“Nope.”
“But lots of guys in prison have tattoos, right? Is that where you got yours? Are there people who do them right there, like, tattooists?”
“Tattoo artists,” he says, “and there are some. It’s all undercover, so they have to improvise tools.”
“Like how?”
“They use a stapler. Melted Styrofoam. Soot. It’s disgusting. Inmates pay them by trading food or smokes or maybe money if they have a phone and can transfer it. There’s no sterilization or anything, so there’s a lot of infection. I didn’t get my tats in prison. I wouldn’t be so dumb.”
“Where did you get them?”
“Joy,” I caution.
She turns innocent green eyes on me. “What, Mom. This isinteresting.”
“You’re not getting a tattoo.”
“I’m just asking him about his.”
“Don’t get one,” says Bill.
Her head swings to his, loosened curls flying to follow. “Why not? You’ve done okay with them.”
“In a prison?” he asks. “That where you want to work?”
She has no answer.
Grateful for that, at least, I take a closer look at Bill. He is earnest in a way I wouldn’t have thought Billy Houseman could be. But no, he’s not Billy. He’s Bill.
And my father eats. No reaction to mention of tattoos, which he verbally denounced many times, or to prisons, which once would have sparked a lecture about the evils of going near one. Rather, he puts one forkful of salad carefully in his mouth, chews, then goes for another.
Bill tells Joy, “I got these when I was nineteen and doing nothin’ good with my life. Then I decided to change that. So I started at CCRI. Community college. Only courses cost, and I had to eat. Teachers hire research assistants. I wanted one of those jobs. But they didn’t want me. They looked at my tats and figured I wouldn’t be a good worker.”
“Seriously?” Joy asks. “I see people with tattoos all the time.”
“Sure, you do, and some of ’em would say the same thing as me. Times have changed, but not that much. Get a tattoo before you know what you want to do with your life, and it can hurt your chances. Want to be a teacher? Or a nurse? Or, Christ, a politician, and sleeves like mine’d be the kiss of death.”
“I don’t want a whole armful,” Joy drawls in concession. “Maybe just one?”
“You already have one,” Anne says. Her voice is fond, and I’m sure it’s sincere. The issues Anne has with me have never spilled over onto my daughter. But I cringe, knowing what’s coming.
Joy goes very still. Only her eyes move, shooting me a horrified look.
“Anne,” I caution. “Not a tattoo. A birthmark. And not something to discuss here.”
But Anne doesn’t have a thirteen-year-old daughter. She doesn’t know how sensitive they are about their bodies, even girls as bold and unfettered as Joy. And in front of two men, neither of whom she knows well, one the prim grandfather she wants to impress, the other a man she clearly thinks is super cool?
“It’s beautiful,” Anne argues, speaking to me, which is another sign that she doesn’t know my daughter. Joy is old enough to be addressed directly. But Anne is seeing the baby whose diaper she changed and the toddler who played naked on a deserted Maine beach. She has seen the J-shaped mark low on Joy’s groin. We never made a big thing of it. But she forgets that Joy is now pubescent. Apparently, too, Anne forgets when she was that age with a body whose inborn quirks seemed different in the light of womanhood.
“It’s her initial,” she says with enthusiasm. “It’s unique. It sets her apart. Isn’t that what a tattoo does—except that she inherited hers from Mom, which makes itreallyspecial.” Finally acknowledging Joy, she adds, “I wish I had one like that. I could have used the connection.”
Bill has a hand on her arm, though I’m not sure whether he is trying to comfort her or get her to stop.
“Mom?” Joy begs.
“Enough, Anne,” I say.
“Doe is in Albany,” my father puts in.
