Chapter Eight
Saturday morning started out perfectly average. I woke up, threw on some clothes, went grocery shopping (take two), scanned my email for shifts this week at Carlyle Staffing Solutions, and signed up for six of them. Two events at NYAC, one at a corporate event space, and three at the library.
What wasn’t normal about this morning was the feeling that I was going to keel over and pass out at any moment. I have plans today. Actual plans.
Who am I?
I have one hour before I see Henry. I pace around my tiny apartment.
Calm down. I fan my armpit with a paper plate. You can always bail.
I don’t know what he could have planned for midday in Washington Square Park. I usually avoid that area of the city due to all the college students and music and general chaos.
I rifle through my clothes. Everything I try on looks stupid. My favorite jeans make me feel lumpy, my favorite top looks babyish, and my favorite jacket makes me look like I’m trying way too hard. I am trying way too hard. After several failed outfits, I give up and collapse on the floor in my underwear. I could make snow angels in the piles of clothes.
I consider texting Henry to reschedule. And then the next time we have plans, I’ll reschedule again. It’ll be a never-ending chain of rescheduling until one or both of us die. I’m fine with that.
I slide open my phone screen to a text from him.
I know you’re thinking about ghosting me, but I’m not above threatening you with a pizza embargo if you do. I can have every pizza joint in the city blacklist you, you know. I have that power.
And then:
Meet you at the fountain.
I think of how weird he got when I ghosted him. How surprising it was that it bothered him even a little bit. How I didn’t even consider his feelings when I blocked his number. I can’t do that to him again today. I have to get through this, just once, and then maybe he’ll let me off the hook and we can go back to being strangers and I can go back to being the recluse of 155th Street.
Just once.
I close my eyes and repeat my mantra. The mantra that gets me back down to earth when my heart feels like it’s beating so fast it might fly away.
My cheeks are real. My chin is real. My lips are real. I am real.
When I was a kid and I started to get this way, my mom would crouch in front of me and ask me to point out things in the room. Show me something pink, Bennet , she’d say. I’d point to something pink. Show me something blue. I’d point to something blue. She’d always end on whatever color I was wearing, to ground myself back to my body. Slowly, over the years, it morphed into my mantra. Remembering that all I am is a body, a pile of organs and flesh, eases my anxiety. It balances me. Brings my breathing down.
When I was with Sam, it became Tell me something good, Bennet . He’d smile, his palm laid across my stomach. Sunflowers , I’d say. Andy’s denim jacket. Spaghetti. Summertime. He’d pull me close and bury his face in my neck. You , I’d whisper. You.
I dig into the back of my closet and find Andy’s jacket. It got mixed up in my things when we both left school after Sam died. Neither of us really paid attention to what we were packing, and I kept it all these years like a little treasure. I pull it on over a plain T-shirt and hope that her strength gets me through this.
I grab my bag and I’m out the door.
No backing out. I’m doing this.
···
I walk up the steps from the subway at West Fourth and emerge onto the bustling sidewalk. I don’t see Henry, so I nudge my way across the street and into the park. I cup my hands over my forehead, blocking the sunlight from my eyes as I head toward the massive carved white arch at the far end of the park, dodging caricature artists and skateboarders zooming past. I make my way to a footpath, greenery on either side, and feel a bead of sweat roll down the back of my neck. It’s hot with all these bodies around. I can never get used to being near so many people. I like to keep at least three feet of space between me and everyone else if I can help it. And in this city, I usually can’t.
College students whiz past on scooters, buskers play clashing music on each corner, a woman conducts a flock of birds on the wind like they’re her own private orchestra. I walk past a bench that smells distinctly like piss as I approach the big round clearing at the center of the park and the beacon in the middle—the fountain. It spews water from its core, casting a thin mist over the general area. The fountain is a large bowl—people sit inside its rim, sketching, chatting, sunbathing in the mist. A couple of children splash around in the spray, and a rainbow shimmers out of the corner of my eye. Couples kiss, old men play checkers, women breastfeed their babies. There’s a couple being entertained by a magician. I weave through the mass of people until I see him.
He’s chatting with another guy who’s sitting on the fountain’s lip. They’re both laughing. The guy is holding a paperback with his finger wedged between the pages as a makeshift bookmark.
Henry’s wearing a blue T-shirt and jeans, throwing his head back in appreciation of some joke I can’t hear.
Three deep breaths.
“Hey.” My voice cracks as I approach them. Great start.
“Bennet!” Henry looks up and smiles big and bright, revealing his single dimple. “This is Martin. Martin, this is Bennet.”
