath before saying, “I’m not avoiding it.”
“Who’s the girl?” Omen asks.
“A chick from the church... the one vandalizing the bathrooms... and she also hit my truck. Actually, it was her friend... but she's kind of in a nasty breakup. I thought her getting out might be good for her.”
The buzz of the needle stops, and he grabs a cloth and wipes my neck. “So you don’t plan on sneaking off to fuck her behind the dumpster?”
“No. She’s just a friend,” I say.
“I already know where this is going before I even meet her. You're going to end up using her as a distraction to forget about everything. Aren’t you?”
Getting this tattoo should be a distraction, and this tattoo should be more painful than this conversation, but he’s right.
I’m digging my grave. There’s already a warning inside my chest not to play with fire, and Trouble is already holding the match.
But something tells me she needs a real friend other than the group she was around.
There’s temptation there, and I know I’m reaching for the forbidden fruit, but I just can’t resist it.
“Is this going to turn out like Amy?” Omen asks.
“I was really horny, dude... like fuck. I was drunk, she was drunk. It just happened. I thought it was a one time deal.”
I fucked her silly for what seemed like hours, and I didn’t even have a happy ending.
I never really finished with Amy anyways.
I think it’s guilt. I shouldn't have let her approach me in that way. She’s decent looking, but skinny with no curves.
I like dark hair and light eyes, but I just feel absolutely nothing for her.
“You're fucking dead man!”
“I ended it. I’ve been ending it every time she tries to hook up with me”
“Yeah right...”
I lay back and let Omen finish his work.
When he finishes, I stare in the mirror, admiring the serpent.
It’s sleek and emerald green. It coils around an apple with its scales catching the light.
The apple is a tempting crimson with leaves so crisp and realistic.
I don’t usually use the word, but it’s beautiful, and reminds me I’ll be judged one day, but this is a momentum of my own bad decisions.
Tony and Vince show up at the house. Both of them are rather quiet and only give Omen a look. It’s the one where they might tie my hands up, shove a sock into my mouth, and toss me into the van to make sure I don’t disappear again.
By the time we finish loading up the van with our equipment, my neck starts bleeding. It’s raw and oozing, and I regret letting my ego get the best of me because my skin is on fire. Omen also didn’t hold back. His frustration with me really caused him to stick that needle into my neck.
Tony climbs into the driver’s seat and turns on the van.
He leans an arm along the headrest and glances back at me.
I’m in clear danger. He’s quiet, licking his chapped lips, and he tilts his head down, making the dark circles under his eyes deepen.
Omen, who is sitting next to me, smirks, restraining the amusement on his face.
Vince is using his index fingers to tap against the glove-box, with no clue in the world as to what’s going on.
When Tony reaches for the volume knob, I can feel the pang in my chest. I’m sweating as the display screen shows him turning up the sound. Britney Spears comes on. Full blast. Hit me Baby One More Time.
Tony starts lip singing to the lyrics.
“You got to be shitting me!”
“Enjoy it because it’s going to be on repeat!” He shouts.