“Hi, I’m Finn Cartwight.”
“Hey, I’m Jaxon. Nice to finally meet you. How was the drive? When Beckett said you were taking your bike, I thought you were nuts.”
“Now you sound like Beckett,” I say with a laugh. “What can I say? I needed my bike with me.” I turn and glance out the window. “And it looks like I perfectly timed my arrival.”
Jaxon laughs. “I would say so.” He looks lost in thought for a moment as he stares out the window. “Well, most of us ride here, so we can relate to the feeling,” he says as he turns his attention back to me. “Let me introduce you to everybody, then we will go back and take care of some paperwork.”
“You have met Mira, yes she is scary, and yes, don’t touch her shit,” Jaxon says with a shoulder shrug. “We currently only have one other tattoo artist besides myself and Jasper. Jasper is our piercer and will do some small tattoos if he is slow.”
We walk down the hallway to the first door on the left. Inside is a large man with a snarl, the permanence of which I cannot entirely tell. “This is Dominic,” says Jaxon. With his jet black hair slicked back, he looks every bit of the part.
“Call me Dom.” He speaks with a rich, growly voice. I can’t help but smirk as I reach out to shake his hand. “Finn, nice to meet you. Jaxon showed me some of your work. You're not bad. Did you work a lot back home?”
“Yeah, I graduated from art school, and then worked wherever I could. There is no shortage of tattoo studios in LA, and the amount of people willing to let you practice on them is… Well, unusually high, you could say,” I laugh. “I also try to sketch whenever I can.”
I sketch a lot. It’s my outlet to get everything out of my head. Beckett says it is my coping mechanism. He is not wrong.
“What type of tattoos do you specialize in?” Dom asks. I’m almost taken aback by the sound of actual interest in his tone. The last place I worked at was cutthroat.
“I’m decent at abstract, landscapes, and animals.”
“Sit in on a couple of my sessions. I have a couple of cool portrait pieces coming up.”
Okay, is this for real?I thought all tattoo artists were supposed to hate each other. Throw in because I’m the new guy in here, and everybody should hate me. Maybe that was just LA, but it’s all I’ve ever experienced. It could be because of Beckett. I don’t know, but everybody being so nice is kinda rattling.
“Okay, yeah thanks, that would be great.”
“Yo Boss Man,” enters a voice from down the hall. I turn to see a dude with piercings all over. Eyebrows, ears, nose, lip and, I’m guessing, tongue, along with a few others out of view.
“Hey Jasper, good timing,” says Jaxon. “I’d like you to meet the new artist. This is Finn; Finn, this is Jasper.” I reached that conclusion before he even said anything. He has brown hair that’s long on the top and shaved on the sides. He is tall and lean, with a hint of crazy in his eye.
What is with this place? To be fair, my experience with piercers is that they are fucking nuts.
“Hey, nice to meet you.” I reach out and shake his hand.
“You too. Do you have any piercings? Maybe nipples, or perhaps even a Prince Albert?”
“Jasper,” Jaxon blurts while both he and Dom roll their eyes.
Okay, so Jasper has no filter. This is a solid piece of information.
“Just the tongue,” I answer, with a click of the metal ball on my teeth.
“Nice, the ladies love it.”
I hold my stare and counter with, “So do the men.” I might as well get it out there now. There are few gay tattoo artists around, and in Camden, Maine, probably not very many gays in general. I need to know the kinda people I’m working with.
Bracing for some kind of disparaging comment, I straighten my shoulders.
But instead I hear, “So Boss, is that the prerequisite? You will only hire gays?” suggests Jasper with a weird grin on his face.
Again, borderline creepy.
“I can’t help it if all the decent ones are gay,” he says with a wink.
“What are you, some kind of magic recruitment unicorn with glitter shooting out of your ass?” Jasper says.
“I’m not cleaning that shit up,” yells Mira from the front. “You bring glitter into the place and I will hunt you down!”