“Nice to meet you,” I say, trying not to let my nerves come through in my speech.
“You too.” Martin’s husky voice doesn’t match his appearance. He’s got on a brightly colored plaid button-up and khakis, and he sits properly with his legs crossed.
“Well.” Henry checks his watch. “We better get going. Let me know if you want to grab a beer sometime.”
Damn. This new guy isn’t coming with us. I was hoping for a buffer. Henry shakes Martin’s hand and turns to me.
“Ready?” His tousled hair waves in the breeze. An air of anticipation sparks in his eyes, like there’s something on the tip of his tongue.
“No.”
Henry rolls his eyes and smiles. “Come on.”
I can barely keep up as I follow him through the crowd. His pace is somewhere between a walk and a jog, as if at any second he could take off.
“Hey!” I call, hoping to slow him down.
It works. Henry pauses briefly in his tracks, looking back at me.
“Was that your friend back there?”
“A new friend, maybe.” He continues walking, but I’m able to keep pace with him now.
“What does that mean?”
“I saw he was reading one of my dad’s favorite books, so I asked him about it, and, I don’t know. We got to talking. Turns out his girlfriend dumped him and moved into a one-bedroom with his best friend last week. He teaches at Brooklyn College.”
“You just…started talking to him?”
He shrugs. “Yeah.”
“And he didn’t think you were crazy?”
He dodges a woman whizzing by with a stroller. “Why would he think that?”
My breath shortens as we speed-walk through the park. “Is that like a hobby of yours? Talking to random people like Martin…and me ?”
“Sure,” he says with a smirk.
“Why?”
“You know what I’m going to say to that.” He stretches his arms over his head like a cat, and I hear a tiny crack of vertebrae. “Why not?”
“I think it’s a little suspicious, that’s all.”
“I like people. Is that a crime?” He looks both ways before crossing the street. “Always have. I like talking to them, I like listening to them, and I like taking pictures of them.”
“Sounds like Humans of New York but murdery. Which, by the way, actually is a crime.”
“I like following them home at night. I like hiding them in my basement. I like the taste of human flesh. You know, normal guy stuff.”
“Serial killers are overwhelmingly charming men, so you’re not really helping your case here.”
“Ah.” He raises an eyebrow. “You think I’m charming.”
“Ugh.” I groan involuntarily. “I think you’re clinging to the wrong part of what I said. I believe serial killer was the operative term in that sentence.”
“Right, right. I’ll hold off on showing you my torture room, then. You’re not ready.”
Even though I desperately try to hold it in, a chuckle bubbles from my chest. I clip it fast.
“Where are we going?” I say flatly, pinching the end of the lit fuse of the conversation and snuffing out any potential banter.
Henry stops in front of a weathered storefront. “Here.”
The crumbly brick exterior is painted black. Vines crawl around the building like garter snakes. There are two birds spray-painted on either side of a sign that says The Raven Tattoo Parlor .
“Oh my god, no.” My heart skids to a halt. “No, no, no, no, no.” The word no echoes through my brain and spills out my mouth like an involuntary compulsion. “Are you insane? There’s no way I’m getting a tattoo. Not a chance in hell.”
Henry starts to laugh. I’m so glad this is funny to him, because I actually hoped this project wouldn’t be a mistake, that maybe he’d suggest something normal and I’d have two hours today in which I didn’t feel like a massive disappointment to the human race. But no, Henry wants to see me squirm. His laugh burns my skin.
“This was a bad idea,” I say, taking a few hurried steps away from the door. I tuck myself into a shady corner beside the tattoo shop’s vestibule, and fan myself with my hand—a tableau of a scandalized lady in one of the historical romance books my mom loves to read.
“Whoa, whoa, whoa!” Henry enters my hiding spot, folds his arms, and leans against the vestibule. “What’s wrong?”
“So many things. First of all, getting a tattoo is not a passion. I can’t make a career out of that. Second of all, you’re crazy if you think I’m going to get one with you . And third of all, I can’t just do something like this on a whim. It needs planning and thoughtful consideration. So thank you for your attempt to embarrass me, but it won’t work.”
Henry laughs, a bit awkward, and steps back a few feet. “First of all, you don’t even know what we’re doing yet, so don’t freak out before there’s a reason to freak out.” He raises his eyebrows. “Second of all, of course I don’t expect you to get a tattoo today. Do you think I’m nuts?”
“A little bit, yeah.”
“Third of all, I offered to help you find your passion. Not your career. Those are two different things. Not that I need a fourth of all, but you did tell me yesterday that you liked to draw. This shop holds a tattoo class every Saturday. They teach you to use the needles and you practice tattooing on a honeydew.”
