5. Kyro
Some Time Later
A Whole New World . . .
“Cuz, this sketch is fire as fuck! I know I said I wanted a leg sleeve with something that incorporated my baseball life, but damn. I didn’t think you would apply this much pressure on it. Roots Of The King though!” Rashad gazed at the sketch that took me almost two weeks to complete.
When he came to me about a leg sleeve and told me the blanket details of what he wanted, I knew I would snap.
This tattoo, in my mind, was more than just a baseball tattoo.
It was a homage to a legacy of his greatness.
I wanted to show, in an artistic way, how hard my cousin worked to get where he was and how hard he continued to work to keep his upward rise.
My cousin had a lot of tattoos. None of them referenced anything about his career and success as one of the top pitchers in the league.
It was surprising because my cousin was cocky as fuck.
I wouldn’t call him arrogant, because there wasn’t an exaggeration of his worth. Cocky was a better description.
I spun on the spinning chair that was in my loft. “I mean, yeah. That was the perfect name for the design in my head, so I went with it. You know that shit is going to take multiple sessions, right?”
He gave me his nigga, shut the fuck up look.
When I sat down at the sketch desk to come up with the concept for Rashad’s leg sleeve, I knew I wanted to start with the outer leg.
That was what everyone would see first. See, I knew that because of who he was that this tattoo would make the news somewhere.
It would be a talking piece, so with that in mind, I wanted to give people something to talk about.
It was important that I had a pitcher in motion in the sleeve.
When Rashad pitched, he had to find the perfect combination of power and precision to be the successful pitcher that he was today.
Every time he stepped on that mound and pitched, it wasn’t just a ball that he pitched.
It was dreams, hopes, a sore body, early and late practices, naysayers, and so many other things that went in the air with the ball.
The number twenty-four above his head was more than just his number.
It was an identity that he created, built, and earned with every pitch, play, win, and loss.
Rashad was an Augusta Charger, and if he told it, he would always be.
That was why the baseball branded with the AC was so important to the design.
Kings were built under pressure that created their purpose.
The crown that sat atop the words Pressure Creates Purpose says just that clearly.
There was no hidden message there, just facts.
Every time life brought my cousin pressure, he didn’t fold.
He let it push against him to create the brightest diamond.
Damn, I should have put a diamond in that bitch too.
Augusta, Georgia, was home for us. We were born and bred here. The skyline had to be represented just like any other city skyline would have been if this was a New York, Chicago, or even Atlanta tat. He was proud of where he came from.
I sketched each side of the leg separately to make a whole.
The outer was first, then I moved to the front.
That was where I wanted to focus on legacy.
At the top of the leg, the fleur-de-lis led the way to the greatness of this section.
The symbol represented the resilience and strength of Rashad while it also reminded everyone that he was a southern boy.
Another AC sat under the fleur-de-lis, because there could not be too much emphasis about how much the Augusta Chargers meant in his life.
The team had become his family and was a major component in his life’s story.
I went back and forth about the next part of the section.
I had to sleep on it before I finalized it, but I was happy that it settled in my spirit.
The next image under the AC was Rashad in his uniform with his back turned as he walked away.
This wasn’t a goodbye in any way. It was more of a hello to the better things to come as well as a follow me to see.
Greatness required movement. That was where the slogan From Augusta For Greatness came in as well as the compass.
We all started somewhere and it was our responsibility to move on to greatness.
Often, we had no idea where we were going, but God was the compass that led us the right way.
The great thing was that when you knew where you were from, you knew where to return to when you wanted or needed to.
After I finished the sketch for the front of the leg, it took me a few days before I started the inner leg.
That part of the tattoo was more intimate because it was a part of the tat that was just for him.
If a person wanted to see that part of it, they would have to intentionally ask to see it.
He controlled who saw that portion of the leg tat in essence like he controlled who he gave access to him.
This was the section that helped me choose a name for the design.
The massive tree at the top whose roots were deep while the branches stretched toward the Augusta skyline like a covering was a quiet yet strong symbol.
It showed that from the branches of Rashad that everyone saw, there were strong roots that grounded them.
His family, courage, discipline, sacrifice, love, and persistence, among many other traits, were the roots that made him who he was.
There was a winding path that led away from the tree or to it, depending on your interpretation, to a 24 shield that covered crossed bats.
The winding path represented the many turns, twists, and often setbacks on the journey to success.
Success was never a straight path. I engraved the path with three phrases that explained Rashad’s existence.
Built on resilience. Driven by purpose. Destined for greatness.
“When do you want to start on this, Cuz?” I asked as he still gazed at the sketches. This was one of the designs that I would copyright for sure. I knew that if I didn’t, I would see it in tattoo publications without my given permission.
He glanced up at my wall that had a calendar on it. “Shit, we can start next week. How long you think each session will take?”
“Shit, we’re gonna do it here, so it depends on you. We’ve done an eight hour before, so no more than that.” I did all his tats in my loft instead of in the shop, for added privacy. When I tatted his best friend, Daylen, I did it here too. His other teammates, I tatted at Bridged Heart.
He nodded. “Bet, that sounds like a plan.” When a smirk creeped onto his face, I knew that a subject change was imminent. “So, Unc told me that you’re bringing Tomorrow and her sister to dinner Sunday. I see you! Introducing your woman to the family.”
My whole body warmed at the thought of my baby. “Yeah, it’s time to take that next step. I need to see how she gels with the family. She’s going to be my forever.”
Rashad stared at me for a beat, then smiled. “Man, that’s what’s up. It seems like all my niggas locking it down. Nothing wrong with that.”
I snickered because his ass wanted a solid love but often denied it. “Well, shit, you can have the same too. Stop fuckin’ with those baseball groupies.”
He held his hand up. “Curse your words. Give those groupies some respect. Do you know the hard work and dedication that it takes to stand for hours, sometimes in the elements, with little to nothing on, for a baller to potentially pick you? The hours of planning, preparation, and strategy that they put into it all. Hey, I couldn’t do it. ”
Is he serious? I wanted to think that he wasn’t, but I knew he was, in his weird ass way.
Kara and I wondered where he got his personality from.
There was a stark difference between him and his father.
We never met his mother, so we assumed it was from her.
That would also explain his free spirit.
Martin, his father, was much more structured with everything in life.
“Shut the hell up. Let’s go so I can go see my baby. August texted me earlier to warn me that she had a bad morning,” I told him.
Since Tomorrow and I made our relationship official after our first date, I had been very intentional about the development of my relationship with her brother and sister.
As far as I was concerned, they would be my brother- and sister-in-law one day.
I’d popped up on August in Atlanta a few times just to check him out on some man-to-man type shit.
That decision proved to be the right one because now we had a trust level that he admitted he didn’t have with anyone.
He was so used to being the protector of his sisters, even from afar.
Now that I was in the picture, he felt a sense of relief that he could relax some.
Rashad stood. “Damn, sis-cuz cool? It must be something if her brother reached out to you.”
“When I talked to her around lunch, she acted like she was cool, but I know better. The only thing that he said was that she had an uninvited visitor last night.” I shook my head.
August didn’t tell me who it was, but something told me that it was their mother.
Tomorrow and I had discussed her a few times.
I knew that she was a drug addict that still bopped around the Augusta area.
She went through bouts of sobriety, but they never lasted long.
Every once in a blue moon, she would pop up and want something.
August and Tomorrow were not as receptive to her as Tuesday was.
Tuesday was a person who wanted to see the good in everyone no matter what. If she was like that with strangers, then it intensified when it came to the people that she knew or loved. Just like her siblings and I knew, so did her mother, Michelle.