“Oh.” I cross my arms and frown.
He looks at me like I’m on the ledge of a building, and he’s talking me off. “It’s just a class,” he says, smiling. “It’s low stakes. If you don’t want to do it, we don’t have to.”
I believe him when he says it. He won’t try to force me.
“Henry,” I say, embarrassed. “I really don’t understand why you’re doing this for me.”
“This isn’t going to be any fun if you keep asking me that. Just go with it.” He tilts his head. “Okay?”
I deflate. Just go with it. “I’m not good at this whole making-friends thing. I haven’t done it in a while.”
“You’re doing fine.”
“I’m not.” I uncross my arms. “This isn’t going to be as easy as I thought it was.”
“Nah.” He shakes his head. “I think you’re making it way harder than it has to be. Relax.”
“Didn’t anyone ever tell you that you never tell a woman to relax?”
“Yeah, but I kinda want to take this class and I’d kinda like you to join me, so…” He pulls a puppy-dog face. “Can you relax for me?”
Sigh. How can I say no to that? “Fine.”
“All right, then.” He cracks that stupid smirk and gestures toward the shop. “Shall we?”
···
The tattoo shop is small, dark, and dingy. The sounds of rock music and the high-pitched buzzing of tattoo guns echo through the air. Portraits of naked women, anchors, skulls, and flowers cover the walls. I picture Henry here, pointing to one of the designs and sitting in one of these chairs. I still haven’t been able to get a good look at the tattoo on his bicep, and I hate that I’m so curious about it.
Henry waves at a woman tattooing a dragon on a large gentleman in a white tank top.
“Henry,” she says through a big smile. “I’m almost done here, you can head downstairs to the rest of the group.”
“Thanks, Kira.” He forges ahead. “This is Bennet, by the way.”
“Welcome.”
The stairwell opens into a small room that’s set up like a high school science lab, with six double-wide tables and a chalkboard at the front. Each lab table has two melons, and two sets of what look like surgical tools wrapped in plastic, and a couple people sitting and chatting.
Henry and I are seated in the last row on the left, behind a group of girls in matching pink sashes (bachelorette party, I assume), which is a good spot for me. There’s safety and comfort in the back row.
“So…” I clear my throat. “You’ve been tattooed here before?”
“Yeah,” Henry says, annoyingly not showing me his tattoo. I don’t know why I’m so curious, but it’s driving me sort of nuts not to see it. I’m not sure it’s good etiquette to ask about tattoos, and he’s not offering it up, so I keep my mouth shut. “Kira’s great. My friend Sarah recommended her when I got back from Denver.”
Sarah. He’s mentioned Sarah before. “Sarah, your bartender friend?”
“Oh yeah, I forgot you met her,” he says with a slinky smile. “She got grilled by our manager about overserving after your visit.”
“Oh my god.” I cover my face with my hands. I can feel it going red. “I’m probably famous at your restaurant for being an absolute disaster.”
“I was kidding,” he says playfully. “You’re very easy to tease.”
I take my palms from my face and rub my temples. “I don’t usually drink like that.”
He drums his energetic fingers on the desk. “It’s okay, no one thought it was weird. We’ve all had nights like that. Most of the time it’s in a club or at a party and not in an Italian restaurant, but hey, to each their own.”
“Shut up.”
“See?” He smiles. “Easy to tease.”
Kira bursts through the door at the back of the classroom. She’s wearing a racerback tank top with black jeans and thick heavy boots. Almost every visible inch of her skin is covered with tattoos. On her clavicle there’s a woman’s face with tears flowing down her cheeks. There’s a portrait of Edgar Allan Poe on her shoulder. That’s probably where the name for the shop came from. The Raven. She wears a literal representation of who she is on her skin. It tells me that she knows who she is, that she’s bold and unafraid to make a statement, that she’s proud of being Kira.
What do my plain T-shirt and denim jacket say about me? Little to nothing.
She shows us diagrams of the tattoo guns and goes into detail about how they work. Then she holds up her own tattoo gun and demonstrates how to turn it on. We follow along with the guns at our stations. At once, a choir of buzzing machines erupts, vibrating my eardrums.
“Before we go any further,” Kira says, setting her gun down, “we have to learn to draw the tattoo.”
On the chalkboard, she shows us step-by-step how to draw the shop’s logo, a raven. The class breaks into a low roar of conversation and laughter as everyone clumsily tries to copy the little black bird in paper and pen.
“How are you doing?” Henry leans over my station to see my work.
“No cheating,” I say, covering my paper with my arm.
“It’s literally impossible to cheat,” he says, tugging at the corner of my paper. “We’re doing the same thing.”
I snatch my paper away from his grasp and hug it to my chest. “Paws off, wise guy.”
“ Wise guy? What are you, a 1920s mobster?”
“Keep trying to see my drawing and you’ll find out,” I say, squinting menacingly.
“Well, if you won’t show me yours, I won’t show you mine. And I know you want to see it. It’s probably a masterpiece.”
“Fine,” I huff. I am curious. “On three. One, two, three.”
We hold our drawings up to our chests.
“Oh my god,” I say before I can stop myself. Henry’s is terrible. Truly awful. A scribbled mess. I can’t control my laughter. “That’s one of the worst things I’ve ever seen in my life,” I wheeze.
“What?” He studies his work. “It’s…it’s abstract.”
I’m laughing so hard a tear comes to my eye. “It looks like an evil toddler drew it with a blindfold on.” I gasp for breath. “No, it looks like someone stomped on a bird and then tried to put it back together by memory.”
“You’re so mean,” he says, but he starts to laugh at my laughter.
“Henry, it’s possessed.”
He turns the paper toward him and examines it closely for the first time. He bursts out laughing at the sight of the monster.
Kira makes her way to us. We choke down our laughter in front of the teacher. “What’s so funny over here?” she asks with a displeased smile.
“Nothing, I just drew a portal to the underworld,” Henry says.
Kira leans over his shoulder to get a better look at his paper. She places her hand on his upper back.
“It’s not so bad.” She pats him gently between his shoulder blades. “Keep trying, you’ll get better.” She gives him a charged look, one any girl can recognize as flirty. She doesn’t even look at me as she moves on to the next table.
“Teacher’s pet,” I mutter under my breath.
“It’s not my fault she can recognize true genius.”
“Yeah, right.” I roll my eyes. “She’s real interested in your art .”
“I can’t help it if you’re jealous of my skills. I think someone should get this tattooed on them forever. I’m happy to do it for you, all you have to do is say the word.”
“I’m just saying, no one would ever describe that drawing as not so bad unless they want to sleep with you.”
“Ah, so I shouldn’t be encouraged by the fact that you described it as, and I quote: the worst thing you’ve ever seen.”
I swallow back any response. This is too close to flirting. “Yeah,” I say, slumping over my paper. Henry returns to his as well, and we draw in silence for a few minutes.
Finally, it’s time to tattoo on the melon. Kira instructs us to start with straight lines, and then curls, and then try to tattoo the bird.
My first attempt is honeydew slaughter. If it were human skin I was tattooing on, the poor person would have to go to the hospital. The sticky juice leaks out over my hands and I have to wipe them on my jeans after I set the gun down to watch Henry work. He’s not that bad. Despite his laughable art skills, his hand is steady and gentle.
By the end of the class, we each have a little melon that looks like Vin Diesel’s head if it were covered in raven tattoos. I’m impressed with myself, if I’m honest. Most people toss their melons on their way out, but I choose to keep mine. I know it will rot quickly, but I’m not done looking at its beautiful imperfections, all created by my hand. I might stare at its ugly skin for days.
Henry and I take a lazy walk to the train station along the outskirts of the park. Trees and vines entwined in a wrought-iron fence along the sidewalk blot out the sun, giving us pleasant speckled shade as we walk. I inhale the smoky scent of Sabrett hot dogs from a nearby pushcart and listen to the muffled sound of a Caribbean steel drum being played in the park. Moments like these, when you’re able to get away from the chaos of certain areas of New York but are still close enough to hear and smell it, are the moments when I like this city the most. It’s like listening to the ocean through a conch shell, like closing your eyes and inhaling the scent of fresh-baked cookies. A moment between real life and a dream state. Almost hypnotic.
Henry tosses his melon back and forth between his hands.
“So?” he says, like a kid awaiting approval. “Did you have fun?”
I scrunch my face, trying not to give him the satisfaction of a smile. “What do you think?”
He tucks his melon under his arm. “You did. You loved it and you’re going to have a full sleeve by Christmas.”
“Something like that,” I say. “Minus the sleeve.”
“I know you probably won’t end up a tattoo artist, but at least it was an adventure.”
“It was.” I turn the melon in my hands, studying the lines and shapes. “Thanks for, uh…talking me off the ledge.”
“Eh.” He gestures with his hand. “You would’ve done it without me, I know it.”
He’s wrong, but I let him think he’s right.
“Till next time?”
He moves in for a hug, but I dodge him by stretching out my sticky hand to shake. He cocks his head, smiling.
“Yeah,” I say. “Next time.”